Like the situation in Myanmar (Burma) right now. (I always say it, but yay Wikipedia.) What do I do in a situation like this? I'm practically a world away, and I know that people are in distress, threatened, dying for no good reason. That I'm aware of, Monks try to avoid violent clashes. It is not in the Buddhist philosophy to incite violence.
I read the biography of the Dalai Lama and how he encouraged the people of Tibet to try and work with the Chinese and Mao Tse-tung, a sort of peacful rebellion during the Chinese invasion of the county. I believe his thinking went along the lines of, and I'm paraphrasing here, they will eventually go away and we can return to our life as normal.
This didn't happen. And the Dalai Lama reached a point where he was having a difficult time advising his people to refrain from violent protest. The atrocities of the communist party against Tibet were just too great.
How heartbreaking is it to watch people of any religion partake in a non-violent protest and be met with violence intended to silence their voices? What sort of injustice exists that allows this to happen?
And I just watch the news and wait to see what happens to these people who are simply trying to be heard.
I covered a tax day protest in Maine once while working for a local paper there. Young protesters chained themselves together at the wrists with handcuffs (or something, I can't quite remember) and then covered the links with a contraption of thick tubing, tar, nails, and other difficult to remove substances. They set up a circle in front of a company that manufactured items for US defense contracts, which just happened to be across from an elementary school, and urged people, through the resulting press coverage, to think about where their taxes were actually going once collected by the government. More to defense than to education.
It was certainly a charged situation. I felt for these students, and most of them were students from local colleges and universities, because they seemed to feel passionately about this subject.
At least for the day.
But something about the protest felt oddly like a training exercise. Preparing these young minds to go on to greater protests, perhaps more extreme measures to get their point across.
And I wondered how many people, after seeing the TV footage or reading the articles written by the various reporters who covered it, really gave a second thought to their taxes. If anyone learning about this group that intentionally put itself into a confrontation in order to make a point decided that they too would protest the tax situation. Decided that enough was enough, and the war machine shouldn't go on while teachers had to buy pencils for students because the administration couldn't afford them. (I'm postulating here, I don't know exactly what measures teachers in the Maine area were faced with when it came to equipping classrooms with the necessities.)
And what did these protesters do next? Did they continue to lobby for tax reform, fair tax distribution, or did they go on to the next cause du jour?
In short, I didn't know how effective they had been. I didn't feel a connection between the cause and the people representing it.
And I certainly haven't done anything about the tax distribution in this country on my own. Perhaps the fact that I still think about this incident and the true affect that a protest can have is enough. But I can't convince myself of that either.
And a world away people are protesting the junta, military dictatorship, of Myanmar (Burma). If I felt powerless to change the system in my own country, how can I even dream of helping to bring peace to Myanmar? Or Darfur? Or North Korea? What good will it do to join a protest/sign a petition if they only thing I feel it accomplishes is potentially satisfying my ego? I signed the petition, that's my part, right? Can I go back to watching home decorating shows and picking my fingers now? Am I done here?
(Oh, and thanks Save Tibet, for those great paper prayer flags you sent in your last plea for donations. They look great hanging in my doorway, and match the one-fish two-fish ornament my friend gave me in 2002. I still haven't donated money to your cause, but I see those flags everyday and think of you.)
I know I've gone on about this before. And it's not very fair to bitch about the situation and then still do nothing to change it. But it feels just as empty to pay the $2 and put the sticker on my car as it does if I've done nothing at all.
My thoughts are with you Burma (Myanmar). I'm sorry you've had to suffer, junta and monks alike.
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