Maung Zarni ********************** I am not a Jew by Zarni (a poem in honor of the indomitable spirit of fellow humans who are being killed by Israel while being locked up in the Zionist concentration camp - called Gaza ) I am not a Jew. But I felt the pain listening to my German friend telling me of how 1,000 Jews in Munich became the first victims of Hitlers regime in a single night. I am not a holocaust survivors relation but I felt the pain walking around Ravensbruck where thousands of Jewish women and girls perished in gas chambers. I am not a Khmer. But I felt the pain where I walked around Killing Fields I am not a Khmer Rouge survivor, but I felt outraged listening live to Pol Pots Brother Number Two pleading not guilty of mass atrocities. I am not a Rohingya But I felt the pain when they shared their life stories with me of how ruthlessly and inhumanly Burmese/Myanmar officials and local racist Rakgine have treated them - or how children were burned alive. I am not a genocide-fleeing refugee but i am equally outraged by how Buddhist society has sleep-walked into a slow burning genocide. I am not a Chinese but I loathed the Japanese fascist occupiers in Nanking who practiced their Kendo (Samuri-style swords) on the actual necks of Chinese victims I didnt live through the Japanese occupation as a Chinese but I felt for those who did. I am not a Tamil but I felt the piercing pain when I heard a testimony of a Tamil surgeon describing how he had to let the wounded and the pregnant die as Sri Lankan troops kept on shelling into hospitals in the paradoxically named No Fire Zone. I am not a member of Tamil Eelam liberation movement but I felt a genuine solidarity with their desire to live life as free and dignified people, not subject to ultra-racist Buddhist genocidal policies of Colombo. I am not a Karen or Shan of Burma but I felt the pain when I witnessed how 2 generations of Karen, Shan (and other) minorities) in the war zones of Eastern Burma have been subject to the internally colonial wars of greed, aggression and delusions waged by the neo-Fascist Tatmadaw (or feudal military) I didnt suffer civil war in my country of birth but I felt the fear and terror of those vicariously through victims narratives. I am not a Rwandan Tutsi but I felt the pain when I heard stories of the survivors of their genocide. But ... do I have to be a Jew, a Khmer, a Rohingya, a Chinese, a Tamil, a Karen , or a RWandan in order to empathize with those who have suffered immensely? Do I have to be a Palestinian, an Arab, or a Muslim to feel the pain and rage of being robbed of ones non-Biblical land by those deluded enough to see themselves as chosen people? Do I have to be a Gazan to feel the pain of being locked up in a vast concentation camp by those whose ancestors themselves were exterminated in similar camps thousands of miles away? I am not a Jew. But I am your fellow human.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 17:37:31 +0000
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