Pakistan Solidarity Network

The Pakistan Solidarity Network is based in New York City.

Statement in Solidarity with Occupy Wall Street

On Oct. 15, 2011, the Network issued a statement in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, which began on Sept. 17, 2011 in New York City. The text of the statement follows.

The Pakistan Solidarity Network hails the Occupy Wall Street movement!

We at PSN stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters at OWS because we are all exploited by the same imperialist system of global capitalism and its machinery of violence.

The “austerity” project that the right wing is imposing on ordinary Americans is not about “responsible book-keeping.” It is about destroying the welfare state. It’s about sabotaging the government’s ability to fulfill its responsibility towards its citizens, particularly the most vulnerable. When conservatives say “small government,” they really mean stealing resources from the poor. And, when neoliberals say the “free market,” they really mean that the poor will pay for the gambles of the rich.

This is the “austerity” project, and Pakistanis are familiar with it. For us, it started in the 1970s, and it was called “structural adjustment.” The IMF and the World Bank demolished the welfare state across the developing world, forced governments to remove social safety nets, privatize public assets and open their markets to multinational capital. The result has been the same everywhere: extreme inequality and serious damage to the quality of life.

As in the US, it has also produced a class of super-rich whose greed knows no bounds.

War and austerity

The “budgetary crisis” is simply the refusal by the rich to tax the rich while continuing with global invasions and occupations. Many of the corporations making super-profits benefit from the so-called “war on terror.” These are all war-profiteers, and the OWS must also take aim at them.

The same people who tell us that there is no money for education and healthcare are pouring trillions of dollars of our tax money into global invasions and occupations, into killing and torturing and imprisoning. Each drone used to kill Pakistanis and alleged militants costs a stunning $4.5 million,

The ever-expanding war that terrorizes Afghans, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Somalis, Yemenis in their homelands also has a domestic face inside the US. You can see it in the prison-industrial complex which is eating up the lives of brown and black Americans. You can see it in the detention and deportation regime which constantly surveils Muslim communities, undocumented immigrants, suspect Others –whose only crime is not being white.

Comrades we stand with you against corporate greed and police repression. We Pakistanis, we Muslims, suffer from the same system. We ask you, in turn, to stand with us.

Together we are the global 99%

Events

• "The National Security State & The Muslim Question", hosted at The Brecht Forum, NYC. Featured Alicia McCollum, aunt of David Williams, one of the Newburgh 4; Faisal Hashmi, founder, Muslim Justice Initiative, brother of Fahad Hashmi; and Noor Elashi, daughter of Ghassan Elashi, chairman of The Holy Land Foundation.
• "The Urgent Need for Solidarity With Pakistan’s Flood Victims," a Teach-In and planning meeting sponsored by the PSN and hosted at The Brecht Forum in NYC. Featured Saadia Toor, Action for a Progressive Pakistan; and Adaner Usmani, Sindh Labour Relief Campaign, member, Labor Party of Pakistan.

External Links

• PSN website

References

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