Burma and China

Dhamma reflections so accurately represents my feelings on the devastation in Burma and China. I have not been able to look at the images of the suffering, starving, homeless, orphans and parents whose children have been killed due to the cyclones and earthquake.

The recent natural disaster in Burma has led to many reflections as well as opportunities to practice metta meditation. It's hard for me to even fathom the horrors the people in that region must be facing. The live in constant fear from their own inept government and now what little they had has literally been swept away by a natural disaster. We really do live in a very uncertain world in which nothing can be taken for granted. It's my sincere hope that in this time of severe suffering the people of Burma turn to the Dhamma for guidance. I don't just mean the poor citizens of the ravished villages, but the generals as well.

This is a prime opportunity for Than Shwe and his generals to redeem themselves in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of their own people. There isn't a lot we can do where we live other then donate money and practice Metta meditation, but as Ajahn Thanissaro has pointed out there is a lot of good in doing just that. Remember, misfortune can and does happen to everyone, and there is nothing that is certain in the world. It's times like these that highlight the whole "inconstancy" aspect of things from the three characteristics.

This whole event reminds me of the Four Dhamma Summaries chant that Ajahn Geoff's monastery chants.

Upanīyati loko,
The world is swept away.
Addhuvo.
It does not endure.
2. Atāṇo loko,
The world offers no shelter.
Anabhissaro.
There is no one in charge.
3. Assako loko,
The world has nothing of its own.
Sabbaṃ pahāya gamanīyaṃ.
One has to pass onleaving everything behind.
4. Ūno loko,
The world is insufficient,
Atitto,
insatiable,
Taṇhā dāso.
a slave to craving.


There really isn't any security in the world, and we are all brothers and sisters in aging, illness, separation and death as well as the owners of our actions. Let us all aspire to the good and do what we can as we are reminded of just how precarious our lives are. May you all be well.

Cat got your tongue?

Time magazine describes the reasons that India is so silent on the saffron revolution that is threatening the power of the dictators. Here are the geo-political reasons why.

Delhi's strategy is threefold. Its initial overtures to Burma's military leaders came as India faced a growing insurgency in its northeast. Many of the rebel groups in that region are based and train across the border in Burma. As India has grown friendlier with Burma's generals the two countries have worked together — with some limited success — on eradicating the northeastern insurgents.

Like China, power-hungry India is also keen on exploiting Burma's huge oil and gas resources. This month it signed a production deal for three deep-water exploration blocks off the Rakhine coast. It is also searching for gas in two other blocks. Access to Burma's resources will help boost India's power supplies but it is important for geopolitical reasons as well. The new production deal comes only months after Beijing beat Delhi on securing a deal to build a pipeline through to Burma's gas fields. The race for resources has helped make Burma the frontline in a larger struggle for influence in Southeast Asia. The threat of unfettered Chinese influence in Burma is one of Delhi's main ripostes when western allies question India's ties with Rangoon.

Will such a stance hurt India's democratic credentials? India's former Defense Minister George Fernandez, a longtime supporter of Burmese democracy activists, thinks so, calling such quiet diplomacy "disgusting." "This government is not concerned with what is happening in its own neighborhood," he says. In one of the few Indian newspaper opinion pieces to question India's stance Karan Thapar asked in the Hindustan Times last week whether a "Cat got our tongue?" "Indian democracy has shrunk because of its unwillingness to speak out," he wrote.Modern Love section in the NYT has a funny story about a family that a woman thought she was part off, but then wasn't.

NOW, I wished that my East Coast parents would adopt some aspects of my Western parents’ infuriating impartiality: search for balance, look at it from my point of view. I felt like a squalling sibling, tugging on their sleeves, crying: “Not just my fault! Not just my fault!”

When a friendship ends, you start to measure time by what your friend has missed. In the two years that have passed, I broke up with some boyfriends, I was mugged at knife point, my sister married. I wrote one unpublished book review, then another.

Through all of the changes that a couple of years bring, both monumental and ridiculous, I missed my friend. I missed her sarcasm, her insight. Her mother. Her father. Oh, how they would have worried about me. How they would have laughed at my stories. How they would have understood my frustrations, fed me potatoes and tortes to assuage my boy-grief, expressed indignation at the rejection slips that kept piling up next to my computer.

Without my East Coast family’s Mafioso loyalty, my achievements seemed less shiny, my disappointments more foreboding.

I thought about sending them a card: “Have you sat shiva for me yet?”

I worried that they would not think it was funny. I worried that they would not answer. I imagined dinner parties, trays of canapés being passed. I imagined someone bringing my name up at the table. I could see my friend’s mother stop chewing, narrow her eyes. A wagging finger: Not in this house.

It was too much; I never wrote. In the end, I realized that I adored my friend’s parents for the exact reason that I would not hear from them: because they loved their daughter so fiercely, so actively, so unswervingly. Theirs was a glaring and glorious spotlight of love with a sharp, defined edge.

And I had stepped out.

The Despotism Formerly Known as Burma

NYT has a strong editorial on the Saffron Revolution sweeping Burma. Burma's neighbours, China, Russia and India, that sell the military weapons need to make definitive statements demanding that the cruel military junta step down.


By dispatching troops into the streets and imposing a curfew, Myanmar’s cruel military junta has set the stage for a serious clash with pro-democracy activists. A firm and united international response along the lines outlined by President Bush and the European Union at the United Nations yesterday offers the best hope of encouraging peaceful change in a nation that has endured a 19-year reign of fear. The question is whether the countries with the greatest influence on Myanmar’s generals — China, Russia and India, which all sell weapons to the army, as well as the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that are Myanmar’s immediate neighbors — have the good sense to condemn the repression and exert the pressures only they can wield with any hope of positive effect. It is essential that they step up to the plate, and fast, before blood is spilled.

Peaceful protests that began last month over dramatically increased fuel prices became seriously threatening to the junta when Myanmar’s highly revered Buddhist monks joined in. The growing crowds gave voice to pent-up grievances — and the junta responded in a predictable, entirely wrongheaded way. It sent troops into the streets, and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the iconic democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, was reported to have been moved to prison from house arrest.

The United States, which has long had sanctions on Myanmar, including an import ban, will now expand a visa ban against regime leaders and tighten financial penalties, Mr. Bush told the United Nations. Although not spelled out, the plan is believed to include going after regime bank accounts in Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries, a tactic used by Washington with some effect against North Korea. The European Union also warned the junta that it faced tougher sanctions if it used force to crush the pro-democracy movement.

These were good and necessary moves, but the greatest leverage to forestall disaster lies with China, Russia and India, who are making money off the junta and enabling it to stay in power. China, Myanmar’s chief trade partner and the host of the 2008 Olympic Games, has beefed up arms sales to Yangon, formerly Rangoon, prompting Russia and India to do likewise as a way of offsetting Beijing’s influence.

Moscow has discussed providing the junta with a nuclear research reactor, and India — the democracy on which the United States hopes to build a key security and economic relationship for the 21st century — had a senior minister in Myanmar for energy talks, even as the democracy protests were under way.

There are some signs that China has urged restraint, but more must be done, including supporting U.N. sanctions on Myanmar that Beijing and Moscow have so far blocked. The U.N. envoy dealing with Myanmar, Ibrahmim Gambari, must aggressively rally these major countries, as well as the Asean nations, to persuade the generals to stand down.

Burma Crackdown

Christian Science Monitor reports the protests of monks in Burma. I saw a terrible image on BBC today of protesters being beaten up by plain clothes policemen. Also a woman activist who was demonstrating has gone into hiding, but her infant daughter has been put in police custody, the military knows the baby needs her mother for breast milk. My heart tears at the choice the mother has to make.
The Burmese military junta needs to wake up, step down and let Aung San Suu Kyi stand for elections.

Rangoon, Burma - Saffron-robed Buddhist monks have begun participating in a series of antijunta protests, pumping new life into the month-long agitation that, until now, had not seemed strong enough to threaten Burma's military dictatorship.

Hundreds of protesting Buddhist monks on Wednesday occupied one of Burma's most revered temples, challenging the country's military rulers in the most defiant wave of demonstrations in nearly two decades.

Fear of reprisals have cowed the Burmese public from continuing to participate in the protests, which began Aug. 19 over the junta's increase in the price of fuel. But analysts say the protesting monks – who are largely considered above reproach in Burmese society – may threaten the military leaders' firm grip on power.

"[The monks'] actions can embolden Burmese people, who've so far feared taking part in protests, to come out on the streets in large numbers," says a Burmese analyst in Rangoon who requested anonymity for fear of retribution.

Clergy hold tremendous sway over the public in this religiously devout nation where nearly 90 percent of the population is Buddhist. The normally apolitical monks have been known to intervene during key moments, such as during protests against the British colonialists and the failed 1988 pro-democracy rebellion.

This week, the monks employed one of the more rarely used weapons in their dissident arsenal: They have refused to accept alms from the military regime – a boycott that is likely to embarrass the junta.

"In a staunchly Buddhist country, such a boycott is the most severe form of punishment for a Buddhist," one anonymous Buddhist abbot told the Associated Press, referring to the moratorium on accepting donations from the regime. "The boycott brings extreme shame to the ruling junta and should be taken seriously."

Given their historical ability to foment dissent, the military has been cautious, preferring to use gentle persuasion – and material enticements – to mollify the monks. Last week, high-ranking junta officials made donations of cooking oil and other food items to Buddhist monasteries, according to the New Light of Myanmar, the state-run newspaper. Despite several stern warnings, the military has yet to arrest any of the protesting monks.

On Wednesday, about 500 monks found the gates locked at the Shwedagon pagoda, the country's most revered temple, which sits on a hill dominating the country's largest city and former capital, Rangoon. The monks then proceeded to temporarily take over Sule pagoda before dispersing peacefully.

The holy men's participation in the protests began during the first week of September, when authorities in the northern town of Pakokku beat up hundreds of monks as they protested peacefully against the fuel price hikes. Burmese monks gave the junta until Monday to apologize for the violence. The military remained silent, prompting the monks to boycott the military's alms and take to the streets Tuesday, when four of them were arrested. Many of the clerics who were marching Wednesday were demanding the four monks' release.

India's neighbours in the news

Pakistan is dealing with the the possible return of former Prime Minister's Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto.

Both exiled ex-PMs Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif will be back in Pakistan by October and running for re-re-re-election in December. And that, gentle readers, couldn’t be better news - the election, ie, not Bhutto or Sharif in power again! But as I have said many times, let the people choose.

What does it all mean? In terms of internal politics of Pakistan, this is tremendous news for the resurgent democratic movement in Pakistan. The full participation of the many political parties - including the Bhuttos and Sharifs - will guarantee that Pakistan start recovering from the despotic military regime. However, that is easier said than done. The military, under Musharraf, has become the largest land-owning, asset-controlling entity in Pakistan with ex- and current military officials serving across the civil and social landscape. How can that military be coaxed “back into the barracks”? It is quite probable that there are forces within the military eager to curtail their political vulnerabilities. The popular image of the military in Pakistani society has underwent tremendous change in recent years - from a highly valued and respected institution (the only “corruption-free” one) to a hegemonic and undesirable presence. I could argue that the military’s own interests lie in withdrawing from the political realm and re-burnishing its image and standing. Of course, the defense budget remains the highest expenditure in the country and no successive civil government will change that. By and large, the military cannot lose by “giving democracy back” to the country. That was, after all, what Musharraf claimed when he took control

Bangladesh has student's demonstrating the emergency rule imposed by the military backed government.

Security forces patrolled the quiet streets of six cities Thursday, enforcing an indefinite curfew imposed by the military-backed government to quell unrest by students demanding an end to emergency rule in Bangladesh.

The curfew, imposed Wednesday on the largest cities in the country after days of street violence, cleared cities of protesters, forced residents to stay home and temporarily shut down mobile phones.

Cell phone service was restored early Thursday. Authorities eased the curfew for three hours in the afternoon, giving people a chance to shop for food and other necessities, but the streets began emptying again as night fell.

Streets were empty of cars, and security forces were stopping anyone out walking or taking tricycle rickshaws.

There were no signs of protests, but some residents of Dhaka expressed unease.

``We're suffering a lot, we don't expect such a situation in the country,'' Abdul Malek Chowdhury, a former army officer, told The Associated Press. ``We've passed through many troubled months in recent past, we're passing through the same old thing even now.''

The curfew order came on the third day of unrest after students, whose protests had been largely confined to university campuses, spilled into the streets of Dhaka, burning cars and buses and battling with security forces. One person was killed and hundreds were injured, local media reported.


The interim government now running Bangladesh is doing so with the backing of the military, which ruled the country throughout the 1980s. Officials say elections will be held in late 2008.

Burma has had protests often led by women, criticizing the doubling of fuel prices.

About 200 people marched in Rangoon in the rare demonstration, but dispersed after a number were bundled into cars and driven away.

A similar protest was held on Sunday, the largest such rally in a decade.

The junta arrested at least 13 activists before Wednesday's protest, including some of the nation's most prominent dissidents.

The latest protest took place on the northern outskirts of Rangoon.

The demonstrators, most of them women, were cheered by onlookers as they marched in defiance of the junta's strict controls on protests.


"We are marching to highlight the economic hardship that Myanmar (Burma) people are facing now, which has been exacerbated by the fuel price hike," one protester told the Associated Press news agency.

Their path was blocked by supporters of the junta and plain-clothed officers, witnesses said, and the rally dispersed as up to 10 demonstrators were bundled into cars and driven off.

Last week's fuel price rises left many people struggling to find the money to travel to work.