Divya Chandru

Feminist. Un-learning and re learning is my agenda.

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇳🇱 Dutch police threw this pregnant woman to the ground

Her husband didn't hold back

WTF is wrong with the police?!?!

[Prakash Ambedkar @Prksh_Ambedkar]

Prem Birhade, a young Dalit who recently graduated from the prestigious University of Sussex, was forced to forfeit a hard-earned employment opportunity at Heathrow Airport in London.
The reason? His former college, Modern College of Arts, Science and Commerce in Pune, refused to verify his academic credentials, despite him submitting all required documentation.
Why? Because Prem is a Dalit!

The college’s principal, Dr. Nivedita Gajanan Ekbote, also serves as the Maharashtra Vice-President of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the BJP. Given her political and ideological alignment with the Manuwadi BJP, one can only imagine the extent to which caste prejudice must have shaped her actions against SC, ST, OBC students in her academic career.

The same verification was provided when Prem had gone to London to study. When Prem requested the same verification again for his job, the college’s administration enquired of his caste!

Prem’s journey from Nardubar, a poor Tribal district, to UK was not easy one. Prem’s case is a glaring example of how systemic caste discrimination continues to haunt Dalit youth, even after they break through enormous social and economic barriers.

This case demands urgent attention and accountability. Prem’s story is not just his own, it is the story of countless Dalit students whose aspirations are crushed because of caste-discrimination.

[dorian is drafting! @dywwrites]

"But [insert deflection here]!"
-No. These are truths. Back up, look around, and confront them. None of this should be happening in the first place, and the blame for that falls entirely on Israel and its supporters.

[dorian is drafting! @dywwrites]

-This is a very hard pill for a lot of people to swallow, but Jews do not have a monopoly on suffering. Jews are not inherently more moral than any other group. Jews are not right by default. We can be wrong. We can be evil. We can cause bad things to happen in the world.

[dorian is drafting! @dywwrites]

"So many Jewish people are dying and people are supporting it! This is just like the Holocaust!"
-Again, violence is a tragedy and a result in a fault of society. But when violence comes from an oppressed group, the fault in society is oppression.

[dorian is drafting! @dywwrites]

"There is no reasoning with Palestinians! They rejected every option for peace!"
-Rather than responding to this one myself, I'll link this source instead: https://t.co/ctbPObqrz0

[dorian is drafting! @dywwrites]

-People are dying. I know people who have. But violence is a natural consequence of continued oppression. Think of slave revolts and indigenous uprisings. We memorialize those despite their violence because every death is the fault of the oppressor.

[dorian is drafting! @dywwrites]

"But roof-knocking! But telling people to leave! But Jewish people are being killed!"
-Palestinians have a legal right to resist according to the Geneva Conventions. Meanwhile, Israel has committed numerous war crimes and disbanded their military courts. https://t.co/8FzfGbtQvE

[dorian is drafting! @dywwrites]

-Whatever your beliefs are on a theoretical Jewish state, Israel is not the end-all-be-all of that idea. Think about Israel, not a hypothetical. Look at who your allies are on either side. Pay attention to the demographics supporting Israel vs. Palestine. Who do you trust?

[dorian is drafting! @dywwrites]

-Israel primarily relies on white, right-wing evangelicals for support/legitimacy. Again, modern Israel is a military base supposedly promoting "western [read: christian] values" as well as their belief in the region's role in the end of times https://t.co/BXm60GPaDG

[dorian is drafting! @dywwrites]

"Jews deserve to have a self-governing state!"
-That's not what Israel is. Modern Israel is a glorified Western military base. (Note all of the zionist propaganda lauding Israel as "protecting western values" and "the only democracy in the Middle East) https://t.co/yXdDnhActG

[dorian is drafting! @dywwrites]

-Foundational zionist texts call themselves colonists and Palestinians "natives." It was never meant to be a movement returning the land to an indigenous population. https://t.co/b0X3GJlqEl

[dorian is drafting! @dywwrites]

-Israel also has a long history of genocide and violence in Latin America, specifically involvement in the drug war and genocide of indigenous populations. https://t.co/PO7AusHn1X

[dorian is drafting! @dywwrites]

-Israel does not support global indigenous populations. For example, they were directly involved with the genocide of the Maya population in Guatemala. https://t.co/R05CmCgI4R

[dorian is drafting! @dywwrites]

-It doesn't matter who was "there first." Palestinian and Jewish identities are not competing. Here is a wonderful piece about why: https://t.co/HqMRZw0T6y

[dorian is drafting! @dywwrites]

-I am not Palestinian, so I can't speak firsthand on Palestinian identity. Instead, here are some places to start reading about Palestinian culture/identity and connection to the region https://t.co/y0rYKfVfX4

[dorian is drafting! @dywwrites]

"Jews are indigenous to Israel! It's important to Jewish religion! Israel supports indigenous rights!"
-As a Jewish person, I identify deeply with the land and region. My GEOGRAPHIC connection to the region is ancient and has nothing to do with the modern state.

[dorian is drafting! @dywwrites]

"An antisemetic religious group should have never been in power in the first place!"
-Israel itself supported and funded Hamas in order to divide the Palestinian people and undermine secular groups like the PLO and justify genocide https://t.co/IWEkRIK8Sr

[dorian is drafting! @dywwrites]

Here's the link to the full charter: https://t.co/Iyb3lmj4ki

[dorian is drafting! @dywwrites]

"But their charter says they want to kill all Jews!"
-Their 1988 charter does. Since Hamas was the only group making any changes, secularists joined and reformed a lot of the literature. They have a new charter as of 2017, and here's an excerpt: