SOMETIMES, WE MUST INTERFERE. WHEN HUMAN LIVES ARE ENDANGERED, WHEN HUMAN DIGNITY IS IN JEOPARDY, NATIONAL BORDERS AND SENSITIVITIES BECOME IRRELEVANT. WHEREVER MEN OR WOMEN ARE PERSECUTED BECAUSE OF THEIR RACE, RELIGION, OR POLITICAL VIEWS, THAT PLACE MUST - AT THAT MOMENT -BECOME THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE.
- Elie Wiesel from his Nobel acceptance speech.
This quote comes from poet E. Ethelbert Miller's site. Thanks Ethelbert.
If this quote does not apply to Burma, nothing does. Let us try and keep the focus on Burma and other countries like it, other cases like it.
We can't get "compassion fatigue" when there is so much abuse. I met Weisel once in Williamsburg when he came to speak at an event to which Fulbright scholars were invited. It was 1988. March. The earth shaking events in Burma had started. But my colleague and I were still gripped by fear, and we tried to avoid the reporters.
It's amazing how far I have come, if only in losing my fear of the mike and what the Burmese junta might do. I am still afraid, of course, but I still say what I have to.
Peter, Paul and Mary sang "Pop the Magic Dragon" and we met a monk from Sri Lanka and Nelson Mandela's daughter at that Williamsburg event.
Kyi May Kaung
Portrait of Human Rights Activist -- oil on canvas -- copyright Kyi May Kaung.
