Day: May 17, 2017

Ashin Wirathu, the Burmese Buddhist monk known for whipping up anti-Muslim sentiment in Myanmar, is the subject of a new documentary airing at France’s renowned Cannes Film Festival, which starts Wednesday.

By filmmaker Barbet Schroeder, “The Venerable W” will appear in a special screening at one of the most prestigious cultural events in the world, marking the culmination of Wirathu’s journey from an obscure rabble-rouser to international infamy.

But his path to notoriety abroad points to questions back home about how much of a role the media have played in fueling his rise. Some believe he has been given too much of a platform for his hateful views or that coverage of his activities merits a more thoughtful approach.

Media attention for anti-Muslim views

“He has been famous because of the interviews and because of the posts in the local media,” said Thitsa Hla Htway, secretary of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Myanmar.

He urged journalists to not report his more repugnant musings and to report on more diverse issues.

“What I want to stress is that they should just stay away from him and his popularity will go down. There are many important issues in Myanmar which are more important than him,” he said.

In and out of prison

This wasn’t the feeling five years ago, when Myanmar was emerging from military rule and grappling with ascendant Buddhist nationalist forces in the form of the 969 movement and Ma Ba Tha, the Committee to Protect Race and Religion.

Sentenced to prison for 25 years in 2003 for inciting violence, Wirathu was released in an amnesty in 2012, the same year that saw the first of several deadly riots to plague the country’s transition to democracy from nearly five decades of military rule.

‘Time magazine’ interview

Though Myanmar has long struggled to contain religious enmity, the story was not often heard outside of the country due to its isolation. That changed with a 2013 TIME magazine issue that put Wirathu on the cover and sought to explain the man’s connection to the mayhem.

The initial coverage was revealing, but over the years, Wirathu was interviewed by countless journalists, including the author of this article. Doubt crept into the worthiness of the enterprise for many journalists.

Social media star

But his following on social media is enormous, his posts can be inflammatory, and the fact that he has not faced strong pushback implies he has connections.

Thiha Saw, the director of the Myanmar Journalism Institute, said he credits Wirathu’s rise more to the explosion of internet access that has occurred in recent years. He added that mainstream media outlets in Myanmar have been cautious about not giving Wirathu an unnecessary amount of exposure.

Supported military

But his level of influence remains an open question. He supported the military-backed ruling party in a 2015 election contest against Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, which won easily. This past March, Wirathu was hit with a ban on giving sermons for one year.

Even so, he was allowed to travel to a part of northern Rakhine State this month that has been largely closed off to observers since Rohingya militants attacked border posts in October, killing nine and setting off a crackdown that has resulted in accusations of possible crimes against humanity.

British journalist Oliver Slow, the chief of staff for the weekly magazine Frontier Myanmar, said in his personal opinion there needs to be a mix of scrutiny and restraint in the reporting.

Journalists want more scrutiny of Wirathu

“I think obviously he [Wirathu] needs to be heavily scrutinized. His group and the people behind him have the potential to cause massive issues, so I think it’s important to be reporting on him and what they are doing,” Slow said. “But I think we pretty much know all his views now, they’ve been aired for the past four or five years. His views on Muslims, his views on religion, have been so well aired, I just don’t really see any benefit any more of interviewing him.”

Matthew Smith, executive director of the NGO Fortify Rights, said in an email he isn’t persuaded by arguments the media has disproportionately fueled Wirathu’s rise to power, even if Wirathu has benefited from the attention.

“Wirathu is a populist demagogue with a considerable following and powerful connections behind the scenes,” Smith said. “But he and his followers have unarguably used international media attention to their advantage, to build their prominence and advance nationalist and racist narratives.”

Smith wants more investigative coverage of Wirathu.

“We see the occasional profile piece and don’t find those terribly helpful. Most foreign readers, particularly in the West, regard Buddhism as a tranquil religion of peace, so editors have endless fodder in stories of an extremist monk who preaches hatred.”

Schroeder, the filmmaker, did not immediately respond to a request for an interview sent through his production company.

 
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The 70th Cannes Film Festival is opening Wednesday under sunny Cote d’Azur skies, heavy security and widespread unease in the movie industry.

Security was greater than ever at the French festival, with stepped up efforts to restrict access and even an anti-drone system. France remains under a state of emergency since the November 2015 Paris attacks. This is also the first festival held since the nearby Nice attack last year that killed 86 people.

Festival organizers have said everything has been done to maintain a balance of safety and the celebratory atmosphere of the world’s most prestigious film festival.

This year’s festival has its own anxieties. Television, virtual reality and Netflix are a larger presence than ever before in the program.

Arnaud Desplechin’s “Ismael’s Ghosts” will open the festival Wednesday.
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This year’s Eurovision song contest, hosted in Kyiv, saw Portugal crowned the winner.

But Russian officials cried foul even before the competition, as Ukraine banned their last-minute entry of contestant Yulia Samoylova, a singer who is disabled and uses a wheelchair.

“We were all very much surprised,” says chairwoman of the Moscow branch of Russia’s Disabled People Society Nadezhda Lobanova-who is herself in a wheelchair. “We don’t know how they treat their disabled, but it seems to me we wouldn’t have done anything like this. But we were surprised. And we wondered whether they’d let in a healthy singer or whether it was was done only to the disabled person.”

Instead, Samoylova performed on May 9 for Russia’s World War II Victory Day celebration in Russia-annexed Crimea. Her performing in Crimea in 2015 got her blacklisted from entering Ukraine in the first place.

Critics say Russia’s choice of a disabled contestant, while knowing she would be banned for breaking Ukrainian law, was a cynical move.

“It was not just tactless, it was so unfair,” says translator and disability expert Veronica Ivanova-who is also disabled and uses a wheelchair. “It was cruel to use a disabled person in their political games knowing in advance the risks. Hoping that the disability would melt the hearts of the European Union and, especially performing in Ukraine, I think that was very cruel.”

It’s not the first political scandal involving the Eurovision contest and Crimea. Last year’s winning song “1944”, by Crimean Tatar Susana Jamaladynova, was about Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s forced deportation of Crimean Tatars. It was seen as a subtle rebuke of Russia’s current occupation of Crimea.

But Russian claims of Kyiv’s discrimination against disabled are even more dubious as Russia itself still struggles to provide for disabled people. It took five years for Ivanova to get a proper ramp installed at her apartment building.

“It takes a long time due to bureaucratic processes but, in the end, it’s possible,” she says. “In the provinces, I am scared even to imagine how to do it.”

Despite a handicapped accessible sign, for Ivanova to enter her local grocery store requires serious help as there is an impassable step before a ramp that is too steep to safely climb in a wheelchair.

Forcing disabled access is still a challenge, grants Lobanova, as owners don’t want to pay for properly equipping their businesses, and apartment buildings require permission from all residents. “That’s rather ridiculous. But often the residents and especially landlords do not understand,” she says. “So there is a problem with the installation of stairlifts because permission must be received from all residents of the building.”

But Moscow has seen a lot of progress since she started working for disabled people three decades ago.

“There were no disabled in Moscow because there was no possibility to move around. Only those who had their own cars had such an opportunity. It was hard to find employment. It was hard to get education. There was no access,” says Lobanova.

About 85 percent of Moscow is accessible for the disabled, she says, a much higher rate than most Russian regions.

Today, vehicles and sports for Russia’s disabled are available in most cities, while education and jobs come easier, though not without problems

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“In Moscow it is not such an acute problem as a lot of enlightenment work is carried out among employers by various social bodies,” says Ivanova. “In the regions, it’s worse.”

The controversy over Russia’s Eurovision contestant has had one positive outcome, says Ivanova, it raised more discussion on the plight of Russia’s disabled.

Olga Pavlova contributed to this report.
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Once renowned in Asia for its durability and versatility, traditional Korean paper called Hanji is now produced only in a handful of rural paper mills.

But Korean-American artist Aimee Lee is dedicated to carrying on the 2,000-year old tradition through her artwork and teaching.  And some of the artwork she produces from the famously durable paper are wearable.

“The very first dress that I made out of Hanji was a western dress, but, as I was making more dresses, I thought just in the way that I explored Korean paper… I thought it would be wonderful to explore Korean dresses.”

The dress and other artwork by Lee created with Hanji, traditional Korean paper, are on display in a group exhibition during May at the Korean Cultural Center in Washington to mark Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month.

“Delicacy and strength is what I found in Korean paper,” says Jeanne Drewes, chief of binding and collections care at the Library of Congress. To Drewes, what the exhibit shows is that paper and fabric can be almost interchangeable. “That comes out in this exhibit.  This exhibit is so wonderful.”

Born in New York, Lee’s dedication to Hanji started in 2008 when she went to Korea with a U.S. Fulbright grant to research the disappearing traditional paper arts.   She apprenticed at a papermill in a remote village. It was run by a fourth-generation family whose patriarch is the Korean National Intangible Cultural Property holder of Hanji making. National intangible property is traditional knowledge that the South Korean government has designated for preservation. And intangible cultural property holders are masters of their crafts.

Lee turned what she learned about paper-making in Korea into a video which can be viewed here.

US Hanji studio

“When I first came back from Korea, I was so, so committed to sharing everything that I learned because it was so compelling, so interesting,” Lee says. “What I like about Hanji is that it’s so versatile.  So you can do so many things. I thought the world really needed to know.”

Working with the Morgan Conservatory, a non-profit arts center in Cleveland, Ohio, Lee built the first U.S. Hanji studio in 2010 to make and share the craft of Korean papermaking.   Each fall, mulberry trees whose inner bark is used to make Hanji, are harvested from the conservatory’s garden.

“I gather raw plant material from outside and then have to go through the process of stripping, sorting the parts you need and cooking it in special solutions and rinsing it, beating it and then making paper.  And then making art from that.  So it is a whole range from scratch.”

The self-appointed Hanji ambassador lectures or teaches workshops at art museums and universities across the country.  Lee’s passion for the paper led to her award-winning book: Hanji Unfurled: One Journey into Korean Papermaking.

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“Actually more people not of Korean descent take my workshops than people of Korean descent.  I think people that come are very open-minded. It is a way to learn about other cultures in a way that is very hands-on.”

Lee also uses natural dyes she makes from kitchen scraps and flowers.  Her artwork ranges from traditional objects to more contemporary woven paper objects. Her series of artists books reside in library collections including Yale University library.

Lee plans to continue making Hanji indefinitely. She says, “I still feel like there are so much I can do and learn.”
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