What a pleasure to see several photos of Kashmiri friends with Rollie Mukherjee at her art show & sale in Srinagar last week. Much of the proceeds will go to the work of Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) co-founded & chaired by Parveena Ahangar, shown in this photo with one of Rollie’s works.

It’s not misogynist to condemn Aung San Suu Kyi for colluding in genocide. It’s misogynist to call her a bitch rather than a human rights criminal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1MoehFI3io

This video posted as a comment is worth highlighting. It’s a recent interview with Priscilla Clapp who served as US Chargé d’Affaires in Burma from 1999 to 2002. After the brutal crackdown on the democracy movement of 1988, the US lowered its level of diplomatic representation from Ambassador to Chargé d’Affaires. She served before the US had fully implemented sanctions against Burma for human rights crimes. Clapp’s analysis here more than answers the question “where does the US stand on the Rohingya genocide?” even though she no longer serves as a US diplomat but for the Asia Society. She comes from the same school of diplomacy & deceit as Henry Kissinger.

It was during Obama’s tenure that most sanctions against Burma were lifted so that the US could invest in neoliberal scorched earth economic policies instituted by the military which controls the economy & government of Burma.

Nearly 87,000 people have signed a petition to strip Aung San Suu Kyi of her Nobel Peace Prize. Over 21,000 have signed a petition to strip her of honorary Canadian citizenship. Neither will stop the genocide but they represent a shift in adulation of Suu Kyi as a champion of human rights. Her glory days are over. More importantly, they represent growing support for the Rohingya people.

Chicago rally in solidarity with the Rohingya people, Saturday, September 16th:

Many will think my judgements too unforgiving of Desmond Tutu for a tepid response & the Dalai Lama for a cowardly response to the apocalyptic genocide of Rohingya Muslims. Twenty-year-old Malala Yousafzai gave the sharpest rebuke. Despite the Nobel Peace Prize being an honorific primarily awarded war criminals, those few individuals who receive it for humanitarian reasons have considerable stature & authority they can use to build international solidarity with the Rohingya. If they cannot or will not use that to speak out forcefully & without equivocations against genocide, then they don’t dishonor the Nobel so much as they dishonor themselves.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, addressing the Burmese face of genocide as “my dear sister”, issued a public rebuke to Aung San Suu Kyi saying: “If the political price of your ascension to the highest office in Myanmar is your silence, the price is surely too steep.” It’s a moving appeal but about five years behind events. Suu Kyi has by no means been silent on the genocide against the Rohingya people but has repeatedly mocked the accusations of Rohingya in public interviews & forums abroad as she tries to drum up investments in the Burmese economy. She ridiculed the claims of mass rape by the military; she denies visas to UN & human rights monitors to enter Arakan state. That is not silence. It is collusion.

This photo of Archbishop Tutu & Suu Kyi was taken in Yangon in 2013–one year after the genocidal military assault on Rohingya that sent tens of thousands fleeing for their lives.

(Photo by Than Win/AFP/Getty Images)

The roots of genocide in Burma are not in Buddhism, including in Theravāda, the current of Buddhism practiced by nationalist Buddhist monks led by Ashin Wirathu, by civilians in Arakan state functioning as death squads against the Rohingya, & by a majority of Burmese. The hatred for Muslims in Burma, & for the Rohingya Muslims in particular, is rooted in ethnic conflict fostered by British colonialism & perpetuated by the founders of Burma under the leadership of Aung San, the assassinated father of Aung San Suu Kyi & founder of the Burmese army.

The Rohingya are an ethnic group who are primarily Muslims. The persecution, pogroms, & now genocide against Rohingya is part of a military policy to maintain the Bamar (Burmese) as the dominant ethnic group. It is a system of social control over other ethnic groups–who are Muslims, Buddhists, & other religions–which the Burmese army is at war with in Burma. To suggest that the roots of genocide in Burma are rooted in Theravāda Buddhism is as politically debased as claiming the roots of terrorism in the Middle East are rooted in Islamic Wahabism.

The military of Burma prepared this genocidal assault, including by arming, training, & inciting Buddhist nationalists in Arakan state to function as paramilitary death squads. That’s the very nature of nationalism, supremacist ideology, & the divide & conquer strategy as practiced in Burma.

The Dalai Lama has finally spoken out about the Rohingya genocide in the most unflinching terms, calling the genocide “sort of harassing some Muslims.”:

“Those people you see who sort of harassing some Muslims, then they should remember Buddha; in such circumstances, Buddha helping. Definitely help to those poor Muslims. So still, I feel that. So very sad. Very sad.”

Good to know Lord Buddha would stand with Muslims. The Dalai Lama’s cowardice & pity in response to an apocalyptic genocide doesn’t represent the highest traditions of Buddhism. Generations of Buddhists who do, have put their bodies on the line to oppose war, as in Vietnam, & have fled into exile from Burma to denounce genocide against the Rohingya.