Today began in Edinburgh at 8.08am with prayers for the 88 generation students led by our local Thai Buddhist monk, a lovely man who always supports the Burma cause in Edinburgh.
After our prayers at a wee makeshift altar in front of St John's church, we began to hand out 888 saffron ribbons and leaflets to the public. A lovely Scottish Burmese lady called Karen had taken the 888 ribbons made by Forthview children and put each one in a wee bag and stapled it to a leaflet she'd made to hand out. It's the commitment of people like Karen that means so much.
An hour or so later, we headed up to Edinburgh City Chambers on the Royal Mile to hand out more ribbons and invite people to join us in creating a giant human saffron ribbon in the City Chambers quadrangle at 12.30pm. Photos of this amazing event have been posted on Amnesty Scotland's website. http://www.flickr.com/photos/amnestyscotland. Why was it amazing? The mix of people ranged from the Thai monk to Aunty Maureen, our Burmese 'aunty' with her son Alistair and nieces, Sarah Boyack, MSP and BEST trustee, Councillors Jenny Dawe, Lesley Hinds, Gordon Munro, Ewen Hardie (just back from walking to London from Edinburgh for Burma), 3 Edinburgh heidies/teachers and families, Lisa from Dr Cynthia's Mae Tau Clinic in Mae Sot with her family, the cast of The Burma Play, Amnesty staff, Juliette on her last public Burma event before she moves to Oxford, having done so much for Burma whilst studying in Edinburgh, John Watson, Director of Amensty Scotland, who organised the event and more... A rich mix of people with Edinburgh connections to the Burmese people... (but we really missed you Murray!)
...followed by a very special performance of the Burma Play in the historic City Chambers where Dau Aung San Suu Kyi was given the Freedom of the City in 2005.
And what was it all for? To remember the dreadful slaughter of innocent and peaceful protesters against the Burmese government on 8.8.88 and to show solidarity for the plight of the Burmese people today.
Olympics? What Olympics? Today was Burma's day not China's....
2 comments:
Looks like they have some photos here:
I have posted a comment there to come look here too.
Thank you for finding that, Mr Potter. I have pasted the link into our blog now. I don't think I can paste the Amnesty photo because of copyright but I will ask.
Post a Comment