No Pictures: Myanmar, Genocide, and Our Damnable Species
I've been a little busy in Nepal, to be sure. But Myanmar hasn't been out of my view. With the latest evidence mounting of genocide against the Rohingya, I'm struck by the silence of world leaders to actually do much about it other than censure the Myanmar government. Buddhist leaders have been vocal about condemning the ongoing atrocities perpetrated with involvement and support from so-called Buddhists (seriously, any monk that aids in torture and killing needs to take the fucking robes off...NOW).
Aung San Suu Kyi is likewise complicit in this and I'm not interested in discussing what a hard place she finds herself in. Tell the military to stuff it, resign her position in protest and condemn the execution and displacement of hundreds of thousands. These are people and they were citizens until 1982; the regime that changed that didn't have anyone's best interests at heart, by the way, including non-Rohyingya Burmese citizens.
But back to the rest of the world. It shatters me that once again, we get to see wholesale population slaughter play out with a bit of hand-wringing and thoughts and prayers. None of which has served...where to begin? Tibetans, Uighyurs, Syrians, Somalis, Kurds, Yazidis and frankly, too many others, well.
When I reflect on this, my feelings about humanity and being human darken to near-pitch black. There is something fundamentally wrong with humanity that it can't outgrow the destruction of the Other, that we cannot begin to live up to the much-vaunted values of our religions (but have no trouble the superstitions of those religions), and that we justify our hatreds and eradication of the Other by actively engaging dehumanization and blaming the victim for their failure to assimilate to Our Eternally Righteous Way. There's a huge problem with our species that we expect things to always go our way at the expense of the other; that our way is the only way and we are always right. This isn't unique to any one people. It's global. We as a species have our collective head so far up our collective ass that the more we thump on our bibles, sutras, and what-not, the more our rapacity, greed, and hatred for those who aren't us renders us worse than hypocrites. It leaves us, all 7 billion, with blood on our hands.
Search results for the latest look at the situation (Duck Duck Go search engine):
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=evidence+of+genocide+in+myanmar&atb=v37-5_u&ia=news
Link to the PDF that, frankly, everyone should read:
http://www.fortifyrights.org/downloads/THEY_TRIED_TO_KILL_US_ALL_Atrocity_Crimes_against_Rohingya_Muslims_Nov_2017.pdf
CBS's recap of AP's report: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/myanmar-mass-graves-latest-rohingya-slaughter-genocide-ap/
Also, CBS has a good piece on Bill Richardson's resignation from the Myanmar government appointed panel on the Rohingya crisis: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rohingya-people-myanmar-bill-richardson-aung-san-suu-kyi-bangladesh/
If I have an issue with Richardson's resignation statement, it's that he's letting Aung San Suu Kyi off the hook too easily:
""She blames all the problems that Myanmar is having on the international media, on the U.N., on human rights groups, on other governments, and I think this is caused by the bubble that is around her, by individuals that are not giving her frank advice," Richardson, once a close friend of Suu Kyi, said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press in Yangon, Myanmar's largest city."
She's an international leader, she has access to any number of resources, and she's not a fool. The idea that she's in a bubble or receiving "frank advice" from those around her is not enough to let her off the hook. At the end of the day, she makes the call.
In case any of my Myanmar friends feel I'm singling her out, or that I wouldn't hold anyone else to such a standard, I've said the same thing regarding HH the Dalai Lama; many of my friends who support Rangzen/an independent Tibet, will make excuses for his development of the Middle Way compromise that would leave Tibet a province of China in the hope of autonomy. The support for this was ramped up 20 years ago when Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule. The idea was that "one country, two systems" was workable was fraught with uncertainty at the time and we've seen the results over the past two decades of increased surveillance and suppression.
Was His Holiness given bad advice? That's what a lot of people feel. But it's not as excuse for trying to do business with a dictatorship that frankly, could care less about you or your people. Tibet's not an issue for the Chinese; it's a land full of resources to be used, rivers to be rerouted and polluted, and a boundary that ensures that India will mind her Ps and Qs. Tibet and Tibetans? A backward, feudal-minded minority that was liberated almost sixty years ago. Status change? Still occupied, still oppressed.
If Aung San Suu Kyi is playing a similar endgame with the military in her country, it's a fool's gambit (so maybe I'm wrong); material conditions may have changed for people in Yangon, Mandalay, and elsewhere, but issues ripple and eddy beneath the surface. The Rohingya Crisis is the largest and ugliest violation, but there are others in Rakhine state that have been targeted and displaced, as well.
As for other leaders who should be getting their hands dirty? Dunno. Rhetoric is great, but where are the calls for sanctions? Why is there never a follow-up to protect the victims of torture and abuse? Oh, that's right; these are the internal affairs of nation states who, of course, know better.
In other words, they know that they're committing murder.
Aung San Suu Kyi is likewise complicit in this and I'm not interested in discussing what a hard place she finds herself in. Tell the military to stuff it, resign her position in protest and condemn the execution and displacement of hundreds of thousands. These are people and they were citizens until 1982; the regime that changed that didn't have anyone's best interests at heart, by the way, including non-Rohyingya Burmese citizens.
But back to the rest of the world. It shatters me that once again, we get to see wholesale population slaughter play out with a bit of hand-wringing and thoughts and prayers. None of which has served...where to begin? Tibetans, Uighyurs, Syrians, Somalis, Kurds, Yazidis and frankly, too many others, well.
When I reflect on this, my feelings about humanity and being human darken to near-pitch black. There is something fundamentally wrong with humanity that it can't outgrow the destruction of the Other, that we cannot begin to live up to the much-vaunted values of our religions (but have no trouble the superstitions of those religions), and that we justify our hatreds and eradication of the Other by actively engaging dehumanization and blaming the victim for their failure to assimilate to Our Eternally Righteous Way. There's a huge problem with our species that we expect things to always go our way at the expense of the other; that our way is the only way and we are always right. This isn't unique to any one people. It's global. We as a species have our collective head so far up our collective ass that the more we thump on our bibles, sutras, and what-not, the more our rapacity, greed, and hatred for those who aren't us renders us worse than hypocrites. It leaves us, all 7 billion, with blood on our hands.
Search results for the latest look at the situation (Duck Duck Go search engine):
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=evidence+of+genocide+in+myanmar&atb=v37-5_u&ia=news
Link to the PDF that, frankly, everyone should read:
http://www.fortifyrights.org/downloads/THEY_TRIED_TO_KILL_US_ALL_Atrocity_Crimes_against_Rohingya_Muslims_Nov_2017.pdf
CBS's recap of AP's report: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/myanmar-mass-graves-latest-rohingya-slaughter-genocide-ap/
Also, CBS has a good piece on Bill Richardson's resignation from the Myanmar government appointed panel on the Rohingya crisis: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rohingya-people-myanmar-bill-richardson-aung-san-suu-kyi-bangladesh/
If I have an issue with Richardson's resignation statement, it's that he's letting Aung San Suu Kyi off the hook too easily:
""She blames all the problems that Myanmar is having on the international media, on the U.N., on human rights groups, on other governments, and I think this is caused by the bubble that is around her, by individuals that are not giving her frank advice," Richardson, once a close friend of Suu Kyi, said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press in Yangon, Myanmar's largest city."
She's an international leader, she has access to any number of resources, and she's not a fool. The idea that she's in a bubble or receiving "frank advice" from those around her is not enough to let her off the hook. At the end of the day, she makes the call.
In case any of my Myanmar friends feel I'm singling her out, or that I wouldn't hold anyone else to such a standard, I've said the same thing regarding HH the Dalai Lama; many of my friends who support Rangzen/an independent Tibet, will make excuses for his development of the Middle Way compromise that would leave Tibet a province of China in the hope of autonomy. The support for this was ramped up 20 years ago when Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule. The idea was that "one country, two systems" was workable was fraught with uncertainty at the time and we've seen the results over the past two decades of increased surveillance and suppression.
Was His Holiness given bad advice? That's what a lot of people feel. But it's not as excuse for trying to do business with a dictatorship that frankly, could care less about you or your people. Tibet's not an issue for the Chinese; it's a land full of resources to be used, rivers to be rerouted and polluted, and a boundary that ensures that India will mind her Ps and Qs. Tibet and Tibetans? A backward, feudal-minded minority that was liberated almost sixty years ago. Status change? Still occupied, still oppressed.
If Aung San Suu Kyi is playing a similar endgame with the military in her country, it's a fool's gambit (so maybe I'm wrong); material conditions may have changed for people in Yangon, Mandalay, and elsewhere, but issues ripple and eddy beneath the surface. The Rohingya Crisis is the largest and ugliest violation, but there are others in Rakhine state that have been targeted and displaced, as well.
As for other leaders who should be getting their hands dirty? Dunno. Rhetoric is great, but where are the calls for sanctions? Why is there never a follow-up to protect the victims of torture and abuse? Oh, that's right; these are the internal affairs of nation states who, of course, know better.
In other words, they know that they're committing murder.
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