Host and "Movement Meteorologist" Ejeris Dixon welcomes Darakshan Raja, Founding Executive Director of Muslims for Just Futures.
In this incredibly timely episode, host Ejeris Dixon sits down with Darakshan Raja, founding Executive Director of Muslims for Just Futures. Raja talks about how post-9/11 policies laid the groundwork for today’s increasing fascism. She also explains how the framework of terrorism expanded government power, targeted organizations and communities, and justified the expansion of prisons, policing, and the military, from the use of Guantánamo to campus protest crackdowns. Importantly, Dixon and Raja focus on what to do now to refuse the legitimacy of “terror” frames, and strengthen support across communities and movements.
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[00:00:12] Darakshan: So important for us to know in this moment, we're living under a fascist state. From the kind of ways we've seen military deployments across the country, the renaming of the Pentagon to Department of War, it's very clear what kind of a government we are living under, and it's really important to be very clear about who we are dealing with here.
[00:00:38] Ejeris: Hi friends. Welcome to the Fascism Barometer. I'm I Jarris Dixon, your Movement Meteorologist. And The Barometer is an educational project where we learn together what fascism is, how to stay safe, and how to create democracy and liberation. For us all. As a black, we're feminist. I exist at the intersections of [00:01:00] communities that fascists see as the enemy, and for a really long time.
I have deeply desired a way for us to understand and measure the threat of fascism and how it impacts all of us. In each episode, we work to learn what fascism is and what we can do about it from the perspectives of each of our guests. And as barometers measure pressure, we unpack the pressure that fascism puts on all of us.
So as I'm looking at the Fascism Barometer today, its reading continues to be very high. The federal government shutdown continues leaving many federal workers without pay, and it threatens to remove critical services from so many people. The regime is killing Venezuelan and Colombian citizens in the Caribbean, and there is increasing violence from immigration and customs enforcement, also known as ice shootings and raids.
So yes, the Fascism Barometer is rising, but so are [00:02:00] we. Just this week, 7 million people attended No Kings rallies and marches, some of the largest demonstrations in United States history. So I know we can navigate the storm and I believe we will come out the other side, but we're going to need all of us.
And as we've said before, fascism is best fought with massive amounts of people power. And that's what we're building together. Thank you for listening and joining our movements. This week's conversation on fascism features the brilliant Han Raja, who teaches us about how the war on terror laid the groundwork for rising fascist policies today.
But before we get to that, here are the latest updates on fascism in the news.
Welcome to the Fascism Roundup. In this segment, we [00:03:00] talk about current trends in fascism in the United States. Now, there's so much fascism happening that this is just a snapshot, and we'll add some additional critical articles in the resource hub for you. So it's the third week of the federal government shutdown.
Where multiple government agencies have closed and 30,000 federal workers are without pay, some who are on leave and others who are forced to work. The regime has used this shutdown to lay off workers and to cancel projects and according to Truth, out at least 600 Center for Disease Control workers.
We're permanently laid off, which will dramatically affect public health in the United States. Additionally, if this shutdown continues through November, over 42 million people could lose access to food stamps, which is devastating. A report by Moody's Analytics has shown that trump's economic [00:04:00] policies, including reduced immigration, tariffs, and federal job cuts are contributing to an economic downturn in 22 states with some of these states on the verge of a recession, and this shutdown could worsen it.
Fascist and authoritarian leaders use economic recessions to their benefit. They manipulate people's distress and uncertainty to scapegoat communities and to present that a strong man leader is the only way to restore, order and improve the economy. We will continue to monitor these connections between the shutdown recession and fascist expansion and keep discussing it with you.
Over the past couple weeks, the US has been launching airstrikes against Venezuelan and Colombian boats in the Caribbean Sea killing 32 people. So far. The regime is claiming that these boats are carrying drugs, however, they've produced no evidence on this. [00:05:00] And multiple scholars and experts are calling these strikes illegal with the UN calling them extra judicial executions or an execution that's outside of a court or legal process.
President Trump has authorized CIA operations in Venezuela, and according to the Times is considering an operation to remove Venezuelan president Nicholas Mado. While PBS is reporting that the US has built up an unusually large military presence in the Caribbean, including 6,000 troops and eight warships.
In response, president Maduro is preparing his country for a state of emergency due to the US attacks. While Columbia has recalled its ambassador and their president posted on X, that a war scenario has emerged. This is dangerous, but it's also unfortunately not surprising as fascist leaders have historically [00:06:00] waged war to expand their countries to capture resources or just to highlight their ability to dominate other countries as a show of power.
We'll keep monitoring this for you. So one strategy on how people push back against rising fascism is called non-compliance. And truly it means people refusing to go along with the regimes orders. Recently, we've had some powerful examples. Last week, over 40 reporters turned in their access badges and staged a mass walkout after new media policies from Secretary of War.
Pete Hegseth attempted to control the types of stories that the media was allowed to report about the Pentagon. The policy requires journalists to acknowledge that they could be marked as security risks if they ask employees about certain types of classified and unclassified information. And if they do so, [00:07:00] they risk losing access.
So after the walkout, only one pro-Trump network, one American News, has agreed to the policy. In a joint statement, N-B-C-A-B-C-C-B-S-C-N-N, and even Fox News, all said, and I quote, we join virtually every other news organization in declining to agree to the Pentagon's new requirements, which would restrict journalists' ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues.
This is a blatant attempt by the Trump administration to censor information and to attack. The freedom of the press and freedom of speech after mocking, the journalists protesting this policy heg. Seth said in a post on X Pentagon, access is a privilege, not a right. Press no longer roams free. In other examples, seven of the nine universities that Trump.
Invited to join his university [00:08:00] compact, have declined. The compact would grant University's priority access to government funding if they agreed to things like banning race and admissions decisions, or abolishing groups that whoa, whoa, belittle conservative ideas. And also to abide by restrictive and anti-trans definitions of gender.
So the more people in different jobs and institutions and parts of this country say no, the closer we are to ending fascism. And finally, according to an article from NBC News, nearly 7 million people turned out to more than 2,700 pro-democracy, no kings, rallies and marches nationwide. This marks some of the largest single day demonstrations in United States' history.
With these horrible National Guard deployments happening, the violence of ice raids and ice shootings that are happening in multiple cities, it's so [00:09:00] critical that so many people turned out to challenge rising fascism and authoritarianism, and it's such an opportunity to recruit all of these folks into our movements and organizations.
If you attended a No Kings Rally and you're wondering what your next step is. Please go to our resource hub for actions and organizations that you can join in the midst of the attacks against progressive movements. This turnout is inspiring and shows us the amounts of people we can mobilize to end rising fascism in this country.
We can do this all.
I am very excited to welcome Deak Sean Raja to the Fascism [00:10:00] Barometer. Diakon is the founding executive director of Muslims for Just Futures. MJF. Diakon leads, MJ F's, national Advocacy and Movement Building efforts, local Chicago Power Building programming, and the Washington DC guaranteed income program.
Diakon is abolitionist who made her way to organizing through the anti-violence movement, providing crisis advocacy support to survivors in NYC. She's passionate about building power, bringing organizing visions to life, and figuring out ways to build a strong infrastructure for her movement work.
Direction, and I have had a couple instances where we've gotten to collaborate and we've also orbited each other around the last decade or so, and I really think she's a mix of incredible fortitude, dedication to our movements and fabulousness where she brings this wealth of information to protect our communities from government surveillance while pushing simultaneously towards liberation.
Thank [00:11:00] you so much for joining us Diha.
[00:11:01] Darakshan: I'm so honored to be here. I'm a fan of this podcast. It has been getting me through, so anytime I get an invitation from you, I'm always here. So just gratitude for everything you've done for movement infrastructure, for our folks, and for actually having an open space to talk about this in this real time.
So I'm just honored. Thank you. Thank you for what you are doing.
[00:11:22] Ejeris: So we usually start kind of asking folks around like how they define fascism. If we're talking to folks who are kind of newly. Politically active. So if someone's like, I heard you were on this podcast talking about fascism. What does even that mean and why does it matter to our communities?
[00:11:41] Darakshan: Yeah, no, that's a great question. I've been thinking about this a lot. I think at a very simple definition. For me, it's about a bunch of racist folks have governing power. They have power over our lives, and they have no fear in using full level of militarized violence towards you. So this is not just racist, it [00:12:00] is racist with deep power, and they're willing to deploy the military against you.
So not even policing and prisons and jails. The full on militarized violence towards you. And the both operate in deep sink. So it's not just about people who don't like our communities or haters or wanna consolidate power, it's about folks who unfortunately have access to the tool of violence. And in this moment, when the US military is the largest ever military history, imagine racists who hate us.
Having the might and power of the most powerful military effort to exist, that's what I consider to be fascism. And that's why it's so important for us to know in this moment, because what we are dealing with is we are living under a fascist state, um, from the kind of ways we've seen military deployments across the country to even the rhetoric.
The renaming of the Pentagon to Department of War, it's very clear what kind of a government we are living under, and it's really important to be very clear about who [00:13:00] we are dealing with here. So we don't make the mistakes of like, Hey, do you hate us? I just wanna check like, you know, gimme confirm for me that you wanna really kill me, even though you just said you wanted to.
Do you really hate me? Just, just confirm me.
[00:13:12] Ejeris: Just like a little bit, like, do you dislike me just a little, or did it get worse? No,
[00:13:16] Darakshan: they're fascist. They hate us. They don't want us see
[00:13:18] Ejeris: her and they believe it's their country that it always was, that it always will be and that there's no place for our people.
I think you really delineated it well because we've been talking about the difference between fascist movements and a fascist state, right? When so fascists kind of gets so much power they can take over. And so there's this piece around when you have access to the government, there's so much more that you can do with your kind of hateful and violent agenda.
And it reminds me really of one of the lessons that you continually bring to our movements is about how there's roots of what's happening now in the [00:14:00] targeting of Muslim communities during the war on terror. And how through the work that you're doing, you're applying lessons that you learned then to the present day.
I would love for you to break that down for us a bit. Can you explain what the War on Terror was and how it affected Muslim communities and talk us through these lessons that you're working on for Muslim communities, but really to benefit us all.
[00:14:26] Darakshan: Yeah, no, I appreciate this question, and honestly, we could be here forever talking about this infrastructure because it's so vast and it has been so deeply entrenched.
But I think for an audience that may not have heard about the War on Terror in the ways in which we do it, I think what we can admit to is that post nine 11. Everywhere you went, there was a narrative built around nine 11, which was America was targeted and there were all of these communities, particularly Muslim communities, brown communities that were collectively targeted and punished.
And so as we [00:15:00] have now approached the 24th anniversary when nine 11 happened. There was a moment in which the US government could have responded by really focusing on the victims of nine 11, focusing on the actual perpetrators, limiting it to the actual people, the group that did it. But that's not the response that the US government took.
On the contrary, they further built. Up already what had been entrenched for a while, which is through US militarism and foreign policy, a real targeting of Muslim majority countries and Muslim communities. And so nine 11 happens, and then September 20th, George Bush gets in front of the entire nation and says, we are launching the Global War on Terror.
We are going to hunt every single person that has provided support that has done anything you see. Automatically a global war launch where you see the occupation of Afghanistan, you see the occupation of Iraq. You see right in the immediacy. In the few weeks afterwards, over a thousand or so Muslim community members were [00:16:00] rounded up, just disappeared overnight.
Were held in different jails and prisons. We start seeing Guantanamo Bay being repurposed. It was first being used to really hold Haitian refugees, but then it became this prison to hold Muslim men, some were whom are still there, to really enshrine indefinite detention, which means you don't have to be charged.
They don't have to have evidence against you. They can just hold you indefinitely. And we know, unfortunately, some people have actually died in Guantanamo Bay, who were never charged of doing any wrongdoing. And so you see all of these policies just start rolling out and what you also get, which is really important for us to know of how is the legacy of the War on Terror still following us or impacts us?
When you look at Department of Homeland Security, pre nine 11, department of Homeland Security was not around. So the modern day immigration enforcement apparatus directly has its roots in post nine 11 Global War on terror. When you're looking at policies of mass surveillance [00:17:00] and the further militarization of even local policing, we've seen the beautiful uprisings of students all across the country, and I think many of us were absolutely appalled to see a militarized response to students who were.
Just calling for the end of the genocide of Palestinians and to end the complicity of their universities. And what we saw is this deeply militarized response, and we've seen it in Ferguson. We've seen it all over the country. Every single time an actual populist movement rises, there's a deeply militarized response to it.
All of that has so much of its history within the war on terror. The entire normalization, the legitimacy of a frame of saying you can label a group of people as terrorists or terrorists supporting, which then unleashes a level of militarized response from drone strikes to the language, to policing, to incarceration, to going after the organizations using material support for terrorism laws.
JD Vance made a speech saying that they're about to [00:18:00] go after left wing extremism. They named institutions and funders in there. A lot of this infrastructure is directly tied to the war on terror because it gives the government, unfortunately, so much of what Post nine 11 violence has been about is to really legitimize impunity.
So there has never been accountability for the mass levels of death and violence that we have seen. And so today when we are trying to talk about whether it's Palestine, whether it's our movements against policing, against police brutality, even fascism now that we're dealing with in Trump administration, unfortunately, one of the tools they have at their disposal is this war on terror.
And because our movements have not been able to build the scale necessary to be able to counter this, to even question the legitimacy in the mainstream for such a long time, post nine 11, whenever the government said, we're fighting terrorism. Communities and people didn't ask questions of, wait, wait a minute, what are we actually doing under the guise of this and what has already been [00:19:00] tolerable and allowed the scale is so massive.
Um, the good folks at Brown University's cost of war project. In 2021 had found and documented a report to date. We have no comprehensive data on how many people have died or been killed as a result of the War on Terror, but they did one of the first sort of studies on it, and they found that over 2 million people in the last 20 years have been killed directly as a result of the war on terror.
38 million refugees have been created as a result of this. Seven Muslim majority countries have been bombed. I mean, just think about what we've saw in terms of under the Biden administration where you saw Afghans literally who were trying to flee for safety falling off planes. Yeah. But I think we've always been co consistently pushing back on, we have to dismantle the war on terror because it is a tool in the hands of authoritarian and fascist governments and regimes that consistently use this in the essence to actually target movements for freedom and liberation that they use the figure.
Of the Muslim, the other, the [00:20:00] national securities threat to justify deeper entrenchment of militarism, of immigration enforcement, of really building our border, um, surveillance, our militarism, um, our mass surveillance, all of that. So much of this has been built in the wake of post nine 11 policies, and unfortunately, we're in a moment now where we have a government that.
Absolutely is relishing in the fact that they have all of these tools at their disposal and we don't have enough checks and balances because we didn't build them. And also the governments that were here were very much in alignment around the war on terror being something they were, they were unwilling to question and fight.
[00:20:38] Ejeris: Yeah. It's this way that the definition of the word. Terrorist just allows them to kind of take away rights and to dehumanize people. When you were just talking, you talked about legitimizing impunity, which sounded really critical to your point. Can you, can you [00:21:00] talk to me about what that means a little bit more and, and break that down and, and.
Maybe even some more examples.
[00:21:06] Darakshan: Absolutely. So legitimizing impunity really is rooted in the fact that so much of where the racism that is embodied within the war on terror is really about that. For one guilty person, you can kill a million people and there's no questioning of it. Mm-hmm. The idea is that the ends justify the means.
The means that are being used are literally killing the over vast majority of our people. So even Guantanamo Bay, for example, if you look at it, there were so many people, there was a 14-year-old. There are so many folks who were innocent, but it didn't matter for the government because in their mind they wanted to get.
One or few individuals who were actually behind an actual terrorist attack, so it didn't matter that it's such a small percentage of people, but under the guise of going after folks who are actually guilty, they had no problem hurting entire communities. They have no problem. [00:22:00] Suspending due process rights.
Bush literally built black sites and Guantanamo to be able to actually suspend due process rights. The whole idea here is let's create a new system of legal regime where we can do whatever we need to and what was done to Muslim bodies. As Muslim bodies we're tested on. New torture techniques. There were psychologists and medical professionals who actually accompanied the military to learn how to break the Muslim mind, break the Muslim body, break Muslim resistance, and that is all facts and data and lessons that they're incorporating and learning and applying on other people's bodies.
And, you know, what I really consider to be all prisons of jails are frankly, like torture centers. Like I consider them to be labs where the government is just learning how to break our communities. I don't think that they do actually anything in, in s. Sense. And so what you get to see is that the broader public legitimized this, the broader public, accepted it.
Anytime we said mass surveillance is wrong, people said, but what about that one instance where we need [00:23:00] surveillance to catch someone? That is what I mean by there's been a legitimizing of the impunity. For such a long time in the courts, for example, there was an entire sort of judicial deference was given on issues of national security.
So the moment the government said What we are doing is a national security matter, courts would step back and say, actually, you know what? The government has full power here. Even the executive branch itself, the moment it utilizes and said, this is under the guise of national security, the checks and balances totally disappear.
Which is why I keep on saying, I know so many folks now are like, we have a crisis in democracy. We have a crisis in our courts. We have a crisis in the law. I'm like, well, for the past 24 years, there's been a crisis in our communities. Um, the courts didn't step in. On the contrary, the courts were like, either they took negative decisions and bad decisions that are still hurtful to us, or the court said, this is not our jurisdiction.
This is the jurisdiction of the government, and they have. As much of the space that they need to be able to do whatever, [00:24:00] including overreach, including abuse of power on the backs and bodies of Muslim communities. And I think now we're seeing one of the biggest reasons they wanna use the framework of terrorism is because they know that once they invoke that what they're invoking is 24 plus years of a legacy that says the government can do whatever it feels like doing under the guise of fighting national security.
Doesn't matter how many communities you're destroying. Doesn't matter how much abuse of law or power is happening. And I think one of the things we can learn and do in this moment is to never legitimize this violence to always question it. Because once they get the power of legitimacy, we know that what is legal is not always just.
But what is legitimate does become dangerous for us. It is something that we have to constant fight. So I always invite people question the frame of terrorism. Who gets the power to define the terrorist? Because traditionally when we talked about terrorism, it was actually about the government. It was state terror.
That was really the thing that people were invoking and calling for. [00:25:00] Somewhere states co-opted this frame to say, no, let's apply it to the very people. Often, historically, if you look at the application of the term terrorism and terrorists by governments, it's been used to really look at freedom movements or people who are really resisting.
Mm-hmm. And even to this day, even in this country, if you look at it wherever we're seeing the label of terrorists being applied, it's often movements that are actually fighting against state terror. So I think this is a moment to say who gets the power of framing? What does this mean? Let's be very, very cautious of what we're legitimizing and to always remember that what is legal is not necessarily what is just,
[00:25:35] Ejeris: yes.
I mean, I think there has been this targeting of movements that really just goes so far back in the history of the United States and, um, people have been talking about fascism as a politics of hierarchy or a politics of supremacy. Where it's this idea that some people's lives [00:26:00] are less than, and so it feels like the label of terrorism gets to be a tool in those politics and a way to kind of say, these people don't deserve rights.
We've just decided that we can do whatever we want and that this community is disposable. I know that you do a lot of work, and you'd mentioned it around material support for terrorism laws and how they impact communities and organizations. Can you talk to us more about how they're used, what they look like, what people are watching out for?
I
[00:26:37] Darakshan: appreciate that question. And again, in the vastness of the global War on terror, there are so many tools of collective punishment, of dehumanization, of criminalization, and this unfortunately is one of the tools that the government, the US government, has really utilized. They're about criminalizing solidarity with the very people who are [00:27:00] directly the victims of state terror of genocide.
And what has actually happened in the last 24 years. And you know, obviously these laws, the material support for terrorism laws started sort of proliferating much more in the nineties. So they didn't really start in the two thousands, but nevertheless. I think the nine 11 gave a massive pretext to the Bush administration to be able to really deploy this in the way that they wanted.
So there's two pieces on a macro, macro level that I wanna talk about before I get so particular detail that it can, we can kind of lose picture of what's the real essence of this. So I wanna talk at a real macro level, right? It's a high, high level. Yeah. Like 30,000 feet up in the air. So since 2001. We know that there has been at least $8 trillion that the US government has spent on the war on terror.
We know that half of that 4 trillion of that was invested directly into defense contractors. So the wealth of American markets, which we know financial markets are deeply tied into the war economy, has [00:28:00] directly been able to expand its wealth and its capital over the last 20. Plus years using the War on Terror.
One of the biggest reasons there's been such a backlash to students was because they were strategically targeting the very financial investment of their universities or the endowments into the genocide. And so we saw such a militarized response. In response to that because I think they were being so strategic, they were like, let's go for the financial underpinning of war economies and for genocide, we know our universities, sometimes even our benefits, our 4 0 1 ks can be deeply invested into this.
I. And so over the last 24 years, we have seen by design a financial system that essentially allows you to build capital and wealth by actually being tied to the war on terror. You can invest in it, you can invest in the market, but simultaneously for people who are like, Hey, folks who are living in war zones.
Folks who are, we have Palestinians who [00:29:00] are starving to death right now. People who are facing not just explicit war, but all of these other methods of war to sanction, starvation, lack of medical support, all the ways that you wanna dehumanize and punish your people Well, what about folks who are living through that?
And so one of the worst impacts of these material support for terrorism laws is that it directly hit charity organizations, mutual aid groups, folks trying to move money to communities that were literally war stricken. And so the same financial system of the War on Terror, that will let you. Invest into trillions of dollars in the war economy.
Then turns around and creates a regulatory and legal regime that says you actually can't support the very people from whose backs we're gonna financially exploit. So in essence, that is what the material support for terrorism entire regime is. If you really tease apart. The individual like narrative that the government is pushing or you're supporting terrorist?
Well, let's actually look at who got targeted in the process. It's mutual aid groups. It's folks who are doing things like [00:30:00] providing scholarships for folks who don't have education, people building actual community infrastructure up. And the laws are written in such a broad manner that something is benign that we would think is benign.
Oh, we gave a glass of water. We didn't even know who they were. And the government could, or someone could prosecute you materially for quote unquote material support for terrorism. The other problem with the material support for terrorism laws is they sit within different areas of the law, so they sit within criminal law.
So criminal prosecutions can happen for individuals or organizations. They sit within government civil, so the government can fight civil side cases against you. They sit within the financial apparatus. So one of the key lists, so there's two key lists for folks to think about. One is the call, the FTO list, which is the foreign terrorist organization list.
[00:30:47] Ejeris: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:47] Darakshan: Groups get designated there. Moment of groups get designated on that, then you can have criminal charges filed against you for quote unquote providing material support to one of those FTOs, which is why a lot of immigration groups were very concerned [00:31:00] because when Trump came into office, he actually designated a couple of cartels onto that list.
The problem when you start designating an organization or a group under that is now you can have material support for terrorism charges filed against you for. Really vague level of things that people never even thought about, which is why it's so chilling and scary for folks. The second inside of the list is called the SDGT list, which is under the sanction SD on the sanctioned list.
The reason the sanction list is so concerning is because that will cut off your access to any banking. So the moment you get on a sanction list, it could be individuals, it could be organizations. This is where if you are in the US Center movements, we need to be thinking and worried about the SDN list more in the sanctions list that is actually ran by the Department of Treasury.
There's an entire division within the Treasury Department called ofac, which is incredibly opaque. It's very hard. You don't know what they're doing. And what does OFAC stand for? I think it's like the Office of Financial something. Something [00:32:00] Acts. This in control. It's something I'm probably messing up what exactly OFAC stands for, but it is, OFAC is the one that really does actually really look at designations.
But the problem is OFAC is one of those entities that every banking institution and financial institution in America, as well as globally, that is dealing with American banks and financial institutions has to actually agree with. So the moment your accounts are frozen. You've essentially been sort of siloed out of any level of banking and financial infrastructure across the globe.
It's gonna make it very, very hard. And so a lot of groups who face this or sanctioned, I mean, right now we know there were Palestinian groups that have been added onto the sanction list. The moment that occurs, I mean, you've essentially been pushed out of the financial infrastructure of the US government and anyone that engages with the US government.
That can create a lot of problems when we know we live in a system of racial capitalism globally, frankly. And if you don't have the means or the financial sort of institutional means that access money or the flow of that, it can create a [00:33:00] lot of barriers. And so the sanction side of it of one of the other things that's quite scary and I think where our domestic movements need to be worried and and concerned about because historically, while it's really hard to designate a US.
Based group as an FTO. We have seen with the test case of the Holy Land Foundation, they were designated under the SDGT list or the SDN list. That is where we do need to be thinking about, especially with the way that this administration is moving. They literally created a whole entire executive order, a new EO where they essentially sanction the ICC or anyone who's working with the IC to bring the International Criminal court.
Yes, the International Criminal court for anyone. Who is trying to bring accountability for what's happening on the genocide of Palestinians. They made a whole new executive order and now under that executive order, they're designating people under that designation list. So it is something for all of our movements to be really concerned about of how this.
Administration in particular is using these [00:34:00] existing tools, but then they are actually pushing the line a little bit further to test and see how far that they can go. And so this is where we have to consistently question the legitimacy of the frame that they're using. We have to push back on that narrative, but we also have to do our due diligence to make sure we're building our movement infrastructure up and that we don't lose.
Any of our movements that are getting attacked because one of the biggest learns I've learned from being in the Muslim community and what Muslim communities have gone through is that when you allow for communities to get siloed or you say it's okay to peel them off, that's not our fight. Or, uh, it's, we're not gonna touch this.
It's only a matter of time before that same infrastructure can be deeply applied to you. And I think we're seeing that with the terrorism, uh, entire apparatus, is that I think that there was a peeling off that happened around who was fighting it and who didn't think about it as central to when we think about movement, collective liberation and systems or criminalization, that this is a system of criminalization.
We also have to integrate as a demand [00:35:00] has. To be dismantled. I think the s siloing of our communities and Muslim communities and Palestinian communities and Arab-American communities, obviously, I'm gonna say, you know, post October, it has changed. I think we've seen a beautiful solidarity around Palestine and you know, much love and credit to the Palestinian liberation movement.
But I do think it's a lesson learned for me of like, okay, what can we do now to make sure folks don't get peeled off? And we don't say, okay, that's not our fight. We're not gonna focus on that. I think on the contrary, we have to figure out, it's in the margins of our movements, ecosystems, where they're gonna test stuff out.
And if we're not there to meet each other, to fortify, I think it's only a matter of time before they start testing those same strategies and tactics towards everybody else.
[00:35:43] Ejeris: Yeah. It feels like with so many different. Guests that we've had on the lesson keeps coming up that you won't survive fascism alone.
Your community won't survive Fascism alone, we survive it together. If you think, oh, I'll be safe if I just don't speak up for Muslim communities, or if I don't, [00:36:00] you know, the the truth is they are creating these tools to eventually come after so many of us. I'm struck by like how you have. Steer yourself into some of the hardest and scariest aspects of this work.
What drew you? To want to leave this fight?
[00:36:24] Darakshan: Whew. I mean, one, I did grow up in a working class Muslim community in the Bronx, and so, you know, I was very young. I was a child when a lot of this happened and saw the direct impacts on my community. Yeah. You know, when we talk about the registry program, for example, or people disappearing, I.
I remember that vividly in my own community, people going through that. I remember the full brunt of the surveillance infrastructure, NYPD cars being, you know, sort of parked all the time across wherever our community spaces were. I remember being in college and having the MSA infiltrated by FBI to try to entrap [00:37:00] folks.
Right. But I will be honest that for many years I actually didn't wanna do this work. I actually ended up doing work more around prisons and jails and like working in places to be like, wait a minute, before we got the war on here and this level of violence, there's something here that's also foundational that I wanna understand because I don't think you could get this level of criminalization in carceral state of there wasn't something already there.
So honestly, for many, many years I was actually more working on issues of the legal system survivors being criminalized. And what ended up happening is. Even though I was intentionally trying to evade the war on terror, I was like, I don't wanna touch it. I don't wanna stay the hell away from it. It's too close to me.
I'm, it's too personal. Every time I worked with somebody who was Muslim and criminalized every time I worked with someone who was a Muslim survivor. That apparatus of the narrative of the terrorist would come up for survivors. It would come up in folks who had nothing to do with. It would be seen from that lens in the criminal legal system.
And so even though I think this is where it's the [00:38:00] systems of dehumanization, we don't choose to interact with them. They are there. And so I think because of years and years of experience where I intentionally tried to evade it, it kept on like coming in my face consistently. It was like, you know, even on something as simple as I remember, we were trying to build up like responses for survivors of sexual assault.
And I met with the police department, there's sex crimes unit, and I was like, do you have anything? Outreach for immigrant survivors or Muslim communities? And the detective on the other end, she looked at me and she said. No, but we definitely have a terrorism unit here and we definitely have things for like perpetrators from, we've definitely seen perpetrators from your community, and I was like.
I'm not even here about, I'm here about survivors who are not getting access to the needs that they have. I am talking about survivors, where abusers were literally threatening to report them as terrorists that they came forward to report their sexual abuse and violence. So I think I was being faced with it so much that at some point I was like, you know what?
I give up. I'm [00:39:00] just gonna go build a space. Let's go directly hit, and let's talk about how much this infrastructure has. Essentially been entrenched in every single space where even when Muslims are like, Hey, I wanna break. I don't wanna think about it, somebody's gonna come in and remind you, or ask you, you know, just hideous questions like, oh, you look peaceful, or Gimme a whole goddamn lesson, or what the Middle East is.
[00:39:25] Ejeris: I know that from working with you and from seeing the work you're doing. That you tend to always be a step or two ahead of, of many of us. So I'm curious around what are you preparing for as, we don't want fascism to rise, but like, you know, what forms of fascist escalation are you preparing for? And yeah, and like, and how are you.
Maintaining a sense of hope or resilience in the midst of it all.
[00:39:55] Darakshan: Woo. That's a heavy, heavy question. [00:40:00] That is heavy. Talk about the, the, the million pound question in the room, right? Yeah. I mean, I think around preparedness. We have actually been going a lot back to what happened post nine 11 in terms of these material support laws of how they targeted organizations to study that actually, because I think we've seen some of the worst case scenarios happen there.
So we're really trying to figure out now in hindsight. What could have been done differently at that time to build actual movement fortification to not bleed out as much. So I don't think we can be honest to anybody that we're gonna be able to stop it all. But I think there are pieces here about how do we actually build up some structures in place that could allow for as less of the wreckage as possible?
How do we really make sure everything doesn't bleed out right? I think that's one thing. So we're in some ways going back into history to say. What happened then? What didn't happen then that actually could have been really useful and helpful, [00:41:00] and I think this is where I wanna bring in, you know, this term everybody's now using of like preparedness or prophylactic approaches we can be taking.
Mm-hmm. I think we can, there's no level of community awareness. And community power building that we cannot do at this moment. I don't believe in the KYR information because I think that's where rights are intact. So KRS are Know Your Rights. They're essentially resources of just knowing how to navigate If you're being targeted by police, it's just what is your legal rights in this moment?
But I do believe if we have to prevent the demobilization of our communities, we can't let our folks feel like there's no way you can fight this, that just like lay down and or hide that somehow that's gonna protect us. I think some of our communities in the Muslim community tried to hide it didn't protect us.
Um, it'll come for you. After a while. You might not be the first. But they'll find you. Yes. And so I think there's some lessons learned around that, that we're applying in this moment. So in some ways we're like going back to go forward, to be like, what? What would happen there that we now [00:42:00] see massively being applied, but we're also prepared that there is the possibility of things like this solution that we have to think about this very seriously.
Dissolution of institutions though does not mean dissolution of the movement. Mm-hmm.
[00:42:14] Ejeris: And to
[00:42:14] Darakshan: really separate out the vehicles or the institutions that we might be thinking are the pathway to liberation. That that's not it. That these are just structures in the meantime and that we have to protect the essence of the movement.
But they may look different in the future. Uh, because we're a power building organization with groups, uh, and members who are also in very heavy red states, we are learning about how movements are sort of thinking in this moment of how are they gonna deal with, of. Very, very difficult political terrain.
I think that things are gonna look a little bit different, so we're preparing for some of those scenarios, but I think overall we're just like, Hey, this is the moment to continue to build, continue to convene, continue to share the lessons of what we learned post nine 11. Really call for investment into infrastructure.
And one big one that I'll just kind of leave with is [00:43:00] the financial infrastructure piece. It does really worry me because so much of what we need now is mutual aid legal funds. Yeah. That means we're gonna need our movements, infrastructure. We need new type of movement, infrastructure to hold the money.
Otherwise, if we don't have that, I just see the need in our communities and so that is one thing I'm really worried about in terms of the material support laws of how they could. Cut off the axis of our movements to a lot of financial vehicles that we actually need to be able in this moment to get critical mutual aid out legal funds out just compensation and pay benefits for our people to be able to weather the next, you know, few years or whatever this's gonna look like.
But that is one area that honestly has been top of my mind for how do we really fortify the movements financial infrastructure of this mine.
[00:43:46] Ejeris: Yeah, no. This piece you're saying around dissolution or their ability to kind of destroy individual organizations, freeze their bank accounts and their ability to, to get money, there's so much to do there.[00:44:00]
So we're a study to action place, and I would love to hear your asks to the Fascism Barometer community on how. We can be supporting Muslims for just futures, like pushing with you all to kind of end these laws, end this terrorist designation. Like just really what can we do and how can we help?
[00:44:27] Darakshan: Oh my God.
Um, I love calls to action. I feel like they're so fun. So I love it. I mean, what I'm gonna say is just continue to be part of this community of the Fascism Barometer. I think that we need spaces like this, so one, just continue to be part of this space. Like bring in more people, bring in folks to this podcast, just have people be engaged.
'cause I'm worried we're gonna lose people being peeled off. So just bring people into this space. For Muslims for Just Futures, please definitely follow us on Instagram, follow our account. We have a community and movement defense hub On our website, we just asked if you can just help [00:45:00] us disseminate these resources because there's toolkits, there's krs, there's there's in language materials.
It was a little bit of what I was mentioning earlier of there's no level of just informing our people that we cannot do, and so that's a real kind of easy lift for people in this space of just please share the resources. And the last thing I will say is also give back resourcing to our organizations when we have fundraisers up, when we have different things.
This is a moment where so much funding, institutional funding access is being cut off for movement groups, whether it's from government or whether also organized philanthropy. I do believe our people are also in a powerful source of resource mobilization, and so I think this is the moment to really double down and giving to those mutual aid.
Funds. This is the time to double down on your local organizing group that you're a part of. Make sure you resource you. Join these fights. I firmly believe all fight is local, so join your local folks. Get out there, stay connected, stay engaged, and then join your local organizing group and just disseminate the [00:46:00] information.
I think we just gotta get everybody just more informed and connected. Direction.
[00:46:05] Ejeris: I know you have 5 billion other places to be, and just so grateful that you have joined us today and for all the work that you're doing. Thanks for joining us on The Barometer.
[00:46:16] Darakshan: I'm so grateful. Please keep going and let us know what MJF, how we can support you as well.
This is so, so needed in this moment and. We're just honored to be invited, so thank you for just having us and seeing this fight is critical to the fight against fascism.
[00:46:35] Ejeris: After my conversation ended with ion, all of the repression dramatically increased in Chicago as well as the resistance. So in light of all that's happening, I got in touch with her to understand a bit more of what's happening on the ground and how the Fascism Barometer community can support, and here's what [00:47:00] Diakon said.
[00:47:04] Darakshan: Yeah, thank you a juris for asking that question. I think it's really important to name that unfortunately Chicago, dc, LA continue to be test sites, and right now Chicago is one of those test sites where. There's a lot of just ice violence and the presence of federal enforcement and federal law enforcement and militarized violence towards neighbors, towards community members.
We've seen the murder of immigrant communities by the hands of ice. We've seen people who are fleeing ISIS terror die as a result of fleeing that violence. You know, it's, it's very jarring. It's not to say state terror hasn't been here, or Chicagoans haven't experienced it, but I think in a real. In a real way, it's been really present for the past few [00:48:00] weeks and, um, so many people have felt it.
But I also think it's important to really honor the level of, uh, just community power that I have seen that's here. There's just such deep level of organized communities. So many people in Chicago are engaged. Everybody is playing a role. There's a level of organizing a rigor in Chicago that I have witnessed that's just truly beyond inspiring.
Uh, there is a real cultivation of not capitulating. From everyday people here to all the way to, you know, wanna give the, the mayor and also the governor recognition that members of the local and state government are very clear about at least the, the dominant voices. That's not to say there aren't people that are definitely not on, on board, but I think the main [00:49:00] leadership in the, the mayor and here, the count the elders, including at the state level.
You know, there's been a lot of just great response, including from the legal side too, in terms of judges stepping in and saying, no, you can't deploy the guard here. And so I think Chicago and Illinois in many ways represent a certain kind of a model where there is cohesion. Not that it's intentional, but I think it's just in the culture of Chicago, frankly.
This real essence and spirit of, no, you don't get to repress us. You don't get to get away with that. And I've seen it in such a powerful, deep way at the neighborhood level where again, everybody is just engaged. They're checking signal, they're checking threads, they are showing up, they're thinking about how to protect their neighbors.
They're watching out and caring for each other. And while there's [00:50:00] definitely the really grim violence from the government. I also think Chicago deserves its flowers, and Chicagoans deserve their flowers for how they are approaching this very difficult and terrifying moment with such courage and fortitude and love for people and their neighbors and our, particularly our immigrant communities.
And I've just seen such deep cross racial solidarity as well. So many beautiful groups, uh, black and brown, indigenous, just coming together in this moment, just saying, this is not acceptable. And so I think it's also just a deep moment of solidarity. And I think connecting back to, you know, what I mentioned earlier, as we see this happening at the local level, this militarized response, it's also in the larger, broader environment of, unfortunately the last few weeks we've seen this consolidation of the domestic terrorism strategy.
To really be deployed towards movements in this moment, community [00:51:00] members in this moment, there was a round table that the White House held around quote unquote, you know, left violence and that it's domestic terrorism and it's domestic violence extremism. And they were mentioning the, you know, movements and, and folks in Chicago, LA.
Portland, uh, they were really focusing in on these cities in, in a real concerning way when, you know, it's primarily just neighbors. It's everyday people who are just being actually terrorized by the government. And I think that it's something to think through about how this massive infrastructure that has been consolidated and entrenched in the past 24 years is now unfortunately through this new Nspm seven policy and memo.
Coupled by also the other executive orders that have been released really meant to target left movements, but not just left movements. I think fundamentally it's the everyday Americans, the everyday [00:52:00] people who are willing to say, no, enough is enough. I am not gonna go along with fascism. And I think that's who this has really deployed towards.
That's who it's targeted towards. Yes. Movements, movement, organizations, philanthropy, funders. Daphne are explicitly named, but I think what people should be worried and concerned about in addition to the targeting of all of our movements, including the the funders and philanthropy, is also just everyday people.
This is meant to be broad by design. It's chilling by design. And so some things to think about as we start wrapping up is what can we learn from the last 24 years based upon the experiences of Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, black, brown, indigenous movements, all of whom have gone through the domestic terrorism apparatus and the global counter-terrorism infrastructure being targeted at movements?[00:53:00]
What do we do different now? That maybe perhaps we didn't do before. Third, what is the opportunity that we have in this moment to really build deep cross-racial multiracial across class solidarity. That protects and defends our people and also gets us to the futures that we want. And then what are actions that we can continue to do to take care of our own selves, our spirit, our people, our communities?
And also make room for people also taking care of us too, because that reciprocity will be integral. And so I hope that these are some lessons that folks can really take and think through. And I think in this moment, places like Chicago represent such a model. Of how communities can resist. And I think all across the country, people are doing incredible work and are figuring out how to resist, figuring out how to respond, figuring out how to care for each [00:54:00] other.
And I think it's in all of that that we're gonna be able to make and get through this moment. So thank you.
[00:54:14] Ejeris: We've reached the end of today's episode, and while the pressure continues, I also feel more equipped and resourced to keep fighting fascism, and I hope you do too. In this episode, we learned so much about how the United States expanded the definition of terrorism to target Muslim communities in ways that still affect us today, and we also discussed some mistakes that activists and organizers made in the past of not supporting or being in solidarity with Muslim communities.
In ways that were really needed. These lessons still matter today, whether or not we're being actively targeted by rising fascism or we are directly navigating fascist violence, we cannot end what is happening without organizing together. We also [00:55:00] talked through some concepts that may be newer to you, and there were definitely some acronyms.
Like Ofac, SDN and SDGT, well, just for a little extra information, OFAC is the Office of Foreign Assets Control. It's a US government agency that enforces economic and trade sanctions against countries and individuals that the US has decided. Our national security or foreign policy threats, SDN means, especially designated national, which is an individual or entity that the US government has decided is involved with terrorism, and it creates a series of financial restrictions against those folks.
And finally, an SDGT is especially designated global terrorist. This refers to a person or group designated by the US government as being involved with terrorism, resulting in sanctions that prevent them from [00:56:00] conducting business in the US or with US citizens. We've listed some background information in the resource hub, as well as action steps that you can take.
We appreciate you joining us and we're working hard monitoring the fascism barometer for you, and together we can keep fascism at bay. So watch the skies and subscribe to this feed as we only have one more episode left this season, and we can't wait to share it with you. And when you share the show with a friend.
You got it. You fight fascism. Our producer is Phil Circus. Our theme is by Clete Hiero. This podcast is a project of Eger Labs. I'm your movement meteorologist Eger Dixon. See you next time on the Fascism [00:57:00] Barometer.