Dear our beloved Aung San Suu Kyi,
As cited in The Washington Post dated December 4, 2014, the famous Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, currently the Burmese politician of the opposition party, once said something about the plight of the Rohingya Muslims in Burma.
“I am not silent because of political calculation. I am silent because, whoever’s side I stand on, there will be more blood. If I speak up for human rights, they (the Rohingya) will only suffer. There will be more blood.”/*/
Due to the fact that the case of the Rohingya
Muslims (in Burma, they are called the Bengali) is not the case of
interreligious conflicts (Buddhism versus Islam), but the political case, Aung San
Suu Kyi (in Burma she is called Daw Suu) then should be able to say more
significantly powerful words, in line with her conviction that every human word is
powerful to change every reality. In 2012, Daw Suu made a moving statement
about the power of words.
“Words allow us to express our feelings, to record our experiences, to concretize our ideas, to push outwards the frontiers of intellectual exploration. Words can move hearts, words can change perceptions, words can set nations and peoples in powerful motion. Words are an essential part of the expression of our humanness. To curb and shackle freedom of speech and expression is to cripple the basic right to realize our full potential as human beings.”
Let me now humbly ask the beloved Daw
Suu: Where are now the words of Daw Suu that once were so powerful? Say more
powerful words, Daw Suu, to make the world listen and pay attention to you,
now, in relation to the fate of Rohingya Muslims in Burma. As you know, Daw
Suu, a significantly increasing number of Rohingya Muslims currently are being
forced to leave Burma, becoming boatmen adrift in the seas or stranded on the sandbanks
of other countries.
Daw Suu, if your own country really cannot accept the existence of Rohingya Muslims any longer, and you have no power at all to change this situation, you still can move the hearts of, among others, the USA and the EU to enable them to accept Rohingya Muslims and then give them political asylum and finally citizenship. If you wish to do that in a noble way, don’t be afraid of losing your face because what you will do is something so noble and so great in the name of compassion, love, virtue, justice, the sisterhood of man, and humanity.
May peace, strength, courage and wisdom be with you, Daw Suu, forever.
Warm greetings,
Jakarta, May 22, 2015
Ioanes Rakhmat
Daw Suu, if your own country really cannot accept the existence of Rohingya Muslims any longer, and you have no power at all to change this situation, you still can move the hearts of, among others, the USA and the EU to enable them to accept Rohingya Muslims and then give them political asylum and finally citizenship. If you wish to do that in a noble way, don’t be afraid of losing your face because what you will do is something so noble and so great in the name of compassion, love, virtue, justice, the sisterhood of man, and humanity.
May peace, strength, courage and wisdom be with you, Daw Suu, forever.
Warm greetings,
Jakarta, May 22, 2015
Ioanes Rakhmat
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/*/ Sources http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/why-wont-aung-san-suu-kyi-say-the-word-rohingya-commentary/2014/12/04/95477390-7bea-11e4-8241-8cc0a3670239_story.html and http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/aung-san-suu-kyis-silence-on-the-genocide-of-rohingya-muslims-is-tantamount-to-complicity-10264497.html.
/*/ Sources http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/why-wont-aung-san-suu-kyi-say-the-word-rohingya-commentary/2014/12/04/95477390-7bea-11e4-8241-8cc0a3670239_story.html and http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/aung-san-suu-kyis-silence-on-the-genocide-of-rohingya-muslims-is-tantamount-to-complicity-10264497.html.
