Asakiyume mita

I had my whole today turned yanked sideways by a possible medical emergency that turned out not to be one, for which I'm grateful, but I still needed to drive 45 minutes north in the driving rain and then 45 minutes south in the same rain to see disparately located specialists.

Fortunately I had reading material, Tasha Suri's The Jasmine Throne, which I won in a Goodreads giveaway. It's set in an alt-Indian subcontinent in ancient days, with an empire ruling over many principalities and one conquered people, and there is a mythic forest, an abandoned temple in which a hideous massacre took place and where now an imperial princess is imprisoned, spirit powers and a cursed ailment, and moving through all this, the main protagonist, a serving girl who was once a temple child at the aforementioned temple and who has a special connection with it.

The way into the temple is so steep that you have to hold onto a rope to help you scale it, and in the rain it becomes slippery, and there are chasms you can fall into. I have vivid mental images of it, and went to see if I could find good supporting images from real life--sort of like this:



(though I believe that's actually Angkor Wat in Cambodia, not anyplace on the Indian subcontinent.)

In my search, I found some great temple images from Myanmar, including this wonderful image:



(Source)

The kneeling creature looks to be an elephant, so imagine the size of the hand. And there are devotional flowers--I love it.

This image is very beautiful too, from the same place--the Shwe Inn Thein Pagodas west of Inle Lake in Myanmar.

Irom Sharmila, whose hunger strike has just entered its sixteenth year, is kept in isolation. If reporters want to talk to her, they must go through a bureaucratic rigamarole. International reporters must request permission to see her a month in advance. It's not surprising that not many do. Then, too, neither English or Hindi is her native tongue, so she speaks slowly in both--reporters can be impatient or condescending.

In an effort to share her thoughts and feelings directly with the world, she has sent out this video. (Note: She speaks very quietly, so you'll have to have volume up very high on whatever device you view this on.)



It's long, but if you listen to even a bit of it, you can get a sense of who she is, how she feels, what is important to her. The complete transcript is in the first comment on the video, but these words in particular moved me:

Laws which are meant to serve us, a democratic people, turn against us ... Why should our people remain contented just seeing me as a symbol of resistance? ... I just want to gain success, which is so rightful, with the intervention of the public, and I am really in need of their joining hands ...

The present Indian government is so hardly [i.e., concertedly, with effort] trying to be permanent membership of the UN Security Council, but just ahead of placing this title--I mean for membership--the Indian government need to show the real democracy by repealing this draconian law [the Armed Services Special Protection Act] ... I really am tired of this way of life, really tired, so please intervene ... Without the support of the masses how can I be fruitful in my demands? ...

While we’re living in this world what we really need to do is try in our ways to connect with each other ... We are every source of peace and every source of changes.

Please share widely.

I wonder what the charge can be :-(

The rearrest was quite forcible and distressing; I saw video.

I know there are ten thousand distressing things out there--police brutality, beheadings, landslides, fevers.

This is one of those ten thousand.

I guess a person just . . . keeps trying. While we're alive, we can keep trying. That's what I'm telling myself, anyway.

I promise it won't be all activism all the time at asakiyume dot livejournal dot com, but sometimes things happen all at once.

Back in 2010, when I was doing research for Pen Pal, I found out about Africatown, a unique community in Mobile, Alabama, home to descendants of people brought to America on the last slave ship, in 1860. People in this community spoke African languages well into the twentieth century. When I went to Alabama, I visited a memorial in the community (pictures here), and I've always thought it would be great if someone from the area were to write a history of it--or historical fiction.

But alas, what's happening instead is an oil pipeline is being put right through the community, with no communication with community members, jobs promised but not delivered--the typical story of disregard of the wellbeing of people in minority communities. As one protestor points out, a violation of the Environmental Justice Act of 1984. As this protest was being filmed, the construction crew were demolishing a baseball field at the local elementary school--now the children can't go out for physical education. The pipeline also runs right next to a community garden.

Watch on YouTube

The community seems well organized and has at least some support in the wider area. Hopefully their protest will be heard and some changes will be made to the route of the pipeline . . . though where and how. . . can it be stopped altogether--who knows. . .

Meanwhile more on Irom Sharmila, from the previous entry. She has a court date this Thursday. amaebi took the initiative and wrote to John Kerry, in his capacity as secretary of state, via this handy contact form, to ask that he press the Indian government on her behalf and on behalf of her cause. Inspired, I did too. I'll enclose the letter under a cut in case anyone else would like to send a letter and wants some thoughts on talking points.

If people would like to write to Sharmila directly, I do have a contact address. Send me a message via LJ, and I'll share it. I intend to write her myself, tonight or tomorrow.

( letter to Secretary Kerry )

I promise next entry will be something lighter!