Washington D.C. Day 3: Museum Visits and Preparation for Lobbying

Our third day in Washington has been another excellent one- we started off early with some more meetings, including a more detailed explanation of the crimes in Burma.  We heard firsthand from Myra Dahgaypaw, an ethnic Karen who was born in Burma and fled with her family at the age of 7.  She told us the story of how her brother and his wife were shot and killed, and how her uncle was forced to watch his wife raped in front of him before he too was killed by Than Shwe's soldiers.  Despite the trauma she clearly and rightfully felt from her experiences, Myra told us what many victims of the Burmese regime have told us.  She asked that we do not feel sorry for her, but instead we learn from what has happened to her and too many others and that we take our knowledge to its logical end- to the halls of our congress and the hearts of our people so we can bring an end to the atrocities in Burma.  Maya finished her moving speech with a call to action first stated by Aung San Suu Kyi, the only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate and rightful President of Burma: "Please use your liberty to promote ours."  The request is simple- that we take the moral action and blessing of liberty we have in the United States and all other free nations and use that power on behalf of others who strive for it, and die for it, daily.

For more information on the genocide in Burma, please visit www.uscampaignforburma.org

Beyond the Burma Plenary, our day was basically empty, which gave us a long awaited opportunity to visit a few of the museums around the National Mall.  We visited the Smithsonian Castle, the Museum of American History, and the Museum of Natural History.  But by far the most moving visit we had today was our visit of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  The main focus of the museum was of course the efforts Nazi Germany took against the Jews- including a sad exhibit on the children of concentration camps, the Nazi propaganda machine, and others.  What impressed me the most, though, was the exhibit asking visitors to remember what they saw in the museum and to take action against future crimes against humanity.  This including vast information on the crisis in Darfur, pictures from the genocide in Rwanda, and a table where visitors could sign a pledge to spread the word about genocide and to fight it in all its forms.

While in the museum, I recalled Saturday's trip to the Vietnam memorial- a huge wall with 60,000 names of American soldiers who lost their lives in that war.  I realized how we toss numbers around as though we can fathom them, but in all reality the numbers of the dead in these conflicts is really insurmountable.  During the Vietnam War, "only" 58,195 men died, whereas during World War II 55 Million died from all the countries participating in that war.  If you've seen the Vietnam Memorial, you know that those 58,195 names create a massive structure- imagine a wall dedicated to the 55 million of World War II, or even the 6 million Jews murdered!  Imagine the 58,195 stories of those men that died, or the 6 million, or 55 million.  We really can't even fathom these numbers, let alone the stories of the people behind the numbers who really matter.  We need to take action to prevent genocide and war whenever possible, and use violent conflict only as a last resort.  Refusing to use violence isn't a weakness- it is a moral strength and a universal value that appeals to the conscience of humanity.  I encourage all of you to take this movement to heart, because its strength lies in solidarity.

Tomorrow we head to lobby the staff of Senators Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch.  I for one am going to take the stories I have learned this weekend and the strength and support of everyone back home with me to this session.  I pledge to protect the lives of my fellow man to the best of my ability and to represent the anti-genocide and anti-violence movements in good faith, and to use my liberty and my freedom as a means to diffuse justice throughout the world.  I thank everyone supporting Jo Anne, Rollin, and myself yet again and I hope you will stand for these efforts in the future!

Much love to all-

Zach