REMEMBER THE STORY OF SAIFULLAH PARACHA
THE name Saifullah Paracha might not mean anything to you. If it doesn’t, the sad thing is that it should.
In the globalised politics of our time, his name and the injustice he suffered should have been a major story. The fact that the world’s “leader in democracy” has shamelessly managed to hold an individual in detention without bringing any charges against him for 18 years, says much about its justice system.
He was released from the US Detention Facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba on October 29, 2022. He was detained in 2003 on suspicions of links to al-Qaeda.
The businessman, who lived in New York and Karachi, was at the time of his release, the oldest and longest-serving individual held in detention by the US Federal Government.
In detention for 18 years, Mr Paracha, 75, has never been charged.
No evidence was ever found to charge him.
His son was also charged with terrorism, and sentenced to 30 years in prison. The US courts eventually reviewed the case against his son and released him because the review judge found that his conviction was a “manifest injustice” but only after his son had served 18 years of that sentence.
Mr Paracha’s continued detention did not make the headlines. His release made some headlines.
During those 18 years, his story disappeared off the radar. His attorney, Shelby Sullivan-Bennis, tweeted that while incarcerated, he became like a father to her, to other inmates and guards.
He was the peacemaker and liaison in detention.
What does this say to all of us who continually consume news in 20-second segments or 280 characters? Our sense of self-absorbance has allowed governments and the media to feed us through algorithms. You will get more of what you click on.
The cancel culture movements – on the right or left – have had field days determining the news headlines. Independent thought, justice and human rights for all have been dying slow deaths as good deeds and kindness have now taken centre stage.
The horror of those good deeds and public kindnesses is that they are often cloaked in the blood of continued injustices, bearing the bodies of its oppressed victims as trophies to these injustices.
The US held an innocent man for 18 years. Without charging him. They cancelled his existence.
We all need to learn that the cancel culture people and the woke tribes must all be viewed through the blindfolded lens of justice. Nothing else.
Unless we, who live in an era where we are seeing the rapid global emergence of fascist politics in response to refugee migrations, anti-Islamic rhetoric and the Black Lives Matter movement, embrace a deep and profound sense of justice for all, 18-year detentions without trial will become commonplace.
Refugee movements, the anti-Islamic and Black Lives Matter movements are headlined as the three greatest threats to those who have lived off its indentured slavery over centuries.
The capitalist and class systems have produced cheap labour from these groups that built global companies and economies. The preservation of capitalist wealth and profits are based on cheap labour, politically oppressive regimes and crippling wars.
The world is reaching the end of the cheap labour era. The next major global shift will be led by companies that are funding fascist governments to take power.
Eventually, when those governments are challenged, continued war will be the next phase of human existence.
Are there alternative ways to a better world? Yes. But it requires an alertness to how every aspect of ordinary life – your values, religion, beliefs, sustainability and security – is being used by fascists, capitalists and securocrats to destroy freedom by instilling fear – of refugees, Muslims and people who don’t have a white skin – in you.
Saifullah Paracha proved it. He was all three.