Never again should we bother with "never again" :(

Up until four years ago, I had no idea about the Rohingya--the Muslim community that stands out in a Buddhist Burma.  In fact, if things were going well, I would not have known about them at all.  Perhaps all the way till my own end.

But, I read about them because all was not well.  Buddhist maniacs, especially led by one with an ominous nickname--the Buddhist bin Laden--were engaging in violence of every possible kind in order to wipe out the Ronhingya from Burma.

It was even more depressing when the much lauded Nobel Peace Prize-winning Aung San Suu Kyi kept silent.  Not a word from her.

I understand that a nobody like me can express all the righteous indignation I want, but that politicians have to compromise on principles in order to get things done.  But, compromise is one thing, and ethnic-cleansing/genocide is entirely another.  This NY Times report is a tough read!

The NY Times editorial says everything that I want to say:

Last month, President Obama lifted sanctions against Myanmar, citing “substantial progress in improving human rights” following the historic election victory of the Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party in November 2015. Tragically, that praise is proving premature.

Premature because of "a military campaign against the Rohingya."  In addition to covering things up:

Myanmar’s government has barred independent journalists from the region, and dismissed reports of abuses as “fake news” and “fake rape.”

The US, under the demagogue and his minions, is now providing plenty of cover for regimes to criticize the media reports as fake.  A remarkably depressing beacon we have become for the world!  Further, with all the Muslim-bashing that the fuhrer and his people did and do, we have no moral ground to tell the likes of Burma to stop the atrocities.  Thanks, you atrocious Republican voters!

We will simply stand by and watch as more and more Rohingya sob while saying, “They killed my father and mother. What is left for me in this world?”  Or like this:

Noor Ankis, 25, said the next morning soldiers went from house to house looking for young women.
“They grouped the women together and brought them to one place,” she said. “The ones they liked they raped. It was just the girls and the military, no one else was there.”
She said the idea of trying to escape flickered through her head, but she was overcome by fatalism. “I felt there was no point in being alive,” she said.

"Never again" has become such a hollow phrase. Sad!

The Rohingya genocide, and Aung San Suu Kyi's silence

More than two years ago, back in April 2013, which now feels like it was a long time ago, I blogged about the atrocious treatment of the Muslim minority in Burma, where even the Buddhist monks--yes, the monks--were leading the genocidal attacks on the Muslims.

The situation has been deteriorating for the Rohingya community.  In November 2014, I blogged again when I noticed from the news reports that the situation was spinning out of control.

Here we are in June, and it is a crisis of epic scale.

Source

I am not the only one who has been thinking all through, "where the hell is Aung San Suu Kyi?"

In case you forgot, Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her committed opposition to the brutal military regime and for her insistence on non-violence.

"In awarding the Nobel Peace Prize. . . to Aung San Suu Kyi," the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced in 1991, it wished "to honour this woman for her unflagging efforts and to show its support for the many people throughout the world who are striving to attain democracy, human rights and ethnic conciliation by peaceful means."
Suu Kyi, the Committee added, was "an important symbol in the struggle against oppression."

We would then expect her to make public statements on, and to lead the opposition to, the violence against the Rohingya, right?

She is missing in action.  Big time.  What a shame!

Oops, she is not missing in action; she made a decision not to interfere!

Ms Suu Kyi, 69, has defended her reticence over alleged Rohingya persecution by saying she is a politician and not a human rights defender.
She argues that the problem of thousands of Rohingya migrants who have fled Myanmar - and are now believed to be stranded at sea - was for the government to solve.

What a shame!

Even the Dalai Lama couldn't get her to move on this:

The Dalai Lama has urged fellow Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, a main opposition leader in Myanmar, to do more to help protect the persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority in her country amid a worsening migration crisis.
Despite thousands of Rohingya fleeing on harrowing boat journeys to Southeast Asia to escape a wave of deadly attacks and discriminatory treatment by the country's Buddhist majority, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has yet to speak out against their plight.
The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader said on Thursday she must voice her opposition to the persecution, adding that he had already appealed twice to her in person since 2012, when deadly sectarian violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state pitted the Rohingya against local Buddhists, to do more on their behalf.
"It's very sad. In the Burmese (Myanmar) case I hope Aung San Suu Kyi, as a Nobel laureate, can do something," he told The Australian newspaper in an interview in advance of a visit to Australia next week.

What a shame!

From a country with its own terrible experiences, another Nobel Peace Prize recipient chimes in:

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, another winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, said in a recorded message aired this week that aid donors, including the European Union, should make their funding for the impoverished country “conditional on the restoration of citizenship, nationality and basic human rights to the Rohingya.”
“A country that is not at peace with itself, that fails to acknowledge and protect the dignity and worth of all its people, is not a free country,” Archbishop Tutu said in remarks that were broadcast at a conference on the Rohingya in Oslo this week.
He said he agreed with those who say a “slow genocide” was being committed against the Rohingya.

What a shame that Aung San Suu Kyi has stayed silent all these years over the Rohingya genocide!

Oh, I suppose she is too busy traveling around, especially to countries that care not about human rights!

What a shame!

Is the game over when even Buddhists engage in genocide?

Not too long ago, it was common for the United States to loudly complain about human rights issues in other parts of the world--in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Iran, ... a long list of countries.  Of course, the US had human rights issues within its own borders (and continues to have) and it also conveniently overlooked abuses in countries that were governed by "our son-of-a-bitch."

Now, it feels like the US has even stopped complaining, at least pretending to worry, about human rights issues.

President Obama will have plenty of opportunities to address human rights issues in the next few days, but my guess is that he will not.  In his post-shellacking 2.0, the President will be in China and then in Burma, and both countries have immense human rights issues, which he will certainly gloss over.

In addition to the lack of everyday democratic rights that people in those countries lack, there is that acutely worrying treatment of the Muslim minority in China and Burma.  With the economic ascent of China, the US has pretty much stopped even whispering about human rights there.  I would love to have a reporter ask the President a question such as, "Mr, President, what do you think about the student protests in Hong Kong?"  Or even, "President Obama, have you ever tasted traditional Uighur dishes?"

Money talks, and bullshit walks, as they say.

But, there isn't even money in Burma.  No nukes, a la North Korea, either.  Yet, we don't seem to care about human rights issues in that country, especially when it comes to the horrible treatment of a certain group:

The Myanmar government has given the estimated one million Rohingya people in this coastal region of the country a dispiriting choice: Prove your family has lived here for more than 60 years and qualify for second-class citizenship, or be placed in camps and face deportation.
The policy, accompanied by a wave of decrees and legislation, has made life for the Rohingya, a long-persecuted Muslim minority, ever more desperate, spurring the biggest flow of Rohingya refugees since a major exodus two years ago.

A few months back, I blogged here about Buddhist monks leading the protests to drive out the Rohingya.  Yes, Buddhist monks, who are supposedly the followers of the uber-pacifist Buddha!

The crisis has become an embarrassment to the White House ahead of a scheduled visit by President Obama to Myanmar next week. The administration considers Myanmar a foreign-policy success story in Asia but is worried that renewed conflict between Buddhist extremists, who are given a free hand by the government, and the Rohingya could derail the already rocky transition from military rule to democratic reform.

The news item mentions that:

Mr. Obama asked the Myanmar leader to revise the anti-Rohingya policies, specifically the resettlement plan. Myanmar must “support the civil and political rights of the Rohingya population,” he said.

A tiny little country Burma is, and all that the President of the mighty US can do is mildly ask his counterpart to do something.  The Burmese president is far from shaking in his military boots!

the government appears to be accelerating a strategy that human rights groups have described as ethnic cleansing.

The Burmese government knows how to keep the Americans off:

In a gesture in advance of Mr. Obama’s visit, the government released 15 political prisoners in early October, including three Rohingya. Among them was U Kyaw Hla Aung, 75, a prominent lawyer, who was jailed after the violence in Sittwe in 2012.
One of the few Rohingya trained as a lawyer — Rohingya have since been barred from studying law or medicine — Mr. Kyaw Hla Aung said it was illogical for the government to insist that Rohingya were not citizens.

Amartya Sen, is among a few who is intellectually involved with raising the awareness of this human rights issue and is even ready to use the "g" word:

Sen said it is important that the word “genocide” not be tossed around lightly, and he acknowledged that this situation looks different from the murderous examples of Nazi Germany and 1994 Rwanda. Still, he said, the term applies in this case, with lives lost not just to the outbursts of violence, but also to the denial of healthcare and the right to work.

Of course, the American people couldn't be bothered about all these.  For one, we are all into worrying about our First-World-problems.  If we do manage to look beyond our own petty problems, then there is that distraction of nude photos of celebrities.  Who cares about some genocide somewhere, particularly if it is Muslims who are targeted!

Kill the Buddha!

Four years ago, I stopped at Thailand on the way to India.  I was not ready for the heat and the humidity that  seemed to suck every bit of energy from my body.  But, hey, it goes with the territory and there was no point complaining about it.

So, I was off walking about like I always do.  And then went on a package tour to Ayutthaya and its environs.  I lost track of the number of bottles of water I had during that one-day trip and, yet, much to my surprise and worry, I wasn't peeing a whole lot either.

The history and the architecture were all wonderful and educational, confirming Ayutthaya's status as a UNESCO World Heritage site.  My grandmothers would have been happy that I at least went to this Ayutthaya, if not to the original Ayodhya itself.

It was, however, very troubling when I saw a headless Buddha.

Even more troubling it was to see a row of headless Buddha statues:

The destruction resulted from the Burmese invasion more than three centuries ago.  The Thai-Burma rivalry and wars was nothing new--history is full of neighbors warring with each other.  But, why destroy the statues of the Buddha?  It is not that the invading Burmese were fighting a religious war with the Thais to at least justify the destruction of the Buddha statues.  The Burma/China warriors and kings were Buddhists too!

I suppose this is also a long-running thread in history--to kill, even when the religion's founder might have been crystal clear about the primacy of peace and non-violence.  It is perhaps a surprise, therefore, that quite a few weren't damaged at all, and we have to be thankful for that and count our blessings!  (All these were later affected by the massive floods two years ago.)

In the contemporary Western world, far removed from the Buddhist populations, and based on an understanding of the Buddha as a peace-promoter, we walk around with highly caricatured images of regular people in those cultures as peaceful and meditative and pensive and everything else.  But, the closer we look, the more they come across as everybody else.

Overlay on all these the British Raj and its notorious policies of divide and rule.  And then remove the Raj and replace it with anti-democratic military rulers.  Then, remove the military rulers and suddenly allow for people to express their feelings.  Not any peaceful Buddhist scenario that is now unfolding in Burma:

mobs of Buddhist bigots and extreme Rakhine nationalists exercised their newly gained freedoms by marching through town past the charred remains of Rohingya houses and mosques. They screamed hatred at Muslims and denounced countries such as Turkey that want to aid the helpless refugees. Buddhist monks, heroes of the 2007 “saffron revolution” that tried to unseat the old military regime, egg on the crowds and help organise the protests. 

Buddhist monks help organize the protests against Muslims?  The followers of the Buddha did that?

ethnic Burman Buddhists have always resented the descendants of Indian Muslims who arrived on the coat-tails of the British in the 19th century to take all the best jobs and, to their mind, swamp the local cultures. ... The 2.5m people of Indian origin who remain are stigmatised and vulnerable; most have no citizenship. In this sense the Buddhist mobs are finishing off what the Burman chauvinist generals started in the 1960s. 

Are we talking about the same Buddha anymore?

(BTW, there are also Burmese refugees living in India. That is a separate story!)

The irony gets even more bitter:

This is the looking-glass world of the new Myanmar. Now it is only the once-reviled army that stands between minority Muslims and the bloodlust of Buddhist chauvinists.

How terrible!

These are the kinds of contexts when I really have to question Steven Pinker's thesis that we live in a lot more peaceful world now.

Update:
The WSJ reports:

A fire at a mosque in downtown Yangon that killed 13 schoolchildren Tuesday fueled fears among Myanmar's minority Muslim population that they had been targeted, though officials quickly insisted that the blaze had been caused by an accidental electrical short-circuit.  ...
The latest fire broke out around 2:30 a.m. Tuesday, witnesses said, at a downtown mosque minutes away from offices, hotels and restaurants frequented by international businesspeople and tourists. The two-story complex includes a school and a dormitory that housed about 70 children, many of them orphans, who were asleep. Most escaped safely, according to state media reports, except for the 13—age 12 to 16 years old—who died of smoke inhalation.  Hundreds of Muslims clustered uneasily as firefighters battled the flames, expressing fears that arson had caused the fire. Such rumors persisted throughout the day

Is Obama in Burma or in Myanmar?

First the news:

Officially, President Obama visited "Burma" on Monday -- but at one point he also cited the name used by the nation's military junta, "Myanmar."

Talk about covering both the bases!

When talking with the military government, the President went with "Myanmar" and when talking with the leader of the opposition, who was under house-arrest for years, Aung San Suu Kyi, Obama referred to "Burma."

What is the big deal?  It is, in the words of the Vice President, a "big fucking deal" :)

I wrote about this in an opinion column back in September 2007, and I noted there:

By referring to the country as Myanmar, are they then loading the story in favor of the junta?  If we are sympathetic to democracy and Suu Kyi, then should we insist on Burma as the correct usage?

Looks like the professor-in-chief split the Solomonic baby!

In the same column, I wrote, quoting Shakespeare's “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players” 

Perhaps the bad actors in Burma and other places will soon have their exits, and the good ones will quickly step in and put a halt to the geopolitical tragedies that are hidden behind names.  And, maybe before long Rangoon will, once again, become a favorite destination for Indians, and the rest of the world.

Back in 2007, I would not have placed any money on the bets that Aung San Suu Kyi would be allowed to travel, or that the American President would visit Burma.  We can only hope that the mad military men would soon exit the Burmese stage.

Until then, it will be only Burma to me, even if the President toggles between the two names.

Contradiction of the day: Burma's junta and Gandhi!

The Burmese junta has been doing a fantastic job of screwing up the country and its peoples.  The regime's leaders, who ought to be tried at the ICC, can compete with the likes of Mugabe for the title of worst among the worst!

Like most countries that care not for ideals but operate with realpolitik in mind, India hosted the Burmese junta leader for five days.  And, gave the visiting couple a gift: "Burma's leader and his wife were gifted a fabric printed with Mahatma Gandhi's "Seven Social Sins" 

WTF?  As if recognizing the junta weren't enough, they had to give a gift--of all things, quoting Gandhi?


One of my favorites about Gandhi and his ideals is this: as Europe tensed and with the war about to break out, Gandhi was apparently lobbied by his followers to step up the anti-Raj efforts and go for the British jugular, as it were.  Instead, Gandhi reminded them about how the Nazis were way worse and defeating the Nazis was important. Now, that is leadership and not playing realpolitik.  


So, anything else of interest while on this trip to India?

Thousands of Burmese refugees staying in India are upset over the visit of Myanmar military ruler General Than Shwe and have urged the Indian government not to endorse the upcoming elections in that country. Than Shwe is on a five-day visit to India. He arrived on Sunday and went to pray at Bodh Gaya in Bihar.
India has been the home for a large number of refugees from Myanmar, most of whom came here to escape the human rights situation and suppression in that country.
"We feel outraged with his visit as India is the largest democracy in the world, and the land of the Buddha and tolerance," said Tint Swe, who was elected a member of the Burmese parliament in 1990 and is now a leading member of the Burmese Pro-Democracy Movement in India.

That it right.  Apparently the junta does not see anything bizarre in the general visiting the site where Siddhartha became the Buddha, the enlightened one--the Buddha who preached non-violence.  AAAAAAAAHHHHH!

Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi's continuing limbo status

Over to The Hindu:

The Political Parties Registration Law, enacted by the military junta in Myanmar ahead of general elections to be held later this year, is aimed at keeping the popular leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi out of the electoral process. Only portions of the law have been released and they are outrageous. There cannot be a greater fraud on the electoral process, the sole aim of which is to keep the military junta in power. The international community, led by the United Nations, was hoping against hope that the military rulers would see some reason and make the forthcoming elections an inclusive process. In a slap in their face, the junta has barred anyone convicted of a crime from being a member of a political party. Further, parties that want to register under the new law must expel members who are “not in conformity with the qualification to be members of a party.” This means that Ms Suu Kyi cannot contest the elections, and her National League for Democracy (NLD) must expel her if it is to be eligible to participate in the process.

64 Years later. Nukes haunt us.

Here is to hoping that we will never ever again use a nuclear bomb, as we did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki 64 years ago.

It is an unfortunate irony that news of Burma's interest in acquiring nukes with North Korean assistance comes at the same time.

I hope that President Obama will sincerely follow-up on, and implement, his grand statement in Prague earlier this year:

Just as we stood for freedom in the 20th century, we must stand together for the right of people everywhere to live free from fear in the 21st century. (Applause.) And as nuclear power –- as a nuclear power, as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it, we can start it.

So today, I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. (Applause.) I'm not naive. This goal will not be reached quickly –- perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence. But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We have to insist, "Yes, we can."

Does god hate Africa? Burma?

It is always a pleasure to read Heather Mac Donald's writings, especially when I am in agreement with her. I am delighted that she is actively associated with the Secular Right. Here is Mac Donald, writing about how "god" showed at the "beer summit."

I was struck nevertheless by the sudden infusion of God talk in Gates’ post-beer statement:

Let me say that I thank God that I live in a country in which police officers put their lives at risk to protect us every day . . . .

Thank God we live in a country where speech is protected, a country which guarantees and defends my right to speak out when I believe my rights have been violated . . . .

And thank God that we have a President who can rise above the fray, bridge age-old differences and transform events such as this into a moment in the evolution of our society’s attitudes about race and difference. President Obama is a man who understands tolerance and forgiveness, and our country is blessed to have such a leader.

I suspect that those activist conservative believers who argue for American exceptionalism and the essential role of faith in American life will not necessarily agree that we have God to thank for Obama’s election. Conservative and liberal believers undoubtedly loop each other like a double helix in their clairvoyance regarding the beneficent workings of God in the world. But if Reagan or Palin are the answer to prayers, why not Obama, too?

I am puzzled as usual, however, by the implications of such an interpretation of human experience as Gates here proposes. If it’s God to whom an individual American owes thanks for the good fortune of living under a stable, constitutional government, why doesn’t God confer such a benefit on Africans or the Burmese? An African baby no more deserves his birth circumstances than an American baby deserves his. If we’re all guilty of original sin from conception on, why are the consequences so much more severe for some people than for others? Predestination doctrine tells us to just shut up and accept such blatant injustices as the way that God does business, but I do not consider it an advance for human understanding to replace a medium-sized conundrum with a gargantuan one.

Beyond Iraq and Iran: global hotspots are even hotter

Tunnel vision can be worse than no vision at all. Yes, we ought to focus on our Iraq problem. But, here is a listing--not complete by any means--of other globally important and urgent issues:

• Pakistan: I have blogged a lot about this. The country is getting more and more unstable. Latest reports are that the coalition government, which forced Musharraf out, is on the brink of collapsing--not good news by any measure. Zardari, the candidate to replace Musharraf, says that the Taliban has the upper hand in the war, and that Pakistan and the world are losing the war on terror. Duh! Like this was not obvious all along?
• Afghanistan: Karzai is losing even the little bit of control he had over the country's security. Not only are American (101 this year alone) and foreign troops dying in large numbers because of the Taliban, the US is making things worse by accidentally killing civilians--the latest one involved 76 civilians according to one report. "The U.S. is now losing the war against the Taliban," Anthony Cordesman, of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in a report Thursday (AP)
• Georgia: Need I write about this? Really?
• Zimbabwe: The discussions to share power are at an impasse. Meanwhile, inflation is at a never-before-in-history 11.2 million percent. To give us a perspective, we in America are concerned that prices rose by 0.7 percent last month!
• Sudan/Darfur: I agree with comments that this is the only case of well-documented genocide, and yet the rest of the world cannot mobilize for any action. In fact, we continue to ask questions such as "Is Darfur Genocide? It's not yet clear"
• Israel/Palestine: Need I write about this? Really?
• Lebanon: Despite all the Israeli and American attempts to rid Hizbollah, and Iran's influence there, well, Lebanon is pretty much Hizbollah country now. According to AFP, "The moment the Lebanese government confers legitimacy on Hezbollah, it must understand that the entire Lebanese state will be a target in the same way that all of Israel is a target for Hezbollah," Environment Minister Gideon Ezra said on Wednesday. To which, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed on Sunday to destroy Israel if it carries out threats to hit Lebanon should the government give greater legitimacy to the Shiite militant group.
• Sri Lanka: This AFP report says it all: Strife-torn Sri Lanka is bracing for intense and bloody battles as security forces close in on the political capital of the Tamil Tiger rebels, according to military analysts.
• Burma: George Packer's article on Burma is a must read to understand the horrible state the country and the people have been reduced to by the cold and heartless military junta.
• Tibet, and minorities in China: Need I write about this? Really?

More later