Hope

From New York Times regarding Barack Obama's victory for the Democratic nomination:

"We as black people now have hope that we have never, ever had," Mr. Sam-Brew [an immigrant from Ghana] said. "I have new goals for my little girl. She can't give me any excuses because she's black."

Too little, too late

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.
by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

Parents Grief Turns to Rage at Chinese Officials

From New York Times:

Bereaved parents whose children were crushed to death in their classrooms during the earthquake in Sichuan Province have turned mourning ceremonies into protests in recent days, forcing officials to address growing political repercussions over shoddy construction of public schools.

The crowd grew more agitated. Some parents said local officials had known for years that the school was unsafe but refused to take action. Others recalled that two hours passed before rescue workers showed up; even then, they stopped working at 10 p.m. on the night of the earthquake and did not resume the search until 9 a.m. the next day.

The Chinese took to the streets now that it was their children who were the victims of the corrupted government system. When the Tibetans protested against the central communist regime, the Chiense nationalists were indifferent to them.

The authorities in Beijing appear to recognize the delicacy of the issue. On Monday, a spokesman for the Education Ministry, Wang Xuming, promised a reassessment of school buildings in quake zones, adding that those responsible for cutting corners on school construction would be severely punished.

My only comment for the Chinese is "too little, too late."

Emma Lazarus's The New Colossus

Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887) was an American poet. She wrote "The New Colossus" in 1883, that is now engraved on a bronze plaque on a wall in the base of the Statue of Liberty.

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Paul Auster wrote that "Bartholdi's gigantic effigy was originally intended as a monument to the principles of international republicanism, but 'The New Colossus' reinvented the statue's purpose, turning Liberty into a welcoming mother, a symbol of hope to the outcasts and downtrodden of the world".

At the Statue of Liberty in New York

Illegal Burmese Labor Fuels Thailand Economy by William Boot

The deaths of more than 50 Burmese migrants last week in a sealed container truck transporting them to illicit jobs in southern Thailand starkly illustrates the growing reliance Thailand places on unofficial labor to help run its economy.

The Thai authorities acknowledge that there may be 1 million Burmese migrant workers living in Thailand, yet Thailands Migrant Assistance Program recently recorded that only 367,834 were registered with work permits in 2007.

Various NGOs campaigning for the rights of abused minorities and refugees say the number of illegal Burmese in Thailand is closer to 1.5 million. Many of them are children.

The Migrant Worker Group, a coalition of NGOs pressing for human rights, documents many instances of abuse by employers.

The MWG estimates that illegal Burmese laborers, especially in the booming construction industry, are paid up to 50 percent less than Thai unskilled labor and have no rights.

Migrant workers are very badly regarded and very badly treated by Thai society, wrote academic and former Thai Senator Jon Ungphakorn in the Bangkok Post. Yet it is hard to imagine how our economy would manage without them.

Ungphakorn says that since illegal laborers are not taking jobs away from Thais they should all be given legal status and employment rights.

Source:
Boot, W. (2008, April 19). Weekly Business Roundup. The Irrawaddy. Retrieved April 23, 2008 from http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=11461&page=1

Politicizing Olympics

The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

George Orwell said those words in his 1946 essay "Why I write."

Pro-Chinese governments, including Burma, and the Chinese government have been saying that olympics should not be politicized.

[Chinese] Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang says the Beijing Olympics is a grand event both for China and for the whole world, and that the Games should not be politicized.

The statement by Qin Gang is in itself a political one, describing a "grand event" showcasing the "rich and powerful" China. Olympics have long been used by various governments to promote their ideology. Hitler used the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany as a tool to promote Nazi ideology by allowing only members of the "Aryan race" to compete for Germany.

Looking as far back as ancient Olympics events, winning athletes were heroes who put their home towns on the map. Winning medals at the Olympics signify the wealth and power of a town. A young Athenian nobleman used the number of his entries in chariot-race in the Olympics to defend his political reputation. [From Tufts]

Therefore, as far as I am concerned, olympics is a sporting as well as political event. As much as the Chinese government has the right to make the "grand" event successful, activists around the world should also have the right to express their anger towards the Chinese government and its policy.

This is a business

"This is a business! Don't call me again!" said the owner of a Chinese restaurant in Hinthada Township before hanging up the phone abruptly.

http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=11367

One of the business owners responded to a phone call from the Irrawaddy magazine regarding the survery about the referendum.

I want to quote Lord Byron:

Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.

Ludu Daw Amar's Funeral

Psalm 137

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
How can we sing the songs of the LORD
while in a foreign land? 

China importing cheap and unsafe materials to Burma?

Most of the Adidas and Nike shoes I bought in the US were made in China. The quality was good, at least, because of the quality control imposed by the US government.

However, the products imported to Burma from China are dirt-cheap. There is also no quality control on both sides of the border. People with low income needs cheap and affordable materials.

The following quotes are from Fires Continue to Plague Mandalay.

A Burmese engineer now working in Singapore explained that the frequent occurrence of fires in Burma is largely due to the poor quality of materials used in the country.

There is no quality control by authorities in Burma, and most of the electrical materials that Burmese people use are imported from China. These are very cheap and don't last very long, he said.

No Olympics

Think global, act local.

Logo from http://uscampaignforburma.org/

Injured Burmese from Mae Sot bomb blast detained and sent back to Burma

Eleven persons who were injured in a blast apparently caused by some kind of homemade bomb at the Mae Sot dump on Thailands border were themselves detained and then sent back to Burma on February 26 because they didnt have ID cards.

Read more at Ratchasima