For decades, Myanmar suffered under the yoke of brutal dictatorships, but from 2011 to 2021, it experienced a brief period of relative freedom. Hundreds of newspapers sprang up, but a military coup ended that era of mental oxygen and drove talented pro-democracy journalists underground.
The Irrawaddy was one such child of freedom, and now this newspaper still appears daily in my inbox, only thanks to the amazing dedication of its writers and editors who evade arrest and imprisonment by stealth and foreign aid.
The information they provide is chilling. Every form of genocide and war crime has been committed by the military government, including the torching of 55,000 homes - obliterating entire villages in rapid horrific raids. Across the country, the sanctity of home and livelihood is decimated without the slightest shred of justification.
Myamar's fate is not unique. Every continent on earth has such horrors.
Given the extreme indignities of such treatment, I wonder how people are able to go on living, not only because of the extreme deprivation of resources needed to survive but because of the undeserved injustices thrust upon them. When I feel that I have been treated unfairly, I can stew over events for days, and only with 50-plus years of Buddhist training am I able to rein in those obsessive and disturbing thoughts - and truly letting go can take days. How would I fare under the conditions of the people in Myanmar, or Ukraine, or any other of the blighted regions of this earth?
This is a situation I hope never to have to face. This is a question I hope never to have to answer. Nonetheless, we must all ask ourselves: how resilient are we? How would we react to the horrors of war? Would we become insane, or mad with revenge? Or seek reconciliation and peacemaking?
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