together we will go on

i hope mumineen there are doing ok... together with fellow muslims and all other communities in burma.

there has been much support from religious and other communities throughout the region, and elsewhere, for the burmese people in recent days.

rabina yansur.

burma's saffron revolution

just before making my way to jumoa namaz last week, i learnt that the buddhist clergy in burma had begun a boycott of the country's military regime. known as "overturning the alms bowl", the boycott can be declared in accordance with an ancient code of discipline when grievous transgressions against the clergy take place, such as putting the lives of monks in danger. this occurred on september 5, when several monks were beaten for protesting the fuel price increases of august.

for the followers of buddhism, the giving and receiving of alms is a profound act of adherence to the teachings of gautama buddha; to refuse the offered alms is to refuse to acknowledge the alms giver as a part of the religious community. in other words, it amounts to an act of excommunication.

in one of the ceremonies held on september 18 to declare the boycott, the monks stated the following:

"Reverend clergy, may you listen to my words. The violent, mean, cruel, ruthless, pitiless kings [military leaders]--the great thieves who live by stealing from the national treasury--have killed a monk at Pakokku, and also arrested reverend clergymen by trussing them up with rope. They beat and tortured, verbally abused and threatened them. The clergy who are replete with the Four Attributes [worthy of offerings, hospitality, gifts and salutation] must boycott the violent, mean, cruel, ruthless, pitiless soldier kings, the great thieves who live by stealing from the national treasury. The clergy also must refuse donations (of four types) and preaching. This is to inform, advise and propose.

"Reverend clergy, may you listen to my words. The violent, mean, cruel, ruthless, pitiless soldier kings--the great thieves who live by stealing from the national treasury--have killed a monk at Pakokku, and also arrested reverend clergymen by trussing them up with rope. They beat and tortured, verbally abused and threatened them. Clergy replete with the Four Attributes--boycott the violent, mean, cruel, ruthless, pitiless kings, the great thieves who live by stealing from the national treasury. Clergy--also refuse donations and preaching. If the reverends consent and are pleased at the boycott and refusal of donations and preaching, please stay silent; if not in consent and displeased, please voice objections.

[Silence]

"The clergy boycotts the violent, mean, cruel, ruthless, pitiless kings, the great thieves who live by stealing from the national treasury. The clergy hereby also refuses donations and preaching."

i found this simple, and yet stunning act of the monks compelling. they took a sacred religious step for ethical and moral reasons. they were in my thoughts throughout jumoa namaz.

since then, the protests and marches have continued. while burma's junta has not retaliated with violence yet, the possibility can hardly be ruled out. there has been little significant international response to the situation, which a part of me finds unbelievable and disappointing, while another part of me says, what did you expect? burma is of little interest to most of the world, while china and india are both more interested in the country's natural resources and their own economic gain than in the plight of the burmese people.

i do not know what the outcome of the 'saffron revolution' will be. i am in no position to garner international concern or even religious solidarity for burma. but i find myself compelled to offer my individual concern and solidarity to the buddhist clergy there, as well as the people supporting them. especially in this month of ramadan.

starvation deaths

on september 3, the district magistrate of varanasi, uttar pradesh was made aware of the plight facing alina sahin, an 18-month baby girl, who was severely malnourished. prior to that, alina had been taken by her sister to the local medical and child care clinic, which is meant to provide food and care to the children of poor families. the nurse on duty reportedly assaulted alina's sister instead of providing assistance.

by september 14, alina had died from starvation and malnutrition. alina is merely one of the thousands of children dying in india from a lack of food. india is not facing any food shortages; the problem lies in distribution and systemic neglect. how many more alinas will die before things change?

please work towards this change by voicing your concern to the relevant authorities here.

the thirteenth tale

"i want a job," i told ksa, "that requires me to do nothing but read books; novels."

on my way home from that conversation, when i began reading diane setterfield's the thirteenth tale, i came across a female protagonist who indeed spent most of her time reading (no matter that her choice of books was somewhat different to mine). even better, her father owned a bookstore. i was hooked. and the book just kept getting better...

"People disappear when they die... Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist... Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved."

"And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as a child. I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same... When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic yearning for the lost pleasure of books."

"Our lives are so important to us that we tend to think the story of them begins with our birth. First there was nothing, then I was born... Yet that is not so. Human lives are not pieces of string that can be separated out from a knot of others and laid out straight. Families are webs... A birth is not really a beginning. Our lives at the start are not really our own but only the continuation of someone else's story... In fact, when I was born I was no more than a subplot."

"All morning I struggled with the sensation of stray wisps of one world seeping through the cracks of another. Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the previous book with ideas and themes--characters even--caught in the fibers of your clothes..."

"We all have our sorrows, and although the exact delineaments, weight and dimensions of grief are different for everyone, the color of grief is common to us all. "I know," he said, because he was human, and therefore, in a way, he did."

this is a book i want on my bookshelf. i finished it ages ago, and yet the membrane hasn't quite closed. quite unfair to my current book really..!

a day in shenzhen

the more time i spend in shenzhen, the more i enjoy it. a large part of this has to do with novelty i'm sure; it is always fun to explore new places, and so far, every time i've visited, it's been to a new place. and with different groups of people!

two things that strike me the most when i'm there, are the vast amount of space and the wonderful greenery. this is probably not what first comes to mind when you think of shenzhen, which just makes it all the more wonderful.

yesterday's visit yielded yet another wonder: it is indeed a shopper's paradise (or obstacle course-cum-maze) and everything is SO cheap. sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

all in all, it's a fun place to go off to for the weekend or even a day. it is so easily accessible now, and if i drag h with me, language is no longer a problem. my only complaint is the weird smell that seems to permeate certain areas of the city...