In the hustle of everyday life, the knowledge of what is important or needed sometimes is lost. The constant motion of doing often gets in the way of enjoyment of being. Or even the necessity our soul craves.
Friendships are one of those things. But it goes beyond the act of the relationship to the value of the individual called "friend." Although most people at any given time can point to a group of friends and a support system, sometimes the idea of just how important those people are loses its clarity.
Take time to realize this. Lately I have come to cherish the individuals in my life that reach out, that comfort, that I can truly call friend, rather than just being someone who passes and exchanges recognition in a smile or a few words. Don't get me wrong, those moments are hugely important as well; but it is small compared to the idea of friend.
It is important to have groups of people where you feel safe being vulnerable, being broken, being honest, digging into the deeper aspects of life with. I know these people. And, although they may not always understand me completely, I know they will still always listen and offer up a thoughtful perspective.
I know individuals who I feel I can come to with anything. Granted, they are not many, and probably don't need to be many. But I know that those people I can bring my greatest issues to and receive help to walk through it.
What does it look like?
Sometimes it's a conversation that goes beyond "hi, great weather we're having," to a conversation over coffee when you both happened to be in the same place at the same time. I cannot count how many times this has happened unexpectedly and I walk away with a greater reminder of how much I really enjoy that individual. Other times it's someone intersecting my daily routine and just bringing joy in the reminder that I am not alone in this. Some nights, it's a conversation over dinner or in someone's home or a few minutes before or after an event we're both at. It can be a phone call, a text message, an instant message that is just a reminder that there are other people right alongside me.
And it all comes back to the fact that this other individual takes time out of their life to reach a hand out and do life with another individual. i cannot tell you how many of the individuals in my life I am so blessed to call "friend."
My hope is that each one of you is experiencing this or seeking it out and that you realize the importance of the people around you. The process isn't always quick or easy or comfortable, but the journey is wonderful. In reality, each relationship is just that: a journey. I hope that you have beautiful people joining you on that journey.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Share your story.
As a community, we are spending the final two weeks of venture celebrating people's stories and what venture has meant to them. We will be hearing from many different people who all have different stories to tell.
The thing is, though, that we would like to hear everyone's stories, not just those who will be sharing on stage. This post is your personal invitation to share your story with the rest of the community. Each voice is important.
Please post your individual story in the comments. Share how you found venture in the first place, what draws you to it each week, why you come or why you serve.
The thing is, though, that we would like to hear everyone's stories, not just those who will be sharing on stage. This post is your personal invitation to share your story with the rest of the community. Each voice is important.
Please post your individual story in the comments. Share how you found venture in the first place, what draws you to it each week, why you come or why you serve.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
what you don't expect
A little story about life.
It was my first day at my new job and I was a bit overwhelmed. And yes, it was only the morning, I hadn't even gotten to work yet. There were higher expectations with this new position, more people to work with, a more highly structured company and longer working hours. I had no idea what to expect to be honest, but if you talked to me at the time, I welcomed the change. As much as I looked forward to the newness, I wasn't prepared. And that is generally the nature of new stuff.
So, there I am, adjusting minute by minute. I got to deal with, for the first of many times, public transportation and all of it's wonders. I get off in downtown San Francisco, which is organized chaos on a weekday. Everyone knew where they were going and what they were doing, except for maybe myself.
Regardless, I head to my building. I stop in the lobby to make sure I'm going to the correct floor, which causes the doorman to notice me. He asks where I'm going and confirms the floor.
Mind you, it's also my new company's first day in San Francisco as well; they had just relocated their office from a different city. I expected to walk in on disorganization for my first day. So, as I'm riding up the elevator, I try to calm my nerves and tell myself it really will be okay. The elevator car pulls up to my floor, stops, the doors swing open and...
...there's a bunny handing out roses. Someone was dressed up as a bunny, welcoming all the employees to the new office.
That day and that situation really go to show that sometimes you get what you don't expect. It's like that saying "practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of bunny" or something along those lines. But seriously, sometimes we are blessed enough to have things thrown into our paths that remind us that it's all going to be okay. Single moments have the power to change the course of our mood or our day. For that I am grateful. Now I have that moment to look back on as something great and I have a good story to tell about my first day at work.
Consider what you didn't expect in your own life; share them here in the comments. We all have them; it's just a matter of recognizing them.
It was my first day at my new job and I was a bit overwhelmed. And yes, it was only the morning, I hadn't even gotten to work yet. There were higher expectations with this new position, more people to work with, a more highly structured company and longer working hours. I had no idea what to expect to be honest, but if you talked to me at the time, I welcomed the change. As much as I looked forward to the newness, I wasn't prepared. And that is generally the nature of new stuff.
So, there I am, adjusting minute by minute. I got to deal with, for the first of many times, public transportation and all of it's wonders. I get off in downtown San Francisco, which is organized chaos on a weekday. Everyone knew where they were going and what they were doing, except for maybe myself.
Regardless, I head to my building. I stop in the lobby to make sure I'm going to the correct floor, which causes the doorman to notice me. He asks where I'm going and confirms the floor.
Mind you, it's also my new company's first day in San Francisco as well; they had just relocated their office from a different city. I expected to walk in on disorganization for my first day. So, as I'm riding up the elevator, I try to calm my nerves and tell myself it really will be okay. The elevator car pulls up to my floor, stops, the doors swing open and...
...there's a bunny handing out roses. Someone was dressed up as a bunny, welcoming all the employees to the new office.
That day and that situation really go to show that sometimes you get what you don't expect. It's like that saying "practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of bunny" or something along those lines. But seriously, sometimes we are blessed enough to have things thrown into our paths that remind us that it's all going to be okay. Single moments have the power to change the course of our mood or our day. For that I am grateful. Now I have that moment to look back on as something great and I have a good story to tell about my first day at work.
Consider what you didn't expect in your own life; share them here in the comments. We all have them; it's just a matter of recognizing them.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Who is your neighbor?
I've been observing much about human nature lately, thanks to the wonderfulness of a commute on BART each day. Believe me, the experience has made me think a lot about how we act and interact and has also been teaching me again the lesson of patience (which is a whole different conversation).
This particular instance is from a month or so ago...
A lot of people are very confused by the system: which train to catch, which station we're on, etc. One day a couple rushed onto the train, pulling their rolling luggage behind them. They had decided on the last minute that this must be the right train for where they're going. But then, once inside, realized they were wrong, turned to get off, and were met with the doors swiftly shut in their faces.
Now, I don't know where they were trying to go or where they were coming from. But it seemed they were embarking on vacation (luggage in tow and all) which I know is a whole frenzied rush, and coupled with trying to take BART to the airport, which I've heard can be frustrating.
Next stop comes, they disembark, obviously still looking around trying to get a handle on where they are and how to get where they're trying to go. However, instead of asking someone on the full train or on the platform they got off on, they timidly cross to the other side, hoping for the best I suppose.
It got me thinking about this thing in human nature that makes many of us avoid asking a stranger for help. This couple was obviously confused, and yet decided to keep doing what they're doing, traveling in the wrong directions seeking their destination. A short conversation would have helped them completely but it didn't happen.
So then consider the thought of "who is your neighbor?" Who should you be helping, no matter how small the assistance? The idea applies to those you live next door to or down the street from, in the name of building a strong community. But I think it also applies to our fellow man as well. Everyone should be considered your neighbor, everyone is worthy of your help if you can help them.
I wish that more people felt comfortable asking help from others, even if they are strangers. And I hope that each of us, including myself, will be willing to help someone who looks like they can use a little bit of help.
This particular instance is from a month or so ago...
A lot of people are very confused by the system: which train to catch, which station we're on, etc. One day a couple rushed onto the train, pulling their rolling luggage behind them. They had decided on the last minute that this must be the right train for where they're going. But then, once inside, realized they were wrong, turned to get off, and were met with the doors swiftly shut in their faces.
Now, I don't know where they were trying to go or where they were coming from. But it seemed they were embarking on vacation (luggage in tow and all) which I know is a whole frenzied rush, and coupled with trying to take BART to the airport, which I've heard can be frustrating.
Next stop comes, they disembark, obviously still looking around trying to get a handle on where they are and how to get where they're trying to go. However, instead of asking someone on the full train or on the platform they got off on, they timidly cross to the other side, hoping for the best I suppose.
It got me thinking about this thing in human nature that makes many of us avoid asking a stranger for help. This couple was obviously confused, and yet decided to keep doing what they're doing, traveling in the wrong directions seeking their destination. A short conversation would have helped them completely but it didn't happen.
So then consider the thought of "who is your neighbor?" Who should you be helping, no matter how small the assistance? The idea applies to those you live next door to or down the street from, in the name of building a strong community. But I think it also applies to our fellow man as well. Everyone should be considered your neighbor, everyone is worthy of your help if you can help them.
I wish that more people felt comfortable asking help from others, even if they are strangers. And I hope that each of us, including myself, will be willing to help someone who looks like they can use a little bit of help.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Believe Something Big(ger) Series
For those attending the Sunday night service:
We have a new element to the current series "Believe Something Big(ger)" in the form of another blog. This series is being taught at CrossWinds both during the morning services and the evening services.
Many of us know that there are thoughts and questions that go beyond just the message, and the additional blog is a way to enter into discussion with others. I'm encouraging all of us to use that resource as something to continue to flesh out what the messages touch on. Please make use of it and be a voice in the conversation.
Website is www.believesomethingbigger.blogspot.com
We have a new element to the current series "Believe Something Big(ger)" in the form of another blog. This series is being taught at CrossWinds both during the morning services and the evening services.
Many of us know that there are thoughts and questions that go beyond just the message, and the additional blog is a way to enter into discussion with others. I'm encouraging all of us to use that resource as something to continue to flesh out what the messages touch on. Please make use of it and be a voice in the conversation.
Website is www.believesomethingbigger.blogspot.com
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
"Money can't buy happiness"
In the past few days I've been seeing studies about the "general happiness of the world" posted on Yahoo! news. Apparently some association has been monitoring the responses of residents of a number of countries when questioned about their personal happiness levels. First of all, it's interesting that someone has decided to measure the moods of people; it is such a subjective thing to measure.
Within the first paragraph, or even in the teaser blurb, there is also something mentioned about the economy being bad. It is presented often as "in spite of" a slowing economy, people are still happy.
So it led me to wonder, what does that really show?
When I thought about it beyond just data, and an odd study, I thought about the nature of happiness and the economy. Maybe it just "scientifically" proves that happiness is not tied to money or possessions. Most people have heard the saying "money can't buy happiness" and maybe believe it, maybe don't. I've also heard it addressed in the church a lot as well, that followers of Christ should be seeking other things to find true happiness.
Seeing those studies reminded me that happiness and possessions don't go hand-in-hand. Science just seems to be catching up with general opinion.
Within the first paragraph, or even in the teaser blurb, there is also something mentioned about the economy being bad. It is presented often as "in spite of" a slowing economy, people are still happy.
So it led me to wonder, what does that really show?
When I thought about it beyond just data, and an odd study, I thought about the nature of happiness and the economy. Maybe it just "scientifically" proves that happiness is not tied to money or possessions. Most people have heard the saying "money can't buy happiness" and maybe believe it, maybe don't. I've also heard it addressed in the church a lot as well, that followers of Christ should be seeking other things to find true happiness.
Seeing those studies reminded me that happiness and possessions don't go hand-in-hand. Science just seems to be catching up with general opinion.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Visual of our stuff
http://www.faceyourpockets.com/index1.html
A link to a very interesting project exploring the idea of people and their stuff. On looking through it just a little bit it's amazing to see the things that people carry with them everywhere/everyday. It only serves as a collection of images, and offers no thoughts past that; it leaves you to think about it yourself. As a person who is very drawn toward the sight sense, I found it very intriguing in light of the recent Sunday night series "Possessed, when the stuff you own starts owning you."
A link to a very interesting project exploring the idea of people and their stuff. On looking through it just a little bit it's amazing to see the things that people carry with them everywhere/everyday. It only serves as a collection of images, and offers no thoughts past that; it leaves you to think about it yourself. As a person who is very drawn toward the sight sense, I found it very intriguing in light of the recent Sunday night series "Possessed, when the stuff you own starts owning you."
Gratitude
Chris Scott talked Sunday night about gratitude. There were different areas mentioned, including being grateful for our stuff, our church and a relationship with our God.
One of the things that has really been sticking with me and caused me to consider was the idea of being grateful about our church. Chris said that there is a need this place (the church) fulfills that is not being met anywhere else; that is why we come to this place.
This thought really stuck with me because it is so simple and true, yet the awareness of it becomes more faint the longer we are part of a church body. For me, this is why I came to this place, but I had lost awareness of that simple truth. The first night I attended, I came because I was seeking worship, I wanted to be fed and encouraged, I wanted community, I wanted to be part of something that was actually addressing the need for God in my peer group. It was a feeling very real for me, something I carried with me until I couldn't ignore it anymore, something that forced me way outside my comfort zone to find an answer for it. I can say that I did feel called to this place, and that I felt so overwhelmingly grateful for this place that was meeting a need I could not silence anywhere else.
As time has passed, the sharpness of the awareness dulled. Part of it is due to the fact that I am a part of something that was fulfilling those needs, so the painful edge went away. But sitting there Sunday night, when Chris spoke those words, I felt the complete weight of them. That is the reason I continue to come every Sunday, why my soul is drawn there even when my body and mind are weary. Needs of mine are being met at that place, within that body of Christ followers, that are not being met anywhere else in my life.
For that, I must say thank you to all of the people who come together to be a part of it. We are blessed to be a part of this. To those who gather and worship together and learn to grow together, my gratitude. And to those of you who feel a call to serve and make this place possible, my gratitude for you and for this place we share.
Consider what first brought you to seek out this place.
One of the things that has really been sticking with me and caused me to consider was the idea of being grateful about our church. Chris said that there is a need this place (the church) fulfills that is not being met anywhere else; that is why we come to this place.
This thought really stuck with me because it is so simple and true, yet the awareness of it becomes more faint the longer we are part of a church body. For me, this is why I came to this place, but I had lost awareness of that simple truth. The first night I attended, I came because I was seeking worship, I wanted to be fed and encouraged, I wanted community, I wanted to be part of something that was actually addressing the need for God in my peer group. It was a feeling very real for me, something I carried with me until I couldn't ignore it anymore, something that forced me way outside my comfort zone to find an answer for it. I can say that I did feel called to this place, and that I felt so overwhelmingly grateful for this place that was meeting a need I could not silence anywhere else.
As time has passed, the sharpness of the awareness dulled. Part of it is due to the fact that I am a part of something that was fulfilling those needs, so the painful edge went away. But sitting there Sunday night, when Chris spoke those words, I felt the complete weight of them. That is the reason I continue to come every Sunday, why my soul is drawn there even when my body and mind are weary. Needs of mine are being met at that place, within that body of Christ followers, that are not being met anywhere else in my life.
For that, I must say thank you to all of the people who come together to be a part of it. We are blessed to be a part of this. To those who gather and worship together and learn to grow together, my gratitude. And to those of you who feel a call to serve and make this place possible, my gratitude for you and for this place we share.
Consider what first brought you to seek out this place.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Who we represent
i'm watching this HBO documentary called "FRIENDS OF GOD".
It's all about evangelical christians in America.
ya.
it's rough.
Ted Haggard is one of the main people interviewed in the documentary...he's the pastor in Colorado Springs who stepped down after it was discovered he was having some sort of affair with a male prostitute...
Other interviews consist of people organizing Christian car shows, a drive-thru church, people who define homosexuality as the route of all evil, people who refute evolution and teach their children that dinosaurs didn't exist and a Christian Theme park.
SERIOUSLY!
It's in Orlando and it's called the HOLY LAND EXPERIENCE.
what? why do we need that?
there was also a bible themed mini golf course that was hella janky.
These are the people I represent in SANTA CRUZ.
oH and George Bush and every televangelist ever and every person with a "GOD HATES GAYS" sign.
When people hear Christian, they see those people.
It's awful...
I feel so discouraged sometimes knowing that.
I'm so tired of Jesus constantly being associated with these people.
If you have a chance to watch it you should.
It's hard but if anything it makes me want to love more.
I don't ever in my life want to assumed as someone who hates because I read the bible, or judges because I believe in God.
I feel like Jesus is so separate from that.
All these screaming people and giant church productions, loud politicians and angry congregations...
I guess our world has become such a loud and chaotic place that the church has responded in the only way tit knows how.
This sounds dumb but I seriously wish that people thought more about the quiet place.
I find myself having to find that place frequently.
Walking to class and driving in my car, waiting for the bus and reading at a coffee shop...i find myself searching for the quiet place where i am reminded fo who i truly represent.
He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty [Whose power no foe can withstand]. - Psalm 91:1.
this was a total rant.
i don't know where i'm going with this.
just that it's hard seomtimes...but you guys probably know that.
It's all about evangelical christians in America.
ya.
it's rough.
Ted Haggard is one of the main people interviewed in the documentary...he's the pastor in Colorado Springs who stepped down after it was discovered he was having some sort of affair with a male prostitute...
Other interviews consist of people organizing Christian car shows, a drive-thru church, people who define homosexuality as the route of all evil, people who refute evolution and teach their children that dinosaurs didn't exist and a Christian Theme park.
SERIOUSLY!
It's in Orlando and it's called the HOLY LAND EXPERIENCE.
what? why do we need that?
there was also a bible themed mini golf course that was hella janky.
These are the people I represent in SANTA CRUZ.
oH and George Bush and every televangelist ever and every person with a "GOD HATES GAYS" sign.
When people hear Christian, they see those people.
It's awful...
I feel so discouraged sometimes knowing that.
I'm so tired of Jesus constantly being associated with these people.
If you have a chance to watch it you should.
It's hard but if anything it makes me want to love more.
I don't ever in my life want to assumed as someone who hates because I read the bible, or judges because I believe in God.
I feel like Jesus is so separate from that.
All these screaming people and giant church productions, loud politicians and angry congregations...
I guess our world has become such a loud and chaotic place that the church has responded in the only way tit knows how.
This sounds dumb but I seriously wish that people thought more about the quiet place.
I find myself having to find that place frequently.
Walking to class and driving in my car, waiting for the bus and reading at a coffee shop...i find myself searching for the quiet place where i am reminded fo who i truly represent.
He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty [Whose power no foe can withstand]. - Psalm 91:1.
this was a total rant.
i don't know where i'm going with this.
just that it's hard seomtimes...but you guys probably know that.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
"The Clothes Don't Make the Man"
This quote sprung up in my mind listening to the message last Sunday about consumerism. Even though our society is so bent on a consumer lifestyle, there is still the recognition that what an individual buys is no measure of their character.
Wikipedia defines the phrase as "An aphorism meaning that you cannot judge a person solely by his appearance."
Have you ever heard that saying? It's usually followed by a "but the [insert thought-provoking attribute here] does."
It's true though, just as much for a CEO as it is for you and me.
I'm not going to get into the discussion of the satisfaction of money or buying things because that's for you to decide for yourself, how to be a steward of your money. You're the only one who can examine if the way you're living your life is fulfilling to you. I can't decide that for you; I can only wrestle with the question for my own life.
But I ask you to consider the truth of the statement "the clothes don't make the man." It applies to how we consume things, what it important in life, maybe even why we consume so much.
Wikipedia defines the phrase as "An aphorism meaning that you cannot judge a person solely by his appearance."
Have you ever heard that saying? It's usually followed by a "but the [insert thought-provoking attribute here] does."
It's true though, just as much for a CEO as it is for you and me.
I'm not going to get into the discussion of the satisfaction of money or buying things because that's for you to decide for yourself, how to be a steward of your money. You're the only one who can examine if the way you're living your life is fulfilling to you. I can't decide that for you; I can only wrestle with the question for my own life.
But I ask you to consider the truth of the statement "the clothes don't make the man." It applies to how we consume things, what it important in life, maybe even why we consume so much.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
Our Journey
Sometimes it just doesn't make sense until it applies to your own life.Within the past few days, I've had reason to take a journey into my past. No, I didn't go on some trip to my ancestor's homeland to discover my roots; and no, I didn't discover some long-lost diary that exposes some deep, dark family secrets.
I went on this excursion sitting in front of my computer screen. How does that work, you may ask. It's simple really. I went to work transferring old digital images from cds that have been sitting around for ages, transferring them onto a more reliable storage medium. (In case you're wondering, yes, that's how I roll.)
What I wasn't prepared for was the frame of mind this little organizational task would put me in. You see, I once again was looking at parts of my life (and some people in my life) I really would rather forget. I remembered who I was at those times. I remembered the relationships I engaged in during those times. I remembered things that are still apart of me, even though they are years past. Needless to say, I ended up mentally beating myself up again for things I cannot change. My day and my mood was swiftly headed downhill.
Gradually the awakening began, prompted something other than my own self. I realized how grateful I am for current things in my life, especially in such contrast to these times in my past that were staring me in the face.
I cherish the healthy relationships I have currently. I am thankful for the community of people following God that I am able to be an active part of. I am amazed by the amount of growth that has begun and continues in me by the grace of God.
And I think I was about due for the reminder that I do live a good life. If it had to happen by facing the ghosts of my past, then so be it. I am glad for the heart check.
If you were around to hear Chris Coli speak on "Story," then hopefully these thoughts will make you revisit your own thoughts that were inspired by that series. Otherwise, hopefully it will cause you to examine your own life, where you are, where you've been and where you're going.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Myanmar's steps forward
Currently, the people of Myanmar are still living in the midst of disaster, but there is hope. That hope is what is fueling this post. It is important to not give in to the idea of despair.
My hope is that the information included here will serve as an update on the situation as it progresses, but also as a reminder to pray.
Some aid is getting through to the people of Myanmar. One of the fears in the aftermath of this disaster, is that people will die from untreated injuries or from disease spreading via poor living conditions. Reportedly, a medical team from Thailand will be allowed into the worst-hit area of the country. Although it is a small step, it is a step forward.
There has been much discussion about the government junta's misuse of the monetary and goods aid that is pouring into the country from foreign countries. Recently the government announced that they will allow workers to come in from the surrounding countries to distribute aid. Although it is a small amount, some cargo flights carrying supplies have been cleared for entry into the country.
The biggest demonstration of caring, however, seems to be coming from within the country itself. Although the junta is stalling help, the people of Myanmar apparently have stepped up into the existing need. It is reported that people who have already suffered through losing loved ones or their own homes, have joined the effort to help. These people who have already gone through so much are setting aside their own worries to help those who are even less fortunate than themselves. That is a huge example for the rest of the watching world and even the ruling government of Myanmar. The citizens are stepping in where others currently cannot or will not.
Please continue to pray for these people. We do not have to admit to understand this situation in order to bring it before God in prayer. My other encouragement is to keep an eye on the news and as more aid is allowed into the company, please consider donating to the cause.
My hope is that the information included here will serve as an update on the situation as it progresses, but also as a reminder to pray.
Some aid is getting through to the people of Myanmar. One of the fears in the aftermath of this disaster, is that people will die from untreated injuries or from disease spreading via poor living conditions. Reportedly, a medical team from Thailand will be allowed into the worst-hit area of the country. Although it is a small step, it is a step forward.
There has been much discussion about the government junta's misuse of the monetary and goods aid that is pouring into the country from foreign countries. Recently the government announced that they will allow workers to come in from the surrounding countries to distribute aid. Although it is a small amount, some cargo flights carrying supplies have been cleared for entry into the country.
The biggest demonstration of caring, however, seems to be coming from within the country itself. Although the junta is stalling help, the people of Myanmar apparently have stepped up into the existing need. It is reported that people who have already suffered through losing loved ones or their own homes, have joined the effort to help. These people who have already gone through so much are setting aside their own worries to help those who are even less fortunate than themselves. That is a huge example for the rest of the watching world and even the ruling government of Myanmar. The citizens are stepping in where others currently cannot or will not.
Please continue to pray for these people. We do not have to admit to understand this situation in order to bring it before God in prayer. My other encouragement is to keep an eye on the news and as more aid is allowed into the company, please consider donating to the cause.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Captivated
I am so excited to be writing my first Chard and compass blog, here I go! A well known fact about me is that I am pretty obsessed with Jason Mraz, and not just his music. He shares something special with this planet, he has a beautiful way of looking at life and I have gained much insight from him. (if you are a fan and not aware of his rad blog check it out here)
Let me explain further - I had an ah-ha! Mraz moment last week when I attended a Shawn McDonald concert at my old church, University Covenant Church in Davis. I had been looking forward to the concert for a long time to catch up with old friends and to experience Shawn’s music in person. Shawn has written some wonderful songs that are my life theme songs (am I the only one who has theme songs? – I know I am not alone - you know you do too!) anyway back to the concert, I was waiting to hear Take My Hand, and as soon as the first chord started I whipped out my camera to record the song through my cameras video feature and I saw many around me do the exact same thing. Cell phones and cameras were all around me. All these people were digitally trying to perfectly capture the moment. There I was front row at an amazing concert, filled with God’s presence and what was I doing but watching and experiencing it all through the little screen on my camera, to make sure I captured this moment on my little camera and I had a sudden memory that jerked me back to reality….
A year or two ago while at a Jason Mraz concert, Jason stopped playing and turned on the house lights and chatted with the crowd. He wanted to tell us a story. Once when he was traveling in Egypt he was spending time at the Pyramids, he was taking his time to soak in being in such awesome presence of these monuments. Jason watched as many tourists came through to see the sites and would be carrying their camera, pulling it up to try and capture the perfect picture, being unhappy with the lighting in the first, deleting the picture they had taken and then trying again, after that process finally finding one they were content with and then the tourist would walk away from the pyramid looking at the image on their camera screen, not at the actual thing standing in front of them. In this moment Jason decided to LIVE life and SEE it and he lives in a way that is not rushed and tries to capture moments in his memory not memory SD stick. At his concert he encouraged us to do the same, stop taking his picture, stop recording the song and feel the music, to be in the moment with him, to dance and sing and to experience life in the instance. I was shook to reality in that moment and I thought about all the times I was so focused on capturing an image on my camera I did not fully experience the moment, the music, the view, the people. I tried to change, yet I found myself once again trying desperately to have Shawn McDonald on my little camera screen and in doing that failing to enjoy the entire moment and being in that place at that time. I need to continue to remind myself to be in the moment, to slow down and enjoy the moment that God has made.Friday, May 9, 2008
My Karen Friends
My friend Ian found this video and sent it to me. It is some of the Karen people I met while I was in Thailand. My heart has been heavy these past few days with all that is going on in Myanmar (Burma) but seeing this video gave me so much joy. In this video you see some of the most oppressed people in the world singing Amazing Grace what a beautiful sight/sound
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
How to help with Myanmar (CLICK ME!!)
Hey all I'm sure you know what is going on with the situation in Myanmar. in the picture you see here we are outside an orphanage that has most likely been destroyed by the storm. As you know Our church is very involved with the country. I am writing this because I think it would be a shame if we sat by and did nothing. Crosswinds has already started moving on getting a check cut for $5,000 dollars. What a blessing that is. I do think that we can go above and beyond our giving. (for some of us it maybe a good time to start giving) I feel like if we can each give 100$ we can really make a difference. If you want to make a donation click the link above. I know money is tight right now but I think we can pull this together even if it is a small amount. Sorry if this post is a jumbled mess but time is an issue right now. FYI World vision is one of the few faith based NPO's being let into myanmar right now and thats why we have chosen to use them (plus they are pretty friggen awesome)
Much Love
Joshua
One last thing if you do donate money for myanmar let us know about it in the response not to be a bragger but maybe to encourage others to give
Monday, May 5, 2008
Myanmar News
Recently a natural disaster has torn through the country of Myanmar.
The most interesting thing about the situation is that this situation may provide a way for foreign countries access to the country, even if it is for a short time. Apparently there has already been a call for international aid, but from what I understand, the ruling party of Myanmar has not given express permission for people to enter the country yet.
Although this is a huge tragedy and many people's lives have been altered or destroyed; please pray that God will be continuing to use this situation for His plan.
A link to a news article is included if you would like more information.
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=OTk0MTAz
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Myanmar Campaign
Updated information surrounding the issues in Myanmar. Check out this website for current info: http://uscampaignforburma.org/
Included in the above page is also the celebrity campaign to raise awareness of what is going on within the country. Each day for the next 30 days a new video will be premiered, each featuring a different public voice who has given time for this cause.
Included in the above page is also the celebrity campaign to raise awareness of what is going on within the country. Each day for the next 30 days a new video will be premiered, each featuring a different public voice who has given time for this cause.
Hey Boat... Where have you been?
I saw this picture today and it stirred something inside of me. To be honest anything that has to do with the ocean usually will get some sort of positive response from me. I look at these run aground boats and wonder, What have you seen? What is the weirdest thing that has ever happened to you at sea? Who made you? Did you ever come close to sinking? I think of the sweat and labor that went into the creation of these wave warriors. I hope when I get older I am not silent like these boats. I hope I keep telling stories upon stories of the wonders I have seen and the waters I have traveled. I would rather sink to the bottom doing what I love than be silent on the shore.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Is blush the new pinkberry?
this is true I hope blush tastes like God's white fluffy hair.
Monday, April 21, 2008
You're that good...
I think Sunday night's discussion is bigger than the hour and a half we put into it... if you're reading this then you have obviously thought about questioning this thing deeper... keep going...
” if you’re human, you’ve been entrusted with living in the center of all creation… a difference than being the center of all creation, but living there… if you’re human, you’ve been made by someone who thinks you’re “very good”…. All of creation hasn’t done anything yet to “be good” and the one who made it calls it good, or very good in our case.
God has an idea of what life will look like, but before it has even begun to unfold he is already pleased with what he sees.
This sounds a lot like making a cappuccino, you know what I mean? If I’m asked to make a cappuccino, which often times I have a personal desire to do so, I know what I’ll need…
Freshly steamed milk, with an oh so creamy melted ice cream texture to it, but not too hot now!…. Espresso shots pulled to a golden brown perfection… oh the crème’ looks great after it has pulled into the cup for about 25-28 seconds, with a 3 second pre-infusion of course….. let’s not forget that once the espresso is in the cup and I am free pouring my rich milk that different designs will just inherently bubble to the top and I will be left with a unique cup full of what looks to be a thick marbled masterpiece! Are you with me??!
I don’t have to take a single sip of that cappuccino to know it will be good, which would be weird with someone standing there anyways… not because I am so full of myself as a barista but because I know what it is I have “poured” into the cup both ingredients and decisions on what/how/when/timing/design…. In fact, I am trusting the one who has received the cappuccino to do with it what it was meant for… enjoying it without limit…. It would be weird if I drank some of it and told them how to do it…I can just look at it and believe they will see what I see….
This is the place we live in as Christians…. That this barista God of ours loves what he has made, remember He calls it “very good”, places us at the center of his creation and even goes as far as to say we are his “masterpiece”…
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Give a stranger a hug
The other day I got a call from my wife, she told me that she hugged a total stranger. My first thought went to her thinking she saw someone she knew and ran up and gave them a hug and it ended up being a stranger. (This once happened to me but I gave a guy a slap on the backside cos I thought it was my friend Shane the guy turned around and it was not my friend and I looked like a total weirdo) This was not the case. Carrie saw a guy on her way to work who was sobbing. She said to the man "I don't want to intrude... but are you ok? The sobbing man said he has had a really bad day. Carrie then wrapped her arms around the man and gave him a hug. This is love... This is Jesus.
I don't write this to brag about my wife (although she is friggen bomb) I share this because I think a lot of times we tend to see the sobbing man on the street, put our head down and walk on. Or sometimes we say to our selves "I should pray for that person" but forget to do that. My point is... take action. Im not saying go hug every person on the street, Use discernment and keep watch for the opportunity to love.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Continuing the conversation
This is a conversation that shouldn't be left behind.
I completely agree that people come to a deep personal relationship with Christ in different ways. Just like Chris Coli said in Sunday's talk, there are certain things that we, as followers, should be pursuing, but how we go about doing them can be very different.
(begin slight digression)
This idea became clearer in my mind while listening last night. We allow for individuals to be different, the hobbies they enjoy, the jobs they want, their favorite colors, the music they listen to; pretty much, the right to enjoy what they enjoy. People are believers in individuality, showing it in many ways.
So, how come this doesn't often extend into the Church? There is the idea that one must look a certain way or do certain things in order to be a "proper" Christian. But this isn't true, God is the one who spent the time to make each one of us unique, to give us each different likes and dislikes and strengths and weaknesses. For me personally, my strong point isn't being up front leading; instead, my leadership skills are best used behind the scenes, organizing things and following through. I'm not supposed to be the person on stage. That's who I am, that's how I'm made.
(end slight digression)
I want to flesh out the main idea with an example from my own experience: the world of design.
Having the design software or a brand new Mac doesn't make you a designer. Just like doing the "best practices" doesn't make you a Christian. Carrying your bible with you everywhere, getting up at 4 a.m. and praying doesn't make you a Christian.
We're different, there's other stuff involved.
Graphic designers learn in different ways: school courses, books, web resources, job experience or even just messing around with the program, trying stuff out. In fact, this seems to be one of the only fields where an applicant can either have a college degree or the same number of years of working experience. My point is, there are different ways to become a graphic designer, depending on how you learn. Just like there are different ways to talk to God (pray), different ways to spend time being quiet with Him, different ways to worship and different ways to interact with the bible.
There's no formula to follow that will guarantee a healthy ongoing relationship, just as Chris pointed out. We know that, as Christians, we need to pursue God, but how we engage in that looks different for each one of us.
I think part of individual faith maturing is coming to grips with being made individually and pursuing God through the methods he calls to us through, not just what we see others doing.
in thought,
faye
I completely agree that people come to a deep personal relationship with Christ in different ways. Just like Chris Coli said in Sunday's talk, there are certain things that we, as followers, should be pursuing, but how we go about doing them can be very different.
(begin slight digression)
This idea became clearer in my mind while listening last night. We allow for individuals to be different, the hobbies they enjoy, the jobs they want, their favorite colors, the music they listen to; pretty much, the right to enjoy what they enjoy. People are believers in individuality, showing it in many ways.
So, how come this doesn't often extend into the Church? There is the idea that one must look a certain way or do certain things in order to be a "proper" Christian. But this isn't true, God is the one who spent the time to make each one of us unique, to give us each different likes and dislikes and strengths and weaknesses. For me personally, my strong point isn't being up front leading; instead, my leadership skills are best used behind the scenes, organizing things and following through. I'm not supposed to be the person on stage. That's who I am, that's how I'm made.
(end slight digression)
I want to flesh out the main idea with an example from my own experience: the world of design.
Having the design software or a brand new Mac doesn't make you a designer. Just like doing the "best practices" doesn't make you a Christian. Carrying your bible with you everywhere, getting up at 4 a.m. and praying doesn't make you a Christian.
We're different, there's other stuff involved.
Graphic designers learn in different ways: school courses, books, web resources, job experience or even just messing around with the program, trying stuff out. In fact, this seems to be one of the only fields where an applicant can either have a college degree or the same number of years of working experience. My point is, there are different ways to become a graphic designer, depending on how you learn. Just like there are different ways to talk to God (pray), different ways to spend time being quiet with Him, different ways to worship and different ways to interact with the bible.
There's no formula to follow that will guarantee a healthy ongoing relationship, just as Chris pointed out. We know that, as Christians, we need to pursue God, but how we engage in that looks different for each one of us.
I think part of individual faith maturing is coming to grips with being made individually and pursuing God through the methods he calls to us through, not just what we see others doing.
in thought,
faye
Sunday, March 9, 2008
What beauty is
Society spreads lies about beauty in human form.
Individuals are told what they should look like every single day, when staring at advertisement. The point that must be achieved is always perfection, always something out of reach of the average individual. In pursuit of this, people spend money to achieve, they may choose the path of surgery, they may sink into depression because they don't match up or they may develop eating disorders as a result. So many people end up looking in the mirror each day and are continually disappointed by what they see. It's damaging and it ends up being such a huge part of how we see each other, how we see ourselves.
I have been thinking about this problem in terms of society in general for awhile. My realization is that some of the people who are a part of this very same society have started fighting back, starting to expose the lie. It's encouraging to me that there is a backlash against these ideals that have been perpetuated for so long.
Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty" / (www.campaignforrealbeauty.com): The most interesting thing about this is that this is a company within the beauty industry, fighting from the inside out. They are standing among their peers and saying there is a lie behind what the industry says. Also, they strive to use real people, normal people in their advertising. One of the videos from the campaign is below, more are on the website.
"You Are Beautiful" project / (www.you-are-beautiful.com): This project is more subversive in a way, simply because of the way it is being dispersed. It relies on individuals getting behind the project and supporting it. What would your thoughts be if a random intrusion into your day was an out of place sign or sticker with the words "You Are Beautiful"? Would it make you think?
"We Are Loved" / (www.weareloved.info): Many reading this post will have some familiarity with the project, or may even own a shirt with this logo. It still deserves introspection though as a reminder. Much of this project is focused on the fact that there is something worth living this life for, that there is a reason for even being alive. It is something to inspire our interactions with others, our artistic expression and also our view of ourselves. The meaning in our life changes when we realize that we are loved, that we are not just on our own.
"Love Wins" is an idea that came from Rob Bell at Mars Hill Church: Despite all the bad in the world, the idea that love is greater than all of it. It is a greater force than anything we can experience. It presents the idea of living this out in human life, interacting with others with this idea in mind. It challenges us to think about what that would actually look like, to practice love towards all of God's created individuals.
Psalm 139:14 "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." This is how our creator, God, sees His creation, us. As followers of Christ, do we (do you, do I) actually believe this as truth? It is not an easy thing to accept, not an easy thing to understand. But, like all of the great things God has for us, if we do the work to wrestle with it, our lives become fuller/richer and we are able to live within the reality that God has created for us.
In thought,
faye
Individuals are told what they should look like every single day, when staring at advertisement. The point that must be achieved is always perfection, always something out of reach of the average individual. In pursuit of this, people spend money to achieve, they may choose the path of surgery, they may sink into depression because they don't match up or they may develop eating disorders as a result. So many people end up looking in the mirror each day and are continually disappointed by what they see. It's damaging and it ends up being such a huge part of how we see each other, how we see ourselves.
I have been thinking about this problem in terms of society in general for awhile. My realization is that some of the people who are a part of this very same society have started fighting back, starting to expose the lie. It's encouraging to me that there is a backlash against these ideals that have been perpetuated for so long.
Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty" / (www.campaignforrealbeauty.com): The most interesting thing about this is that this is a company within the beauty industry, fighting from the inside out. They are standing among their peers and saying there is a lie behind what the industry says. Also, they strive to use real people, normal people in their advertising. One of the videos from the campaign is below, more are on the website.
"You Are Beautiful" project / (www.you-are-beautiful.com): This project is more subversive in a way, simply because of the way it is being dispersed. It relies on individuals getting behind the project and supporting it. What would your thoughts be if a random intrusion into your day was an out of place sign or sticker with the words "You Are Beautiful"? Would it make you think?
"We Are Loved" / (www.weareloved.info): Many reading this post will have some familiarity with the project, or may even own a shirt with this logo. It still deserves introspection though as a reminder. Much of this project is focused on the fact that there is something worth living this life for, that there is a reason for even being alive. It is something to inspire our interactions with others, our artistic expression and also our view of ourselves. The meaning in our life changes when we realize that we are loved, that we are not just on our own.
"Love Wins" is an idea that came from Rob Bell at Mars Hill Church: Despite all the bad in the world, the idea that love is greater than all of it. It is a greater force than anything we can experience. It presents the idea of living this out in human life, interacting with others with this idea in mind. It challenges us to think about what that would actually look like, to practice love towards all of God's created individuals.
Psalm 139:14 "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." This is how our creator, God, sees His creation, us. As followers of Christ, do we (do you, do I) actually believe this as truth? It is not an easy thing to accept, not an easy thing to understand. But, like all of the great things God has for us, if we do the work to wrestle with it, our lives become fuller/richer and we are able to live within the reality that God has created for us.
In thought,
faye
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Men you better think twice before you PISSETH sitting down...It's in the Bible
This really heats up towards the end!
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Mamma T was a wise woman
We forget that forgiveness is greater than revenge.
People make mistakes.
We are allowed to make mistakes.
But the actions we take while in a rage will haunt us forever.
Pause and ponder.
Think before you act. Be patient. Forgive & forget. Love one and all.
If you judge people, you have no time to love them. -- Mother Teresa
Sunday, February 3, 2008
A Roadside Thought
I was driving in to work the other day and saw the statement "Faith is a journey, we'll help you get started." It struck me the minute I saw it and stayed with me until I thought about just what bothered me about it.
The part "faith is a journey" I agree with and thankfully have come to understand. Faith should be something we are constantly moving forward in, constantly growing in. Somewhere along the line, the lie was born that there is a point where each one of us becomes the perfect Christian; we then achieve all that we can and are ready for heaven. Unfortunately, this is the view both outside of and within the church. Many people buy into this idea of "I have to be this and do that and achieve to be perfect." Thankfully people are waking up to the realization that there is no point of perfection when we consider our pursuit of God, except God himself. There is always going to be something more that we can learn, a new way to grow, a different way to let Him into our lives.
What bothered me about the statement is "we'll help you get started." No church can start someone on the journey towards God. It seems that the journey towards God would start before the individual ever sets foot in the door or seeks out other believers. From some early point, God would have to be evident, revealing Himself. At some point it seems like the individual would realize there is something greater than himself, some higher power. I would think that is the start of the journey towards God.
If we look at the current series Chris is teaching on of "Story" then we need to look back even further than those first stirrings of awareness. One of the main themes is that we are writing a story, that our whole life up to this point and beyond is a story. From that perspective, our whole life is a journey. So then, the journey starts when we are born.
At the same time, I think that God's body of people is important. I can never take such things for granted or brush them aside. God uses people to walk along side of us during our journey for support, for love, for so many things. He brings characters into our story to sharpen us or to change our story. So I think that the church can help on this journey. One of my greatest encouragements about venture is that there are so many people who will freely admit that they too are on this journey, figuring out this faith thing, right along with me.
My thoughts I'm taking away for myself: continue to walk along in this life, towards God and allow God to use us in His way, but remember that we are only the instruments of a Master.
love.
Faye
The part "faith is a journey" I agree with and thankfully have come to understand. Faith should be something we are constantly moving forward in, constantly growing in. Somewhere along the line, the lie was born that there is a point where each one of us becomes the perfect Christian; we then achieve all that we can and are ready for heaven. Unfortunately, this is the view both outside of and within the church. Many people buy into this idea of "I have to be this and do that and achieve to be perfect." Thankfully people are waking up to the realization that there is no point of perfection when we consider our pursuit of God, except God himself. There is always going to be something more that we can learn, a new way to grow, a different way to let Him into our lives.
What bothered me about the statement is "we'll help you get started." No church can start someone on the journey towards God. It seems that the journey towards God would start before the individual ever sets foot in the door or seeks out other believers. From some early point, God would have to be evident, revealing Himself. At some point it seems like the individual would realize there is something greater than himself, some higher power. I would think that is the start of the journey towards God.
If we look at the current series Chris is teaching on of "Story" then we need to look back even further than those first stirrings of awareness. One of the main themes is that we are writing a story, that our whole life up to this point and beyond is a story. From that perspective, our whole life is a journey. So then, the journey starts when we are born.
At the same time, I think that God's body of people is important. I can never take such things for granted or brush them aside. God uses people to walk along side of us during our journey for support, for love, for so many things. He brings characters into our story to sharpen us or to change our story. So I think that the church can help on this journey. One of my greatest encouragements about venture is that there are so many people who will freely admit that they too are on this journey, figuring out this faith thing, right along with me.
My thoughts I'm taking away for myself: continue to walk along in this life, towards God and allow God to use us in His way, but remember that we are only the instruments of a Master.
love.
Faye
Thursday, January 24, 2008
An incredible gift
For all of you who have yet to hear this story....get pumped!
So.....to preface: people give me a hard time for loving Francine Rivers' books. Those people have never read Redeeming Love.
I am an educated person and I enjoy reading a variety of sources and authors but no story has ever come close to that of Rivers' Redeeming Love. A good friend recommended it to me last year and since then I have been on a Francine high! To quickly some up the book, but not spoil it for those of you who will be inspired to read it when I am done telling you this story, Redeeming Love is a retelling of the Biblical story of Hosea and Gomer (the marriage of a prophet of God to a prostitute of Israel). Francine Rivers took some serious liberities with this novel, the time and setting has changed, the characters are incredibly detailed and the story is 500 pages longer than the original!
In this version, Gomer the prostitute’s name is Angel and leads a horrible life which began with parental abandonment and being raped and sold into prostitution at the age of eight. Into her life steps Michael Hosea, a religious man who talks to God. Following the Lord’s instruction, he sets out to marry Angel. The book is incredible and though Angel’s fall is great, God’s redemption is far greater.
Now I can say with certainty that I have led a very sheltered and mildly prudish life. But this book spoke to me when I read it last year and when I began working at Siena maternity home, it spoke to me again. The women at the maternity home I work at come from all walks of life. Most of their stories include drug abuse, molestation, rape, physical abuse and homelessness. The single characteristic that brings them to Siena House, however, is that they are pregnant and have no where to go.
I started working there in the fall and immediately fell in love. These women desired love, friendship and a relationship with God but their entire life they have been told they weren’t good enough by their peers, parents and their lovers. They felt stuck in their lives, haunted by the choices they had made and the men they had chosen. I knew then that I wanted them to read this book. I knew I couldn’t afford to buy ten copies of the book so I called upon the Venture community and Jim Hudson immediately stepped forward. He ordered a case of the books and I was floored! I gave all the women a copy and prayed that they would read it.
A week went by and nothing.
I knew that as soon as one woman read it the rest would follow…but who would be the first? My first week back after break I walked into the house excited for the new quarter. As soon as I put my jacket down I was yelled at from the hallway…
“ERIN!! I AM MAD AT YOU!” I turned around and saw Lynn (I’m changing their names just to be safe…)
**Sidebar** Lynn is pretty intimidating and even though she is incredibly pregnant I'm pretty sure she could seriously injure me if she wanted to.
“What? Why?” I was pretty freaked out at this point, we were the only two people in the front of the relatively large house…I was at her mercy.
“I hated that book you gave me.” She looked at me so sternly. I couldn’t believe it.
“Seriously?...No you didn’t" I said.
“It made me cry four times!” she said.
I was thrilled! We went into the office and she started gushing about the book. She couldn’t believe that God forgave Angel or that Michael Hosea loved her so much. Lynn told me she started it because she was bored but stayed up three nights in a row reading it until 2 am. Lynn explained to me that she had never read an entire book before. The story captured her and she even told me she was going to send it to her mother and also her boyfriend in prison.
Lynn and I were shortly joined by Marie and her new baby. Marie is another resident at Siena House and an incredible woman. Marie has gone through so much in her life and Redeeming Love really bothered her at first. She told me that she physically threw the book on the floor after the prologue brought up some issues she wasn’t ready to deal with. For whatever reason she kept reading and she said it really made me desire a closer relationship with Christ and was greatfull for the challenges God had walked her through.
Holy cow! These stories are incredible!
That week, Lynn wrote a letter to the Siena House board telling them that the book helped her “find the Lord”. The woman who had never read an entire book, asked the board for more books by the author! A woman from the board bought all the books Lynn asked for and shipped them to Siena House...out of her own pocket!
Please understand that I am aware that this book is not scripture, which there is no substitution for. But this story inspires and allows a person who may not know God (or a person who has grown up in the church) to begin to understand the incredible grace of our Father. I am so thankful for Venture and Crosswinds and that I am part of a community that gives. Know that Siena House is thankful and that the act of reaching out with something as simple as a novel is enough to spark an individual's desire for salvation.
So.....to preface: people give me a hard time for loving Francine Rivers' books. Those people have never read Redeeming Love.
I am an educated person and I enjoy reading a variety of sources and authors but no story has ever come close to that of Rivers' Redeeming Love. A good friend recommended it to me last year and since then I have been on a Francine high! To quickly some up the book, but not spoil it for those of you who will be inspired to read it when I am done telling you this story, Redeeming Love is a retelling of the Biblical story of Hosea and Gomer (the marriage of a prophet of God to a prostitute of Israel). Francine Rivers took some serious liberities with this novel, the time and setting has changed, the characters are incredibly detailed and the story is 500 pages longer than the original!
In this version, Gomer the prostitute’s name is Angel and leads a horrible life which began with parental abandonment and being raped and sold into prostitution at the age of eight. Into her life steps Michael Hosea, a religious man who talks to God. Following the Lord’s instruction, he sets out to marry Angel. The book is incredible and though Angel’s fall is great, God’s redemption is far greater.
Now I can say with certainty that I have led a very sheltered and mildly prudish life. But this book spoke to me when I read it last year and when I began working at Siena maternity home, it spoke to me again. The women at the maternity home I work at come from all walks of life. Most of their stories include drug abuse, molestation, rape, physical abuse and homelessness. The single characteristic that brings them to Siena House, however, is that they are pregnant and have no where to go.
I started working there in the fall and immediately fell in love. These women desired love, friendship and a relationship with God but their entire life they have been told they weren’t good enough by their peers, parents and their lovers. They felt stuck in their lives, haunted by the choices they had made and the men they had chosen. I knew then that I wanted them to read this book. I knew I couldn’t afford to buy ten copies of the book so I called upon the Venture community and Jim Hudson immediately stepped forward. He ordered a case of the books and I was floored! I gave all the women a copy and prayed that they would read it.
A week went by and nothing.
I knew that as soon as one woman read it the rest would follow…but who would be the first? My first week back after break I walked into the house excited for the new quarter. As soon as I put my jacket down I was yelled at from the hallway…
“ERIN!! I AM MAD AT YOU!” I turned around and saw Lynn (I’m changing their names just to be safe…)
**Sidebar** Lynn is pretty intimidating and even though she is incredibly pregnant I'm pretty sure she could seriously injure me if she wanted to.
“What? Why?” I was pretty freaked out at this point, we were the only two people in the front of the relatively large house…I was at her mercy.
“I hated that book you gave me.” She looked at me so sternly. I couldn’t believe it.
“Seriously?...No you didn’t" I said.
“It made me cry four times!” she said.
I was thrilled! We went into the office and she started gushing about the book. She couldn’t believe that God forgave Angel or that Michael Hosea loved her so much. Lynn told me she started it because she was bored but stayed up three nights in a row reading it until 2 am. Lynn explained to me that she had never read an entire book before. The story captured her and she even told me she was going to send it to her mother and also her boyfriend in prison.
Lynn and I were shortly joined by Marie and her new baby. Marie is another resident at Siena House and an incredible woman. Marie has gone through so much in her life and Redeeming Love really bothered her at first. She told me that she physically threw the book on the floor after the prologue brought up some issues she wasn’t ready to deal with. For whatever reason she kept reading and she said it really made me desire a closer relationship with Christ and was greatfull for the challenges God had walked her through.
Holy cow! These stories are incredible!
That week, Lynn wrote a letter to the Siena House board telling them that the book helped her “find the Lord”. The woman who had never read an entire book, asked the board for more books by the author! A woman from the board bought all the books Lynn asked for and shipped them to Siena House...out of her own pocket!
Please understand that I am aware that this book is not scripture, which there is no substitution for. But this story inspires and allows a person who may not know God (or a person who has grown up in the church) to begin to understand the incredible grace of our Father. I am so thankful for Venture and Crosswinds and that I am part of a community that gives. Know that Siena House is thankful and that the act of reaching out with something as simple as a novel is enough to spark an individual's desire for salvation.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Educate your self on the Burma situation (Thanks Ian for the info)
Background On Burma
In order to fully understand the day-to-day situation of Burma's villagers and the mentality of the ruling junta, it is essential to have some idea of the country's ethnic makeup and its historical development. This paper presents a brief summary of Burma's people and historical development, followed by a summary of the current human rights situation. At the end we have provided endnotes and a suggested list of further reference materials. Please note that this page is not regularly updated, so it is useful as a general background but does not aim to provide specific detail on the current situation.
A Land of Ethnic Diversity
Burma is a country of great ethnic diversity, its estimated population of 48-50 million being divided between at least 15 major ethnic groups, many of them with several distinct subgroups. These groups come from very different origins: for example, the Muslim Rohingyas of Arakan (Rakhine) State are related to Bengali and Indian traders of centuries ago, the predominant Burmans originally migrated from the Indo-Tibetan region, the Shan are a Sino-Thai race originating from what is now China, the Karen, Karenni and Pa’O originated from the region of Mongolia, and the Mon are closely related to the Khmer of Cambodia. The extent of these differences is partly visible in the differences in culture and language, with languages such as Burmese, Shan and Karen having virtually no similarities at all. There is no reliable census data for Burma at present, because the last real census was conducted in the early 1930’s and all of the census data since British colonial days has been collected by Burman-dominated regimes keen on exaggerating the dominance of the Burmans; for example, in many areas anyone with a Burman name (which many people adopt to avoid official discrimination) and anyone who is Buddhist has been listed down as a Burman. Using data collected this way, the SPDC and its predecessor regimes have claimed that 67-70% of the population is Burman, while in reality it is more likely that at most half the population is Burman, with 50% or more of the population divided among the other ethnic groups. After the Burmans, the most populous groups are the Karen with an estimated 6-7 million (when taken including the Karenni and Pa’O), and the Shan and Mon with about 4 million each [1]. Even these figures, however, can only be taken as rough estimates.
Kingdoms and Colonisation
There is a great deal of debate over who arrived in Burma first, this honour being claimed by the Burmans, Mon, Karen and Rakhine, among others. Most of these claims appear to be based more on racist dogma than on available historical evidence, particularly the claims of the Burmans and Rakhines, but the oral histories of the Karen and Mon appear to coincide more closely with the historical records and artifacts available. According to the Karen version, their people arrived in Burma, a region which at that time was virtually unpopulated jungle, approximately 2,500 years ago (the current year 2000 is 2739 on the Karen calendar) after a migration in several stages from the region of what is now Mongolia, and settled in what is now the Irrawaddy and Sittaung basin of central Burma. Other groups began arriving at around the same time, possibly shortly before or after, particularly the Mon/Khmer. The Mon/Khmer began imposing their feudal kingdom structure on the other peoples, most of whom had little or no political structure. This began the movement of peoples like the Karen from the central lowlands out into the hills. The Shan also had a strongly structured hierarchical society and in time began dominating what is now Shan State, while the Rakhine kingdom dominated what is now northwestern Burma. The Burmans (whose current calendar year is 1362) were probably among the latest groups to arrive, but over the centuries their kingdoms gradually defeated the Mon and the Rakhine. For hundreds of years until the 1800’s, there were various warring kingdoms trying to eat away at each other’s territories, while less-organised or more peaceable peoples were gradually driven further into the hills toward the peripheries of what is now Burma. In 1767, the armies of the Burman king Hsinbyushin even conquered much of Siam (Thailand), sacking the capital at Ayutthaya and extracting tribute from the existing dynasties. However, none of these kingdoms were ever strong enough to occupy and hold all of this territory, so once they had conquered they generally had to withdraw and life went on.
The British took over what is now Burma piece by piece in 3 wars: 1824-26, 1852-53, and finally in 1886, when ‘Burma’ became part of the British Empire as a province of British India. Until that time, no one had looked on this diverse region as a single geographic unit, and this is an important point in understanding the historical argument for autonomy or independence of the non-Burman peoples. The British systematically eradicated the structure of the Burman kingdoms, but at the same time allowed the continued existence of the Shan princedoms and the Karenni sawbwa’s. These local rulers were allowed some autonomy because they were seen as less of a threat and because the British did not want to allocate the resources necessary to control such vast and far-flung territories, preferring to gradually implement an indirect rule enforced through local leaders. For peoples such as the Karen, Karenni and Kachin, British colonialism was partly a liberation from the repression of the Burmans, and it gave them their first access to education and some forms of development. British and American missionaries had a great deal of success with some of these peoples, gradually converting a sizable minority of Karens to Christianity (mainly Baptist), many Kachin, Chins (also known as Zo) and Naga of northwestern and northern Burma to Baptist and other Christian faiths, and a large proportion of the Karenni to Catholicism. As opportunities opened, many people from these groups joined the colonial administration, civil police force and army. Although in these colonial institutions they were heavily outnumbered by Burmans (for example, in 1938 the civil police force was 71% Burman and only 8.7% Karen [2]), many Burmans remained resentful of British rule and were not very well trusted by the colonisers compared to the other peoples.
Nationalism, Japanese Occupation, and Independence
In the first half of the 20th century, the Burman feeling against the British began to take tangible form in the beginnings of nationalist liberation movements, particularly the Thakin movement in which Aung San was a leader. Over the years the Thakins looked to outside countries for military help in overthrowing the British, culminating in the trip of Aung San and the ‘30 Comrades’ to Japan for military training in early 1941. By the end of 1941, they had returned and put together an ‘army’ of a few thousand in Siam, and followed the invading Japanese into Burma. In the face of the Japanese advance, the British Army retreated to India. During the ensuing 3½-year Japanese occupation of Burma, Aung San’s ‘Burma Independence Army’ acted as enforcers for the Japanese forces, and attracted a mixture of nationalists seeking independence and riffraff who wanted to loot villages. A wide range of atrocities were perpetrated by the BIA against Karen villagers and other ethnic peoples, as many Burmans finally had their opportunity to vent their frustrations against peoples they perceived as British ‘collaborators’. In areas such as the Papun hills, Karen villagers feared the BIA much more than they did the Japanese occupation forces.
At the same time, some Karen, Kachin and others had left for India with the retreating British forces, later to parachute back in, and a few British officers had remained behind in Burma. Villagers were organised into resistance units and armed to fight the Japanese and BIA, and the villages suffered heavy retaliations as a result [3]. In 1944-45, when the Allies re-entered Burma, the Karen, Karenni and Kachin were instrumental in helping them to recapture Burma by systematically harassing and creating havoc among the retreating Japanese [4]. In return for their loyalty they hoped for independence from the Burmans after the war, but it never came. By 1944, Aung San and the BIA had realised that the Japanese had no intention of granting real independence and that the tide of the war was turning, so they switched sides and also fought the retreating Japanese. After the war, Aung San approached the British for independence. The non-Burmans protested that they should be granted freedom from the Burmans, and the British convened the Frontier Areas Commission of Enquiry (FACE) to hear testimony, particularly from Karen regions, on their views. However, as more and more villagers testified of BIA atrocities, the British began to regret the experiment and after the Commission closed they wiped much of the testimony off the record. In the end, independence was granted under Aung San’s plan, with a unitary government which would clearly be Burman-dominated. [5]
Realising that some kind of accommodation would have to be made with the non-Burmans, Aung San engineered the 1947 Panglong Agreement, whereby some representatives from the Shan, Chin and Kachin hills signed their willingness to cooperate with his government and not to seek secession for at least 10 years. No representatives of the Karen, Mon, or any other peoples were present. Even so, Panglong appeared to be a good starting point, but its spirit was wiped out a few months later when Aung San was assassinated by his Burman political rivals. When independence came in January 1948, U Nu became Burma’s elected leader. He immediately faced a Communist rebellion which threatened to topple the government, and was largely saved by non-Burman units of the former colonial army. However, behind their backs he was raising his own Army, and he soon turned it against the Karen and other non-Burman units. At the same time the Karen and others began rising for some form of independence or federalism, first in large peaceful demonstrations, but when this didn’t work they went into armed rebellion. In 1949, the newly independent government faced armed uprisings not only by the Communists, but the Karen and others as well.
Civil War
Through the 1950s, U Nu’s party managed to hold power and bring about some economic progress in the central Burman cities despite facing several armed opposition groups in the countryside. However, Gen. Ne Win, whom U Nu had made head of the Army, seized the government first in 1958-60, and then again in 1962, when he established a full military dictatorship and began stripping everyone in the country, Burman or otherwise, of their rights.
Through the 1950’s and 1960’s, more and more ethnic armed groups rose against the regime until by the late 1970’s there were well over a dozen armed opposition groups controlling something like 20-30% of Burma’s entire land mass. The Communists had become entrenched in large areas of Shan State, while ethnic-based armies controlled much of the hill territory near all of the country’s land borders. Ne Win’s response was to increasingly militarise the country and make his repression of all freedoms more and more systematic. He introduced the Burmese Way to Socialism, which essentially meant state control of everything, and he was the state. He largely cut off the country from international trade or contact, which only strengthened the hand of the armed opposition groups and drove the country into abject poverty. In the early 1970’s he introduced the Four Cuts policy, aimed at cutting off all supplies of food, funds, recruits and intelligence to opposition groups; in practice, it meant undermining the opposition by systematically driving into destitution the civilian population supporting it. Forced relocations, forced labour and all forms of abuses against the civilian population became the order of the day.
Gradually the opposition to Ne Win’s rule became almost universal. In the cities, major demonstrations broke out in 1974 but were put down by the military with many arrests and killings. In 1976, nine of the ethnic-based armies united to form the National Democratic Front (NDF) alliance. However, Ne Win’s rule continued until 1988, when a sudden demonetisation which had wiped out many people’s savings triggered mass uprisings in Rangoon, Mandalay and most provincial towns. Hundreds of thousands of people hit the streets, led by university students and Buddhist monks, only to be raked with machine gun fire or charged with bayonets by combat troops. Anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 people were killed nationwide, and for the first time Burman pro-democracy activists fled to ethnic-held areas in the hills, where they formed their own pro-democracy organisations and allied themselves with the ethnic armies to form the Democratic Alliance of Burma and other alliances. In Rangoon, Ne Win stepped down but eventually hand-picked a junta, which assumed power in September 1988 and called itself the State Law & Order Restoration Council (SLORC).
The SLORC and the SPDC
The SLORC inaugurated its rule by massacring more civilian demonstrators, then immediately began implementing more draconian measures than Ne Win had ever imposed. However, the regime was hungry for international funds and support, particularly the foreign aid which the international community had cut off in its horror at the massacres. In an attempt to appease both international and domestic criticism and to obtain financing, the SLORC began to make a show of opening markets and announced democratic elections for 1990, calculating that it could control the election results by keeping the opposition divided. Unfortunately for them, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of General Aung San (who is an ‘independence hero’ to most ethnic Burmans), had returned from England to tend her sick mother in 1988 and had been dragged into the political whirlpool. She became the General Secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD), a new opposition party, and the electoral opposition parties began rallying around her. To put a stop to this the SLORC put her under house arrest in 1989, but when the polls were held in May 1990, the NLD won 82% of the parliamentary seats, its allies 16%, and the SLORC’s ‘National Unity Party’ only 2%. The junta immediately began taking steps to ignore the election, and never did honour the result. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was held under house arrest until 1995, and even now is so restricted in her movements that she remains under virtual house arrest. Elected Members of Parliament have been harassed, arrested, disqualified, or forced or coerced to resign. Some have died in prison, while others fled to areas held by the ethnic resistance groups and formed a parallel government.
In the ethnic-held areas, agreements were made between ethnic and pro-democracy groups wherein most of the ethnic armies dropped independence from their objectives, and in return the pro-democracy groups agreed to the concept of a federal system with some autonomy for the ethnic states. The SLORC changed the country’s name to ‘Myanmar Naing-Ngan’, a name essentially meaning ‘Burman Country’ in the Burmese language, which the Burmans had used historically to refer to their kingdoms of the central plains; at the same time changing all other names to their Burmese language versions such as ‘Rangoon’ to ‘Yangon’. This was seen by the ethnic nationalities as part of ethnic cleansing and by the Burmese pro-democracy groups as the act of an illegal regime, so all of these groups rejected the name change.
The SLORC stepped up its military offensives against the ethnic armed opposition and its repression of the civilian population. In 1989, the Burmese Communist Party imploded when the ethnic Wa soldiery rebelled against the mainly Chinese leadership, and then formed the United Wa State Army. The SLORC saw an opening and negotiated ceasefires with the Wa and several small groups within Shan State, promising SLORC Army support for drug trafficking operations in return for ‘joining hands with the government’. Burma rapidly became the world’s largest supplier of opium and heroin. The regime then used military offensives, large-scale forced relocation of civilians, the complicity of neighbouring countries, and finally buy-offs of the leadership to force other armed opposition groups into ceasefire deals, none of which addressed any of the political or human rights concerns of those groups. After each deal, the SLORC sent more military to effectively surround the ceasefire groups, making it impossible for them to consider a resumption of hostilities. Human rights abuses against the civilians, such as forced labour for the SLORC military, continued.
The SLORC presented these ceasefires internationally as evidence that it was creating ‘peace’, and claimed that it had secured ceasefires with 7 of 9 opposition groups; then 9 of 11; then 11 of 13; then 14 of 15; and at present, 17 of 18 opposition groups. The reality is that many of the groups in the list are SLORC creations, while at least 5 groups continue to fight the regime (the Karen National Union, the Shan State Army, the Karenni National Progressive Party [which the regime includes in its ‘ceasefire’ list], the Chin National Front, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, various Arakan Rohingya groups, etc.). The SLORC continued to offer business opportunities in return for international political support, and gained admission to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1997, while still keeping China as its principal political and military backer. In late 1997, the regime changed its name to the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).
Most of the armed groups fighting the SPDC have given up their control of territory in the face of mass military offensives, and now fight entirely using guerrilla tactics. In areas where there is still armed opposition, the SPDC is demanding the outright surrender of the opposition groups, backing this with military offensives and by implementing the Four Cuts policy more systematically than ever before, forcibly relocating hundreds of villages at a time, systematically torturing and executing any villagers suspected of having any links to the opposition, and forcing the civilian population to do labour and provide all the material needs of the Army. In rural areas where there is no conflict, the Army and administration demand regular forced labour on infrastructure and money-making schemes, extort money out of farmers until they have to flee their land, and force them to hand over large proportions of their crops to support the Army. In the cities and Burman areas, the regime keeps most of the universities closed, all freedom of expression and association is denied, unauthorised access to fax machines, foreign radio or the internet is punishable by long jail terms with hard labour, high school students have been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for handing out pamphlets, and corruption and official extortion are rampant. The economy is destroyed, with a worthless currency, spiralling inflation, billions in foreign debt incurred by building up the military and almost no foreign exchange reserves. Politically the situation is at a stalemate, with the SPDC refusing to negotiate with the NLD, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi or representatives of the ethnic nationalities; the regime appears to believe that if it can simply continue holding power, the international community will give in and give it the financial and political backing it needs in return for access to Burma’s resources and extremely cheap labour.
The Present Day: Junta Policy in the Rural Areas
The SPDC itself is a classic case of a paranoid military junta; its leaders restrict even the most basic freedoms in the belief that any freedom whatsoever will be used to oppose their rule. They may be right, because unlike repressive regimes in many parts of the world, the SPDC represents no political faction or ideology other than pure militarism and has no constituency among the general populace. The result is a regime which focuses most of its energies ..ling the civilian population. This is especially true in the rural areas, many of them populated by the non-Burman ethnic nationalities which together make up approximately 50% of Burma’s population. Ethnic-based armed resistance movements have been seeking autonomy by fighting the central regime for the past 50 years, and the SPDC and its predecessors have believed since the 1970’s that the best way to destroy these groups is to destroy the ability of the civilians to support them.
This approach gave rise to the official Four Cuts policy, intended to deprive opposition groups of food, funds, recruits and intelligence. In practice, this is implemented by systematic intimidation and repression of the civilian population until they no longer dare support the opposition, and by making them so destitute that they are unable to provide any material support. In other words, undermine the opposition by directly attacking the civilians who support them, often referred to as ‘draining the ocean so the fish cannot swim’.
The Four Cuts have been official policy since the early 1970’s, but the present State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) military junta has made their implementation much more systematic than ever before. Using military offensives and large-scale forced relocations, the junta has managed to force many of the ethnic resistance groups into military ceasefires which do not address any political or human rights issues. However, several resistance groups continue to fight, particularly in Karen, Karenni (Kayah) and Shan States. In these areas, the junta’s main tactic is now mass forced relocations of the civilian population. In the past forced relocation was used as a military tactic but only on a localised scale, a few villages at a time; however, in 1996 the junta began delineating regions where any form of resistance occurs, and forcing hundreds of villages at a time to move to Army-controlled sites. Between 1996 and the present, at least 1,500 villages in central Shan State have been ordered to move and destroyed, affecting at least 300,000 people [6]; since 1997, 200 villages covering the entire map of Karenni (Kayah) State have been forced out and burned [7]; since 1997, close to 200 villages in Papun and Nyaunglebin Districts of northern Karen State have been shelled and burned without warning, driving the population into hiding in the forest [8]; between 1996 and 1997 over 100 villages in southern Tenasserim Division were forced out and destroyed, followed by a mass military offensive which is still destroying more villages now [9]; and since December 1999 the SPDC has ordered that over 100 villages throughout Dooplaya District of central Karen State hand over their entire rice harvest to the Army and then move to Army-controlled sites or face being shot on sight [10]. In hill villages throughout Karen State, villagers are now being ordered to move into the ‘centre’ of their villages, meaning they cannot stay near their fields, and are only allowed to leave the village between dawn and dusk under threat of being shot if they are out after curfew. This disrupts the entire crop cycle, because villagers are used to staying in field huts far from the village for much of the growing season to do all of the intensive labour which is required. Many of them find that they can no longer produce their own food.
The junta’s strategy is to consolidate control by forcing all villages out of the remote hills to Army-controlled sites, then using them as forced labour to build access roads into their home areas, then establishing Army camps along the roads, and then re-introducing villagers into what are essentially ‘forced labour villages’ along the roads where they can be easily controlled and are always available to serve the soldiers. In the process, no one is to be allowed to live in the hills out of reach of the Army any longer.
Many of the villages ordered to move do not even have any contact with opposition groups, but they fall within an area where the SPDC believes the opposition can operate. The villagers are usually given no more than a week to move, after which they are told their homes and belongings will be destroyed and they will be shot on sight if seen around their villages. After the relocation deadline the Army usually sends out patrols to destroy the villages, and particularly to hunt out and destroy any food supplies. The villagers are usually ordered to move out of the hills, to larger Army-controlled villages or sites along roads. They have to bring their own food and building supplies because nothing is given to them; in many cases they even have to hand over their rice to the Army and have it rationed back out to them day by day. Once in the relocation site, people have few or no opportunities to return to their fields and must survive by foraging for food or looking for local day labour. At the same time, the Army uses them as a convenient source of unpaid forced labour at local Army camps and along the roads, making it almost impossible for them to support themselves. After a few months, many people find they have little option but to starve or flee.
These days most people know what awaits them at the relocation sites, so when they are ordered to move they simply flee into hiding in the forests surrounding their farmfields. They then try to survive from hidden rice supplies around their villages, planting small patches of crops in several different places and fleeing from place to place whenever SPDC Army patrols come around. Tens of thousands of people are presently living this way in central Shan State, throughout Karenni (Kayah) State, in Toungoo, Papun and Nyaunglebin districts of northern Karen State and eastern Pegu Division, and Tenasserim Division of southern Burma. They have little food and many are starving, there is no access to medicines and many die of treatable diseases, their children have no access to education of any kind, and they live under the constant risk of being captured or shot by passing SPDC patrols who also seek out and destroy their food supplies and crops in the fields. Many of them have been living this way for two to three years already. Eventually, finding they can no longer survive this way, a steady stream of them try to make their way to the border with Thailand to become refugees.
This desperate lack of options is most clearly reflected by the statements of villagers included in KHRG reports such as Wholesale Destruction (1998) and Death Squads and Displacement (1999). In the remote hills of Papun and eastern Nyaunglebin Districts, villages have been shelled and burned without warning and villagers hiding in the forests are hunted on sight. In the western plains of Nyaunglebin district, which are close to the Sittaung River and under SPDC control, the villages have been forced into relocation sites where nothing is provided, and the SPDC has created new ‘Guerrilla Retaliation’ execution squads which have been systematically killing any villagers who have ever helped the opposition in the slightest way. As a result, villagers from the western plains flee into the hills, while villagers in the hills are themselves fleeing into the forests or toward Thailand - a trip that involves passing through northern Papun District, where even more villages have been systematically destroyed and the situation is equally as bad.
Forced relocation is not the only thing ripping the villages apart. Even in villages which have not been forced to move it has become almost impossible to survive. Village leaders living in conflict areas have described their lives as ‘standing in a leaky boat which is being rocked from both sides’. They are forced to support opposition armies, such as the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), or the Shan State Army (SSA), with food, porters and recruits, and then they are severely punished for this by the SPDC Army. While most of the villagers support the aims of the opposition, they find it difficult to provide material support and they often ask local guerrilla commanders not to attack the SPDC in their area, because whenever SPDC columns are ambushed they respond by torturing the elders and burning homes in the nearest villages, accusing them of not providing sufficient intelligence. This dilemma comes out the most clearly in testimonies from villages where the SPDC is largely in control; strong examples can be seen in the KHRG reports Caught in the Middle (1999) on Thaton District, and Peace Villages and Hiding Villages (2000) on Toungoo District. A typical SPDC written order sent by Infantry Battalion #26 to a Karen village in Toungoo district in 1999 reads, "do not give paddy, rice or ‘set kyay ngwe’ [protection money] to the enemy. [We] will burn and relocate the villages who give these. [We] will decree them to be hard core."[11] However, villages have no choice but to provide these things, and they constantly face retaliations by SPDC commanders for it. At the same time, it must be said that the opposition armies do not engage in the brutal abuses of the SPDC Army, and when the worst abuses are occurring the villagers often flee to the opposition troops for some form of protection.
Landmines have become an added threat to villagers, particularly over the past 3 to 4 years. In Karen State, landmines are now being laid heavily by at least 3 groups: the SPDC, the KNLA, and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (a Karen splinter group allied to the SPDC). None of the mines are mapped, and though the KNLA tells the villagers which pathways are mined the information often doesn’t get to everyone. Most of the casualties are villagers, particularly because of the SPDC practice of using villagers to march in front of their columns as human minesweepers and human shields against ambush. This form of abuse is on the rise in central Karen State, and many SPDC columns are specifically choosing to use women and children for it. According to research done by Non-Violence International for the September 2000 Landmine Monitor (the publication of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines), the estimated number of landmine casualties in Karen State rose in 1999 to well over 1,000, more than the reported landmine casualties for all of Cambodia during the same time period. With landmine use increasing every month, Burma is beginning to be seen as Asia’s new landmine hotspot. On the ground, this is reflected in the testimony of villagers, many of whom say that the main thing making them flee their villages was fear of being taken by the SPDC to clear mines. Pa’an District of central Karen State is now one of the most heavily mined areas in all of Burma, and this is reflected in the feelings of villagers from the area recorded in the KHRG reports Uncertainty, Fear and Flight (1998) and Beyond All Endurance (1999); a few years ago, villagers interviewed from this area knew little or nothing of landmines, but now the issue permeates their consciousness and their fears.
Even this is only another factor in a whole range of suffering which combines to make life in villages impossible. In conflict areas, villagers face daily or weekly demands from all of the SPDC Army camps and mobile patrols in their area. At any given time, a village has to provide an average of one person per household for a whole range of forced labour: forced porters, guides and human minesweepers for military columns, messengers and sentries for Army camps, building and maintaining Army camp fences, trenches, booby-traps, and barracks, cutting and hauling firewood, cooking and carrying water to soldiers, building and rebuilding military supply roads, clearing scrub along roadsides to minimise the possibility of ambush, standing sentry along military supply roads, growing crops for the Army on confiscated land, and engaging in profit-making activities for the officers such as brick-baking, rubber planting or digging fishponds. Every Army unit demands most of these things from the surrounding villages, and every village is surrounded by three, four or five Army units. The forced labour is usually demanded on a rotating basis; a specified number of villagers must go for a day or a week with all their own food and tools, and they are not released until their replacements arrive for the next shift. Nothing is provided for them, and they often have to work under guard. Conditions for porters are especially brutal; forced to carry loads of rations or ammunition weighing 30 kg / 60 lb or more, they are marched in front of soldiers to detonate mines and kicked or beaten if they are too slow. If they become ill or cannot continue they are killed or left behind, and many porters die either during portering or afterwards, from disease complicated by physical exhaustion and malnutrition.
In addition, mobile patrols often grab farmers on sight in their fields or in the villages to be porters or to do forced labour at the local Army camps. Because of this, villagers usually run as soon as they see an Army patrol coming - and the Army considers anyone who runs as a rebel and immediately opens fire on them. To avoid forced labour, the village men in many conflict areas leave the village to stay in hiding in their field huts or in the forest while the women, children and the elderly remain behind in the village to protect the house from looting by soldiers and to carry on some semblance of family life. The men only sneak back into the village for food and to visit when SPDC patrols are not around. This system makes the women particularly vulnerable, because SPDC patrols arriving at the village often rape them on seeing that the men are not around. In the absence of men, they often take the women as porters, or accuse them of being married to ‘rebel soldiers’ and hold them hostage pending the return of their husbands.
In northern Karen State some villages in conflict areas have tried to appease the SPDC by making their own ‘peace’ agreements; they promise to abide by all SPDC demands and not contact the resistance if their village is not forced to move. They are subsequently labelled ‘peace’ villages, but even in these villages the demands for forced labour, money, food and materials usually become so intense that the village elders cannot keep up with them all. They are then arrested and tortured for failure to comply, houses are sometimes burned and many villagers flee just as though there had never been any agreement.[12]
Abuses in the Non-Conflict Areas
It is a common misconception to think that forced labour and other abuses only occur in Burma’s conflict areas. Many people are finding that they cannot survive in their villages even in areas where there is no opposition activity at all. As explained above, the SPDC tries to control the life of every civilian with its Army, so the non-conflict areas have almost as many Army units as the conflict areas. With the rapid expansion of the Army in recent years to its current strength of over 400,000 troops, villagers who have never seen fighting now find their villages surrounded by 3 or 4 Army camps within one or two hours’ walking distance. The officers in these camps see the civilian population as little more than a convenient pool of forced labourers and a source of profit. Villages receive a constant stream of written and spoken orders demanding their forced labour as Army camp servants, messengers and sentries, cutting and hauling building materials for camp construction, building and maintaining the camp (translations of hundreds of these can be seen in the KHRG ‘Order Sets’ available on this web site). They are also taken as porters, because even where there is no fighting the Army still needs people to haul rations and supplies from roadheads to hilltop Army camps, or from the Battalion bases to faraway outposts in the middle of conflict areas.
Where they are in complete control, the SPDC also uses villagers as forced labour to improve the road networks and build infrastructure such as railways and hydro dams. Conditions on such projects can be brutal, with one person per family demanded on rotating one or two week shifts; in rainy season the adults have to work the fields, so the children often have to go and work in dangerous conditions with frequent mudslides. Once completed, the power from these dams goes only to the Army camps and to businessmen who can pay off the Army, while the villagers are often forbidden to take their bullock carts on the roads they have built with their own labour. The roads, usually only dirt, are badly engineered by Army officers and wash out every monsoon season, causing many villagers to refer to the period November to January as ‘road building season’, when they are forced to rebuild the roads each year.
For Army officers, a posting in the countryside is an opportunity to make a great deal of personal profit in a short time. Officers in areas where there is no opposition usually occupy themselves by ordering villagers to cut logs and bamboo, claiming it is for the Army camp but then selling it on the market for personal profit. Other such schemes include forcing villagers as well as rank and file soldiers to bake bricks or dig and maintain fish ponds. All profit goes to the officers, who also confiscate most of the rations intended for their soldiers and approximately half of the soldiers’ pay in the name of various ‘fees’ and ‘contributions’, then sell the rations on the market and tell the soldiers to get their food from the villages. This situation has become even worse since 1998, when the SPDC in Rangoon cut back severely on rations to units in the field and ordered them to produce more of their own food or take it from the farmers. The result has been the systematic confiscation of much of the best farmland by Army units. The farmers are not paid any compensation; worse yet, they are called out for forced labour farming their confiscated land, from planting to harvesting, and the officers then take the entire harvest. Some villages report that they even have to provide the seed for planting these fields.
In addition to forced labour, villagers face constant demands for cash, food and materials from every SPDC Army unit in their area. On average, a family must hand over anywhere from 100 to 3,000 Kyat per month to the Army in cash as extortion which masquerades under the names of ‘porter fees’, ‘servants’ fees’, ‘development fees’, ‘pagoda fees’, and so on. In theory, this money is supposed to be used to hire people for forced labour or to support projects in the area, but in reality it is pocketed by the officers and forced labourers are not paid. Villagers must also pay to avoid forced labour when they are ill or cannot go, at rates of 100-1,000 Kyat per day of labour missed. Cash is very hard to come by for most subsistence farmers in rural Burma because they do not operate in a cash-based economy, but if they do not pay these fees they are arrested. Every farmer in areas firmly controlled by the SPDC must also hand over a quota of every crop to the SPDC authorities for next to nothing. Usually this quota amounts to approximately 30% of the entire crop, but after the farmer deducts the portion of his harvest required for seed stocks, payments in rice for previous loans, use of other villagers’ buffaloes to plough, etc., the quota amounts to 50% or more of what is left. Quotas have been increasing in recent years, and no exceptions are made for bad crop years such as the disasters caused by droughts and floods in 1997 and 1998. The farmers often have no option but to buy rice on the market to fulfil the quota in such years, while the family goes hungry. The price paid for quota is less than half of market price, but corrupt SPDC officials take out so many ‘deductions’ for themselves that the farmers usually receive no more than 10-20% of market price for quota rice.[13] Even with little or no rice left to feed their families, the farmers still face regular demands for rice and meat to feed the local Army camps, and armed patrols often enter villages to loot rice, livestock and valuables.
The SPDC provides very few social services in the villages which it controls. In some villages it sanctions the construction of a primary or middle school, but usually it is the villagers who must pay the cost of building it as well as the salary of the state-supplied teacher. More remote villages usually cannot afford to do this, so many have opened their own primary-level schools with their own volunteer teachers. Since the beginning of 1999, the SPDC military has been ordering the closing of many of these village primary schools in areas such as Pa’an and Thaton districts of Karen State, telling the villagers that only state-sanctioned schools are allowed. Many villagers cannot afford to send their children to state schools, however, and they also complain that in the state schools the teaching of languages such as Karen, Mon, Kayah, or Shan is strictly forbidden, causing children to grow up illiterate in their mother tongue. As a result, fewer and fewer children in the rural areas of Karen State have any opportunity for education. The same applies to rural medical clinics. Even in places where the regime has allocated some funds for the establishment of some basic social services, the local military and SPDC authorities use these services as an excuse to extort even more money from the villagers by force, usually amounting to several times the worth of the services being provided.
Even where schools are available, many children are pulled out of school as soon as they are big enough to work because of all of the demands for labour and money which their families have to face. Families sell their valuables to pay the SPDC fees and pay to avoid forced labour so that they can work in their fields or do day labour to make money. However, there are so many fees that the money does not last long, and many families send small children to do the forced labour so that the adults can still work the fields. Eventually they sell all of their belongings and livestock to pay all of the fees, and when they are still ordered to go for forced labour or pay money they have no option but to flee the village or face arrest, torture and possible summary execution. Trials are not held in rural areas, villagers are simply tied up and taken to Army camps where they are held in mediaeval-style leg stocks or pits in the ground, tortured and interrogated until the Army officer decides what to do with them. They are often held for ransom, held for months under torture without charge, or simply executed without any record existing of their arrest. To avoid this, villagers in areas all over Burma have fled to the towns where they become beggars or cheap labour, to the hills, or to neighbouring countries.
The overall result is that the subsistence farming village, the basic unit of society throughout all of rural Burma, is losing its viability under military control. The classic image of internally displaced people and refugees is that they have fled military battles in and around their villages, but this is far from the case in Burma. In thousands of interviews conducted by the Karen Human Rights Group since 1992 with villagers who have fled their homes, approximately 95% say they have not fled military battles, but rather the systematic destruction of their ability to survive caused by demands and retaliations inflicted on them unilaterally by the SPDC military. When they do have to flee fighting it is only for a day or two, because the war in Burma is a fluid, hit-and-run affair which villagers can dodge by hiding for short periods in the forest. However, once the SPDC occupies the area around their village the suffering is inescapable. The village, rooted as it is to the land, is just too defenceless and vulnerable. It can be forced out to work, looted, retaliated against, all with complete impunity.
Loss of Hope: The People and the Army
The population has largely lost hope and sees almost no way out of the present situation. In the urban and central Burman areas, people are too afraid to make any move to oust the regime because of the massacres they know would result. In the ethnic nationality regions, the opposition groups can no longer offer protection to the villagers, who cannot see any way to organise against the regime and see no option but to flee the SPDC Army whenever it is around. Anywhere from 2 to 4 million people are internally displaced in Burma, at least 1 million of these in the ethnic nationality areas, surviving in hiding in the forests or as beggars in the towns. Approximately 120,000 Karen and Karenni refugees are registered in camps in Thailand, with more arriving each week. An estimated 1 million or more additional refugees and economic migrants are scattered throughout Thailand in the illegal labour market. The entire situation in Burma is clearly unsustainable, but the regime absolutely refuses to lessen its grip on power in any way and there is no way of knowing for how long this situation can continue.
The Army, known as the Tatmadaw, has no real ideology and no constituency within the society that supports its rule, but it appears to have been successful in entrenching its rule more than ever before by entrenching fear and hopelessness in the minds of the people. Even its junior and mid-level officers work mainly only for purposes of their own power or wealth, or because being an Army officer is one of the few viable careers in today’s Burma. As for the rank and file soldiers, many are conscripted in forced lotteries, while others are coerced or misled into believing that the Army provides an escape from personal trouble or protection for their families. Once in the Army, they are dragged into the cycle of human rights abuses by officers who force them to take their food from the villagers and round up forced labourers or be punished. Even after years in the Army, they are not allowed to leave unless they round up 5 or 10 new recruits, which they do by coercing young boys they find at the markets and schools. As a result, most of the recruits to the Burmese Army are underage.
Though the SPDC junta has very few supporters within the population or even within its own Army, it is a mistake to pretend that the leaders of the SPDC junta are outsiders or aliens with no connection to the society in which they live. They may be deluded, but they did spring from Burmese society and they have succeeded in gaining and holding power over it. Essentially, their power is rooted in the deep racism that has permeated Burmese society since its beginnings; not only the racial supremacy complex which many Burmans are brought up with, but the racism of the Karen against the Burmans, the Burmans against the Shan, the Shan against the Wa, the Wa against the Shan, the Mon against the Burmans, the Rakhine against the Rohingyas, the Burmans against the Chinese, the Christians against the Buddhists, and everyone against the Muslims. The list goes on and on, and the military has always exploited it to turn people against each other and thereby increase its power. SPDC propaganda encourages a blind racist nationalism, full of references to ‘protecting the race’, meaning that if Burmans do not oppress other nationalities then they will themselves be oppressed, ‘national reconsolidation’, meaning assimilation, and preventing ‘disintegration of the Union’, meaning that if the Army falls then some kind of ethnic chaos would ensue. The non-Burman political groups are frequently just as guilty, relentlessly persecuting racial, regional and religious minorities within their own populations while demonising the Burmans, thereby preventing the very understanding among peoples which is so necessary to bring an end to military rule. A transition to democracy alone will not be enough to prevent the people tearing each other apart, particularly if it is a unitary, non-federal democracy. The first and biggest step in bringing about an end to the racism problem is to admit that it exists and to recognise its scale, but sadly there appear to be few people on any side of the struggle today who are willing to do so. Until they are, Burma will remain a country at war with itself.
In order to fully understand the day-to-day situation of Burma's villagers and the mentality of the ruling junta, it is essential to have some idea of the country's ethnic makeup and its historical development. This paper presents a brief summary of Burma's people and historical development, followed by a summary of the current human rights situation. At the end we have provided endnotes and a suggested list of further reference materials. Please note that this page is not regularly updated, so it is useful as a general background but does not aim to provide specific detail on the current situation.
A Land of Ethnic Diversity
Burma is a country of great ethnic diversity, its estimated population of 48-50 million being divided between at least 15 major ethnic groups, many of them with several distinct subgroups. These groups come from very different origins: for example, the Muslim Rohingyas of Arakan (Rakhine) State are related to Bengali and Indian traders of centuries ago, the predominant Burmans originally migrated from the Indo-Tibetan region, the Shan are a Sino-Thai race originating from what is now China, the Karen, Karenni and Pa’O originated from the region of Mongolia, and the Mon are closely related to the Khmer of Cambodia. The extent of these differences is partly visible in the differences in culture and language, with languages such as Burmese, Shan and Karen having virtually no similarities at all. There is no reliable census data for Burma at present, because the last real census was conducted in the early 1930’s and all of the census data since British colonial days has been collected by Burman-dominated regimes keen on exaggerating the dominance of the Burmans; for example, in many areas anyone with a Burman name (which many people adopt to avoid official discrimination) and anyone who is Buddhist has been listed down as a Burman. Using data collected this way, the SPDC and its predecessor regimes have claimed that 67-70% of the population is Burman, while in reality it is more likely that at most half the population is Burman, with 50% or more of the population divided among the other ethnic groups. After the Burmans, the most populous groups are the Karen with an estimated 6-7 million (when taken including the Karenni and Pa’O), and the Shan and Mon with about 4 million each [1]. Even these figures, however, can only be taken as rough estimates.
Kingdoms and Colonisation
There is a great deal of debate over who arrived in Burma first, this honour being claimed by the Burmans, Mon, Karen and Rakhine, among others. Most of these claims appear to be based more on racist dogma than on available historical evidence, particularly the claims of the Burmans and Rakhines, but the oral histories of the Karen and Mon appear to coincide more closely with the historical records and artifacts available. According to the Karen version, their people arrived in Burma, a region which at that time was virtually unpopulated jungle, approximately 2,500 years ago (the current year 2000 is 2739 on the Karen calendar) after a migration in several stages from the region of what is now Mongolia, and settled in what is now the Irrawaddy and Sittaung basin of central Burma. Other groups began arriving at around the same time, possibly shortly before or after, particularly the Mon/Khmer. The Mon/Khmer began imposing their feudal kingdom structure on the other peoples, most of whom had little or no political structure. This began the movement of peoples like the Karen from the central lowlands out into the hills. The Shan also had a strongly structured hierarchical society and in time began dominating what is now Shan State, while the Rakhine kingdom dominated what is now northwestern Burma. The Burmans (whose current calendar year is 1362) were probably among the latest groups to arrive, but over the centuries their kingdoms gradually defeated the Mon and the Rakhine. For hundreds of years until the 1800’s, there were various warring kingdoms trying to eat away at each other’s territories, while less-organised or more peaceable peoples were gradually driven further into the hills toward the peripheries of what is now Burma. In 1767, the armies of the Burman king Hsinbyushin even conquered much of Siam (Thailand), sacking the capital at Ayutthaya and extracting tribute from the existing dynasties. However, none of these kingdoms were ever strong enough to occupy and hold all of this territory, so once they had conquered they generally had to withdraw and life went on.
The British took over what is now Burma piece by piece in 3 wars: 1824-26, 1852-53, and finally in 1886, when ‘Burma’ became part of the British Empire as a province of British India. Until that time, no one had looked on this diverse region as a single geographic unit, and this is an important point in understanding the historical argument for autonomy or independence of the non-Burman peoples. The British systematically eradicated the structure of the Burman kingdoms, but at the same time allowed the continued existence of the Shan princedoms and the Karenni sawbwa’s. These local rulers were allowed some autonomy because they were seen as less of a threat and because the British did not want to allocate the resources necessary to control such vast and far-flung territories, preferring to gradually implement an indirect rule enforced through local leaders. For peoples such as the Karen, Karenni and Kachin, British colonialism was partly a liberation from the repression of the Burmans, and it gave them their first access to education and some forms of development. British and American missionaries had a great deal of success with some of these peoples, gradually converting a sizable minority of Karens to Christianity (mainly Baptist), many Kachin, Chins (also known as Zo) and Naga of northwestern and northern Burma to Baptist and other Christian faiths, and a large proportion of the Karenni to Catholicism. As opportunities opened, many people from these groups joined the colonial administration, civil police force and army. Although in these colonial institutions they were heavily outnumbered by Burmans (for example, in 1938 the civil police force was 71% Burman and only 8.7% Karen [2]), many Burmans remained resentful of British rule and were not very well trusted by the colonisers compared to the other peoples.
Nationalism, Japanese Occupation, and Independence
In the first half of the 20th century, the Burman feeling against the British began to take tangible form in the beginnings of nationalist liberation movements, particularly the Thakin movement in which Aung San was a leader. Over the years the Thakins looked to outside countries for military help in overthrowing the British, culminating in the trip of Aung San and the ‘30 Comrades’ to Japan for military training in early 1941. By the end of 1941, they had returned and put together an ‘army’ of a few thousand in Siam, and followed the invading Japanese into Burma. In the face of the Japanese advance, the British Army retreated to India. During the ensuing 3½-year Japanese occupation of Burma, Aung San’s ‘Burma Independence Army’ acted as enforcers for the Japanese forces, and attracted a mixture of nationalists seeking independence and riffraff who wanted to loot villages. A wide range of atrocities were perpetrated by the BIA against Karen villagers and other ethnic peoples, as many Burmans finally had their opportunity to vent their frustrations against peoples they perceived as British ‘collaborators’. In areas such as the Papun hills, Karen villagers feared the BIA much more than they did the Japanese occupation forces.
At the same time, some Karen, Kachin and others had left for India with the retreating British forces, later to parachute back in, and a few British officers had remained behind in Burma. Villagers were organised into resistance units and armed to fight the Japanese and BIA, and the villages suffered heavy retaliations as a result [3]. In 1944-45, when the Allies re-entered Burma, the Karen, Karenni and Kachin were instrumental in helping them to recapture Burma by systematically harassing and creating havoc among the retreating Japanese [4]. In return for their loyalty they hoped for independence from the Burmans after the war, but it never came. By 1944, Aung San and the BIA had realised that the Japanese had no intention of granting real independence and that the tide of the war was turning, so they switched sides and also fought the retreating Japanese. After the war, Aung San approached the British for independence. The non-Burmans protested that they should be granted freedom from the Burmans, and the British convened the Frontier Areas Commission of Enquiry (FACE) to hear testimony, particularly from Karen regions, on their views. However, as more and more villagers testified of BIA atrocities, the British began to regret the experiment and after the Commission closed they wiped much of the testimony off the record. In the end, independence was granted under Aung San’s plan, with a unitary government which would clearly be Burman-dominated. [5]
Realising that some kind of accommodation would have to be made with the non-Burmans, Aung San engineered the 1947 Panglong Agreement, whereby some representatives from the Shan, Chin and Kachin hills signed their willingness to cooperate with his government and not to seek secession for at least 10 years. No representatives of the Karen, Mon, or any other peoples were present. Even so, Panglong appeared to be a good starting point, but its spirit was wiped out a few months later when Aung San was assassinated by his Burman political rivals. When independence came in January 1948, U Nu became Burma’s elected leader. He immediately faced a Communist rebellion which threatened to topple the government, and was largely saved by non-Burman units of the former colonial army. However, behind their backs he was raising his own Army, and he soon turned it against the Karen and other non-Burman units. At the same time the Karen and others began rising for some form of independence or federalism, first in large peaceful demonstrations, but when this didn’t work they went into armed rebellion. In 1949, the newly independent government faced armed uprisings not only by the Communists, but the Karen and others as well.
Civil War
Through the 1950s, U Nu’s party managed to hold power and bring about some economic progress in the central Burman cities despite facing several armed opposition groups in the countryside. However, Gen. Ne Win, whom U Nu had made head of the Army, seized the government first in 1958-60, and then again in 1962, when he established a full military dictatorship and began stripping everyone in the country, Burman or otherwise, of their rights.
Through the 1950’s and 1960’s, more and more ethnic armed groups rose against the regime until by the late 1970’s there were well over a dozen armed opposition groups controlling something like 20-30% of Burma’s entire land mass. The Communists had become entrenched in large areas of Shan State, while ethnic-based armies controlled much of the hill territory near all of the country’s land borders. Ne Win’s response was to increasingly militarise the country and make his repression of all freedoms more and more systematic. He introduced the Burmese Way to Socialism, which essentially meant state control of everything, and he was the state. He largely cut off the country from international trade or contact, which only strengthened the hand of the armed opposition groups and drove the country into abject poverty. In the early 1970’s he introduced the Four Cuts policy, aimed at cutting off all supplies of food, funds, recruits and intelligence to opposition groups; in practice, it meant undermining the opposition by systematically driving into destitution the civilian population supporting it. Forced relocations, forced labour and all forms of abuses against the civilian population became the order of the day.
Gradually the opposition to Ne Win’s rule became almost universal. In the cities, major demonstrations broke out in 1974 but were put down by the military with many arrests and killings. In 1976, nine of the ethnic-based armies united to form the National Democratic Front (NDF) alliance. However, Ne Win’s rule continued until 1988, when a sudden demonetisation which had wiped out many people’s savings triggered mass uprisings in Rangoon, Mandalay and most provincial towns. Hundreds of thousands of people hit the streets, led by university students and Buddhist monks, only to be raked with machine gun fire or charged with bayonets by combat troops. Anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 people were killed nationwide, and for the first time Burman pro-democracy activists fled to ethnic-held areas in the hills, where they formed their own pro-democracy organisations and allied themselves with the ethnic armies to form the Democratic Alliance of Burma and other alliances. In Rangoon, Ne Win stepped down but eventually hand-picked a junta, which assumed power in September 1988 and called itself the State Law & Order Restoration Council (SLORC).
The SLORC and the SPDC
The SLORC inaugurated its rule by massacring more civilian demonstrators, then immediately began implementing more draconian measures than Ne Win had ever imposed. However, the regime was hungry for international funds and support, particularly the foreign aid which the international community had cut off in its horror at the massacres. In an attempt to appease both international and domestic criticism and to obtain financing, the SLORC began to make a show of opening markets and announced democratic elections for 1990, calculating that it could control the election results by keeping the opposition divided. Unfortunately for them, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of General Aung San (who is an ‘independence hero’ to most ethnic Burmans), had returned from England to tend her sick mother in 1988 and had been dragged into the political whirlpool. She became the General Secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD), a new opposition party, and the electoral opposition parties began rallying around her. To put a stop to this the SLORC put her under house arrest in 1989, but when the polls were held in May 1990, the NLD won 82% of the parliamentary seats, its allies 16%, and the SLORC’s ‘National Unity Party’ only 2%. The junta immediately began taking steps to ignore the election, and never did honour the result. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was held under house arrest until 1995, and even now is so restricted in her movements that she remains under virtual house arrest. Elected Members of Parliament have been harassed, arrested, disqualified, or forced or coerced to resign. Some have died in prison, while others fled to areas held by the ethnic resistance groups and formed a parallel government.
In the ethnic-held areas, agreements were made between ethnic and pro-democracy groups wherein most of the ethnic armies dropped independence from their objectives, and in return the pro-democracy groups agreed to the concept of a federal system with some autonomy for the ethnic states. The SLORC changed the country’s name to ‘Myanmar Naing-Ngan’, a name essentially meaning ‘Burman Country’ in the Burmese language, which the Burmans had used historically to refer to their kingdoms of the central plains; at the same time changing all other names to their Burmese language versions such as ‘Rangoon’ to ‘Yangon’. This was seen by the ethnic nationalities as part of ethnic cleansing and by the Burmese pro-democracy groups as the act of an illegal regime, so all of these groups rejected the name change.
The SLORC stepped up its military offensives against the ethnic armed opposition and its repression of the civilian population. In 1989, the Burmese Communist Party imploded when the ethnic Wa soldiery rebelled against the mainly Chinese leadership, and then formed the United Wa State Army. The SLORC saw an opening and negotiated ceasefires with the Wa and several small groups within Shan State, promising SLORC Army support for drug trafficking operations in return for ‘joining hands with the government’. Burma rapidly became the world’s largest supplier of opium and heroin. The regime then used military offensives, large-scale forced relocation of civilians, the complicity of neighbouring countries, and finally buy-offs of the leadership to force other armed opposition groups into ceasefire deals, none of which addressed any of the political or human rights concerns of those groups. After each deal, the SLORC sent more military to effectively surround the ceasefire groups, making it impossible for them to consider a resumption of hostilities. Human rights abuses against the civilians, such as forced labour for the SLORC military, continued.
The SLORC presented these ceasefires internationally as evidence that it was creating ‘peace’, and claimed that it had secured ceasefires with 7 of 9 opposition groups; then 9 of 11; then 11 of 13; then 14 of 15; and at present, 17 of 18 opposition groups. The reality is that many of the groups in the list are SLORC creations, while at least 5 groups continue to fight the regime (the Karen National Union, the Shan State Army, the Karenni National Progressive Party [which the regime includes in its ‘ceasefire’ list], the Chin National Front, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, various Arakan Rohingya groups, etc.). The SLORC continued to offer business opportunities in return for international political support, and gained admission to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1997, while still keeping China as its principal political and military backer. In late 1997, the regime changed its name to the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).
Most of the armed groups fighting the SPDC have given up their control of territory in the face of mass military offensives, and now fight entirely using guerrilla tactics. In areas where there is still armed opposition, the SPDC is demanding the outright surrender of the opposition groups, backing this with military offensives and by implementing the Four Cuts policy more systematically than ever before, forcibly relocating hundreds of villages at a time, systematically torturing and executing any villagers suspected of having any links to the opposition, and forcing the civilian population to do labour and provide all the material needs of the Army. In rural areas where there is no conflict, the Army and administration demand regular forced labour on infrastructure and money-making schemes, extort money out of farmers until they have to flee their land, and force them to hand over large proportions of their crops to support the Army. In the cities and Burman areas, the regime keeps most of the universities closed, all freedom of expression and association is denied, unauthorised access to fax machines, foreign radio or the internet is punishable by long jail terms with hard labour, high school students have been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for handing out pamphlets, and corruption and official extortion are rampant. The economy is destroyed, with a worthless currency, spiralling inflation, billions in foreign debt incurred by building up the military and almost no foreign exchange reserves. Politically the situation is at a stalemate, with the SPDC refusing to negotiate with the NLD, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi or representatives of the ethnic nationalities; the regime appears to believe that if it can simply continue holding power, the international community will give in and give it the financial and political backing it needs in return for access to Burma’s resources and extremely cheap labour.
The Present Day: Junta Policy in the Rural Areas
The SPDC itself is a classic case of a paranoid military junta; its leaders restrict even the most basic freedoms in the belief that any freedom whatsoever will be used to oppose their rule. They may be right, because unlike repressive regimes in many parts of the world, the SPDC represents no political faction or ideology other than pure militarism and has no constituency among the general populace. The result is a regime which focuses most of its energies ..ling the civilian population. This is especially true in the rural areas, many of them populated by the non-Burman ethnic nationalities which together make up approximately 50% of Burma’s population. Ethnic-based armed resistance movements have been seeking autonomy by fighting the central regime for the past 50 years, and the SPDC and its predecessors have believed since the 1970’s that the best way to destroy these groups is to destroy the ability of the civilians to support them.
This approach gave rise to the official Four Cuts policy, intended to deprive opposition groups of food, funds, recruits and intelligence. In practice, this is implemented by systematic intimidation and repression of the civilian population until they no longer dare support the opposition, and by making them so destitute that they are unable to provide any material support. In other words, undermine the opposition by directly attacking the civilians who support them, often referred to as ‘draining the ocean so the fish cannot swim’.
The Four Cuts have been official policy since the early 1970’s, but the present State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) military junta has made their implementation much more systematic than ever before. Using military offensives and large-scale forced relocations, the junta has managed to force many of the ethnic resistance groups into military ceasefires which do not address any political or human rights issues. However, several resistance groups continue to fight, particularly in Karen, Karenni (Kayah) and Shan States. In these areas, the junta’s main tactic is now mass forced relocations of the civilian population. In the past forced relocation was used as a military tactic but only on a localised scale, a few villages at a time; however, in 1996 the junta began delineating regions where any form of resistance occurs, and forcing hundreds of villages at a time to move to Army-controlled sites. Between 1996 and the present, at least 1,500 villages in central Shan State have been ordered to move and destroyed, affecting at least 300,000 people [6]; since 1997, 200 villages covering the entire map of Karenni (Kayah) State have been forced out and burned [7]; since 1997, close to 200 villages in Papun and Nyaunglebin Districts of northern Karen State have been shelled and burned without warning, driving the population into hiding in the forest [8]; between 1996 and 1997 over 100 villages in southern Tenasserim Division were forced out and destroyed, followed by a mass military offensive which is still destroying more villages now [9]; and since December 1999 the SPDC has ordered that over 100 villages throughout Dooplaya District of central Karen State hand over their entire rice harvest to the Army and then move to Army-controlled sites or face being shot on sight [10]. In hill villages throughout Karen State, villagers are now being ordered to move into the ‘centre’ of their villages, meaning they cannot stay near their fields, and are only allowed to leave the village between dawn and dusk under threat of being shot if they are out after curfew. This disrupts the entire crop cycle, because villagers are used to staying in field huts far from the village for much of the growing season to do all of the intensive labour which is required. Many of them find that they can no longer produce their own food.
The junta’s strategy is to consolidate control by forcing all villages out of the remote hills to Army-controlled sites, then using them as forced labour to build access roads into their home areas, then establishing Army camps along the roads, and then re-introducing villagers into what are essentially ‘forced labour villages’ along the roads where they can be easily controlled and are always available to serve the soldiers. In the process, no one is to be allowed to live in the hills out of reach of the Army any longer.
Many of the villages ordered to move do not even have any contact with opposition groups, but they fall within an area where the SPDC believes the opposition can operate. The villagers are usually given no more than a week to move, after which they are told their homes and belongings will be destroyed and they will be shot on sight if seen around their villages. After the relocation deadline the Army usually sends out patrols to destroy the villages, and particularly to hunt out and destroy any food supplies. The villagers are usually ordered to move out of the hills, to larger Army-controlled villages or sites along roads. They have to bring their own food and building supplies because nothing is given to them; in many cases they even have to hand over their rice to the Army and have it rationed back out to them day by day. Once in the relocation site, people have few or no opportunities to return to their fields and must survive by foraging for food or looking for local day labour. At the same time, the Army uses them as a convenient source of unpaid forced labour at local Army camps and along the roads, making it almost impossible for them to support themselves. After a few months, many people find they have little option but to starve or flee.
These days most people know what awaits them at the relocation sites, so when they are ordered to move they simply flee into hiding in the forests surrounding their farmfields. They then try to survive from hidden rice supplies around their villages, planting small patches of crops in several different places and fleeing from place to place whenever SPDC Army patrols come around. Tens of thousands of people are presently living this way in central Shan State, throughout Karenni (Kayah) State, in Toungoo, Papun and Nyaunglebin districts of northern Karen State and eastern Pegu Division, and Tenasserim Division of southern Burma. They have little food and many are starving, there is no access to medicines and many die of treatable diseases, their children have no access to education of any kind, and they live under the constant risk of being captured or shot by passing SPDC patrols who also seek out and destroy their food supplies and crops in the fields. Many of them have been living this way for two to three years already. Eventually, finding they can no longer survive this way, a steady stream of them try to make their way to the border with Thailand to become refugees.
This desperate lack of options is most clearly reflected by the statements of villagers included in KHRG reports such as Wholesale Destruction (1998) and Death Squads and Displacement (1999). In the remote hills of Papun and eastern Nyaunglebin Districts, villages have been shelled and burned without warning and villagers hiding in the forests are hunted on sight. In the western plains of Nyaunglebin district, which are close to the Sittaung River and under SPDC control, the villages have been forced into relocation sites where nothing is provided, and the SPDC has created new ‘Guerrilla Retaliation’ execution squads which have been systematically killing any villagers who have ever helped the opposition in the slightest way. As a result, villagers from the western plains flee into the hills, while villagers in the hills are themselves fleeing into the forests or toward Thailand - a trip that involves passing through northern Papun District, where even more villages have been systematically destroyed and the situation is equally as bad.
Forced relocation is not the only thing ripping the villages apart. Even in villages which have not been forced to move it has become almost impossible to survive. Village leaders living in conflict areas have described their lives as ‘standing in a leaky boat which is being rocked from both sides’. They are forced to support opposition armies, such as the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), or the Shan State Army (SSA), with food, porters and recruits, and then they are severely punished for this by the SPDC Army. While most of the villagers support the aims of the opposition, they find it difficult to provide material support and they often ask local guerrilla commanders not to attack the SPDC in their area, because whenever SPDC columns are ambushed they respond by torturing the elders and burning homes in the nearest villages, accusing them of not providing sufficient intelligence. This dilemma comes out the most clearly in testimonies from villages where the SPDC is largely in control; strong examples can be seen in the KHRG reports Caught in the Middle (1999) on Thaton District, and Peace Villages and Hiding Villages (2000) on Toungoo District. A typical SPDC written order sent by Infantry Battalion #26 to a Karen village in Toungoo district in 1999 reads, "do not give paddy, rice or ‘set kyay ngwe’ [protection money] to the enemy. [We] will burn and relocate the villages who give these. [We] will decree them to be hard core."[11] However, villages have no choice but to provide these things, and they constantly face retaliations by SPDC commanders for it. At the same time, it must be said that the opposition armies do not engage in the brutal abuses of the SPDC Army, and when the worst abuses are occurring the villagers often flee to the opposition troops for some form of protection.
Landmines have become an added threat to villagers, particularly over the past 3 to 4 years. In Karen State, landmines are now being laid heavily by at least 3 groups: the SPDC, the KNLA, and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (a Karen splinter group allied to the SPDC). None of the mines are mapped, and though the KNLA tells the villagers which pathways are mined the information often doesn’t get to everyone. Most of the casualties are villagers, particularly because of the SPDC practice of using villagers to march in front of their columns as human minesweepers and human shields against ambush. This form of abuse is on the rise in central Karen State, and many SPDC columns are specifically choosing to use women and children for it. According to research done by Non-Violence International for the September 2000 Landmine Monitor (the publication of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines), the estimated number of landmine casualties in Karen State rose in 1999 to well over 1,000, more than the reported landmine casualties for all of Cambodia during the same time period. With landmine use increasing every month, Burma is beginning to be seen as Asia’s new landmine hotspot. On the ground, this is reflected in the testimony of villagers, many of whom say that the main thing making them flee their villages was fear of being taken by the SPDC to clear mines. Pa’an District of central Karen State is now one of the most heavily mined areas in all of Burma, and this is reflected in the feelings of villagers from the area recorded in the KHRG reports Uncertainty, Fear and Flight (1998) and Beyond All Endurance (1999); a few years ago, villagers interviewed from this area knew little or nothing of landmines, but now the issue permeates their consciousness and their fears.
Even this is only another factor in a whole range of suffering which combines to make life in villages impossible. In conflict areas, villagers face daily or weekly demands from all of the SPDC Army camps and mobile patrols in their area. At any given time, a village has to provide an average of one person per household for a whole range of forced labour: forced porters, guides and human minesweepers for military columns, messengers and sentries for Army camps, building and maintaining Army camp fences, trenches, booby-traps, and barracks, cutting and hauling firewood, cooking and carrying water to soldiers, building and rebuilding military supply roads, clearing scrub along roadsides to minimise the possibility of ambush, standing sentry along military supply roads, growing crops for the Army on confiscated land, and engaging in profit-making activities for the officers such as brick-baking, rubber planting or digging fishponds. Every Army unit demands most of these things from the surrounding villages, and every village is surrounded by three, four or five Army units. The forced labour is usually demanded on a rotating basis; a specified number of villagers must go for a day or a week with all their own food and tools, and they are not released until their replacements arrive for the next shift. Nothing is provided for them, and they often have to work under guard. Conditions for porters are especially brutal; forced to carry loads of rations or ammunition weighing 30 kg / 60 lb or more, they are marched in front of soldiers to detonate mines and kicked or beaten if they are too slow. If they become ill or cannot continue they are killed or left behind, and many porters die either during portering or afterwards, from disease complicated by physical exhaustion and malnutrition.
In addition, mobile patrols often grab farmers on sight in their fields or in the villages to be porters or to do forced labour at the local Army camps. Because of this, villagers usually run as soon as they see an Army patrol coming - and the Army considers anyone who runs as a rebel and immediately opens fire on them. To avoid forced labour, the village men in many conflict areas leave the village to stay in hiding in their field huts or in the forest while the women, children and the elderly remain behind in the village to protect the house from looting by soldiers and to carry on some semblance of family life. The men only sneak back into the village for food and to visit when SPDC patrols are not around. This system makes the women particularly vulnerable, because SPDC patrols arriving at the village often rape them on seeing that the men are not around. In the absence of men, they often take the women as porters, or accuse them of being married to ‘rebel soldiers’ and hold them hostage pending the return of their husbands.
In northern Karen State some villages in conflict areas have tried to appease the SPDC by making their own ‘peace’ agreements; they promise to abide by all SPDC demands and not contact the resistance if their village is not forced to move. They are subsequently labelled ‘peace’ villages, but even in these villages the demands for forced labour, money, food and materials usually become so intense that the village elders cannot keep up with them all. They are then arrested and tortured for failure to comply, houses are sometimes burned and many villagers flee just as though there had never been any agreement.[12]
Abuses in the Non-Conflict Areas
It is a common misconception to think that forced labour and other abuses only occur in Burma’s conflict areas. Many people are finding that they cannot survive in their villages even in areas where there is no opposition activity at all. As explained above, the SPDC tries to control the life of every civilian with its Army, so the non-conflict areas have almost as many Army units as the conflict areas. With the rapid expansion of the Army in recent years to its current strength of over 400,000 troops, villagers who have never seen fighting now find their villages surrounded by 3 or 4 Army camps within one or two hours’ walking distance. The officers in these camps see the civilian population as little more than a convenient pool of forced labourers and a source of profit. Villages receive a constant stream of written and spoken orders demanding their forced labour as Army camp servants, messengers and sentries, cutting and hauling building materials for camp construction, building and maintaining the camp (translations of hundreds of these can be seen in the KHRG ‘Order Sets’ available on this web site). They are also taken as porters, because even where there is no fighting the Army still needs people to haul rations and supplies from roadheads to hilltop Army camps, or from the Battalion bases to faraway outposts in the middle of conflict areas.
Where they are in complete control, the SPDC also uses villagers as forced labour to improve the road networks and build infrastructure such as railways and hydro dams. Conditions on such projects can be brutal, with one person per family demanded on rotating one or two week shifts; in rainy season the adults have to work the fields, so the children often have to go and work in dangerous conditions with frequent mudslides. Once completed, the power from these dams goes only to the Army camps and to businessmen who can pay off the Army, while the villagers are often forbidden to take their bullock carts on the roads they have built with their own labour. The roads, usually only dirt, are badly engineered by Army officers and wash out every monsoon season, causing many villagers to refer to the period November to January as ‘road building season’, when they are forced to rebuild the roads each year.
For Army officers, a posting in the countryside is an opportunity to make a great deal of personal profit in a short time. Officers in areas where there is no opposition usually occupy themselves by ordering villagers to cut logs and bamboo, claiming it is for the Army camp but then selling it on the market for personal profit. Other such schemes include forcing villagers as well as rank and file soldiers to bake bricks or dig and maintain fish ponds. All profit goes to the officers, who also confiscate most of the rations intended for their soldiers and approximately half of the soldiers’ pay in the name of various ‘fees’ and ‘contributions’, then sell the rations on the market and tell the soldiers to get their food from the villages. This situation has become even worse since 1998, when the SPDC in Rangoon cut back severely on rations to units in the field and ordered them to produce more of their own food or take it from the farmers. The result has been the systematic confiscation of much of the best farmland by Army units. The farmers are not paid any compensation; worse yet, they are called out for forced labour farming their confiscated land, from planting to harvesting, and the officers then take the entire harvest. Some villages report that they even have to provide the seed for planting these fields.
In addition to forced labour, villagers face constant demands for cash, food and materials from every SPDC Army unit in their area. On average, a family must hand over anywhere from 100 to 3,000 Kyat per month to the Army in cash as extortion which masquerades under the names of ‘porter fees’, ‘servants’ fees’, ‘development fees’, ‘pagoda fees’, and so on. In theory, this money is supposed to be used to hire people for forced labour or to support projects in the area, but in reality it is pocketed by the officers and forced labourers are not paid. Villagers must also pay to avoid forced labour when they are ill or cannot go, at rates of 100-1,000 Kyat per day of labour missed. Cash is very hard to come by for most subsistence farmers in rural Burma because they do not operate in a cash-based economy, but if they do not pay these fees they are arrested. Every farmer in areas firmly controlled by the SPDC must also hand over a quota of every crop to the SPDC authorities for next to nothing. Usually this quota amounts to approximately 30% of the entire crop, but after the farmer deducts the portion of his harvest required for seed stocks, payments in rice for previous loans, use of other villagers’ buffaloes to plough, etc., the quota amounts to 50% or more of what is left. Quotas have been increasing in recent years, and no exceptions are made for bad crop years such as the disasters caused by droughts and floods in 1997 and 1998. The farmers often have no option but to buy rice on the market to fulfil the quota in such years, while the family goes hungry. The price paid for quota is less than half of market price, but corrupt SPDC officials take out so many ‘deductions’ for themselves that the farmers usually receive no more than 10-20% of market price for quota rice.[13] Even with little or no rice left to feed their families, the farmers still face regular demands for rice and meat to feed the local Army camps, and armed patrols often enter villages to loot rice, livestock and valuables.
The SPDC provides very few social services in the villages which it controls. In some villages it sanctions the construction of a primary or middle school, but usually it is the villagers who must pay the cost of building it as well as the salary of the state-supplied teacher. More remote villages usually cannot afford to do this, so many have opened their own primary-level schools with their own volunteer teachers. Since the beginning of 1999, the SPDC military has been ordering the closing of many of these village primary schools in areas such as Pa’an and Thaton districts of Karen State, telling the villagers that only state-sanctioned schools are allowed. Many villagers cannot afford to send their children to state schools, however, and they also complain that in the state schools the teaching of languages such as Karen, Mon, Kayah, or Shan is strictly forbidden, causing children to grow up illiterate in their mother tongue. As a result, fewer and fewer children in the rural areas of Karen State have any opportunity for education. The same applies to rural medical clinics. Even in places where the regime has allocated some funds for the establishment of some basic social services, the local military and SPDC authorities use these services as an excuse to extort even more money from the villagers by force, usually amounting to several times the worth of the services being provided.
Even where schools are available, many children are pulled out of school as soon as they are big enough to work because of all of the demands for labour and money which their families have to face. Families sell their valuables to pay the SPDC fees and pay to avoid forced labour so that they can work in their fields or do day labour to make money. However, there are so many fees that the money does not last long, and many families send small children to do the forced labour so that the adults can still work the fields. Eventually they sell all of their belongings and livestock to pay all of the fees, and when they are still ordered to go for forced labour or pay money they have no option but to flee the village or face arrest, torture and possible summary execution. Trials are not held in rural areas, villagers are simply tied up and taken to Army camps where they are held in mediaeval-style leg stocks or pits in the ground, tortured and interrogated until the Army officer decides what to do with them. They are often held for ransom, held for months under torture without charge, or simply executed without any record existing of their arrest. To avoid this, villagers in areas all over Burma have fled to the towns where they become beggars or cheap labour, to the hills, or to neighbouring countries.
The overall result is that the subsistence farming village, the basic unit of society throughout all of rural Burma, is losing its viability under military control. The classic image of internally displaced people and refugees is that they have fled military battles in and around their villages, but this is far from the case in Burma. In thousands of interviews conducted by the Karen Human Rights Group since 1992 with villagers who have fled their homes, approximately 95% say they have not fled military battles, but rather the systematic destruction of their ability to survive caused by demands and retaliations inflicted on them unilaterally by the SPDC military. When they do have to flee fighting it is only for a day or two, because the war in Burma is a fluid, hit-and-run affair which villagers can dodge by hiding for short periods in the forest. However, once the SPDC occupies the area around their village the suffering is inescapable. The village, rooted as it is to the land, is just too defenceless and vulnerable. It can be forced out to work, looted, retaliated against, all with complete impunity.
Loss of Hope: The People and the Army
The population has largely lost hope and sees almost no way out of the present situation. In the urban and central Burman areas, people are too afraid to make any move to oust the regime because of the massacres they know would result. In the ethnic nationality regions, the opposition groups can no longer offer protection to the villagers, who cannot see any way to organise against the regime and see no option but to flee the SPDC Army whenever it is around. Anywhere from 2 to 4 million people are internally displaced in Burma, at least 1 million of these in the ethnic nationality areas, surviving in hiding in the forests or as beggars in the towns. Approximately 120,000 Karen and Karenni refugees are registered in camps in Thailand, with more arriving each week. An estimated 1 million or more additional refugees and economic migrants are scattered throughout Thailand in the illegal labour market. The entire situation in Burma is clearly unsustainable, but the regime absolutely refuses to lessen its grip on power in any way and there is no way of knowing for how long this situation can continue.
The Army, known as the Tatmadaw, has no real ideology and no constituency within the society that supports its rule, but it appears to have been successful in entrenching its rule more than ever before by entrenching fear and hopelessness in the minds of the people. Even its junior and mid-level officers work mainly only for purposes of their own power or wealth, or because being an Army officer is one of the few viable careers in today’s Burma. As for the rank and file soldiers, many are conscripted in forced lotteries, while others are coerced or misled into believing that the Army provides an escape from personal trouble or protection for their families. Once in the Army, they are dragged into the cycle of human rights abuses by officers who force them to take their food from the villagers and round up forced labourers or be punished. Even after years in the Army, they are not allowed to leave unless they round up 5 or 10 new recruits, which they do by coercing young boys they find at the markets and schools. As a result, most of the recruits to the Burmese Army are underage.
Though the SPDC junta has very few supporters within the population or even within its own Army, it is a mistake to pretend that the leaders of the SPDC junta are outsiders or aliens with no connection to the society in which they live. They may be deluded, but they did spring from Burmese society and they have succeeded in gaining and holding power over it. Essentially, their power is rooted in the deep racism that has permeated Burmese society since its beginnings; not only the racial supremacy complex which many Burmans are brought up with, but the racism of the Karen against the Burmans, the Burmans against the Shan, the Shan against the Wa, the Wa against the Shan, the Mon against the Burmans, the Rakhine against the Rohingyas, the Burmans against the Chinese, the Christians against the Buddhists, and everyone against the Muslims. The list goes on and on, and the military has always exploited it to turn people against each other and thereby increase its power. SPDC propaganda encourages a blind racist nationalism, full of references to ‘protecting the race’, meaning that if Burmans do not oppress other nationalities then they will themselves be oppressed, ‘national reconsolidation’, meaning assimilation, and preventing ‘disintegration of the Union’, meaning that if the Army falls then some kind of ethnic chaos would ensue. The non-Burman political groups are frequently just as guilty, relentlessly persecuting racial, regional and religious minorities within their own populations while demonising the Burmans, thereby preventing the very understanding among peoples which is so necessary to bring an end to military rule. A transition to democracy alone will not be enough to prevent the people tearing each other apart, particularly if it is a unitary, non-federal democracy. The first and biggest step in bringing about an end to the racism problem is to admit that it exists and to recognise its scale, but sadly there appear to be few people on any side of the struggle today who are willing to do so. Until they are, Burma will remain a country at war with itself.
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