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The burden of choice


Pro-choice? Then you probably hate John Roberts. Pro-Life? Then you’re probably a supporter, right? The judicial nominee’s prior record has largely been been overshadowed by speculation on his beliefs and position regarding Roe vs. Wade. Whether that debate will become clearer in the months preceding the nomination process remains to be seen, but in light of NARAL Pro-Choice America’s recent advertising misstep, this is a good time for men and women who consider themselves advocates of legal abortion to reconsider their tactics.

The language surrounding the abortion debate has become increasingly militant.  Activists from both sides pose it as an either/or: either you’re for it, or you’re against it, and as the conservative right positions themselves in what they claim as moral high ground, pro-choice activists have allowed themselves to be pulled into a debate over fetal life. A woman’s right to choose trumps a fetus’ right to live, or vice versa, depending on what camp you belong to.  But this is not a winnable debate. In allowing themselves to be handcuffed by this language, the pro-choice community has eliminated the in-between space many women dwell in when confronting decisions about their pregnancies.

Abortion is a reality because each year, “almost half of all pregnancies among American women are unintended. About half of these unplanned pregnancies, 1.3 million each year, are ended by abortion.” Each of these 1.3 million women and girls is making a decision, and, like all intimate decisions, the myriad emotions surrounding this choice are individual to each woman.  No one, despite the caricatures painted by the pro-life movement, approaches abortion happily.  The pro-choice community has been reluctant to admit that abortion is often tragic or dreaded, and often unpleasant. But in order to remain a viable political entity, they need to both acknowledge that truth and find room in their rhetoric for the voices of women who have or have not chosen abortion, as well as those who provide medical services.

And that’s what some parts of the movement are doing on websites like Abortion Conversation, which encourages men and women to talk about their experiences and feelings surrounding the issue.  Everyone, regardless of their opinion, should read Abortion Clinic Days, a blog written by Bon and Lou, two unnamed abortion providers. The providers write about their experiences with patients, many of whom are conflicted about their decisions. Bon writes, “Ultimately, the burden of choice is heavy for some women, crushing even for some, and for most, quite bearable.”  As the debate surrounding John Roberts and the Supreme Court continues, the pro-choice community must reposition itself to include all these women.

—Laura Louison

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Political Prose

Things look awfully better with your head stuck in the ground

Forget elephants or donkeys, hawks or doves. What does the Bush administration most resemble? An ostrich. With the mother of a fallen Iraq War soldier camped outside his ranch for nearly two weeks, a vacationing George…


Forget elephants or donkeys, hawks or doves. What does the Bush administration most resemble? An ostrich. With the mother of a fallen Iraq War soldier camped outside his ranch for nearly two weeks, a vacationing George W. Bush refuses to stick his head out the door and say hello. Meanwhile, the American effort in Iraq is, well, in its “last throes” — by which I mean it will probably go on for another five, six, eight, 10, maybe 12 years. Arianna Huffington sums up the current state of the Iraqi union:

How bad is the situation there? Barham Salih, Iraq’s minister of planning and development, tried to look at the bright side of things by saying, “We are failing to reach compromises. But we are not killing each other.” You know things are in trouble when the good news is that the Founding Fathers of the New Iraq are not blowing each other to bits.

Personally, I don’t mind if the president takes a vacation — running the country, after all, is “hard work” — but I’m puzzled why he won’t meet Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey died in Iraq last year. For one thing, it’s just good manners. Bush points out that he already met with her once last year, along with other relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq. Fair enough, but if a woman who lost her son in a war you started decides to come all the way to Crawford, Texas, for another chat, you might as well take 10 minutes out of your fishing trip and give her a good listen.

Avoiding Sheehan is just a dumb political move, too. I’m not sure who’s advising him these days — is Karl Rove too busy fending off special prosecutors? — but someone knowledgeable should have taken Bush aside and told him that if he didn’t talk to Sheehan soon, he’d just be enticing an army of reporters to come out to Crawford and turn his ranch into another Elián González/Terri Schiavo hatefest.

Well, the hatin’ has already begun: On Monday night a local resident drove his truck out to the protesters’ roadside encampment and ran over about half of the 500 wooden crosses they had hammered into the ground — crosses that bore the names of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq.

Where was our valiant “war president?” Out on the range, with his head stuck in the ground.

—Victor Tan Chen

Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

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Blog

Quote of note


“The Islamic Reformation has to begin here, with an acceptance that
all ideas, even sacred ones, must adapt to altered realities. ”

—Novelist and Indian-born Muslim Salman Rushdie, expressing his belief in the need for Islamic reform.

Writing his way into public scrutiny again, Rushdie’s upcoming book, Shalimar the Clown, will imagine the story of a Muslim boy who, under the guidance of a radical Muslim cleric, becomes a terrorist.

Rushdie was condemned in 1989 by Ayatollah Khomeini, the previous supreme spiritual leader of Iran, for alleged blasphemy in his book
The Satanic Verses; Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the author’s execution, and Rushdie was forced into hiding in the subsequent years.
  

—Mimi Hanaoka

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Blog

The language of God


What language is the language of God?  According to a BBC poll, the majority of British Muslims — 65 percent of them — would have Muslim clerics in Britain preach in English, despite the fact the Qur’an, the Muslim holy scripture and a recitation of the word of God, is written and transmitted in Arabic. Only 38 percent of the overall British population concurred that sermons should be delivered in English.  

The poll, conducted in August of this year and including 1,004 adults contacted by phone in addition to another 204 conversations with Muslims, could well be a reflection of the anxiety felt by Muslim communities in Britain about the alienation, marginalization, and failure to integrate and assimilate if preaching is conducted in Arabic, in addition to the fact that English may be the mother tongue of many British Muslims.

It’s unclear, however, it if is even feasible for the majority of imams to preach in English; Chair of the Muslim Council for Religious and Racial Harmony, imam Dr. Abduljalil Sajid, offered the BBC the vague estimate “that only 10 percent (of imams in Britain) are well versed in English and 90 percent probably speak in their own mother tongue — Turkish, Bengali, Urdu, Hindi, Arabic and so on.” According to Sajid, “Fifty-six percent of our young people are born British and the only country they know of is England, the United Kingdom,” which underscored the importance, in his opinion, of preaching in English to the younger generation of Muslim Britons whose primary language is English.  

—Mimi Hanaoka

  

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Political Prose

With enemies like these, who needs friends?

Check out this piece by academic Michael Schwartz in Asia Times Online for a so-ironic-it-hurts analysis of the ways that America’s recent…


Check out this piece by academic Michael Schwartz in Asia Times Online for a so-ironic-it-hurts analysis of the ways that America’s recent adventures in Iraq have benefited its old enemy, Iran. Schwartz gives us a succinct rundown of the various political factions in post-war Iraq and explains how many of the key players are fans of — or avidly working with — Tehran’s authoritarian government. (It’s a point that Middle East scholar Juan Cole has also made repeatedly: The real victor of the Iraq War? Iran.)

Back when the Bush administration was trying to sell its invasion of Iraq, the war cry among the more rabid hawks was “first Iraq, then Iran.” (As one administration official put it: “Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.”) Then the insurgency rapidly sapped the strength of the military and the will of the public for more war. Things have gone swimmingly for Iran ever since, Schwartz says. Iranian-backed candidates have won office in the new republic, Iraqi businessmen have built up a bustling cross-border trade, and the grateful Iraqis have, in return, promised not to allow their country to be used as a staging ground for (U.S.) attacks on Iran.

Schwartz also sorts out some of the curious connections between Iraq, Iran, and — of all American bugbears — China. Ousting Saddam, he argues, inadvertently brought oil-hungry China (a former customer of Saddam’s) into the arms of the ayatollah. Since then, China has shown itself ready to block any American moves against Iran’s nuclear ambitions in the United Nations. It has also helped Iran establish ties with other countries in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization — an alliance of central Asian nations, Russia among them, which have increasingly spoken out against U.S. military intervention in the Middle East (as seen most dramatically last month when one of those allies, Uzbekistan, gave the U.S. military six months to leave the Karshi-Khanabad air base, which has been used for staging operations in Afghanistan).

Now that Iran seems intent on building a nuclear power plant (and maybe a bomb or two), the hard-liners in power should thank the Bush administration for giving them all the political cover they could have asked for. With enemies like the United States, who needs friends?

—Victor Tan Chen

Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

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Political Prose

Not so intelligent, Mr. President

Cathy Young, a contributing editor at Reason magazine, has a piece in The Bost…


Cathy Young, a contributing editor at Reason magazine, has a piece in The Boston Globe blasting the idea — peddled by President Bush last week — that “intelligent design” should be taught alongside evolution in America’s classrooms. Not all political conservatives, she notes, are willing to “make science classrooms a platform for pseudoscience whose sole intent is to counter ‘godless’ natural selection.” Take, for example, columnist Charles Krauthammer or blogger Glenn Reynolds — or even the White House’s own science czar, John H. Marburger III (director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy), who stated earlier this year that “intelligent design is not a scientific theory.”

It’s puzzling why certain religious groups find the theory of evolution so threatening. Yes, it doesn’t bode too well for the sanctity of your convictions if you believe every word in an ancient book to be literally true. But even if you recognize the validity of evolution, there is still plenty of space for thinking what you want about the existence, or non-existence, of God. As Alan Leshner, the chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, points out, the idea behind “intelligent design” — that a higher power had a hand in the development of species on earth — is “not even a scientifically answerable question.”

The theory of evolution doesn’t deny the existence of God. In fact, we expect too much of science if we insist that it can disprove, or prove, the presence of the sacred. So why bother at all with teaching pseudoscience? Let’s teach what we actually know — and let kids decide for themselves if they see God in evolution, or just the ordinary magic of the cosmos.

On this point, it seems, many conservatives and liberals would agree.

—Victor Tan Chen

Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

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News

Caught between countries

Shan exiles in Thailand live in the interstices of society, not recognized as refugees, not welcome in Burma.


‘Hkun Pa-O’ is in Burmese lettering on the author’s bag.

By early evening, the vendors in Chiang Mai’s night bazaar are already chatting amongst themselves, their words and laughter floating back and forth between the crowds. Their covered metal stalls were wheeled out in the afternoon, and now they line both sides of the wide sidewalks; imprisoning us all in the still air of this makeshift corridor. The path is only two tourists wide, forcing sweaty strangers to squeeze and bump past each other. The confines of the stalls selling souvenir t-shirts, pillow covers, candle holders, and Diesel jeans extend for blocks, broken only occasionally by the glass fronts of air-conditioned shops like Boots and Swensen’s, or by the wide entrances leading to more shops within covered plazas.

My mission here is focused. I have perfected the look that says “save your breath, I’m not buying,” without being overly diffident or rude. At least, that’s what I like I think. I try to weave my way through with the grace of a seasoned expat, but am thwarted at every step. First a young tourist creates a bottleneck as she stands in the path, trying to squeeze in and out of a T-shirt one size too small. Next, a group of French people huddle around a calculator, haggling over the cost of a blanket. A compassionate stranger stands aside so I can pass in the other lane, but I soon become blocked by an old couple who refuse to walk single file. Shoulder to shoulder, they move at a snail’s pace. I think evil thoughts behind their backs.

Most of the shoppers pay no heed to the vendors, inching and pushing along, studying the goods, they don’t make eye contact until they are ready to bargain. Perhaps they are afraid of triggering an onslaught of sales tactics. But the vendors here are not so pushy. Some of them doze off in their chairs. They seem to be in their own world, but I can see that they notice the shoppers. I feel special when they remember me, and smile in recognition. I can hear their words following me, quiet comments and curious glances that fly ahead to catch someone else’s attention.

A man catches my eye and asks a now familiar question, “Where’d you get your bag?” The man is blind in one eye, and has a big smile; I’ve had this conversation with him more than once. “A gift from a student,” I tell him. He asks where I am from, what I do. Others who’ve stopped me before say nothing more, their curiosity guarded and their faces inscrutable.

I never ask questions in return. Simple questions could reveal topics unsafe for discussion, and I am reluctant to put them on the spot. Still, I know why my bag catches their eyes. It is like any other hill-tribe bag around here, but it is the Burmese lettering that people notice. It was a heartfelt farewell gift from Hkun Sai, a former student. The simple white letters spell out his clan name, “Pa-O.” From Burma’s Shan state, the Pa-O is one of the country’s smallest ethnic groups, and the one at the greatest risk of losing its culture to the encroachments of civil war. I don’t know how exactly the vendors can tell my bag is from Shan state, but they can. Some of the men volunteer with visible pride the information that Shan state is theirs. I wonder if they are disappointed when I tell them the bag was a gift, that I have never been to Burma.

The smiling vendor who always stops me is one of those men. He asks if I know about Shan state. When I answer yes, he gives a silent nod; I like to think it is one of approval. I am the one left with curiosity, about his life, his past, his injury, but I continue on my mission. I quickly cross the street, waving off the tuk-tuk drivers, pass a monotony of souvenirs. I head towards a glass case full of sparkling silver. There is a group of women in immaculate black burqas choosing their purchases with confidence. I peer around them politely, looking for Nang Nang’s familiar round face.

I met Nang Nang and Hkun Sai, classmates, when I first came to Chiang Mai last August. My arrival here was random and hurried. With a rapidly expiring Australian student visa, I had neither the funds nor the desire to return home. I had the general goal of building a career in human rights, particularly with refugees, but no job prospects. With two weeks to spare, I purchased a one way ticket to Thailand and sent an application off to the Burma Volunteers Program, hoping for a three month placement that would provide room and board. When they offered me a two-month paying gig at the School for Shan State Youth Nationalities, I didn’t have to think too hard. I set off for Chiang Mai, armed only with a contact number, and having never heard of Shan state.

The School for Shan State Nationalities Youth (SSSNY) was founded almost four years ago by Nang Charm Tong, a 24 year-old Shan woman and activist, who also founded the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN). The school provides post-secondary training to students of any ethnicity from Shan state, and they work to promote individuals’ right to an education.
Their location is not public, and for safety, the students are mainly confined to the school for the duration of the term.

There were 22 students when I arrived 7 months into the term. Most of them were younger than my own 26 years, and had names it took me a month to remember. Hkun Sai, at 33, was the oldest. He was the most outspoken about an individual’s right to their own culture and language. Although confident in his opinions, his inability to make a direct statement often borders on a stutter. He loves dancing, in the traditional style with dainty steps and graceful hand movements, even to his classmates’ bouncy pop music. He would sometimes express frustration that he wasn’t allowed to wear his traditional longyi, or Burmese style sarong; it might have aroused suspicion among the neighbors.

Nang Nang, 18, is ethnic Shan, and is one of three girls who went on to work in the night bazaar. She is cheerful, but often had to be coaxed to speak out in class. Like all the girls, though, she freely joined in arguments about women’s rights. Pan Pan, who is ethnic Karen, also went to work in the same shop. Recently turned 18, Pan Pan appears dainty and girly, but has no compunctions about stating her mind. Once when she spotted me in the night bazaar, she ran after me down the street to give me a hug and tell me she misses me so much she can’t stand it. Nu Lat, also Shan, was the youngest in the class, at 17. She’s confident, but not as gregarious as Pan Pan. She too went to work in the night bazaar, selling clothes.

Along a sidewalk of the night bazaar, vendors rest under cover from the rain.

When a refugee is not a refugee

Shan is the largest state in Burma, bordering the north of Thailand and the southwest of China. At least half of its 8 million people are Shan, but there are also Karen, Kachin, Mon, Wa and Lahu, and Pa-O. Its history as a nation is not well documented, and is often overshadowed by Burma’s. The state became a British protectorate in 1887, two years after Burma became a British colony. Between 1942 and 1945 the Japanese invaded with the aid of the Burma Independence Army. The British regained control after the Burmese forces switched sides. Shan leaders met with General Aung San of Burma and signed the Panglong Accord in 1947, whereby they agreed to join the Union of Burma when it gained independence the following year. In return, Shan state was given the right to secede after 10 years. After Aung San was assassinated, no government of Burma since has recognized the constitutional clause which grants Shan state the right to independence.

Burmese troops entered Shan state in 1952 and declared martial law, ostensibly to fight Chinese Kuomintang forces there. According to the Burmese junta, General Ne Win seized control of the government in 1962 amid the chaos of civil war. According to Shan sources, civil war broke out after Ne Win’s military staged their coup and tore up the constitution.  In the new constitution, there was no secession clause. Socialist Burma became a unitary state; Shan leaders and the royal family went into exile.

Since 1962, Shan state has been home base to no less than three major armed resistance forces at any given time, as well as smaller forces with shifting allegiances. With mergers and splinters, armies have changed names and changed leaders. At present, the Shan State Army (SSA) has formed the strongest resistance to the junta. It is one of the last groups to refuse a cease-fire agreement with the government.

In return, the people of Shan state have faced the greatest retaliation. Since 1996, more than 300,000 people have been forcibly relocated, their villages burned and surrounded by landmines or armed guards. Some of my students can no longer return to their homes. SWAN’s 2002 report, “License to Rape,” details over 175 incidents of rape and assault involving 625 girls and women. Perpetrated by Burmese forces over a 5-year period, 145 rapes were committed by commanding officers, and only one rapist was ever punished.

That the Junta uses forced labor is common knowledge. Firsthand accounts given to the Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF) reveal that men, women, and children alike are forced to work as military porters; they are often used as human minesweepers. The evidence points to a military campaign targeting civilians. With no where else to turn, people flee over the border to Thailand.

The Thai government limits refugee status to those who are “fleeing fighting.” The Shan are excluded from this definition. Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has stated that the Shan are “cousins” who can easily integrate into Thai society, and do not need humanitarian aid. Without legal rights or protection, they are left vulnerable. In April, 500 Shan were given temporary refuge inside the Thai border after their camp near an SSA base was shelled. In May, after the Thai Government announced a crackdown on illegal immigrants, the 500 were ordered to return. Although they were given a month to move, the army immediately began blockading their supplies coming from the Burmese side. Of the 500, half are orphans.

There are official refugee camps along the border for Karen and Karenni, which are supported by international non-governmental organizations. Groups like the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees cannot access the Shan because they have no legal recognition as “persons of concern.” Those Shan in unofficial camps along the border, estimated to be over 5,000, receive support and aid from grassroots organizations like SWAN, SHRF and the Shan State Army. The SHRF estimates there are more than 200,000 Shan seeking refuge in Thailand.

Although safer, life in Thailand is not easy. Many Shan work as fruit-pickers, often living with their families on the edges of the longan, mango, or strawberry orchards. If they are lucky, their children may attend classes taught by “barefoot teachers,” volunteers from NGOs or the SSA who teach secretly in the fields.  Although they can register as guest workers and obtain permits, this offers little protection from harsh working conditions. Agricultural workers are exposed to dangerous pesticides; factory workers are exposed to paint and chemical fumes. Many employers deduct the cost of the permit from wages already below minimum wage. Most families must live on much less than $100 a month, not enough for both food and rent in Thailand.

From a friend’s guest-house in the centre of Chiang Mai, we can see two families living on the open concrete floors of a building under construction. He’s been told the families are Thai, and will live in the subsidized housing when it is complete. I think they are Shan with no where else to go.

When a foreigner is not a foreigner

After their school term ended, many of my students returned to working for their own organizations, conducting research and human rights documentation. A few went on to further training. Of the three, Nang Nang is the only one who stayed at the night bazaar. Pan Pan, who loves languages and wants more than anything to study abroad, is now studying French. When I visit Nang Nang at work she is happy to see me, escaping from the dreary bored faces behind the counter to greet me with a hug and an exclamation of  “Ahh! Teacher!” There are a few other women working at the small shop front but I rarely see her chatting with them. A few of them are Shan as well. In my brief conversation with one girl, she plainly told me I’d gotten fat. Sometimes Nang Nang complains about gossips, but she doesn’t give details.

Nang Nang came to Thailand with her family when she was 16. When she first arrived, she worked briefly in construction and then at a restaurant. She says the job at the night bazaar is her favorite, but it hardly seems like much of a choice to me. As her teacher, I tried my best to convince her to attend a program for training in human rights education. She turned it down. Without any financial resources, she was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to find another job as good she has. Her pay is around $100 a month plus commission, working 70 hours a week. It’s a sum paltry by my standards, but fair in local terms. Most migrant workers get paid half as much for doing twice the work of their Thai counterparts and this employer, at least, pays everyone the same.

When I interview Nang Nang about work, Pong, also 18, comes along to help translate. Pong, a classmate, attended a journalism training course after the School for Shan State and now works as an environmental journalist. They both tell me that their favorite thing about the night bazaar is the people from many different countries. They prefer being around foreigners, they say, because Thai people often look down on them. Migrant workers have become a stepping stone for the quickly rising middle class here, providing cheap labor for construction booms, and servants for Thai homes.

For Pong, the worst thing about the night bazaar is the strange men who catcall her; for Nang Nang, it is the fear of immigration agents. They operate undercover, single men shopping on their own, and when they hear the telltale signs of an accent, they ask to see IDs and work permits. Nang Nang has an ID and a permit which she recently paid a month’s wages to obtain. But it makes no difference, she is still illegal. The law restricts migrant workers to menial service and construction work, retail is off limits.  

Nang Nang has yet to be carded, though, and it seems her employer has paid the more important “fee” which makes agents skip this shop. Allegedly, the unofficial fine when caught is 10,000 baht, which is more than $250. The official fine is three months in jail, a fine, and deportation. In an unofficial deportation, one is simply dropped on the other side of the border. More fees and bribes can be paid to get back across again.  In official deportations, individuals are put on a plane and handed over to Burmese government officials. Leaving Burma without authorization is a crime punishable by a year or more in prison.

Neither Nang Nang nor Pong can give me an idea of how many Shan are working at the night bazaar; they tell me that they hear “many many people speaking Burmese.” That everyone is forced to learn and use Burmese in school breeds resentment among many, and a general reluctance to speak it at all. Nonetheless, it is often the only common language available. Nang Nang and Pong, however, do not talk with the other workers they hear speaking Burmese. If there is a sense of solidarity and community among the Shan in Thailand, it is not aired in the public markets of Chiang Mai. Blending in and keeping a low profile is key to surviving as an illegal immigrant, and this is easiest done alone.

When Nang Nang and I chat in front of her work, she always holds my hand. She is more generous in her affection than I am. When I first visited her at work, she told me laughingly about her co-workers’ shock that I had actually come to see her. I know it gives her some satisfaction then, to be seen holding my hand. I haven’t told her that it also brings me no small amount of joy. We make a strange image, standing there, hands clasped, between a trinket shop and CD rack, the crowd swarming around us. We stand on two sides of a divide: tourist, educated, white on one side; local, uneducated, poor on the other. I can see people looking at us oddly, some trying harder to hide it than others.

What makes me smile, is knowing what they cannot see — that the divide between us is not so great. With my students, I am their teacher and their friend; never the farang, or foreigner, that I will always be in Thailand. We share a certain camaraderie, being outsiders in a foreign land. Truth be told, they will tell anyone who will listen about Shan state and Burma. They speak matter-of-factly about the tragedies that are occurring there. If they do not share their personal stories with me, it is probably because I have never asked. I don’t really want to know. I can’t change their pasts, and I think they can handle it better than I could. Of what is going on in their hearts, I get only tiny glimpses, in wistful faces when they tell me of their homes, or in eyes tearing up at the mention of a father.

Before I leave Nang Nang at work, she tells me that Nu Lat has returned from her trip to Bangkok. She worries about her, but is envious that Nu Lat travels so freely, with no apparent fear of being caught. I tell her about Pan Pan studying French, but she seems uninterested. I wonder if they’ve had a falling out, but don’t ask. I also mention Hkun Sai, who is now living at a refugee camp while he applies for resettlement in the United States. We hug good-bye, and I promise to see her again soon. She steps back behind the counter and I step back into the flow of tourists, looking for my first opportunity to escape between the stalls and into the open air of the street.

STORY INDEX

ORGANIZATIONS >

Shan Herald Agency for News
URL: http://www.shanland.org

Shan Women’s Action Network
URL: http://www.shanwomen.org

TOPICS > SHAN

The Shan in Thailand: A Case of Protection and Assistance Failure
Written 06/22/2004 by Refugees International
URL: http://www.refugeesinternational.org/content/article/detail/972/?mission=1724

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Political Prose

A fear of fairness

“… For the moment at least, your guilt is taken as proven.”“But I’m not guilty,” said K. “It’s a mistake. How can a person be guilty at all? Surely we are all human beings here, one like the o…


“… For the moment at least, your guilt is taken as proven.”

“But I’m not guilty,” said K. “It’s a mistake. How can a person be guilty at all? Surely we are all human beings here, one like the other.”

“That is right,” said the priest, “but that is the way the guilty are wont to talk.”

—Franz Kafka, The Trial

You may have already heard that two senior prosecutors in the Guantánamo war crimes trials requested transfers after they complained that the process was “rigged” and pursuing convictions of low-level defendants. Now it turns out that a third military prosecutor shared their concerns and also asked to be redeployed. Captain Carrie Wolf left the Office of Military Commissions last year because of similar concerns about the unfairness of the trials, according to a report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation yesterday. (David Hicks, an Australian captured in Afghanistan, is one of the four men at Guantánamo being tried for war crimes, and the Australian media is following the case closely.)

Emails from Major Robert Preston, a highly decorated judge advocate, and Captain John Carr, now a major working on the legal staff of General John Abizaid, show that the two did not consider the proceedings against the Guantánamo four to be fair or worthy of the extraordinary measures being taken. “I lie awake worrying about this every night … After all, writing a motion saying that the process will be full and fair when you don’t really believe it is kind of hard, particularly when you call yourself an officer and lawyer,” Preston wrote in an email to a senior officer in the prosecutor’s office. Pressing ahead with such “marginal” cases would amount to “a fraud on the American people,” he said. (For more excerpts from the emails, click here.)

In the second email, Carr reminded Colonel Frederick L. Borch that the chief prosecutor himself had guaranteed convictions. “You have repeatedly said to the office that the military panel will be handpicked and will not acquit these detainees and that we only need to worry about building a record for the review panel,” he wrote. Carr also complained of withheld and missing evidence that could be of use to the defense.

Borsch responded to the discontented prosecutors in an email that affirmed his great respect and admiration for them — then called their charges “monstrous lies.” (Well, as they say when grading papers, always start out with a positive.) A two-month military investigation found no evidence of criminal misconduct, ethical violations, or “tampered with, falsified or hidden” evidence.

It may just be me, but I find it a little worrisome when the prosecution starts complaining about having it too easy. I’m also skeptical any time that a branch of government decides to investigate itself — and, shockingly, finds no wrongdoing. (Anyone heard of Watergate?) Our friends overseas aren’t so easily persuaded of the U.S. government’s good intentions, either. “What farce,” says Michael Costello of The Australian. “As if [the Defense Department’s inspector general] could come to any other conclusion. If this is the standard we are to apply, we should ask Hicks to investigate the allegations against himself. He will no doubt say they were all the result of a misunderstanding and declare himself innocent.”

It seems like a no-brainer: If the U.S. government wants to preserve its credibility overseas — much less uphold justice, the American Way, and all that jazz — shouldn’t it give full and fair trials to those it detains/imprisons/involuntarily vacations in sunny Guantánamo? If the cases against these men are so ironclad, why the fear of fairness? As things are going now, the government seems like it’s headed straight for the secretive, bureaucratic lunacy of The Trial, Franz Kafka’s novel of a legal system run amok. There, too, you have prosecutors with no serious counterweight, evidence out of the reach of defendants, and panels of judges convinced of the defendant’s guilt before the proceedings have even begun. Not to mention defendants waiting in uncertainty for months or years, not knowing when they will be tried or even what crimes they are charged with — on that score, the Guantánamo four are to be envied.

In the bubble of these secretive, one-sided military tribunals, I worry that the well-intentioned men and women pursuing justice will find themselves digging a grave for it. This passage from The Trial is worth pondering:

At this point the disadvantage of a judiciary system which, from the very beginning, sanctioned secrecy made itself felt. The officials were out of touch with the public, they were well enough equipped to deal with the ordinary run-of-the-mill type of case, for this kind of case would proceed almost under its own momentum and only needed an occasional push. But when faced with quite simple cases or especially difficult ones, they were often at a total loss, because they were continuously, day and night, hamstrung by their legal system and lacked a proper feeling for human relations. And in such cases that feeling was all but indispensable.

—Victor Tan Chen

Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

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Blog

To do: expand your mind


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Ah, the last gasp of summer. A final chance to achieve escape — however briefly — before life’s routines take over. Exiting your traditional orbit, however briefly, brings perspective, renewal, and sometimes initiates change. That’s why it’s important to do some summer wandering, visit places you’ve never been, whether on your feet or in your mind.  

In this issue of ITF, we ponder pathways, where we’re going, where we’ve been, and what keeps us where we are. Francis Raven’s interview with Sasha Cagen, the founder of To-Do List magazine, investigates the quirky objectives that we jot down on the back of envelopes and what they say about us. “A good list raises questions and tells a story, but it’s elliptical” Cagan says. Lists, like a slice of our tissue under a microscope, illuminate the mystery of who we are, by showing who we hope to be.

To know where we’re going, it helps to know where we’ve been. Columnist Afi Scruggs examines the recent trial of Edgar Ray Killen to explore our country’s shameful history of racist violence and gauge the extent of our progress. To understand the current atmosphere in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964, and where Scruggs, in 1989, still found signs of segregation, is to realize how far America has come.

Finally, teacher Tara Horn discusses what it means to be a foreigner in her essay about her Shan students in Thailand. Hounded out of Burma by the ruling military dictatorship, but not officially recognized as refugees, immigrants from Shan survive in Chiang Mai by keeping a low profile, and hiding their national identity. Caught in political limbo, young men and women study in secret, in hopes of getting a say in their own future — and that of their homeland.  

The importance of going somewhere new is often what it reveals about all the old places your return to. Whether you stay home or go abroad, see where summer takes you.

Nicole Leistikow
Managing Editor
Baltimore

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The Boiling Point

The Boiling Point

The super-duper quick and easy guide to not becoming a terror suspect.


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Interviews

The ultimate to-do list

Sasha Cagen took the everyday to-do list and used it to peer into our souls. In an email interview, she tells the story of the genesis of her magazine, To-Do List, and describes the challenges of the publishing world.


(Melvin Piro)

Most of us write to-do lists, but most of us do not found magazine’s based on them as Sasha Cagen did.  Her magazine, To-Do List, wais “committed to exploring the details of modern lives” that “make us click, roar, think, develop, and sometimes break down.”  It useds the to-do list as a window into the complex shape of our lives and communities.  To-Do List was the winner of the Utne Reader‘s Alternate Press Award for Best New Magazine 2000, Reader’s Choice.  Since then, Cagen has been forced to put the magazine on permanent hiatus.  But as I found from interviewing Cagen, who lives in San Francisco, is much more than just a thousand lists.  Her essays have appeared in various publications including The Village Voice, Utne Reader, and the San Francisco Chronicle.  She is also the author of Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics, which investigates people the person who “enjoys being single (but is not opposed to being in a relationship) and generally prefers to be alone rather than dating for the sake of being in a couple.”  As an avid list-maker myself, Cagen’s magazine intrigued me enough to contact her for the following interview, which illuminates how lists often offer a window into our culture and how projects such as To-Do List might succeed.

Francis Raven: How did you start collecting lists?

Sasha Cagen: I wasn’t really a listmaker when I first started To-Do List magazine. Sure, I made the occasional pros and cons list, a Christmas list as well as a list of all the presents I bought for family, but listmaking didn’t structure my days the way they do now. I made them sometimes at work to help me organize my day and my tasks, but I called them “work plans,” because I saw someone else use that title, and I figured that it would look good to my boss if I had a “work plan.”

I started collecting to-do lists when I decided to start a magazine of the same name.
Before we launched our first issue, I placed an ad asking for people to send us their to-do lists. Once the actual, handwritten lists started coming in the mail, I became addicted to getting them, and my ideas about the name changed. At first, the name To-Do List was more conceptual — about the to-do lists of young adulthood rather than real to-do lists themselves. But I started to realize the name To-Do List conveyed a lot more than the tasks and hopes and dreams one would have as an adult. There’s something completely universal about the to-do list written at any age, and something both voyeuristic and comforting in reading another person’s list. You see that you are not the only person struggling with daily tasks like buying stamps to mail a bill on time — things that are supposed to be easy. And you also see how people think about larger issues too — because people write to-do lists about everything. Not just what they hope to accomplish in a day, but also what they hope to accomplish over their whole lives.

The to-do list concept became a jumping-off point for examining the details of daily life, and to convey the breadth of topics we would cover in the magazine, from the mundane to the meaningful, just like the random jumble of items on any one’s to do list (from flossing to finding your soul mate).

FR: What’s the quality you are looking for in a good to-do list?

SC: To-Do List published essays and interviews, and actual handwritten lists accompanied those pieces as artwork. When we were choosing lists, we were just as selective as when we were choosing essays. We were looking for lists with unexpected, human, mysterious, funny items: lists that told a story, but not in an over-the-top, calculated way. It’s very obvious when someone constructs a list and sends it in to the magazine to be reprinted. The handwriting is too perfect and well aligned. The items are too precious. A good list raises questions and tells a story, but it’s elliptical. The items should be slightly mysterious, so that you start to imagine your own story about the person’s life.

FR: What’s the most difficult thing about running a magazine?

SC: When you run a magazine, the more successful you become, the more difficult your life gets. Your to-do list becomes endlessly long, which is fine if you are getting paid a salary and know how to set limits on your workday, but a lot of independent publishers don’t know how to set limits very well, and the labor of love starts to take over your life, and you go crazy! The same can be true of writing a book, which is what I turned my attention to in the last few years. Since my first book Quirkyalone came out in 2004, I’ve been consciously working on writing shorter to-do lists so that more of my time is devoted to leisure, meditation, yoga, and pure hanging out. And I have to say, I like my shorter to-do lists.

(Kristian Birchall)

FR: How did you start the magazine?

SC: With a lot of passion, energy, and ideas but very little money. I started To-Do List in 1999 (our first issue was released in summer 2000) with paychecks saved from my proofreading job; at the time, I was 26. The staff was super-talented and all-volunteer. Annie Decker was the senior editor, Burns Maxey was the art director, and I was editor and publisher. Our efforts were bolstered by a gang of other volunteers in the San Francisco Bay Area. (This is a great place to start a magazine — there are so many talented designers, writers, editors, and proofreaders who are willing to work for reasons other than money.) Burns left after two years and she was replaced by another great designer, Sara Cambridge.

Among other major recognition, To-Do List won Utne’s Alternative Press Award for Best New Magazine, 2000, Reader’s Choice. We got press coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle, Real Simple, [National Public Radio’s] “All Things Considered,” and the Chicago Tribune. A fiction piece by Jenny Bitner was reprinted in Best American Nonrequired Reading, edited by Dave Eggers. To-Do List was an unusual, special, great magazine, but no matter how good a magazine ist, it still needs money, and that part of the equation wasn’t figured out from the beginning. We didn’t have capital, which now I realize you really need in order to launch and make a magazine a sustainable operation. After three years, I put the magazine on permanent hiatus. There’s no job I would rather have than publishing To-Do List, but now that I’m in my thirties30s, I have to focus on making money and I can’t work for free any more. In the future I’ll find a way to bring to-do list back to life as an operation that pays the people who work on it.

Meanwhile, I am thinking about a  book that reprints actual to-do lists, and I invite people to send me their actual, authentic lists (not made up for the purposes of contributing) to To-Do List, PO Box 40128, San Francisco, CA 94140. Please include a note describing yourself and the circumstances in which you wrote the list.

FR: What does a person’s to do lists tell you about them?

SC: Reading other people’s lists almost always makes me feel better. It helps to curb my own workaholism. I see either how insane other people are with their lists, and recognize the trait in myself, or, by comparison, realize how much I accomplish. Either way it is a lift.  . In their improbable mix of the mundane and the meaningful, to-do lists are a window into another human being’s private world, into her (and more often than not, to-do list writers seem to be women) ambitions, desires, failings, poor memory (the need to remind herself of the smallest task), and our imperfect humanity. Everyone writes to-do lists. These scratched-off catalogs are like diaries, except there’s no artifice, no arranging, no clear narrative or storytelling: they’re the most spare kind of a diary, private little scratched out versions of our lives.

Once the magazine started to gain attention, I realized that To-Do List was tapping into a community of readers who had never really been named or identified: the listmaker personality. People can become pretty identified with their lists. Husbands make fun of wives for listmaking. People store boxes full of them. An older man sent in a story about finding lists in his deceased father’s pockets, and what the lists told him about his dad. A gay man wrote about the coded lists he wrote as a teenager.

NPR’s “All Things Considered” asked me to be on their show on New Year’s Day 2002 to talk about making lists of New Year’s Resolutions. Noah Adams and I talked about some of the craziest lists we had ever received and the kinds of things I put on my to-do lists. The response from that one radio interview blew me away. Suddenly donations were streaming in — enough to help us pay our printer bill for the third issue.  . All of these people were so incredibly excited that a private part of themselves — a facet of their personality sometimes mocked by significant others and family members — was a shared experience, and that someone had actually made a magazine that printed to-do lists. About a dozen people sent in checks for $100 without even having seen the magazine. They were just so happy someone had started a magazine about lists and wanted to support it!

FR: Do you have a favorite to do list?

SC: Yes, the very first person who sent us lists, Rebecca, who lived in Berkeley, continued to send in the most beautiful lists for years. She once even sent in a whole mini-notebook. Her lists are really aesthetic and have the most unexpected items on them. They’re a work of art.

FR: Does running To-Do List make you intimidated to write your own to do lists?

SC: No, it’s just made me more conscious of my own to-do-list-writing style, and that I have become progressively more reliant on them — especially when I’m tackling a big creative project.

FR: What was the last to-do list you wrote?

SC: I’m starting to do more freelance writing now, and trying to figure out what next to do with my life. Here’s the latest mega-list of various projects that I may take on. This was written on a computer. I write lists in Microsoft Word when I’m really trying to organize my to-do items in various categories.

***
PITCHES I CAN MAKE AND STORIES I CAN WRITE
Hooping story
Rhode Island magazine expatriate story
Mr. Best Ever for Men’s Health (talk to Doug next time I see him)
Writer’s breakdowns after their books come out (Poets and Writers) — ask Dr. Gray for stories
Insomnia essay for SELF — write Paula Derrow and make sure she would be interested …. . . also look at the stuff that I have already written
Meditation and insomnia for Natural Health or Breathe — write that editor and ask for copy—and send her clips

PRACTICAL THINGS TO DO
Make photocopies of SF Chronicle Magazine piece, Men’s Health, and 7 x 7

FOR QUIRKYALONE
Publicize RI and NY Events — write up listings and send them to the bookstores and media in NY and RI

TO-DO LIST BOOK PROJECT
To-Do List book project — email self what I have written and put together a brief proposal to send to Jill in advance of our meeting, also scan in some of the best lists. Find a place to do this scanning! (Can I scan in a whole bunch at Jenny’s house and it won’t be a problem?)

FINISH TO-DO LIST INTERVIEW

FR: Is a person who makes lists a different type of person from a person who does not?

SC: There are different kinds of listmakers. There are people who make lists just to help them get through the day; there are also list-makers who just love making lists. It’s a fun activity for them to go to a café and make lists about the magazines they want to subscribe to or the places they want to visit. I recently interviewed a woman about things she loves to do alone, and she answered, “I really value time alone so I can sit in my room and make to-do lists.”

Men make lists, but on the whole, more women make them. I think that’s a reflection of how much women multitask — they’re mothers and workers and friends and so many other things. Men multitask too, but most don’t to the extent that women do.

FR: What makes you laugh?

SC: A good corny joke that is just goofy enough.

FR: What is a good charity to give money to?

SC: There are so many right now. Obviously there are a lot of organizations that are doing great work and we need their work so much in the Bush era. If I have to choose one, I would say organizations that are helping women and men who are in welfare reform get better training and child care to support them as time limits on their benefits run out. And of course you can always donate to an independent magazine! They need every penny!

STORY INDEX

RESOURCES >    

Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics
URL: http://quirkyalone.net

To-Do List
URL: http://www.todolistmagazine.com

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personal stories. global issues.