In The Quiet Land
(By Daw Aung San Suu Kyi)

In the Quiet Land, no one can tell
if there’s someone who’s listening
for secrets they can sell.
The informers are paid in the blood of the land
and no one dares speak what the tyrants won’t stand.

In the quiet land of Burma,
no one laughs and no one thinks out loud.
In the quiet land of Burma,
you can hear it in the silence of the crowd

In the Quiet Land, no one can say
when the soldiers are coming
to carry them away.
The Chinese want a road; the French want the oil;
the Thais take the timber; and SLORC takes the spoils…

In the Quiet Land….
In the Quiet Land, no one can hear
what is silenced by murder
and covered up with fear.
But, despite what is forced, freedom’s a sound
that liars can’t fake and no shouting can drown.

the power within us all

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been one of my heroines ever since I first heard of her. For those of you who don’t know this great freedom fighter, who, like Gandhi, exercises passive resistance, and has paid the ultimate price for it—separation from her family, friends, and now, just yesterday, given another 18 months house arrest sentence because some American SWAM the lagoon to her isolated home, and she let him in instead of turning him away … she has suffered every form of oppression, everything but death—please go to the website www.dassk.org for insight. The world needs more of HER. And please include Aung San Suu Kyi in your prayers. She is a beacon of Light to the rest of the world, in our struggle to regain the human dignity of freedom. Burma, her country, is under military rule, and has renamed the island Myanmar, but this is not the name Aung San Suu Kyi uses for her home. She is one of the strongest, most dedicated Rays of Light in our world today, whose peaceful actions and words emanate Truth.

we can all be Lights of hope, like her!