one day in 1999

Avaaz

2007-10-06T14:16:00.000-07:00

Connect to the issues in need of urgent attention and actions;
http://www.avaaz.org/en/index.php

Updated statistics

2007-10-04T16:23:00.000-07:00

According to the 88 Generation Students group and the National League for Democracy, at least 130 deaths occurred nationwide and about 3,000 monks and their supporters have been arrested since the peaceful demonstrations started in August 19.

Dissident groups, however, put the figures higher, saying at least 200 people have died and about 6,000 people have been arrested.

Monks in monasteries across the country are continuing to refuse alms from members of the military regime and their families, and the authorities have banned the public from providing them with food. Monks in some monasteries in Mandalay are drying their remaining rice in the sun.

Will the light come on Burma?

2007-10-04T15:49:00.000-07:00

A letter to friends, 30/09/07

..... By the time I got to Amsterdam, I was very exhausted
and feeling down, questioning what I was really doing
in this world, with life. And I saw first the photo
and later the news and information about the Buddist
monks marching through the Rangoon city, peacefully
and yet solemn. I became totally fixed and absorbed
by that, and feared for them the threat of deadly
violence breaking into reality any moment. And it did.

I officially quit being an activist a long time ago.
In my torn state of questioning or coming back to the
same question of what I am really doing in this life,
combined with this external event which was seizing my
attention, I felt I should address the need for the
social changes more directly in my life and in my art.
That night, I created a blog dedicated to my research
on my personal relationship to what is happening in
the outside the world. ... I
called it one day in 1999, thinking of George Orwell
and what he might have been feeling writing ‘1999’.

Anyway, in this mail, I want to tell you little bit
about what I have found out about the demonstration in
Burma and how I am relating to it. Well, it will be
political, but I hate to be a converter. So at this
point, if you like to, please feel free to quit and
leave this page now. It’s a bit long too. Otherwise, I
like that you stay.

Okay…
Basically peaceful Burmese protesters are being
violently crashed under the military regime of Burma -
one of the worst dictatorship, they say - and they
need an international help to survive and to continue
with their protest for democratic and humanitarian
Burma.
What I wrote are my words, based on what I have read
and seen on various sources on Internet.

Last week, the Burmese military junta put the fuel
price up to 500% higher without any warning or
explanations, which would put up the price of
everything. The Burmese people have already been
suffering from the hardship of living under this
regime that had been uncaring and inhumanitarian. This
triggered a protest and it was soon joined by a
hundreds of Buddist monks. In Burma, they hold the
highest respect from people and they are not easily
involved in political movement. The fact they were in
the street calling for Democracy shows the urgency of
the issue. Burma had a long story with military
dictatorship and struggle for democracy and these
monks were joined by civilians that grew up to 100,000
on the streets in just a few days. Under this regime,
this is not an easy event that can happen. It is the
first big demonstration since 1988, when the
protesters were put down by guns, ending up with
killing of 3,000 people.

The regime has been ruthless and inhumanitarian. They
were supposed to restore election. But when it came to
it, with the leader of Democratic party Aung San Suu
Kyi winning 82% of votes, they claimed the election
invalid and put Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest
for the most of the last 18 years. Aung San Suu Kyi
won a Nobel peace prize in 1991. I personally think
she has the most amazing face, that somehow expresses
her inner strength and clarity - I remember her face
from an exhibition 10 years ago when I didn’t now who
she was. I had thought I would like to age like her.

In the last three days, the military junta has
executed violent crack down on the non-violent
demonstrators with beating, arrest, tear gas, and
killing. They raided many monasteries, have taken away
monks into prisons, and also Aung San Suu Kyi into a
prison. The junta is said to have employed many mobs
to carry out the jobs, not to get international
attentions by moving the military too much. Many have
been injured and 13 are officially declared killed,
but the real figure is expected to be many times
higher. Few days ago, they cut down all the Internet
and mobile phone connections in the country to stop
information going out. You will find many video clips
in Youtube of the first three days of demonstrations,
and much less for the last three days.

Most countries including US and Europe and even other
Southeastern countries have expressed their disgust
and request to stop using violence to peaceful
protesters and to bring more democracy. They are
looking for economic means such as sanctions to give
pressure to the military regime. But what is seen as
the real key to be able to affect the regime
effectively is the neighboring countries, such as
China, India and Russia. China has to the main role
here. China so far only expressed their principle of
not interfering internal affairs of other countries
and did not really say anything to oppose Burmese
junta’s violence on the demonstrators, or the
anti-democratic ruling. They themselves are hardly
democratic in dealing with demonstrators, as you may
still remember the bloodshed in Tien An Mun square in
1990 in Beijing in a very similar situation. The fact
is that they have the biggest economic trade
relationship with Burma. Burmese military government
will have to respond to China's pressure, but China
also will not respond unless it has enough pressure
from the international communities that gives them
enough reasons to do so. All the countries and all the
organizations have come to the same understanding that
we need to move China.

I was spending many hours in front of the computer
during last days, and as I was learning more and more
of what was going on in Burma, I felt more and more
helpless and despair in not doing anything… this bad
feeling of sitting here with computer, watching them
crushed day by day. I was very restless and searched
through different sites. And I found information about
demonstrations in different cities just in time to get
to the one held here in Amsterdam.

You know what I found in the demonstration is the same
that I could not do much. Even though there is killing
going on, there is life being crushed by the gun point
over there, Over Here all we could do was to share
information, shout for Free Burma, Democracy, and to
sign a petition. Signing a petition seemed not very
immediate or big, and I thought about 'but why it was
the only practical thing that we were doing in the
demonstration': we are trying to move big bodies like
our own government, Chinese government and eventually
Burmese government, by having them heard and shown in
what we want in numbers, so that the big bodies move
to stopping the troops.

Okay… this is where I am going to end my bit and pass
you to the petition people. Now, it’s business time. I
hope you like to go to the site and sign the petition.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_burma/t.php

In the last week, I have encountered very inspiring
human beings in the profession of politician; Aung San
Suu Kyi and Al Gore. Make sure you see the film ‘An
Inconvenient Truth’ too. I was very inspired by the
great piece of art of Al Gore’s lecture performance as
well as the making of the documentary itself.

I was touched by Al Gore’s saying; instead of jumping
between denial and despair, why don’t we do something
we can do now. I needed to hear that. Life seems
totally incomprehensible after seeing the planetary
crisis. But today I am feeling less desperate and less
despair. I wish to know ‘how I would like to spend my time on
earth’ too.

Aung San Suu Kyi

2007-09-27T17:21:00.000-07:00

I personally think she has the most amazing face, that somehow expresses her inner strength and clarity - I remember her face
from an exhibition 10 years ago when I didn’t now who she was. I had thought I would like to age like her.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for the most of the last 18 years, even though elected to be the leader of the nation by 82% in 1990. She won a Nobel peace prize in 1991 for her peaceful struggle for the democracy in Burma.

today

2007-09-27T17:15:00.001-07:00

Isn't this precisely the irony that in the event of many others' lives in threat I am still under such great pressure to comfort my soul? In seeking comfort and clarity, I am strolling here on a day in 1999 where Orwell strolled once.

28/09/07 in 1999

2007-09-27T17:14:00.000-07:00

Burma, oh Burma

2007-09-27T11:38:00.000-07:00

The latest protests began Aug. 19 in response to sharp, unannounced fuel price increases of up to 500 percent, immediately raising the prices of goods and transportation. They were led at first by former student protesters and other activists, but most of the leaders had been arrested or were in hiding when the monks began their protests last Tuesday. Since then, the monks’ protests have spread from city to city and have become more overtly political.

Since the military crushed a peaceful nationwide uprising in 1988, killing an estimated 3,000 civilians, the country, formerly known as Burma, has sunk further into poverty and repression and become a symbol for the outside world of the harsh military subjugation of a people.

The largest street protests in two decades against Myanmar’s military rulers gained momentum Sunday as thousands of onlookers cheered huge columns of Buddhist monks and shouted support for the detained pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. It came one day after a group of several hundred monks paid respects to Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi at the gate of her home, the first time she has been seen in public in more than four years.

Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, has been locked inside her home for 12 of the last 18 years, and the government has arrested thousands of political prisoners. Although she has been sealed off from the public and has been allowed almost no visitors, Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, 62, remains a martyr and rallying symbol for the population.

Foreign governments and human rights groups warned of possible bloodshed. “The regime has a long history of violent reactions to peaceful demonstrations,” Gareth Evans, head of the International Crisis Group, said in a statement.
“If serious loss of life is to be averted, those United Nations members with influence over the government are going to have to come together fast,” he said in an allusion to China, Russia and India. The United States and Europe have led a tightening economic boycott that has been undermined by trade and assistance from Myanmar’s neighbors, mainly China but also India and some Southeast Asian nations. China, the nation with the most influence over Myanmar because of its trade and economic ties, today repeated its public stance of noninterference in Myanmar’s internal affairs.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/world/asia/24myanmar.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&fta=y
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/25/world/asia/25cnd-myanmar.html?hp)

* See many available video clips of the demonstration and responses from other nations on youtube