Printable Version

Burma Digest Current Issue

Optimism or Counting the Disguised Blessings

"All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages." ………Shakespeare --From As You Like It (II, vii, 139-143)

Shakespeare sees the world as a stage upon which people perform, and their different ages represent different acts and scenes in the play. He remarked that the roles are somewhat beyond the players' control and that the script for this play has already been written by an eternal power. In Burmese, ‘Ba Wa Zat Saya Alo Kya_Ka Pya Ya Thee’.

But Shakespeare’s plays are too high for the common people or general population. I myself like the folk tales more because they are down to earth and come in various forms. These are verbal records of history, famous incidents in analogy or dreams, inspirations or fantasies of our ancestors trying to pass on their teachings or lessons to their descendants in the more palatable way or like sugar coated pills. But some times we need some thinking to discover the lessons hidden in-side. I am amazed that many of these story tellers could go beyond our wildest imaginations.

I hereby wish to retell one of my favourite stories although I do not know the real source.

Once upon a time, in a far away land there was a handsome warrior king. He was handsome, brave and strong because his ancestor kings are not practicing the custom of marrying only the only amongst royalties, the practice that some ancient kingdoms were following. Most of the princes and kings used to search the most beautiful girls of their country and so they got a lot of beauty genes in their bodies. And this particular king was trained since young in all the 18 royal subjects fit for the kings and princes. So he was not only handsome but healthy and his body was perfect like a body builder.

On a one fateful day, while practicing his fighting skills and techniques with weapons, his left little finger tip was accidentally amputated. The Royal Physicians’ attempts to attach back the severed tip failed but the wound healed quite fast because of his excellent health.

But the king was not happy with his less than perfect physical status and called his long-living-wise-minister for consultation. The wise man replied that it may be the blessing in disguise given by God and advised to accept the fate with the open mind and to go on his life as usual for the sake of the country God had entrusted on him. The King was not pleased with the answer, ‘the amputation of his finger was the blessing from God’ and ordered the Wiseman-cum-minister to banish from his country. Actually he even wished to give death sentence but according to their Royal custom the long-living-wise-ministers were already exempted or got immunity from death sentences.

To overcome his sadness or to divert his attention, other ministers advised the king to go for his usual hunting trip. On that trip the king was accidentally separated from his body guards and hunting friends. He also lost his way and intruded into the wild frontier of ancient tribes who were searching a person to sacrifice at their annual festival. He was arrested and prepared for sacrifice according to that tribe’s traditional pagan belief.

They scheduled to do the sacrifice ceremony on the mid-night of the full moon day. Then as a last minute checkup, the head priest examined the sacrificial human(king) and found out the amputated tip of the little finger. The head priest then angrily decided that the prisoner (king) was not a perfect person, their god would be angry if they proceed with the sacrificial ceremony of beheading.

So the king was released and later he found his way back to his kingdom. Then only he realized and accepted the word of his wise-man, that his amputated injury was a blessing in disguised from God.

Actually the above story is dedicated to all the people of Burma who are disappointed or depressed because of recent extension of detention order to our beloved Daw  Aung San Suu Kyi. This is not the end of the world. According to the unconfirmed news we could deduct that Daw Suu’s refusal to accept the unfair strict restriction on her and NLD could be one of the reason for the breakup of the possible truce ending in the extension of detention.

Not only me but most of the opposition could not trust the SPDC and all of us believed that even if SPDC released Daw Suu it would be a ‘Cat and Mouse game’ if I have to use the last week’s Burma Digest editorial. Yes they had released her few times before but ignored the meaningful dialogue or real negotiation or sincerely started a reconciliatory move for power sharing or transfer the power to the real owner.

They just try to buy time or fool around all the people of Myanmar and the outside world. Ne Win announced the transfer of power to civilians just to please or release the frustration of the disgruntled citizens but end up transferring the real power from his one pocket to another.

SPDC is trying to follow his foot steps but all of us and the whole world already knew their tactics and strategies. SPDC had played the deceit and sham diplomacy by announcing the charade road map to democracy. They had successfully deceived all of us and the whole world to believe that they were negotiating with Daw Suu through disgraced Khin Nyunt and Than Tun. They had played around successful with Mr Razali Ismail, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro and Syed Hamid Alba. We all suspected that they are going to play the buy-time-game with UN Under-Secretary-General Ibrahim Gambari. But the SPDC Generals are foolish enough to stop playing the game by ignoring the wishes of all the citizens, the whole world leaders and UN Secretary General’s request.

This is actually a blessing in disguise for all of us.

If they just try to play around with the cat and mouse game or their famous buy-time-games there are a lot of insincere leaders around the world willing to close one eye on them and open the remaining eye to seek methods or ways to exploit Myanmar. Now no leader of any countries could use any excuse and it is clear that ‘the spade is a spade’.

And another blessing in disguise is stupid SPDC is opening multiple battle fronts to:

Attack NLD

Attack SNLD

Attack Ethnic Minority Shans

Attack Ethnic Minority Karins

Attack Ethnic Minority Kachins

Attack Ethnic Minority Mons

Attack Ethnic Minority Chins etc

Attack Christians

Attack Burmese Muslims

Attack Rohingyas

Attack all mixed blooded people

Attack rebels at borders

Attack peace agreement signed rebels

Attack all the people of Myanmar/Burma in all possible ways

Attack ASEAN, UN, US, EU, ILO, ICICR, UNHCR, Amnesty International and etc.

We started our Independence struggle with ‘Ingaleik ah khet_Bama ah chet’ Now SPDC is jumping into the fire from the frying pen. This is the TIME to START our revolution with the new slogan, ‘SPDC’s ah khet_Bama ah chet’

Dr Salai Tun Than had raised our stake in the revolution by declaring to sacrifice and calling for a civil disobedience. Last week Shwe Ba had proposed to start a ‘showing-of-our-hatred-to-SPDC campaign.

If you have never experienced

the danger of battle,

the loneliness of imprisonment,

the agony of torture or

the pangs of starvation,

you are ahead of 20 million people

around the world.

If you attend a religious meeting

without fear of harassment,

arrest, torture, or death,

you are more blessed than almost

three billion people in the world.

If you have food in your refrigerator or kitchen capboard (Kyaung Ain),

clothes on your back, a roof over

your head and a place to sleep,

you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you can read this message,

you are more blessed than over

two billion people in the world

that cannot read anything at all.

(Anonymous)

So there are a lot of blessings, some obvious, some we just take for granted and some disguised as failures or set backs. Don’t give up, count all the blessings and raise our struggle efforts to topple SPDC. The time has come.

We could one day crown the democracy tiara on Daw Suu. She is the spear head of our struggle. Ah Yay Daw Pone Aung Ya Myee!

BO AUNG DIN 

......................................................

Comments

Alison Winter said _

Thank you Bo Aung Din and Burma Digest for this fantastic article!

Your Comments here_

Please click on Google ads below and have a look around; your clicks will help make Google contribute towards BURMA DIGEST website maintenance.