You likely read the extensive coverage here at TMV of Burma’s monks and nuns rising up against Senior General in Charge Of Everything, Mr. Than Shwe, the butcher of Burmese tribal people, the over-fed scourge of the poor of Burma.
You may have seen the photos I put up from one of my frightened correspondants in Yangoon, photos of innocent elderly monks with their heads smashed like pumpkins, their entire backs black as dirt from being hit relentlessly by soldiers gone mad with their batons and rifle butts. Than Shwe called out his goons and after the carnage, said the protesters ‘had agreed with him after all’ and now everything was fine.
You may have read the articles I wrote then about how the remaining Buddhist monks showed their contempt for Than Shwe by turning their alms bowls upside down when any of his coterie, soldiers or ilk tried to give the monks food. This meant the monks would rather die than take food from hearts so polluted with harm toward others…through lies, through self- aggrandizement, through terrorizing the already pitifully poor people.
You might remember too that entire families of mothers, fathers, and children and babies were arrested by Than Shwe, thrown into prison as subversives. You might recall that the child-monks, who often serve one or more years at the monasteries, were suddenly gone missing. You might recall, the head-shaven nuns in their pure pink veils were also disappeared by Than Shwe and his band of demons.
Perhaps you also recall that poets, storytellers, musicians, actors, singers, teachers, holy people– whosoever carried the Truth, that is, real stories of the people– were harmed, murdered, exiled to the northern forest area of Burma, or else sent to filthy prisons.
Do you remember too, that the pictures of the monks floating dead in the river while it rained were taken with camera cell phones and spirited onto the internet before Than Shwe jammed communications?
Do you recall how incensed Than Schwe was that the monks and nuns and citizens had marched peacefully to protest his greedy raising of the cost of cooking and heating oil, he already a billionaire somehow needed more money for himself, and in order to, at the time Burmese people were suffering under him so, give his grotesquesly pampered daughter a multi-million dollar wedding
.…while the tribal people cooked dust into the literally rotting rice Than Shwe dispensed to them, while keeping the healthy rice for himself?
And do you remember how the monks and nuns and good and brave citizens with their peaceful marching, were not able to overthrow Than Shwe, that his lies were stronger than their truths… his bullets and deranged soldiers strong than the holy hearts that stood up against them… Thus, they were not able to overthrow Than Shwe that day… that week, but only for then… only for now…
We see the new day is not coming, it is right here, right now, dont you see it too… when the old guard which moves like an arthritic and sclerotic dragon, cannot disguise the real news any longer, cannot overwrite the real truth of their incessant murderous appetites any longer… will be and are called out suddenly full lit before the entire world… with the despots’ showing all their five rows of slobber and teeth, and their black cinder hearts.
Do you remember how when Than Shwe claimed the Buddhist monks had just disappeared to where, he did not know? Do you remember how downloads from the sattelite pinpointed the northern provinces where many monks had been herded by Than Shwe, and that the Big Eye in the Sky refuted the Chief Liar of Burma, and told the truth instead?
And remember too all the cell phone pix and Nokia 95 video cell phones and the instant uploads to the internet of video from on the scene Burma, also, via tiny cell phone?
If we count by freedom gained, the score seems low.
But, if we count by means of Truth finally gaining its freedom, then, in that way, we can say that immense progress has been made, is being made, will continue to be made. And all to the detriment and flushing out of dictators who serve themselves and not the people.
Understand it: No longer one side to the story. Rather now, pictorial evidence of many sides, of real people, of exposure of the scurrying rats, easy exposure of lying, prevaricating, covering up, horrible deeds done.
For Iran, Burma is a most recent prototype of the New Day, as are Tienamen, as is Budapest… and we see the changes in our times: in the latter two, there was delay delay delay in transporting images and stories, sometimes over days. But, now… instantly…Burma’s demonstrations against Than Shwe and his brutal reprisals being the most recent progression of Truth be not denied.
It is a shift of immense, superlative, irrevocable magnitude.
Meaning, time to think over what is received so instantly, but also timely reaction by the rest of the world to what has/is going wrong. Bad news, worse than hideous news arriving fast. Good news as well. Hope can be converyed in an instant, grief, horror, iron determinants.
Dictators are at heart, thugs and cowards who are willing to distort reason in order to self-aggrandize. The\ ‘men’ of their ‘guards’ who do their ill bidding to harm the citizenry? It’s been shown time and again that when/if the tide turns politically, the guard will abandon their stations… and will not go down with the ship… think Poland, think of other coups that ousted ‘the bad guys.’ The rats fled the ship first.
In that spirit, although I fear deeply, and I sense many of you do also, for the safety of the peaceful and silent protesters in days coming… given we have already the seen, via cell phone and satellite, evidences of bloodshed by the guard….
…herewith are, from Iran, at day’s end… via brave angels with cell phones, via satellite, via internet…
Here is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad celebrating that he won the election.
Here is, two days later, a computer lab at Tehran University that was destroyed as Iranian higher-ups try to jam all means of communication out of Iran to all of us…
Here is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad …still celebrating that he won the election.
Here, two days after Ahmadinejad is seen giggling and dancing, a peaceful Iranian protester is beaten so badly, it appears his left eye has been displaced from its socket. And, note the man foreground-right– and what he has in his hand… in an instant, Truth will be sent into glass boxes called cpu monitors on the other side of the world, and Truth will be kept safe there in perpetuity.
Here is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad …yes, he is still celebrating that he won the election.
Here today, are the huge crowds of people in the street silently protesting the Iranian election vote counting. The audio from this scene on one observor’s video phone lets us hear the noises of cars passing, the shuffling of people, but no sound whatsoever from the demonstrators. They are silent and peaceful.
Here are some of Ahmadinejad’s supporters who are celebrating his election in Iran. The look on their faces is, very happy?
Here within three days after Ahmadinejad’s elation at his winning the presidency, is one of the serious faces of freedom. The sticker over his mouth is not to silence him per se, it was to show that people can speak loudly about injustice without screaming and bellowing… that the quietude, in this case, carries in a way that cannot be as easily refuted as ‘that mob of hooligans who are out of control’. Very wise Zorro strategy.
And here too, one of the deeds of a free people, who are still free in their souls even if not free in their own country: This is a picture of a government guard who was sent out to ‘keep order’ by the ruling junta. The guard was injured in the ‘line of duty,’ and it was the protesters who protected him and took him to safety.
May Iran be completely restored and returned to her most reasoned people.
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dr.e., from the internet