Of loss & g20
A year ago, your hometown would have been just another town. If someone referred to it I wouldnt have paid attention. Now someone mentions it during lunch at work and a sharp pain shoots through my chest. The name is not just a name anymore. It is powerful, evocative, triggering. I think of you immediately and the feeling of loss makes itself known again. I dismiss it once more. No time for heartbreak, too many things to do.
I sit down with my coffee and pick up the paper. There it is again. Bilawal is planning a rally in the wake off G20 conference. It feels like a personal assault. India in efforts to normalise its occupancy of Kashmir is hosting the conference in Srinagar. Beautiful bloody haunting Srinagar. Where the stifled screams mix with the wind so when it howls it howls all the suppressed howling of men tortured in detention centres, women raped at gunpoint, children pelted and blinded.
The G-20 conference, under the pretext of diplomacy, global cooperation and economic stability functions as a neo-colonial institution, perpetuating global economic inequalities, maintaining the dominance of capitalist powers, and deepening the dependency of developing nations on developed countries. It serves only the interests of dominant capitalist powers and reinforces their economic hegemony while fascillitating and maintaining a global system that disproportionately benefits the wealthy at the expense of the working class and developing nations.
G20 is fundamentally driven by the principles of neoliberalism, it pushes for policies such as deregulation, privatization, and free trade, prioritizes the interests of multinational corporations and financial institutions, while disregarding the needs and aspirations of marginalized communities and poorer (formerly colonised) nations. Within the G20, countries who represent the interests of transnational corporations, wield significant influence, which enables them to shape policies that further consolidate their economic power and exploit developing countries. It legitimises the unequal distribution of wealth and power.
Ever in search of new markets, resources and wars it comes as no surprise that Kashmiri genocide and occupation sits very well with neo-liberal, neo-colonial powers. That despite being called the biggest human-rights violator it was China who boycotted the summit and Canada, France, Germany and the UK had no qualms attending despite ongoing protests worldwide. Despite this they are heralded as the flag bearers of modernity and progress. When they stab that flag into the mountain of Kashmiri dead bodies killed by Indian bullets, the world stands in ovation. Fascist governments, army generals, religious pundits or neo-colonial institutions, our bodies and lands are theirs to violate, demarcate, occupy, conquer and wage wars on. Our wounds are theirs to profit off of. Our healing is not conducive to the arms industries profits nor to the military industrial complex. So it takes a back seat and we continue to bleed.
The headlines today. “India seeks death penalty for Yasin Malik” A man who has already been sentenced to a life time of prison. All resistance must be crushed, annihilated, its very shadow, even in a dark cell is enough to give them night terrors.
— —
Days will turn into weeks and weeks into months and months into years, waves of pain will surge over us and drown us, our battered, bruised bodies will wash up at the shore awaiting mercy. When I hear of the mountain peak of your valley without flinching. I know I will have healed. When it is not in the news for genocide and occupation I know the world will.
