9/11

Nine Burmese demonstrators killed in one day. The news sites say that the conflict in Burma pits the country’s two most powerful forces, the monasteries and the Junta against one another. Guns against spiritual force – a kind of symmetry.

Eleven killed in Palestine the same day. Israel may be hoping the events in Burma will keep Palestine out of the news. The same day, eleven rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel. All of them missed, it’s true, but now everyone has a reason to continue.

A friend writes that we should all wear red shirts for Burma on Friday. Is it the red of the blood spilled, or the red of the monks whose blood has been spilled? Either way it’s a suitable colour.

Tourism in Afghanistan

Calling all tourists to Bamiyan (BBC)

What a pity that I missed Bamyan, or the lakes of Bandar Abbas, when visiting Afghanistan around 1975. But I did catch the Blue Mosque in Mazar i-Sharif and other nice things. Back then, the accommodation was halfway decent. If there didn’t happen to be a hotel, you could always stay in a {chai-khana} (a tea house), and as for security, you went wherever you pleased – except to approach the yurts of nomads – I was told that to do so unannounced could mean to be shot on sight.