I write about mountains and buddhism and Tibet and his Holiness and I get angry with the people who take countries and destroy their way of living. That even in reading the news coverage as I googled to see what had happened Ladakh was referred to as a state that is part of the Jammu and Kashmir region. It certainly is in the region. As certainly as Kashmir is in the region of Northern India. As certainly as Tibet was in the region of China, as indeed is Burma now.
We all know the story of the man who watched as the soldiers came for the jews and said nothing, they came for the old and he said nothing, they came for the gypsies and the homosexuals and he said nothing. And then they came for him and there was no-one left to speak.
I am really, really not trying to make a political point of a terrible, senseless an natural disaster. I don't think China or India or Pakistan created the weather or its awful retribution on the people of the mountains. But I do think that we all should know that these are individual cultures and cannot as any cannot be bundled into Indian,Pakistani, English, Welsh and God knows the Cornish are that first last and always. The places we live, where we raise our children and bury our dead; these are our homes and people many thousands of miles away deciding that political expediency dictates our nationality and our place in their culture makes our homes somehow violated.
I am sure that the Indian Government gave many assurances of help and progress to a land where time had stood still for so long. Roads were built and tourists came with dollars. And where there was once a kingdom now is a sub state of bitterly disputed region.
So now where will the help come from for the people of Leh? India, Kashmir, the UK? Maybe. Here in the Uk 2.5 million pounds was raised in day for Pakistan.We know where Pakistan is; we probably have had our corner shop run by someone form Pakistan, or sat on the local with someone from Pakistan. British Asians are, like the Cornish, British whether they like it or not. Part of the community. I saw an old lady pop ten pounds across the Post Office counter after the terrible earthquake of a couple of years ago. Not a British Asian nmulticultural city dweller but an 85 year old from a small village in Hampshire. Her father had fought up there in the war," and it was bloody cold he said, forgive the language dear, but he lost two of his toes to frostbite and that was how he put it."
Well great, I have Pakistani friends, I have a friend in Shrinagar and so on Monday I was off to put my bit in - but who will do that for the people of a kingdom that has no king, a nation without a national voice and with a spiritual leader who must 'show caution' when he visits lest the Chinese think the Indian Government is favouring him. A man with no passport, whose very day to day living is utterly dependent on "the kindness of strangers."
So on Monday, lets go to the bank or the post office and show our support in a small way to help the people of Ladakh rebuild their new lives. And then before they come for you and me let us all speak up on any or all of these.
- The Gaza blockade
- The Chinese 'advisors' in Burma
- The Chinese occupation of Tibet
- Why must Kashmir be Indian
- Why is Sikkim no longer a sovereign state
- Why must British and American forces be in Afghanistan
- Why is Russia allowed to bully Georgia
?
"For as long as space endure and for as long as living beings remain
Until then may I too abide to dispel the misery of the world"
by Shantideva
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