Free Burma!

A friend sent me this You-tube link.

Free Burma.

Burma needs Democracy. Now....

What it was like for some detainees in Burma

I don't watch very much t.v., and if I do it is not the News. It seems like most of the news I read is in my local newspaper or what I see on the screen on my yahoo homepage.

Here's the e-mail I got from my savvy friend, then I checked out the following link. It won't take much of your time so I encourage you to click on the link at the bottom of the post.

"Hey there,

I just thought I would pass along this article. It does a very good job telling what it is currently like inside Burma, and also the conditions the detainees faced.

From what our casual research has shown, there are still hundreds, if not thousands of monks, unaccounted for... The 1998 military crackdown by this government was much more bloody than Tiennaman Square, but of course, it happened in much more darkness.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21448379/page/2/

It's important to note that many young men in Thailand and Burma go through Buddhist Monk training. You could say it would be similar to a "right of passage" or what Mormon young men do in early adulthood.

Look closely at the picture at the top of the post. You can see the monks taking their morning alms are YOUNG MEN. It would be my guess, and I am guessing, that it is and was YOUNG BUDDHIST MEN who are protesting the Myanmar Military Dictatorship.

Here's more:

http://www.thestar.com/News/Ideas/article/264116#
"MONKS OF ACTION

Pictures of Buddhist monks shaking their fists at riot police in Myanmar (formerly Burma) have landed on the front pages of North American newspapers and scrambled some Western stereotypes.
These are not the blissed-out meditators of Western imagination. Generally pacifistic, but far from passive, Buddhists have a long history of social activism in Asia.

Monks held court with ancient Tibetan kings, and in Japan, lay Soka Gakkai Buddhists bankrolled their own political party.
"I think we misperceive Buddhism as a sort of stereotypically quietistic and world-renouncing religion, which has never been the case," says Donald K. Swearer, a visiting professor of Buddhist studies at Harvard Divinity School.

In Myanmar, many young men join the monkhood, which counts some 400,000 members, for a short time and maintain close ties to mainstream society. As society's moral exemplars, they work to alleviate the suffering of others.
That's why they took to the streets in droves last month to protest rising fuel prices.

Dissident groups in Myanmar say some 200 protesters have been killed, according to The Associated Press, and more than 4,000 have been rounded up and imprisoned.
When Buddhism was imported to the West, Americans favoured a more individualized Buddhism, concentrating on meditation and personal discipline.

The rising profiles of the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hahn have sparked a more socially engaged Buddhism in the West."

from: Religion News Service
http://www.thestar.com/News/Ideas/article/264116#

Message from Chiang Mai Thailand & the Myanmar Border

Hey Mary Ann,

I'm glad you sent me your blog. Most of the staff who work here at Ban San Fan are Karen and I have been to vist two of their homes. The Karen people are some of the most generous people I have ever met and those I work with are continualy blessing me. Ro's family, who I had the privilege of visting two weeks ago, all came from Burma (Myanmar). Her parents moved to
Thailand when they were around my age (mid twenties) and Ro was born in Thailand. They still live fairly closs to the border. We went to vist Ro's family for her friend's wedding (I'm sending a few pictures).

All the time I was there, as an on looker of both their joy and their (very real life), I was treated with the greatest of kindness. The Karen people are truly a beautiful people. I join you in your prayers for them.

God bless,Danielle

P.S. I am also sending a picture of some rice filds in a valley near Ro's home that I took with you in mind because you wanted one so much in January. I hope you like it.

***Danielle was one of the people that went on our mission trip in january 2007. She loved it so much that she went back in may 2007 for a year. She is helping @ an orphanage in Chiang Mai called Ban San Faan.

Chiang Mai is near the border of Myanmar (Burma) and there are refugee camps along that border, please go to Partners Relief and Development for more information.

***All photos taken by Danielle or Ro.

The Real Burma

Hey friends! I just bought a book that I thought you all might want to hear about.

Did you know that the political dissidence happening in Myanmar (Burma) is nothing new? The Burmese millitary has one of the top land armies in the world. Know what they are doing with that land army? Oppressing their own people, and even more, they are systematically killing the Karen people.

Shocking?

Didn't know about it?

Well, thanks to the monks and the students protesting recently, the problem actually made it to the mainstream media.

Don't ask me why its been kept under cover for such a long time. I'm not political enough to know those answers.

However, I know that human life is much to precious for a people group to be exterminated. Unfortunately that type of behavior didn't end with the holocaust.

One of the highlights to our trip to Thailand was a visit to a Karen village. That is where we went on an elephant ride to a Karen church.

See, the Karen migrated from China, down into Burma, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. In fact, there are more Karen people in Burma than Thailand.

Such a beautiful people. Such wonderful smiles and joy. To think that just a few hundred miles away from where I stood at this church were more beautiful people like these being forced to flee for their lives into refugee camps.

I met Steve Gumar a few years ago when he spoke @ my church about his ministry. He risks life and limb, going into the trenches of land mined areas with his helpers. They are like warriors communicating with walkie talkies or something like that....keeping each other posted on the millitary action that's taking place all around them.

On his website I read that a man he knew quite well was brutally murdered in April. You can read that story on his website. http://partnersworld.org/index.html

We can't know everything that goes on in the world. We can't save everyone. But we can pray, we can educate ourselves and we can care.

Again, what's happening in Burma has been going on for two decades or more.

I bought this book that Steve's wife wrote. I didn't even know she wrote a book! http://partnersworld.org/usa_cart/product_info.php?products_id=32

I bought a t-shirt too, a pink one. I thought it would be good to support his work there and that possibly people would ask about the shirt and then I could tell them what little I know about what's happening in Myanmar.

If i was a good spitter I could have spit on Myanmar soil last January.

This is a real place.

It is a real country.

These are real people.

They are suffering.

They are being persecuted.

They are being systematically destroyed.

The lucky ones make it to refugee camps but even these aren't safe.

I'm not asking you to save the world, nor do anything, just read about it. Know it's real and tell people about it.