Burma - While I Remember....

 It's strange how the focus of our attention can slip. Earlier this year, we, thanks to the media, were riveted by accounts of Putin's  invasion of  Ukraine. Now, unless we make the effort to read the specialist press, we have no idea how the fighting is going. Our media have other matters to concern them. If it sounds like I am finger-pointing, I have to own up to having taken my eye off the ball in one of the four countries where I identified a threat to democracy in 2019: Myanmar/Burma. Happily, if that's the right word, I was shaken out of my unawareness after receiving a copy of "Burma Campaign News", sent by the Burma Campaign, U.K. I confess to having cursorily read the magazine in the past; this time, I read with attention.

Conscious as we are, and rightly so, of the plight of civilians in Ukraine, it's disturbing to read of what has been inflicted on Burmese civilians by their own military, since the anti-democratic coup of 2021. Over 2,000 people have been killed and 700, 000 have been forced to flee. A particularly nasty aspect of the military's campaign has been the indiscriminate use of air power, especially against the ethnic Karen people. Here is one day's reporting of bombing against the Karen, with 28 airstrikes carried out near the Thai border:
"The Karen Human Rights Group said the footage obtained from the Thai side of the border appears to show air raids targeting a civilian area and reveals a drone conducting reconnaissance over a village before deploying military jets to bomb the area.
"28 Burmese military airstrikes in Dooplaya, Karen State today,” wrote Zoya Phan, the campaign manager at Burma Campaign UK. “Indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas is a war crime. Time for the UK, EU, USA and international community to sanction aviation fuel a support referring Burma to the International Criminal Court.”

This is one of the key demands of the Burma campaign U.K. - that aviation supplies to the Burmese regime be stopped. Anyone wishing to support this campaign (as I now will) can find an online form HERE. If you explore the Burma Campaign website, you will find many similar petitions.

One facet of the Burmese military repression that has received international media attention is the persecution of  the Rohingya Muslim minority, which has been in full swing since 2017, before the military coup. Readers will be disgusted, if not surprised, to learn that our present Home Secretary, Liz Truss, has been slow to join the international condemnation of the genocidal campaign against the Rohingya. As the Burma Campaign UK says:

"On Friday 22nd July the International Court of Justice, known as the World Court, has ruled that a case on whether or not genocide was committed against the Rohingya will now proceed...
Despite calls for the British government to join the case, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss refuses to do so... The military have enjoyed impunity for decades, encouraging more violations of international law and the attempted military coup which began last year. Now, finally, an international court is hearing evidence of their crimes. But the British government is refusing to take part..."

Just how vicious the campaign against the Rohingya can be is here illustrated by one awful incident in 2018:

The picture above shows most of a group of 10 men captured by the Burmese military in September, 2018. They all have two things in common: they are Rohingya and about to die violent deaths. Away from the camera, Buddhist villagers, presumably neighbours to these men, are digging a shallow grave. 
Reuters continue the story: 

"Soon afterwards, on the morning of Sept. 2, all 10 lay dead. At least two were hacked to death by Buddhist villagers. The rest were shot by Myanmar troops, two of the gravediggers said.“One grave for 10 people,” said Soe Chay, 55, a retired soldier from Inn Din’s Rakhine Buddhist community who said he helped dig the pit and saw the killings. The soldiers shot each man two or three times, he said. “When they were being buried, some were still making noises. Others were already dead.”

And this, please note, is just one of thousands of crimes committed against the Rohingya in the Burmese military's campaign of genocide. One wonders what it would take to galvanise Liz Truss into action.

Lastly, it will come as no surprise to anyone to learn that the Myanmar Army has reintroduced capital punishment. Not, it would appear, for criminals, or their own murderous troops, but opponents of the regime. Amnesty International reports that Myanmar state media has announced four executions recently. Two of these executions were highly significant: 

"Phyo Zeya Thaw, a former member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, and prominent democracy activist Kyaw Min Yu, also known as Ko Jimmy, were convicted of and sentenced to death by a military tribunal in January for offenses involving explosives, bombings and financing terrorism under the Anti-Terrorism Law – charges that Amnesty International believes to be politically motivated."

No prizes are offered for guessing the real reason for those executions. At present, 114 prisoners in Myanmar await execution. The authorities, though, do not always observe such legal niceties. According to the Assistance Association  of Political Prisoners, over 500 people have been killed in detention sice the coup started. Even surviving political prisoners live in in harsh conditions.

I confess: my attention slipped and I took my eye off the ball with Burma. It won't happen in the future.

Salman Rushdie Stabbed - Another Attack on Free Speech

 

It has taken Islamist fanatics 34 years to catch up with Salman Rushdie, but, on Friday, one of them succeeded. The details of this horrific attack are well enough known. In a tranquil part of New York State, he was attacked on stage during a lecture, and received what are usually euphemistically described as "life-changing" injuries: a damaged liver, severed nerves in one arm and irreparable damage to one eye. The attacker, Hedi Mattar, of Fairview, New Jersey, also lashed out at the event organiser, Henry Reese,73. CNN reports that Mattar pleads not guilty to a charge of second degree murder:

" Matar, a New Jersey resident, also was charged with assault in the second degree, with intent to cause physical injury with a deadly weapon. Matar pleaded not guilty, according to Nathaniel Barone, his public defender. The attorney said Matar has been "very cooperative" and communicating openly, but he did not discuss the content of those conversations."

The fact that Mattar pleads not guilty is of interest; unless he pleads insanity, then it is a sign that he feels no guilt for his crime because he thought he was doing the right thing. He might even justify his actions by saying that he was executing the 34-year old fatwa placed on Rushdie by the Ayatollah Khomeni of Iran, seen below.

As someone around at the time, I remember, only too well, the controversy that erupted over Rushdie's book "The Satanic Verses", published in 1988. It was roundly condemned by Muslim elders at the time and was publicly burned in street demonstrations. Book shops in towns and cities with large Muslim populations never seemed to have copies on display. It got nastier. On February 14, 1989, the then-dying Ayatollah called for Rushdie's death. In a fatwa, which is a religious decree, and not, as some believe, a death sentence, Khomeini urged "Muslims of the world rapidly to execute the author and the publishers of the book" so that "no one will any longer dare to offend the sacred values of Islam.". France 24 continues:

"Khomeini, who was 89 and had just four months to live, added that anyone who was killed trying to carry out the death sentence should be considered a "martyr" who would go to paradise".

Some people took him up on that. On September 14, four bombs were placed outside Penguin bookshops in Britain. On July 3, 1991, Ettore Capriolo, Italian translator of The Satanic Verses, was beaten and attacked with a knife in his Milan flat by a man thought to be Iranian. Then, on July 12, 1991, the Japanese translator of the book, Hitoshi Igarashi, was stabbed to death in Tokyo by an unknown attacker. We can only be glad that there were no more violent attacks - at least related to Salman Rushdie - until now.

Pausing to reflect on this, it occurs to me that this must all seem very bizarre to people who were either very young, or not even born, when the book was first published. I'm prepared to bet that a high proportion of such people have never even heard of Rushdie, the fatwa or The Satanic Verses. Why, they might ask, was there such a fuss over a book? And that's worth considering...

Geoffrey Robertson QC, defended Rushdie in  a now-forgotten blasphemy case brought against his client. Robertson in The Guardian says that a private prosecutor issued a summons against Rushdie to try and get him to appear in court at the the Old Bailey. It was rejected, wisely. Rushdie's appearance could have led to rioting. What is of interest here is that the charges against Rushdie summarise Muslim objections to The Satanic Verses. Robertson shows that the book is not an invitation to apostasy (anathema to Islamists) by showing how the two leading characters in the book are confused by Western culture. One returns to his roots, the other kills himself. I have to quote Mr Robertson at length here, where he details his refutation of the charges brought by his client's accusers..

"Our opponents could in the end only allege six blasphemies in the book, and each one was based either on a misreading or on theological error:

God is described in the book as "The Destroyer of Man". As He is similarly described in the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation, especially of men who are unbelievers or enemies of the Jews. 

The book contains criticisms of the prophet Abraham for his conduct towards Hagar and Ismael, their son. Abraham deserves criticism and is not seen as without fault in Islamic, Christian or Jewish traditions. 

Rushdie refers to Muhammad as "Mahoud". He called him variously "a conjuror", "a magician" and a "false prophet". Rushdie does nothing of the sort. These descriptions come from the mouth of a drunken apostate, a character with whom neither author nor reader has sympathy.

The book grossly insults the wives of the Prophet by having whores use their names. This is the point. The wives are expressly said to be chaste, and the adoption of their names by whores in a brothel symbolises the perversion and decadence into which the city had fallen before it surrendered to Islam.

The book vilifies the close companions of the Prophet, calling them "bums from Persia" and "clowns", whereas the Qur'an treats them as men of righteousness. These phrases are used by a depraved hack poet, hired to pen propaganda against the Prophet. They do not represent the author's beliefs.

The book criticises the teachings of Islam for containing too many rules and seeking to control every aspect of everyday life. Characters in the book do make such criticisms, but they cannot amount to blasphemy because they do not vilify God or the Prophet."

Geoffrey Robertson, and by extension his client, Salman Rushdie, won the case. If I am ever in court for libel, I hope Mr Robertson represents me. Thanks to their success in this case, the crime of blasphemy was abolished. Sadly, it did not lead to a lifting of the fatwa, and a price (said to be 6 million US dollars, or equivalent) is still out on Rushdie's head. Hedi Mattar, presumably, was hoping to collect. Logically, the book is proven not to be blasphemous, but that will not matter to fanatics. Even though all of their allegations are proven to be false, they will carry on believing them - and they have done, as this awful attack demonstrates. It is thought that Ayatollah Khomeni had not read "The Satanic Verses". Neither, I suspect, has Hedi Mattar, nor any of the other fanatics around the world, especially in Iran. The expression "dying of ignorance" takes on a whole new meaning in this context.

I think now that we can look back at the book's publication and the fatwa as the beginning of Islamist terrorism, which was further inflamed by the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. The road to 9/11,7/7 and the London Bridge attacks began in 1988.

Ironically, I bought the book after the fatwa was issued - or rather because of it. Unfortunately, I found it unreadable and gave up two-thirds of the way through. I'm told that was quite common. 

The latest news of Salman Rushdie is that he is off his ventilator and talking. I can only send him my best wishes. I can't remember what happened to my original copy of the book, but, out of solidarity with Salman Rushdie and all victims of terrorism, I intend to buy the book again.