Reply #138: Commentary: A Storm That Won't Be Stilled

[emlev]

By Naomi Mann/Rangoon
October 6, 2007

Just a few months ago, Rangoon experienced a day of freak weather. Whirlwinds ripped through several townships in the city leaving untold damage in their angry wake. A display of emotion conspicuously at odds with anything I was used to seeing and tantalizingly portentous, it resurfaced last week in human form.

The grim statistics from these protests can always be disputed, yet like a whirlwind, the protestors are undoubtedly of one force—one body with many limbs.

From a window high above the wide street, I watched thousands of maroon-clad figures walking, as though in silent meditation, towards a smoking pagoda. On either side, ordinary citizens held hands, forming a human chain to protect THEIR monks.

I could hear many chants. There was the chant of ‘Doh ayei’ (‘our cause’) and there was the monks’ chant of metta sutta, or ‘loving kindness.’ Finally, there was the chant of democracy, rarely whispered in modern times.

Where, I wondered, was their loving kindness leading them? Most likely into the guns and bayonets of their brothers in the army...

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