A friend since the early 1980’s, David Arnott has placed his concentration for 20 years on secuing the welfare of the people of Burma. Aside from assembling a massive amount about Burma, he meets with politicians, academics and aid agencies, East and West, in a quiet determination to bridge the deadlock between the Burmese government and the Burmese people. …
A David and Goliath story for Burma Read More »
The woes of our planet seem to be growing. As a species, we are simply not very good at living wisely. There are destructive forces in the world. Our daily newspapers report global pressures on the food supply, oil and energy. In such times, we tighten our belt . We spend less on food, drive the car less, watch our finances and think a little more about our future. We might become a little more frugal in our current priorities but we regard it as merely a blip in the economic cycle. The dinosaur of economic progress and increasing our standard of living must not slow down. …
Sowing the Seeds of Self-Destruction Read More »
A couple of years ago, I had the privilege of joining Hal Nathan (from Inverness in the Bay area of San Francisco) on a motorcycle venture from a small town in the far north of Thailand to enter Burma. We travelled on the back of two motorbikes and made our way into a Burmese refugee camp just inside Burma – avoiding the check points and army posts to enter Burma. …
A Heart’s Capital Investment in Burma Read More »
When Cyclone Nargis struck the Irrawaddy Delta in Burma leaving more than 130,000 dead and two million homeless, we knew the response of the rulers of Burma – “business as usual.” Nations around the world, aid agencies, NGO organisations and countless individuals were ready to act. We were naïve if we thought the Burmese rulers would relax their control over
Business as Usual in Burma Read More »
I have little regard for the nation state. We, humans, have imposed this construct on the Earth without a single scrap of evidence to show that the earth itself gives support to this political ideology. It is an idealogy fuelled with human tendencies to uphold the view of ‘self’ of the nation. Self breeds other – those who are for us and those who are against us. It is a crude, arrogant, if not violent mental construct. We think, speak and act as if there were real countries with real differences between one so-called nation and another. Nationalism and internationalism tells us little about true reality and tell us far more about the deceptive nature of thought and views.
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When the unbearable becomes the unspoken … Read More »
