We Shall Remain...

Vietnam's War On Indigenous Peoples

(Degar children)

When America went to war in Vietnam it did it without any real understanding of what conflicts were resting just beneath the surface. In the province of Gia Lai this failure to understand past conflict only served to draw the battle lines a little clearer. The Montagnard peoples of Vietnam's central highlands had a long standing conflict with Vietnam's ethnic majority. It was one not of their choosing. And it was one in which America only served as yet a new ally in an endless battle.

The Montagnard people, or Degar people in their language, had been pushed into the mountains long before colonialism. They are culturally, linguistically, and ethnically distinct from the Vietnamese majority. It was these differences that had built a barrier between them and the Vietnamese. An it was this barrier upon which colonialism preyed. The Degar had battled to survive amongst invading Vietnamese, French, and American rulers. It is in those mountains and forests that the Degar have showed the world that they will remain.

"Sons Of The Mountain"

Degar Resistance 

(Degar Resistance, 1962)

The history of the Degar tribes (including the Jarai, Rhade, Bahnar, Koho, Mnong, and Stieng) has been one of resisting foreign invasion. They were once coastal tribes that farmed the lowlands, hunted in the forests, and fished the coastal waters. In the ninth century the Vietnamese and Khmer began encroaching upon their lands. And within a short time period the Degar tribes earned their name by claiming the Central Highlands of Vietnam. They fiercely defended what other ethnic groups had seen as undesirable mountainous areas. Their tribes, around 30 tribes in all, were ethnically distinct yet shared many cultural and social structures which helped them unite in defense of the last homeland they had left. 

When colonialism began in Southeast Asia the Degar tribes were at first left alone. Then came the introduction of the Roman Catholic missionaries in the 19th century. Only a small amount of the Degar tribes embraced the Roman Catholics. Most simply wanted the French to keep the Vietnamese off their lands. And for that matter... also wished the French would stay off their lands as well. But then came the American missionaries with their version of Christianity. Colonialism under the French, with American influence, had brought a new faith to the Degar tribes. By 1930's the Degar people were beginning to adopt Christianity into their cultural practices. 

Then came the communists.

 (Degar boys work as guerrilla soldiers during The Vietnam War)

Colonialism was a brutal source of tyranny in Vietnam as a whole. The French had to combat traditional beliefs and practices in Vietnam to maintain a profit at the expense of the Vietnamese people. Without oppressive practices and a repressive power structure, French colonialism in Southeast Asia would had collapsed much more rapidly. It was no surprise that once communism arrived in the northern parts of Vietnam that the French began to lose control. Communism could be manipulated to fit the cultural structure of Vietnamese society. French exploitation could not. 

Vietnam was set to fall to the communists as France began to retreat toward the south. Those loyal to the French became targets. Everything that resembled the French colonial rule had to go. And this meant the religion the French had spread across a country that was predominately Buddhist. For the Degar people of the Central Highlands this was just one more aspect of the conflict that already existed between them and the Vietnamese. 

Ho Chi Minh set his eyes upon the Central Highlands as the communists sought out to rid Vietnam of anyone loyal to the old masters. Northern Vietnamese guerrillas and regular soldiers began to push into Degar lands. Then came the Americans...

As America began it's war against the communists the Degar people found an ally. The Degar would be pawns in America's war. Yet for them it was a role that allowed them to remain on their lands. It was a war in which they had to choose the better of two devils. The communists offered them nothing but death even if the Degar would fight the Westerners. The Americans offered them a chance to remain on their lands even if there was a horrific price to be paid in their own blood. 

The Degar peoples resisted. Just as they had done for centuries. The Degar tribes did not fight for French or American colonial rule. They did not fight to keep Vietnam free of communist rule. They simply resisted so that they could remain on their ancestral homeland. The war may have very well been a struggle between two political systems, but for the Degar it was one of survival. The Vietnamese had been the ones to push the Degar tribes to these highlands in the first place. During the war the Vietnamese threatened to push the Degar off the last strip of land they had left to call their own. 

The legacy of standing up to Vietnamese aggression is one that still haunts the Degar tribes today. Vietnam went on to win the bloody war against American aggression. The fact that the Degar tribes had sided with the Americans is a memory that has not yet been forgotten. And it is one that is still used for political gains by land-grabbing Vietnamese politicians and military leaders. 

(Degar protest in front of The White House)

Today the Degar people are oppressed in ways that directly mirror the atrocities committed against them in centuries past. The government of Vietnam is directly responsible for the confiscation of Degar lands, the forced conversions of Degar peoples, the continual violence perpetrated against Degar civilians, unlawful and arbitrary arrests of Degar tribal members, and the persistent harassment of Degar villages. The government of Vietnam cordons off Degar lands from the outside world as it blocks access to the Degar people it so readily persecutes. All the while the government of Vietnam exploits the natural resources of Degar lands by allowing Vietnam's elite to sell off it's lumber, lands for plantations, and controlling access to the water sources on Degar lands.

Continual persecution has led many Degar to unite in ways that have blurred the lines between the many different tribes of Degars. Vietnam's harsh treatment of the Degar has led to mass protests within Vietnam (always met with violent oppressive actions by the state) and mass protests in countries that Degar refugees have resettled in. In 2001 the Degar marched on provincial cities across the Central Highlands to demand the return of their ancestral homelands, basic religious freedoms, their basic human rights to be recognized, and ethnic recognition by the Vietnamese government. Since then the oppressive measures taken by Vietnam have only increased. 

Vietnam has sent large numbers of police and military into the Central Highlands in an attempt to seal off the region from outside eyes. Churches (homes used as churches) have been burned in retaliation for Degars preaching the Christian faith. Leaders of the Degar community have been rounded up and sentenced to lengthy prison sentences (many still awaiting trial while being kept in prison). Women and Degar youth are constantly harassed by the military as Degar families are kept as prisoners on their own lands. And the border with Cambodia is heavily monitored in an effort to keep the thousands of Degar refugees from fleeing Vietnamese oppressive rule. 

Meanwhile the government of Vietnam hides behind claims that the Degar are terrorists that are dead-set upon damaging national unity and breaking away from Vietnam. These are claims that have yet to be proven by a regime that forbids foreign journalists and aid workers from entering the Central Highlands. While the regime uses these claims to crackdown on Degar tribes (essentially stripping them of all basic human rights) it outright refuses any outside government to investigate the claims. 

So while Vietnam carries out what has all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing, the outside world is left to watch. While Vietnam behaves in much the same way as Burma does in the Arakan... the outside world once again ignores signs of what has the potential to become (if it has not already been) genocide.

Labour Trafficking In America

(Part of our ongoing discussion on Human Trafficking)

In Series One, Alders Ledge outlined its working definition of the term “human trafficking” as a reference for future articles in the series, and the discussion now turns to “labor trafficking” in the United States. This is, perhaps, the type of slavery with which most Americans are familiar, as it is studied in U.S. and American History classes. For purposes of our discussion, “labor trafficking” shall mean:

The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons; by means of the threat, use of force, or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, through abuse of power or exploitation of a position of vulnerability, or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another for the purpose of exploiting labor and/or services. (UNODC, 2014)

It is vitally important for Americans, and the world, to understand that slavery NEVER ended in the United States, and history textbooks rarely frame discussions around this fact. Instead they focus on traditional notions of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the Constitution, and the Emancipation Proclamation, which did nothing to actually stop the exploitation of labor and services in the country. We’ll examine the various ways in which exploited labor and/or services continued, post-Proclamation, through today.

 

 

Post-reconstruction saw Black Americans subjugated to slavery via criminalization, through race-based laws known as The Black Codes. Prisoners were subjected to slave labor for profit by companies, prison wardens, and others with stakeholder-status in having a supply of free or nearly-free labor. Sharecropping introduced another form of exploitation. While a study of the history of corrections, Black Codes, and sharecropping are easily identifiable as forms of labor trafficking, as defined by UNODC, many fail to make the connection: slavery did not, literally, end after the Civil War. Laws were specifically written to criminalize only the actions of Black people…laws that were far too easy for any “freed” Black to “break.” Violating such laws landed former slaves in prison, where they were subjected to slave labor, once again. With the decline and eventual eradication of sharecropping by the 1960s, other forms of peonage, slavery, and exploitation gripped the country, and the world.

 

 

When Americans think “slavery,” the images that come to mind are those depicted above. While it is important to note that non-Blacks were also subjected to indentured servitude in the founding of America, historically, the vast majority of slavery centered on Blacks and agriculture. As agriculture declined, new methods of exploitation began to flourish, a much more “inclusive” slavery that sought to take advantage of human bodies, regardless of color. However, the “new” forms of labor trafficking still predominantly exploit minorities, especially immigrants, women, and children. While we observe that some forms of labor trafficking affect legal and illegal immigrant residents, it is important to note that human trafficking affects native-born citizens, as well. This is not an "immigrant" issue. This is a global human rights issue.

 

 

The Modern Face of Labor Trafficking in the USA

 

While 59% of labor trafficking is not found in the agriculture sector, it continues to proliferate in the industry, especially among migrant and seasonal farm workers. Nannies and housekeepers (think: Mammy figures in slave days of the past) and other domestic positions provide a ripe climate for exploitation. While sex trafficking will be highlighted in a future series, it is important to mention here that hostess and strip clubs are also rife with slave labor, outside of the traditional notions of forced prostitution (sex work). The actual performances, duties, and dancing (the labor) can be exploited, with or without forced sexual contact with customers (Alders Ledge does not conflate voluntary sex work with human trafficking, a discussion more appropriate for the upcoming series on sex trafficking).

 

The dining and food service industry provides a haven for traffickers, who force their victims to cook, clean, stock, and wait tables for little or no pay, often while under the complete control of their “handlers,” while living in controlled congregate housing. In addition, the manufacturing of clothing and foodstuffs also provide avenues for forced, coerced, and under/no-paid labor. With over 1.5 million employees in the hospitality industry, the United States has seen a rise in traffickers’ exploitation of room attendants, other hospitality-centered positions, even casino workers. Ever wonder about the knocks on the door by young people selling products, like magazine subscriptions? Many such peddling rings exploit the door-to-door market by denying food and accommodations to those who fail to make their quotas, even abandoning “employees,” leaving them penniless and without transportation in unknown cities. In short, ANY industry with a demand for cheap labor and little-to-no oversight is ripe for labor trafficking, including group care homes, construction, and landscaping.

 

 

Most Americans directly benefit from modern-slavery. Everyone eats, and most do not grow their own food. Many people dine out and stay in hotels, and we all live in, or travel to, various constructed buildings. Trafficking touches our lives in ways we may not have considered before. Anti-immigrant adherents may not care about the abuses of immigrant populations, rationalizing that “they ought not to be here, in the first place.” Hostess/stripper clubs are rife with “slut-shaming” and “victim-blaming,” and the voices of the exploited, the trafficked, are often silenced under the belief that these women and girls actively choose to earn a living “on their backs” and should “know the consequences” of their profession. When presented with evidence of force, victim-blaming still occurs: “They were stupid if they couldn’t see it;” “Why didn’t they just runaway or call police?” These judgments do not address the criminals who force and/or kidnap their way into exploiting human bodies. Finally, notice the eerie silence about slavery in these arguments. There is no acknowledgment that slavery still exists, and it resolves the cognitive dissonance felt when one realizes the benefits they unwittingly receive via trafficking. 

 

  

 

 

Obviously, a single blog post cannot provide the space for nuance on such a large, complex topic. Our purpose is to bring awareness and empower you to take action. Below are suggested readings for those interested in a deeper understanding of modern labor trafficking in the United States.

 

• Life Interrupted: Trafficking into Forced Labor in the United States (2014). See on Amazon.

 

• Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy (2008) See on Amazon.

 

• The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today (2010). See on Amazon.

 

• The Coercion of Trafficked Workers (2011). See Online.

Left To The Dogs

Iraq's Minorities Threatened With Genocide

(Yazidi struggle to escape the advancing ISIS threat)

Circling like vultures, ever ready to pick at the bones of their fallen victims, the dogs of the Islamic State gather for yet another massacre. Their mouths foam with the disease that has infected the countless generations of hedonistic barbarians that came before them. This plague manifested itself with the colonialists that once spilled blood in these same fields. This disease is the same illness that once sent Europe into the dark days of the 1940s. It is the same hunger that drove on the Khmer Rouge as they turned rice patties into the killing fields. ISIS is the manifestation of the disease that has doggedly nipped at the heels of humanity for all of our existence. Its the disease that now threatens to put the final nails in Iraq's coffin.

Blood still drips from the veins of the crucified, the beheaded, and from the lifeless bodies of those left in ditches after mass executions. The mantra for this new caliphate is written in their blood, the ink of the barbarians that exploited their deaths, a medium that speaks to the indifference of the onlooking world. It is in their deaths that the foundations of Isis's terror has been laid. With every fallen victim comes a new mountain of propaganda in this depraved push for religious dominance. It is a sacrifice, a burnt offering to Isis's own insanity, that feeds the wicked intentions of Islam's radical fringe factions.

Tonight the Yazidi people are the scapegoats that are to be offered up so as to feed the lust of those who claim to fight for All-h. Their women and girls are to be used for sexual deviancy. Their men and boys to be drained of their blood as their bodies return to the sun scorched soil. Their voices to be forgotten as they, in their darkest hours, offers up one final scream in hopes that a deaf world might finally hear.

Never Meant To Be Lambs

(Yazidi Temple At The Highest Peak of Sinjar Mountains)

No community has ever faced genocide with the timidness of a lamb. Once the butcher's knife makes it's first appearance the would be victims always find ways to defy the fate they've been slated. Their voices become raised. The muscles become rigid and the heels dig in for the fight ahead. It is not in the nature of man to take that last breath in peace. There has never been a victim of genocide ready to die for the sinful lust of another. The Yazidi are no exception to this rule.

When ISIS came to Sinjar the Yazidi community already knew what was awaiting them. Due to their religious beliefs the Islamist radicals had already plotted to kill the "devil worshipers" in mass. The black flag that ISIS uses was an unadulterated symbol of their intentions toward the Yazidi minority. No quarter would be given, no mercy would be shown, and no peace could ever be obtained from the clutched fists of the barbarians that comprise Isis's forces.

But what makes the Yazidi such a vulnerable target in Isis's genocide of "non-believers"?

Much like Muslims, Jews, and Christians; the Yazidi are monotheists. They believe in one god who created all life here on earth. Yet the connection with Islam almost ends at that point alone. For it is in the Yazidi religion, Yazdanism, that the belief in one god diverges into other beliefs that Islam does not share. It's these differences that place Islamic fundamentalists at odds with the "pagan" beliefs of the Yazidi.

In Yazdanism the creator god entrusted the world to a Heptad of Seven Holy Beings who were to care for all of creation. These "angels", or heft sirr (the Seven Mysteries), are all to "bow to Adam (man)". Yet the head of the heft sirr, or archangels, does not bow to mankind. Instead, Tawûsê Melek, who was said to be created from the creator god's own illumination, refuses to bow to mankind. This makes Tawûsê Melek a special part of Yazdanism and is revered by the Yazidi faith.

Islam and Christianity have long equated the worship of these "angels" as demon worship. And it is in the worship of Tawûsê Melek that the Abrahamic faiths have created their worst offense to Yazdanism. For it is in the story of Tawûsê Melek that fundamentalists (Muslims and Christians alike) have concocted the belief that this lead angel is their demon Shaitan (Satan). Yet it is in the story of Tawûsê Melek that it becomes most evident that Yazdanism is a distinct and separate religion from Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. For it is in his story that Yazdanism's many other influences becomes more evident (including Gnosticism, Zoroastrianism, and several eastern religions).

However, due to the complexity of any given faith, we will not delve too deeply into the story itself but rather look at how it has been exploited to target the Yazidi minority.

Westerners have long romanticized the Yazidi in as much the same way as they have with any other Eastern religious minority. Their faith is not explained in Western media when it so callously equates it to Islam. The religious practices aren't valued for their unique contributions to world community but are rather slighted by upholding old myths of devil worship. Their culture as a whole isn't recognized for it's depth and beauty but rather is looked at with a passing glance.

The Muslim world has long targeted the Yazidi community with pogroms and social injustices of all sorts. Imams and religious leaders within Islam have accused the Yazidi of serving Shaitan (Satan) due to their incredible lack of understanding when talking about Yazdanism. The methods of worship and prayer that are hallmarks of Yazdanism are considered pagan by Islamic fundamentalists. Throughout the centuries the Yazidi have been rounded up and killed in smaller versions of their current holocaust. Their children are targeted with forced conversions to Islam. Their women used as sexual objects, so easily discarded after they've outlived their purpose. And the Yazidi men have often been massacred by Arab neighbors. All of this because the fundamentalists could not look beyond the strangling hold their own faith places upon the overall conscience of an already ethnocentric society.

Both East and West have failed to recognize the value of a richly diverse society, a society to which the Yazidi culture and beliefs could so greatly contribute. While not all Muslims demonize the Yazidi and their beliefs, and not all Westerners dehumanize them by marginalizing their culture, the damage inflicted by those who do is already visible. In a community, like that found in Iraq's northern regions, the lack of tolerance for differing beliefs and practices is intolerable. It permits a situation in which only the largest faiths and ethnic groups are capable of surviving while minorities are forced to struggle to eek out an existence.

Now the Yazidi prepare to fight back. Now they have no other option but to stand up and defiantly look death in the eye. All because the world, as a whole, has long ignored their screams for help.

From The Hearts of Men

The Yazidi believe that all evil in this world arises not from a "great Satan" or demonic presence of any form. It is in their religion that the true nature of evil is best explained. For it is in the Yazidi faith that evil is said to be the product of man's heart, and man's heart alone. The Islamic State is proving this to be true. The apathy of the world community is proving this to be the only source of evil in this dark and dreary world.

When Saddam tried to exterminate the Yazidi the world generalized their plight by bunching them in with the Kurdish population of Iraq. When pogroms have occurred and the Yazidi were targeted by their Arab neighbors the colonial powers wrote it off as a "ancient rivalry" of sorts. Just as with the Roma in the Porajamos, the world denied the magnitude of Saddam's crimes by denying the targeting of the Yazidi for their faith and ethnicity. Just as with the Bosnian Genocide, the world devalued the lives of the Yazidi by cheapening their plight with excuses for the aggression of the Arabs. In every genocide the Yazidi have faced there has always been an apathetic world ready to look the other way. In every struggle to survive the Yazidi have found themselves begging for help from an increasingly deaf world.

Today we watch as the most powerful nation on the planet offers only tokens of support for their plight as it refuses to commit to the promise of "never again". Cheap air strikes are all the world's most technologically advanced military will give as it's governing body refuses to do all it can to stop the genocide of the Yazidi. So as the dead and soon to be dead drift from this earth we monitor their demise with drones overhead. And as the children of the Yazidi face slavery and sexual abuse at the hands of ISIS heathens we bomb random artillery pieces and abandoned checkpoints. This is the extent of morality in our modern age. We promise the same intervention the allies inadvertently offered the Jews, and yet when the time to commit arises... we are impotent, so to speak.

It was once said, and often repeated, that the only thing that evil needs to succeed is the silence of good men. The Yazidi believe that evil arises from the hearts of all mankind. But they also believe that the good in this world also is a product of the human heart. Thus a war, of sorts, can be depicted as raging within the human spirit. A desire to create, a desire to save, and a desire to protect are all found within the heart of man. Yet the desire to destroy, to devour, and to prey upon others can also be found within the same heart; at times, simultaneously.

The salvation of modern man is the ability of mankind to overcome the evil we so often create. If mankind is truly "good" inside, if there is a hope for a better world still yet to come, then there is a way to conquer the evil tendencies of man. The first, and far from the least of which, is the apathy that so often paralyzes us in this struggle.

If communities like that of the Yazidi people are to survive in this ever shrinking world then we must surrender ourselves to empathy rather than apathy. We must adhere their afflictions to our own sense of survival and thus make their struggle our own. By denying the value of their culture, by giving into the notion that someone else will "save" them... we lose something of ourselves. In remaining silent we hand over the sword to their executioner. By no lifting a finger to stop their demise we join the ranks of the barbarians that slaughter them.

A world that believes in equality, tolerance, understanding, and the value of diversity can not bare the blight of groups like ISIS. No matter what your religion is, no matter where in the world you are, the struggle to stop the spread of genocide and hate is one that you can not turn away from. Either you are willing to fight against racism, religious violence, ethnic hatred, and bigotry or you are a contributor to it. You don't get to remain silent.

Scream Bloody Murder

Many of you won't have the option to get out there and do the physical work required to stop genocide. There probably won't be rallies and protests in support of the Yazidis. And when it comes to the political legwork many of us are intimidated by the actions required to just get the ear of our government long enough to scream for the Yazidis. But there is still the work of raising awareness. And this is a job that all of us should be doing without hesitation. It is a job that each of use are supposed to be doing for all victims of genocide, regardless of who they are and/or who the murderers are. 

In the notes below you will find countless links that are easily shared on twitter, facebook, tumblr, pintrest, and all other social media sites. These articles should be read and used in conversations so that you can help bring awareness of the Yazidis' plight. But they are just a start. You should, and will need to, continue to read more about the Yazidi people and the genocides they have endured. The more familiar you become with the people and their struggle the more convincingly you can share their story. 

In addition to being an online presence for the Yazidi community, you should also be sharing their story in your daily life as well. Each of us have countless conversations daily. Chances are you will spend some time today talking about anything and nothing at all with people from many different walks of life. These are all opportunities to raise awareness. With some tact and patience, you can usually grab the attention of at least one person who is willing to listen. And that one person is a chance to keep the information flowing. That one person is a chance to stir the heart of your fellow man and create the opportunity for positive change... to touch the "good" within their heart. 

As long as you have breath in your lungs...

You should be screaming.

So while you are talking about Gaza, Sudan, North Korea, or the Rohingya... don't forget the Yazidi. While you are talking about television shows, music, politics, sports, or simply making small talk... don't forget the Yazidi. If and when the opportunity arises... scream for them. 





Source Documents
(note: not all are listed)

The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/10/pope-francis-iraq-isis-islamic-state-religious-minorities-violence
-
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/11/yazidis-tormented-fears-for-women-girls-kidnapped-sinjar-isis-slaves
-
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/11/us-arm-peshmerga-iraq-kurdistan-isis
-
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/11/us-air-strikes-iraq-isis-minimal-impact-pentagon
-
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/13/france-arms-kurds-isis-iraq-military

Times
https://time.com/3099014/isis-iraq-kurdistan-yazidi/

Rudaw
http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/100820145
-
http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/110820144

The Daily Star (Lebanon)
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Aug-13/267050-us-troops-sent-to-iraq-to-help-trapped-yezidis.ashx#axzz3AIyfSCv5

London Evening Standard
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/uk-military-commanders-urge-david-cameron-to-commit-to-intervention-in-iraq-9665224.html

The Straights Times
http://www.straitstimes.com/news/world/middle-east/story/un-monitors-demand-urgent-action-stop-iraq-yezidi-genocide-20140812

The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11029765/Iraq-crisis-the-last-stand-of-the-Yazidis-against-Islamic-State.html
-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11027161/Iraq-crisis-My-night-on-the-mountain-of-hell-with-dying-Yazidi-refugees.html

The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraq-crisis-un-warns-yazidis-refugees-trapped-on-mount-sinjar-are-facing-imminent-genocide-from-is-militants-9665003.html

VOX
http://www.vox.com/iraq-crisis/2014/8/9/5983785/yazidi-americans-to-obama-a-genocide-is-happening-on-your-watch

Al-Arabia
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/alarabiya-studies/2014/08/11/What-you-did-not-know-about-Iraq-s-Yazidi-minority-.html

What Is Human Trafficking

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The Right To Resist

(part of A Bridge Too Far series)

(Jewish Partisans in Croatia During WW2)

This message is not to Palestinians or Muslims. This message is to those who claim to practice Judaism. This message is to those who claim to support the cause of a homeland for the Jewish people. This is a message to my brothers and sisters as well as those who support Israel. It is not a polite suggestion. It is not a message of condemnation. This is a reminder of where we came from. This is a reminder of why we, the Jewish people, should have more empathy than anyone else for the plight of the citizens of Gaza. For their present situation greatly mirrors the tragedies through which our ancestors lived. This is a reminder of our faith, our heritage, and our history.

 

 

When my ancestors watched their country be devoured by the barbarism the world called fascism there was little time to react. Yugoslavia was breaking apart. Croatia had made a pact with Hitler to help his armies take the Balkans. Everywhere my ancestors looked all they could see was a world gone mad. For them... the hope of a better life for their children was rapidly disappearing. The belief that the next generation would live in a better world than they did was all but shattered. Yet the will to fight for that hope, the will to sacrifice for that dream, had not been taken from them. 

The fascist began their assault with mass executions and gathering survivors into camps and ghettos. Among those who had fled the massacres were people like my great grandmother. These were people who either were prepared to fight for their homes, their families, or just mere survival. Ahead of them was a long war that looked hopeless. They were ready to fight with no ability to resupply their ammunition, no ability to find food, and no chance for reinforcements. Yet the will to fight was still there. Like a fire deep inside their bones, that will to resist could not be extinguished. 

What the Nazis and Ustase did to my ancestors was beyond barbaric. They took them into the mountains and found ledges upon which to execute them. Others were sent strung up publicly so as to tell their countrymen what awaited all of Yugoslavia's Jews. While others were sent to camps to work for their captors till the release of death overcame them. And yet for those who survived there was a deep seeded desire to resist. The desire to live free, to have their lives back, could not be beaten out of them. Despite all the fascists bestowed upon us in their savage desire to destroy us, we resisted. We fought back. 

During the war against the fascists my ancestors were not granted the rights given to soldiers if they were captured. All those rules made in Geneva were useless to them. If the Ustase or Germans captured them they knew that only torture and death awaited them. They also realized that in defending their families through combat meant that they were endangering entire villages. Anyone that dared to help them (or simply not give up information on them) was fair game to the tyrannical Ustase thugs and Nazi soldiers. To the ruling factions, my ancestors were terrorist. And much like today, their resistance to the oppressive rule of fascism was punishable with actions well beyond the rule of law. 

Today we are proud of our ancestors and what they did to make sure we could be here today, alive and free. We look back on their struggle with pride that can not be taken from us. It is a legacy that has endured even the worst intentions of our enemies. The price they paid in blood has not and will not be forgotten. 

Yet today there are double standards that come with remembering the price our ancestors paid for our freedoms. We tend not to think of their struggle when we look at the plight of the oppressed today. This is especially true when it comes to how many Jews look at the struggle that the Palestinians face. And it is distinctly evident when it comes to the pain inflicted upon the citizens of Gaza.

We as a people have had to fight to survive countless tragedies in our past. As Tisha B'av approaches we will find ourselves reflecting upon the countless times our ancestors were persecuted. During this time we will fast and offer up prayers as we mourn those tragedies. We will also have the opportunity to recall how our G-d delivered us to this day. We will recall how even in our darkest hours He allowed us to reach a time when our people are safe and secure. And yet there is another aspect of our heritage that we should focus upon as Israel carries out Operation Protective Edge... the long history of resistance that has enabled us to reach this day. 

To our oppressors we were once the terrorists. In their eyes we were supposed to accept our fate and go silently into history, never to be remembered. We were painted as sheep to the slaughter by even our friends. Those who had watched us suffer offered us little more than tears as they whispered "oh the poor Jews". To some we had been cast as the meek and suffering oppressed. But for those who wanted us dead, to those we resisted by fighting tooth and nail, we were dangerous terrorists who needed to be slaughtered. 

History has shown how we fought back. History has remembered the millions who perished as the survivors resisted. History has not labeled us as either sheep to slaughter or savage terrorists. It has recorded our suffering and our desire to live. As it will do so for the oppressed that suffer today. 

It is the nature of all mankind to want to live free and full lives. When that is taken from us, we as a species do not lay down and await death silently. While some may accept that life as they knew it is over, most of us will bare our teeth and bristle our manes just like any other animal that has been cornered. We are not timid when we are oppressed. We are not silent when we are tormented. And we are not easily trained to accept our suffering. 

So why have so many of us accepted the suffering of Gaza?

Gaza today rest upon a thin strip of the land allotted to it by the mandate which created Palestine and Israel. The Palestinians living there were once allowed the opportunity to leave the strip and travel elsewhere. They were oppressed in other ways then, but at very least they weren't behind a wall. Since the construction of the "separation barrier" the citizens of Gaza have been virtually stuck in a ghetto. Like our ancestors in Warsaw, they were stuck behind a wall and kept out of sight of the rest of society.

Conditions in Gaza have only deteriorated as Israel has further restricted movement of the citizens of Gaza. Palestinians in Gaza have considerably less rights than those of Israeli citizens right on the other side of the wall. They are not permitted the right to move freely but are rather kept confined like animals in a cage. Like our ancestors in the ghettos of Europe who had to seek Nazi permission, the citizens of Gaza have to seek permission from Israel to leave Gaza (or Egypt when the crossing there is open). Checkpoints are meant to "protect" Israeli citizens from danger while at the same time stripping Palestinians of their basic human rights.

Health conditions also have drastically deteriorated after Israel has repeatedly bombed hospitals and health care centers. Doctors and nursing staff are far less prevalent in Gaza than in Israel. And the numbers of refugees puts a strain on any health care that remains. This does not account for the psychological trauma that goes untreated as Palestinians continue to live under constant siege (well documented at causing severe emotional and psychological trauma). In the ghettos of Europe all of these factors caused an increase in death and even depression and suicide amongst our ancestors.

Sanitation is crippled as Israel has launched aerial assaults and missile attacks on infrastructure across Gaza. Water is at times untrustworthy as treatment of it is not viable at all times. The source of life, the one thing all mankind needs, is denied to the Palestinians of Gaza by the siege Israel has placed them under. The diseases that come with such conditions were well known killers of our ancestors in the ghettos of Europe.

So at what point is it a right of the oppressed population in Gaza to resist the oppression they have been placed under? When does it become acceptable to us to see Palestinians firing rockets back at the nation who is bombing them daily? When do we stop labeling them as terrorists and start realizing that they are resisting in much the same manner as our ancestors did?

In every culture across the globe the death of a child, especially our own, is something that will provoke unmeasurable anger and retaliation. Israel has predicated this latest attack upon the death of three Israeli children. Yet when do we realize that Gaza has sacrificed countless numbers of it's own children to the siege Israel is and has placed upon it in the past? If it was your child that had taken a soldier's bullet or shrapnel from another country's missile would you remain silent?

For me personally the living conditions would have definitely made me defiant. I would obviously take every non-violent step toward dismantling my oppressor and shedding such wretched living conditions as those. But the death of my child, the death of any child, is enough to make me become the most wretched savage my enemy could ever meet. There is no form of punishment fitting for those who would slaughter the innocent for their own personal goals and desires. And for the most part, this reaction is as human as any other emotion. It is ingrained in all mankind to defend their offspring with every ounce of blood that flows through their veins.

Hamas may be far from decent in their politics and the way they fight their wars. But if it were your children being targeted by a ruthless enemy... would you not side with the devil himself if it meant your children could live?

The right to resist tyranny is as natural to man as any of the rest of our "human rights". The right to resist oppression is what led to our people out of Egypt, saved us from the pogroms, and kept us alive through the Holocaust. It is what has created the heritage of which we are so stubbornly proud. And it is the very essence of why Gaza remains defiant in the face of Israel's brutal war.

As we go through The Three Weeks and Tisha B'av let us remember the tragedies through which our people have overcome tyrants. Let us reflect upon the path our ancestors took to get us here today. And let us offer our thanks to G-d for His mercy upon us and our ancestors. But let us also take a critical look at Israel and it's actions in Gaza. Let us offer up our prayers for the suffering people of Gaza.

Most importantly, during this time of mourning...

Let us cry out for the citizens of Gaza. Let us stand with our suffering brothers and sisters. Let us defend them with our voices as we tell the world that what Israel is doing is wrong. And let us make that cry heard by our leaders and our people in Israel. Scream so loud that your voice reverberates across the distance between us and stirs up the hearts and souls of Israel.

We are here today because great men and women resisted those who would have wiped our heritage from the face of the earth. They stood up against tyranny during the darkest hours of our peoples' history. When nobody else would listen, when it seemed that nobody else even cared, they stood up and fought back. It is through their blood, their suffering, and their resilience that we were even given the chance to do the same.

Pray for Gaza.

Then scream for Gaza. 

The Devil's Bastards

Unholy War Series 

(A Victim Of Boko Haram's Barbarism)

Nigeria has been the front line in an unholy war for the heart and soul of Africa. Along the battlefront the two major religions of Islam and Christianity endlessly spill blood in the name of a god that seems to have looked the other way. Villages are used as urban battlefields and the open wasteland of sub-Saharan Africa acts as no-man's land. Civilians who withstand the urge to join the militants that come and go are left helpless as governments struggle to maintain control. Mutilation, open massacres, and rolling gunfights become far too common as Africa's children watch their hope for a better life go up in smoke.

And for what? So that faith can bleed out entire countries? So that religion can gain a foothold while breaking the back of Africa?

Misleading The Faithful

Amongst this senseless violence is not surprising to find militant groups that use faith to entice their terrorists into endless war. Christian groups (such as the LRA in Uganda) loosely hide behind the cross as they enlist children to die like men for a cause not their own. Islamist groups pitch Sharia Law as a solution for Africa's ailments while creating a laundry list of new ones. In Nigeria the latest bastards to join the fight got their start back in 2002.

Boko Haram, which roughly translates to "Western education is forbidden", dragged out 14th century ideals and perverted ideals of what the Qur'an teaches to create a movement in northwest Nigeria. The overly legalistic approach to Islam that would define Boko Haram in Nigeria originated with the Islamic cleric Mohammad Yusuf. Through his attempts in the 1990's the movement in Nigeria was able to gain traction by 2002. It was packaged and preached to young Muslims as a way of fighting back against the West and the Christian dominated south in Nigeria. In it's packaging any verse in the Qur'an that preached tolerance appeared to be omitted while others were perverted to justify "jihad".

Of course no good "jihad" movement gains traction by first telling it's new followers to pick up a gun and prepare for paradise. Yusuf started out by telling his followers to mock and isolate Muslims in northern Nigeria if they dared to participate in anything Yusuf saw as helping the government. This was highlighted in Yusuf's preaching that Nigeria was illegitimately run since it refused to follow strict Islamic laws (ultimately Sharia). In doing so, Yusuf would transition his message of withdrawing from Nigerian society and governmental programs to a message of Islam's supposed dominance to the secular state.

Sowing the seed of dissent, Yusuf hid behind religion as his message grew more openly sinister. "Withdraw" soon became "resist". And "resistance" soon became "violent resistance".  By the time Boko Haram had reached a reasonable following Yusuf was already preaching to his faithful a message of rebellion and terrorism. In 2009 those seeds sprang forth as Boko Haram's message came to fruition.

Killing In The Name Of...

In July of 2009 the Boko Haram followers pushed the envelop one step too far for Nigeria's police. What seemed like a petty offense (refusing to wear helmets on motorbikes) was the militants' way of antagonizing the state. It was far from the first stage of antagonism deployed by Yusuf's little anarchists. But it was the last stage before the peace broke down and open rebellion began.

When police began cracking down on Boko Haram militants the terror group let loose with all guns blazing. Like children throwing a fit, the foot soldiers of the Boko Haram movement unleashed hell in an attempt to gain attention. In this terror campaign over 800 Nigerian citizens would lose their lives to grotesquely senseless violence.

The military of Nigeria was called in so as to restore law and order. What had been a simple crime was now all out war. And as with all incidents where a corrupt government is given reason to flex it's muscles; the situation rapidly deteriorated. On one side the civilians trapped in the middle had militant thugs and on the other a military hellbent on showing who was in charge. Nobody would come out the winner here.

In the end Mohammad Yusuf would be executed publicly as the state attempted to show all of Nigeria who was in control of northwestern Nigeria. It was an act of capital punishment that would do anything but solve the problem. With one man's blood, Nigeria's government shattered any hopes of peace and radicalized a generation of Islamist. This had given a movement it's martyr.

Bastardized, Boko Haram was ready to exact it's pound of flesh. Nothing was sacred to the scorned movement. Suicide attacks began almost as soon as Yusuf was dispatched. Over the next five years this hellish movement would leave thousands of Nigerians dead as Boko Haram pursued Yusuf's dream of an Islamic state in Nigeria.

Pol Pot Style Genocide

The tactics deployed by Boko Haram became increasingly more perverse and barbaric as the members within the movement challenged each other for control. Students from colleges and grade schools became prime targets for the hedonistic leadership of Boko Haram. In September of 2013 terrorists from the movement attacked and killed 65 students at the agricultural college in Yobe state, Nigeria. These sorts of targeted massacres have also been accompanied by suicide attacks and bombings of schools across northern Nigeria.

This strategy of attacking schools follows the underlying ideal within the movement that "Western education is forbidden". In the beginning the movement would had called for it's members to simply withdraw and be completely unassociated with Nigeria's state schools. It would had encouraged it's followers to seek out Islamic schooling in place of secular education. This would had been a peaceful, if uneasy, way of pursuing a future in which northern Nigeria's youth were completely uneducated (in the modern sense). Yet today it is clear that this message has been completely perverted into one of violent destruction of all "Western" educational systems.

Today Boko Haram seeks to kill those who participate in Nigeria's state run school system. Muslims who dare to seek an education within the system are placed at a higher risk of being murdered due to Boko Haram's hardline teachings. It's devotion to a "pure Islamic" system of governance and education means that all Muslims and non-Muslims are meant to subject themselves to the Mosque rather than the state. There is no room for tolerance or freedom of choice.

Within this framework of what a Boko Haram style Nigeria would look like there is little left to the imagination as to why just this past week 43 students were gunned down. It is easy to see why Boko Haram burns schools and bombs others. It is built into the teachings of the Boko Haram movement that children who are educated by the state system are somehow polluted and a threat to the Islamic system of religious dominance. And thus why the children of Nigeria, all those who are enrolled in education, must pay in blood for Boko Haram's version of Nigeria to become a reality.

One Devil Verses The Other

Much of what Yusuf started when he created this movement was built out of capitalizing on social grievances many Muslims in Nigeria's north have felt for countless years. Yusuf simply had to pander to the existing dissidents while feeding others with a sense of having been wronged by the state. Mixing in extremist rhetoric allowed Yusuf to deepen the divide that was already growing within Nigerian society. 

The efforts made by Boko Haram to feed the anger within Nigeria's Muslim community were only further highlighted by Nigeria's government itself. Corruption within the court systems and military put increasing pressure upon all of Nigeria's population. But it was felt disproportionately in Nigeria's northern states as the government increasingly made it's Muslim population feel disenfranchised and marginalized by the state itself. 

All Boko Haram had to do was come along and give a name to the anger that was festering beneath the surface. Yusuf gave a cause behind which that anger could be harnessed. And in doing so, Yusuf created a beast that Nigeria has to this day been unable to tame. 

Crimes against humanity have become characteristic of the fight between Boko Haram and the government of Nigeria. Both parties have actively sought to demonize the other while persistently bleeding the innocent population of their security, their future, and in far too many cases... their lives. 

Nigeria's Joint Task Force (JTF) of military and police have over the years been seen as thugs themselves. The police in Nigeria have been accused of killing at will, often shooting first and asking questions later. Though many who remain sympathetic to the fight against terrorism globally see this as combating a violent jihadi organization, the tactics often galvanize support for Boko Haram rather than end the group's ability to fight. Meanwhile the civilians the police are meant to protect pay for the polices' brutality in loss of property and at times with blood. 

Yet Nigeria's government, as corrupt as it is, has no option but to find some method with which to end Boko Haram's barbarism. No modern state can be expected to tolerate having truck drivers beheaded with chainsaws on it's highways. The constant flow of blood and sustained anarchy must be ended if Nigeria expects to move forward in any manner of speaking. 

In the meantime the government of Nigeria faces a war with it's own citizenry. From this point it appears to be a war of scorched earth that pits one religion against the other. It appears to be a war that divides a nation along the lines of politics and faith. A war where one party wishes to drag a country back to the 14th century while the other wishes to exploit it's populace and push for a secular state. 

There doesn't seem to be a winner in Nigeria no matter how this battle ends. All there appears to be is a country split by religious fervor and perverse ideology. Leaving it's average citizen to scrape out a living amongst the bloodshed, corruption, and oppression of politics and faith alike. 

Just One Point Along The Front Line

This installment in this series is just the start of Alder's Ledge's look at the long battle front that stretches across Africa. As we hinted at in the start of this series, we believe this battle for the soul of Africa often is characterized as the fight between Islam and Christianity for religious dominance in regions of Africa. And in looking at this struggle between the two faiths we will look at places like Nigeria, Sudan, Uganda, and Niger. All the while we will be attempting to remain fair in our depictions of the problems that arise from this issue. At no point are we taking sides or attacking either faith. We are simply attempting to bring attention to an issue that many overlook.









Source Documents
(not all listed)

PBS News Hour
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/boko-haram/

Aljazeera America
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/3/7/nigeria-boko-haramanalysis.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2014/03/schools-shut-prevent-boko-haram-attacks-20143615264765350.html

The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/nigeria/10642979/Boko-Haram-kill-over-100-in-village-massacre.html

Amnesty.org
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AFR44/038/2009/en/f09b1c15-77b4-40aa-a608-b3b01bde0fc5/afr440382009en.pdf

Human Rights Watch
http://www.hrw.org/node/101018/section/2