Saw Ler Lay (Rock)

As we are human beings we would like to live with equal rights. If we asked any one they would say the same. In our lives we have a lot of problems, but the experience that we go through may be different. Some may present as religious oppressing, economic, political, and social and some may be as ethnic genocide. 

Since BC 739, we the Karen were the first ethnic group to live in Burma (now Myanmar). Burma is located in South East Asia. Then the other ethnic groups came in. Most of the Karen people want to live peacefully. They do not want to mingle with the others. Then they moved to another place and worked as farmers. If the other groups found them, they attacked them and killed them. Finally, the Karen cannot bear the pain with which they had been confronted. Then they defined them selves and demanded equal rights through non-violence in 1882. But the governor of Burma could not give them. Then, finally in 1949, the Karen people had to take up the arms. Now the country became the killing field and was the least developed country in the world for more than half- century.

Not only that, now the lives of the Karen are misery. They are scattered along Thai-Burmese border as refugees in Thailand; more then 100,000 people and for more than a decade. When we asked for equal rights or peace they opposed us and so the country became a violent place. On the other hand, the military of Myanmar have a beautiful voice and they can shout throughout the whole world, that we, the Karen people, do not like peace and are making the country undeveloped. As for us, we could not do like them, because we have to escape with our lives before them. Some are in the jungle and some are refugee camps.

We the Karen are not the ones who claimed that we dislike peace. But we do love peace and rights far more than we can express. We the Karen people, and the leaders, have already sacrificed their lives for their country in order to have peace and some are still struggling. But we haven’t seen the rays of peace and rights ruling yet.

Therefore, where is peace? What is peace? How can we define what peace is like? Most of the Karen are hungry for peace and thirsty for peace. So, how can we get peace in our country? Who will restore peace in our country? How long it will take in order to have peace? Who is responsible?  Firmly I believe that one-day peace would ring out and peace would flow as the waters in our country. Not only that, I wish to experience that the beauty of the world peace would flow as the waters.

Therefore, where is peace and where is the beauty? But peace and the beauty of the world is within you and me. So you can make the world beautiful, you can make yourself a meaningful life, you can make your family happy and peaceful – because the real peace and the real beauty are within you and me.