There is currently a genocide underway in Burma – as you read this, an “ethnic cleansing” is happening, with unspeakable horrors being committed against the peaceful Rohingya people. The President of Burma, Thein Sein, has done nothing so far.
What is the crime of the Rohingya people? Why are they hated so much? Is it because they are murderers, or terrorists? No. Is it because they are polluting the land, destroying vital crops? No. They are hated “simply because” their skin is darker and the majority fear they’re ‘taking jobs away’.
The real question before us is not why do we continue to witness so much suffering and violence, but rather why do we allow it?
I agree that this question may be difficult for us to hear – however, whilst this life-threatening situation is most certainly not our fault, it is most certainly our responsibility.
Are we going to stand by and idly watch hundreds of thousands of innocent people be massacred from the comfort and safety of our own homes? Or are we going to cry out to all of our powerful world governments and insist that they do something!
Burmese President Thein Sein has the power and resources to protect the Rohingya. All he has to do is give the word to make it happen. Yet, rather than deal with this urgent situation, he is instead looking to come to Europe to sell his country’s new openness to trade. It beggars belief!
These terrible atrocities happening on our planet continue to be tolerated, regardless of the fractures they create in our collective unconscious, because we continue to put commerce before vital, humanitarian interests; because we have constructed our individual and collective lives around such false paradigms as ‘survival of the fittest’, we continue to experience life as a massive struggle.
Right now is the time to change all of this nonsense – and we must act, with urgency! All of us, together, as ONE voice. This situation demands it.
To change the results we are witnessing, we have to change ourselves; we cannot keep saying we are going to change things but then fail to act.
We cannot keep listening to greedy, naive or inept politicians, and those governments and institutions who would deliberately mislead us, and then seek to placate us with excuses of how they could do nothing, and how their hands were ‘tied’, when they could easily move into action.
We keep waiting for a better time, a better future… but it never arrives because we have not arrived. We have not had the courage to act as ONE. To be as ONE.
Natural disasters are terrible enough when they do happen, yet human acts of war and genocide are many times worse. They betray us all at the deepest level.
The invitation is to BE HERE NOW. To act from presence, not powerlessness.
What will you do today? What stance will you take? Will you shrug your shoulders and walk away – or will you sound the clarion call of freedom, respect and dignity for all?
We cannot allow this to become another Rwanda, or Sarajevo….
Sign the Avaaz petition here, and get involved.
Thank you for being part of a movement of change.
Namaste,
Jaime Tanna
(Jaime Tanna is the founder of Energy Therapy and an active Reiki Master and Spiritual Mentor, Healer and Teacher. Together with his wife Jennifer, their unifying vision is to empower others through spiritual education and energy-based healing treatments, to help them become aware of their true natures, and to live more joyfully and consciously. You can visit their website at www.energytherapy.biz)
(If you would like to contribute an article you have authored to the Guest Column, please submit it to our Managing Editor, Lisa McCormack, for possible publication in this space. Not all submissions can be published, due to the number of submissions and sometimes because of other content considerations, but all are encouraged. Send submissions to Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com. Please label the topic: “Guest Column.”)
