Crisis Of Modernity And Secularism In Muslim Nations

(Lailufar Yasmin’s OP-ED article from the OpenDemocracy.com on 17 August 2013.)

Turkish anti-Islamist uprsing (2013).

Whenever democratic space has opened up, people have been eager to choose those who not only provide a better solution for their economic and social problems, but who can also offer them a recognition of the authenticity of their cultures.

The idea that the West has a mission to civilize the rest of the world rests on a conventional view of modernity in which modernity is viewed as involving a separation between religion and the public sphere.

This mission sets out to impose a singular and unidirectional conception of modernity on Islamic countries that overlooks the differentiated experiences and perceptions of non-western societies, as well as the differentiated experiences within the west towards modernity. Instead, religion becomes the decisive factor in determining who is modern and who is not, and, by extension, who is civilized and who is not.

How Bangladesh’s Child Deaths Dropped 80%

(Part of Dr. Atul Gawande’s “Slow Ideas” from The New Yorker on July 29, 2013.)

In 1968, The Lancet published the results of a modest trial of what is now regarded as among the most important medical advances of the twentieth century. It wasn’t a new drug or vaccine or operation. It was basically a solution of sugar, salt, and water that you could make in your kitchen. The researchers gave the solution to victims of a cholera outbreak in Dhaka, the capital of what is now Bangladesh, and the results were striking.

Cholera is a violent and deadly diarrheal illness, caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholera, which the victim usually ingests from contaminated water. The bacteria secrete a toxin that triggers a rapid outpouring of fluid into the intestine. The body, which is sixty per cent water, becomes like a sponge being wrung out. The fluid pouring out is a cloudy white, likened to the runoff of washed rice. It produces projectile vomiting and explosive diarrhea. Children can lose a third of their body’s water in less than twenty-four hours, a fatal volume. Drinking water to replace the fluid loss is ineffective, because the intestine won’t absorb it. As a result, mortality commonly reached seventy per cent or higher. During the nineteenth century, cholera pandemics killed millions across Asia, Europe, Africa, and North America. The disease was dubbed the Blue Death because of the cyanotic blue-gray color of the skin from extreme dehydration.

Taliban Opens Terrorist-Training Camps In Burma

(News article direct from Bangladesh’s BDnews24.com on 16 August 2013.)

Praying Bengali-Muslim-Talibans at Bangladeshi Border.

Over two dozen high-definition images reportedly published in an Urdu-language Internet forum suggest the Taliban has successfully recruited Rohingya Muslims, Bangladeshis, and Indonesian nationals and are training them in an undisclosed camp in Myanmar, a report by Asian News International (ANI) says.

The images that come with Urdu captions were posted on the ‘Bab-e-Islam Jihadi Internet Forum’ and sourced from a Facebook account on July 12, according to a leading Washington-based research institute, Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM) of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

Quintana, His Bengali-Muslims, and Their Camp-Riots

(Compilation of translated articles from various Burmese and Bengali blogs last week.)

Rioting Bengali-Muslims confronting Burmese police
at Bawduphat Bengali-refugee-camp near Sittwe.

Tomas Ojea Quintana the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situations in Burma is now in troubled-Arakan since August 11. He is hated by the native-Buddhist Yakhines for his extremely-biased stance against Buddhists but loved by the illegal Bengali-Muslims originally from Bangladesh for his favouritism towards them.

Since last year Muslim-Buddhist riots in the Arakan most of them Bengali-Muslims (so-called Rohingyas) have been herded into various refugee camps by the Burmese security forces and they were ready to ignite another set of riots again to show the world their plights through their man Tomas Quintana.

India Forces Buddhist Refugees Back Into Bangladesh

  (Direct translation of news article direct from Myanmar Express on 13 August 2013.)

Buddhists fleeing the recent genocide in Bangladesh.

More than 1,500 Buddhist refugees fleeing their homes in the Chittagong-hill-tracts of Bangladesh were forcefully pushed back into Bangladesh by the Indian border security forces on August 12.

The Buddhist refugees from the Yakhine tribes of Maramar, Thet, and Dynet had fled from their homes after one of the frequently-occurring genocidal attacks by the Bangladeshi Muslim settlers during the 3-days long Muslim-riots from August 3 to August 5.

The Buddhists had fled to the neighbouring Indian State of Tripura after the Bangladeshi-Muslims attacked and burned down their houses in the Khagrahchari District - in Bangladesh’s once-Buddhist-majority Chittagong Hill Tracts – after the false rumours of Buddhists kidnapping a Bangladeshi-Muslim Cycle-carrier were maliciously spread by the Islamist jihadists hell bent on driving all the Buddhists out of CHT.

Nay Pyi Daw – Strategic Capital For Burma’s Survival

(Enhanced translation of Major Ye Moe’s “Tatmadaw What, Tatmadaw Where – 22”.)

On 6 November 2005 Burma’s military government abruptly moved the administrative capital of Burma from Rangoon to a remote area - 2,723 square miles wide between Shan Yoma and Yegu Yoma ranges - at about 200 miles north of the former capital city of Rangoon.

Even though the actual construction of the new capital city Nay Pyi Daw has been going on quietly since 2002 by at least 30 large construction companies the strategic plan to build the new administrative centre had been secretly drawn up since 1995-96 by the Burma’s ruling military.

Even though costing at least US$ 20 Billion after spending a considerable portion of Burma’s national budgets the Nay Pyi Daw mega-project has been an ideal capital most country’s armed-forces can only dream of.

Breeding-Muslims Cost Britain £13+ Billion A Year

(News article direct from The Muslim Issues on 9 October 2012.)

Britain is sinking under unproductive Muslims costing the British tax-payers £13+ Billion every year.

Modest numerical calculations based on government statistics, Wikileaks and media reports reveal that the British government spend a minimum £13+ billion a year from tax revenues on unproductive Muslims in the country.

While the government is trying to create £12 billion in annual cuts by targeting the handicapped, elderly, and poor amongst it’s own citizens, they have ignored a group that is highly overrepresented above anyone else in welfare exploitation. Sweden appears to be gripped in a similar situation with the country drowning in Muslim related expenses.

8-8-88 (Four-Shit) Uprising: Anarchy and Head-Choppings

(Direct translation of Soe Naing’s memoir from December Lad’s Facebook page.)

Nowadays there are so many just-over-20-year-olds at my work and I began to realize the 8-8-88 Uprising exactly 25 years ago is now just a history for them. But for me who was     barely 18 in August 1988 the failed Uprising is still recent in my mind.

Back then I was a tenth-grade student at State High School No-3 (SHS-3) in Thin-gan-gyung township in Rangoon. Our school was on the laneway from BOC Bend near former Irrawaddy cinema to Thin-gan-gyun train-station. The local people there were mostly Kalars (Muslims and Hindus).

On 8-8-88 there were mass protests in the city. But we didn’t hear anything about soldiers’ shooting to disperse the crowd then. The whole thing started from a fight between a small group of RIT students and the local youths from the Kyo-gone ward at a teashop where the violent argument broke out on which songs the shop should play.

"8-8-88 Uprising and Me" by Ye Min Htun

(This is the direct translation of Ye Min Htun’s ‘Four 8 Uprising and Me’.)  

Practicing politics in Burma is an extremely high risk profession. A politician in dictatorial Burma could be arrested any time and during the long BSPP (Burma Socialist Program Party) rule it could be outright dangerous for a politician to be arrested. Since I was very young I’d heard the tragic stories of many jailed politicians whose lives were forever destroyed.

I often witnessed the MIS men in a Mazda E2000 mini-truck regularly taking away that old red-flag Communist Yee Mhaing (a) Nyo Mhaing whenever the dates of politically significant events from past approached. Sometimes he came back in few days but sometimes it could take months or even years. His life was so unstable he didn’t have a job. He couldn’t even work as an itinerant laborer and I sometimes felt really bad seeing him wandering from one teashop to another teashop.