Aung San Suu Kyi

 

Free Aung San Suu Kyi

Forsaken but not forgotten:

As Myanmar’s jailed leader begins her third year in isolation in a jungle prison, we demand: world leaders must no longer look the other way – they must join forces to campaign for her release

 

Source: The independent London

Peter Popham

A Myanmar activist holds a portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi during a protest at the Chinese embassy in Bangkok in August 2009

 

Somewhere in a prison within a prison in the jungles of eastern Myanmar, a frail elderly woman prepares to begin her third year in isolation – with the prospect of living like that for the rest of her life.

 

If anyone on earth has the inner strength to survive such an ordeal, it is Aung San Suu Kyi. Seventy-eight now, it is more than 30 years since she was first put under house arrest; she has spent 18 years of her life with little company but the sound of her own voice.

 

The difference this time, and a shameful one, is that a world which for many years lionized her now appears to have written her off.

 

When she was first detained in her home in 1989, after spearheading a non-violent movement of opposition to the murderous Burmese military junta, she was compared with Gandhi and Mandela and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Many other honours followed.

It is more than 30 years since Aung San Suu Kyi was first put under house arrest

 

This time, in February 2021, when her National League for Democracy was about to take office for a second term, sharing power with the military, she and her colleagues were arrested as the army swept democracy aside to seize total power – but the world looked the other way. We didn’t want to know.

 

Suu Kyi, we declared, was an Islamophobe, the army’s useful idiot, a politician who as state counsellor had in 2017 gone out of her way to defend a campaign against the Rohingya minority in Arakan state which had driven hundreds of thousands of them into exile in Bangladesh.

 

Nothing could excuse that. Her halo was shattered, the aura of saintliness that her extraordinary beauty had once reinforced long gone.

 

She was no longer someone to be loved and lionised; and as Myanmar itself was well off most people’s maps, she was no longer even of interest.

 

Suu Kyi never courted celebrity – she was already in isolation when she first became famous – but she is a classic victim of celebrity culture’s triviality: consumed in happy ignorance, then vomited in distaste.

 

She made mistakes, blunders even, as a politician, and because her blind spot was Islam, which happens to be our blind spot too, she was beyond redemption.

 

But that’s not how history will see her, and it’s not how her people see her. For a stubborn majority of Burmese, she remains the one person who has for 35 years given them hope that their 53 million-strong nation’s wretched history might be redeemed.

Aung San Suu Kyi was first arrested after spearheading a non-violent movement of opposition to the Burmese military junta

With his son

The army knows that, and fears it: that’s why, not content with isolating her, the regime has staged a series of show trials on flimsy charges and loaded her with jail sentences totalling 27 years. She faces staying in jail till she is 105.

 

But perhaps the future will be more interesting than that.

 

When Suu Kyi, a self-described housewife from Oxford who had returned to Myanmar to nurse her sick mother, led her party to a landslide victory in the general election of 1990, despite being locked in her home, it was the first fair poll for a generation; yet the result was disregarded by the junta.

Twenty years on, by contrast, her party had already been in power for a full five-year term, and in February 2021 was poised to start another; democracy had put down roots. The popular reaction to Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s action was fast and furious and countrywide and has never let up.

 

Myanmar’s chronic problem is that, being an artificial country thrown together at the whim of British imperialists, it has been beset by insurgencies ever since it was born as Burma in 1948.

 

The army justifies its power by the need to break the rebellions, but its brutality has always had the opposite effect. And this time around it has sparked violent resistance not only in the country’s ethnic fringes but in the heartland, too.

 

A particular hotspot has been Shan state in the east where ethnic Chinese rebels forced the army into peace talks back in June.

 

A Burmese proverb runs, “when China spits, Burma swims”. The giant neighbour has always played an outsize role in the country’s destiny.

Aung San Suu Kyi met with President Obama in the White House in 2012

 

While it remains improbable that the State Administration Council (as the junta calls itself) will be overthrown by rebels, it’s clear that Beijing hates to have such chaos on its doorstep: it’s very bad for business.

 

Suu Kyi was several times an honoured guest at Chinese state jamborees but that favour has conspicuously not been extended to Min Aung Hlaing.

 

With Burmese army losses mounting right across the country, and defections now claimed to be 15,000, it’s not impossible that the generals will be forced to swallow a demand for general peace talks; nor, if Min Aung Hlaing were shuffled off into retirement, that the bravest old lady in the world might emerge once more in triumph.

 

Peter Popham is the author of ‘The Lady and the Peacock’ and ‘The Lady and the Generals’

 

With affection,

Ruben

 

 

Poems : Rudyard Kipling

 

Poems

Rudyard Kipling

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yours elf when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too:

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated don't give way to hating,

Yet do not look too good, nor talk too wise;

 

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same:.

If you can bear to hear the truth, you have spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

 

The Power of the Dog

 

There is sorrow enough in the natural way

From men and women to fill our day;

And when we are certain of sorrow in store,

Why do we always arrange for more?

Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware

Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

 

Buy a pup and your money will buy

Love unflinching that cannot lie—

Perfect passion and worship fed

By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.

Nevertheless it is hardly fair

To risk your heart for a dog to tear.

 

When the fourteen years which Nature permits

Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,

And the vet’s unspoken prescription runs

To lethal chambers or loaded guns,

Then you will find—it’s your own affair—

But … you’ve given your heart to a dog to tear.

 

When the body that lived at your single will,

With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!).

When the spirit that answered your every mood

Is gone—wherever it goes—for good,

You will discover how much you care,

And will give your heart to a dog to tear.

 

We’ve sorrow enough in the natural way,

When it comes to burying Christian clay.

Our loves are not given, but only lent,

At compound interest of cent per cent.

Though it is not always the case, I believe,

That the longer we’ve kept them, the more do we grieve:

For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,

A short-time loan is as bad as a long—

So why in—Heaven (before we are there)

Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear.

 

 

 

​

 

 

 

 

 

The Way through the Woods

THEY shut the road through the woods
  Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
  And now you would never know
There was once a path through the woods        
  Before they planted the trees:
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
  And the thin anemones.
  Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods        
  And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
  Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ring’d pools        
  Where the otter whistles his mate
(They fear not men in the woods
  Because they see so few),
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet
  And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
  Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
  As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods ...
But there is no road through the woods.

 

 

The Glory of the Garden

Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,

Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,

With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;

But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.

 

For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,

You'll find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all

The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dung-pits and the tanks,

The rollers, carts, and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.

 

And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and 'prentice boys

Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise ;

For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds,

The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.

 

And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,

And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows ;

But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,

For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.

 

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made

By singing, "Oh, how beautiful," and sitting in the shade

While better men than we go out and start their working lives

At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives.

 

There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick,

There's not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick

But it can find some needful job that's crying to be done,

For the Glory of the Garden glorified every one.

 

Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,

If it's only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;

And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,

You will find yourself a partner In the Glory of the Garden.

 

Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees

That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,

So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray

For the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away!

With affection,

Ruben

 

 

 

 

Alexander Borodin

The classical music composers of the 19th century

«Music has healing power. It has the ability to get people out of themselves for a few hours. “Elton John.

 Alexander Borodin

Source: Wikipedia Encyclopaedia free

Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin (Russian: Александр Порфирьевич Бородин, tr. Aleksandr Porfiryevich Borodin[a], IPA: [ɐlʲɪkˈsandr pɐrˈfʲi rʲjɪvʲɪtɕ bərɐˈdʲin] ⓘ;[2] 12 November 1833 – 27 February 1887)[3] was a Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian-Russian extraction. He was one of the prominent 19th-century composers known as "The Five", a group dedicated to producing a "uniquely Russian" kind of classical music.[4][5][6] Borodin is known best for his symphonies, his two string quartets, the symphonic poem In the Steppes of Central Asia and his opera Prince Igor.

 

A doctor and chemist by profession and training, Borodin made important early contributions to organic chemistry. Although he is presently known better as a composer, he regarded medicine and science as his primary occupations, only practising music and composition in his spare time or when he was ill.[7] As a chemist, Borodin is known best for his work As a chemist, Borodin is known best for his work concerning organic synthesis, including being among the first chemists to demonstrate nucleophilic substitution, as well as being the co-discoverer of the aldol reaction. Borodin was a promoter of education in Russia and founded the School of Medicine for Women in Saint Petersburg, where he taught until 1885.

Life and profession

Family and personal life

 

Borodin at the age of 14

Borodin was born in Saint Petersburg as an illegitimate son of a 62-year-old Georgian nobleman, Luka Stepanovich Gedevanishvili, and a Life and profession

Family and personal life

 

Borodin was born in Saint Petersburg as an illegitimate son of a 62-year-old Georgian nobleman, Luka Stepanovich Gedevanishvili, and a married 25-year-old Russian woman, Evdokia Konstantinovna Antonova. Due to the circumstances of Alexander's birth, the nobleman had him registered as the son of one of his Russian serfs, Porfiry Borodin, hence the composer's Russian last name. As a result of this registration, both Alexander and his nominal Russian father Porfiry were officially serfs of Alexander's biological father Luka.

The Georgian father emancipated Alexander from serfdom when he was 7 years old

and provided housing and money for him and his mother. Despite this, his mother, whom did young Borodin as his “aunt, never publicly recognized Alexander, refer to Despite his status as a commoner, Borodin was well provided for by his Georgian father and grew up in a large four-storey house, which was gifted to Alexander and his "aunt" by the nobleman.[10] Although his registration prevented enrollment in a proper gymnasium, Borodin received good education in all of the subjects through private tutors at home. During 1850 he enrolled in the Medical–Surgical Academy in Saint Petersburg, which was later the workplace of Ivan Pavlov, and pursued a career in chemistry. On graduation he spent a year as surgeon in a military hospital, followed by three years of advanced scientific study in western Europe

 

During 1862, Borodin returned to Saint Petersburg to begin a professorship of chemistry at the Imperial Medical-Surgical Academy[8] and spent the remainder of his scientific career in research, lecturing and overseeing the education of others. Eventually, he established medical courses for women in 1872.

He began taking lessons in composition from Mily Balakirev during 1862. He married Ekaterina Protopopova, a pianist, during 1863, with whom he adopted several daughters.[11] Music remained a secondary vocation for Borodin besides his main career as a chemist and physician. He suffered poor health, having overcome cholera and several minor heart failures. He died suddenly during a ball at the academy, and was interred in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in Saint Petersburg.

Career as a chemist

In his profession Borodin gained great respect, being particularly noted for his work on aldehydes.[12] Between 1859 and 1862 Borodin had a postdoctoral position at Heidelberg University. He worked in the laboratory of Emil Erlenmeyer working on benzene derivatives. He also spent time in Pisa, working on halocarbons. One experiment published during 1862

described the first nucleophilic displacement of chlorine by fluorine in benzoyl chloride.[13] The radical halodecarboxylation of aliphatic carboxylic acids was first demonstrated by Borodin during 1861 by his synthesis of methyl bromide from silver acetate.[14][15] It was Heinz Hunsdiecker and his wife Cläre, however, who developed Borodin's work into a general method, for which they were granted a US patent during 1939,[16] and which they published in the journal Chemische Berichte during 1942.[17] The method is

generally known as either the Hunsdiecker reaction or the Hunsdiecker–Borodin reaction.[15]

 

During 1862, Borodin returned to the Medical–Surgical Academy (now known as the S. M. Kirov Military Medical Academy), and accepted a professorship of chemistry. He worked on self- generally known as either the Hunsdiecker reaction or the Hunsdiecker–Borodin reaction.[15]

 

During 1862, Borodin returned to the Medical–Surgical Academy (now known as the S. M. Kirov Military Medical Academy), and accepted a professorship of chemistry. He worked on self- condensation of small aldehydes in a process now known as the aldol reaction, the discovery of which is jointly credited to Borodin and Charles Adolphe Wurtz.[18][19] Borodin investigated the condensation of valerian aldehyde and oenanth aldehyde, which was reported by von Richter during 1869.[20][21] During 1873, he described his work to the Russian Chemical Society[22] and noted similarities with compounds recently reported by Wurtz.[23][24][25]

 

He published his last full article during 1875 on reactions of amides and his last publication concerned a method for the identification of urea in animal urine.

His successor as chemistry professor of the Medical-Surgical academy was his son-in-law and fellow chemist, Aleksandr Dianin.

Musical avocation

Opera and orchestral works

Borodin met Mily Balakirev during 1862. While under Balakirev's tutelage in composition he began his Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major; it was first performed during 1869, with Balakirev conducting. During that same year Borodin started on his Symphony No. 2 in B minor, which was not particularly successful at its premiere during 1877 under Eduard Nápravník, but with some minor re-orchestration received a successful performance during 1879 by the Free Music School under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's direction. During 1880 he composed the popular symphonic poem In the Steppes of Central Asia. Two years later he began composing a third symphony, but left it unfinished at his death; two movements of it were later completed and orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov.[citation needed]

 

During 1868, Borodin became distracted from initial work on the second

symphony by preoccupation with the opera Prince Igor, which is considered by some to be his most significant work and one of the most important historical Russian operas. It contains the Polovtsian Dances, often performed as a stand-alone concert work forming what is probably Borodin's best-known composition. Borodin left the opera (and a few other works) incomplete at his death] Alexander Glazunov. It is set in the 12th century, when the Russians, commanded by Prince Igor of Seversk, determined to conquer the barbarous Polovtsians by travelling eastward across the Steppes. The Polovtsians were apparently a nomadic tribe originally of Turkic origin who habitually attacked southern Russia. A full solar eclipse early during the first act foreshadows an ominous outcome to the invasion. Prince Igor's troops are defeated. The story tells of the capture of Prince Igor, and his son, Vladimir, of Russia by Polovtsian chief Khan Konchak, who entertains his prisoners lavishly and orders his slaves to perform the famous 'Polovtsian Dances', which provide a thrilling climax to the second act. The second half of the opera finds Prince Igor returning to his homeland, but rather than finding himself in disgrace, he is welcomed home by the townspeople and by his wife, Yaroslavna. Although for a while rarely performed in its entirety outside of Russia, this opera has received two notable new productions recently, one at the Bolshoi State Opera and Ballet Company in Russia during 2013, and one at the Metropolitan Opera Company of New York City during 2014.[

Chamber music

No other member of the Balakirev circle identified himself so much with absolute music as did Borodin in his two string quartets, in addition to his many earlier chamber compositions. As a cellist, he was an enthusiastic chamber music player, an interest that increased during his chemical studies in Heidelberg between 1859 and 1861. This early period yielded, among other chamber works, a string sextet and a piano quintet. Borodin based the thematic structure and instrumental texture of his pieces on those of Felix Mendelssohn.[2

During 1875 Borodin started his First String Quartet, much to the displeasure of Mussorgsky and Vladimir Stasov; the other members of The Five were known to be hostile to chamber music. The First Quartet demonstrates mastery of the string quartet form. Borodin's Second Quartet, written in 1881, displays strong lyricism, as in the third movement's popular "Nocturne." While the First Quartet is richer

in changes of mood, the Second Quartet has a more uniform atmosphere and expression.[27]

 

Musical legacy

Borodin's fame outside the Russian Empire was made possible during his lifetime by Franz Liszt, who arranged a performance of the Symphony No. 1 in Germany during 1880, and by the Comtesse de Mercy-Argenteau in Belgium and France. His music is noted for its strong lyricism and rich harmonies. Along with some influences from Western composers, as a member of The Five, his music is also characteristic of the Russian style. His passionate music and unusual harmonies proved to have a lasting influence on the younger French composers Debussy and Ravel (in homage, the latter composed during 1913 a piano piece entitled "À la manière de Borodine").

 

The evocative characteristics of Borodin's music—specifically In the Steppes of Central Asia, his Symphony No. 2, Prince Igor – made possible the adaptation of his compositions in the 1953 musical Kismet, by Robert Wright and George Forrest, notably in the songs "Stranger in Paradise", "And This Is My Beloved" and "Baubles Bangles, & Beads". In 1954, Borodin was posthumously awarded a Tony Award for this show.

1993 Russian 1 rouble coin commemorating the 160th anniversary of Borodin's birth

Tomb of Borodin in Tikhvin Cemetery.

With affection,

Ruben

 

 

 

 

 

 

History of the Museum of Fine Arts of Lima

 

History of the Museum of Fine Arts of Lima

On September 18, 1910, the current Palace of Fine Arts was inaugurated, located inside the Forest Park. The building was declared a National Monument on December 30, 1976.

With the presence of the President of the Republic, Mr. Aníbal Pinto, and his Minister of Instruction, Mr. Manuel García de la Huerta, the inauguration of the first National Museum of Fine Arts took place on September 18, 1880.

 

It functioned at the heights of Congress until 1887 and was later moved to the Quinta Normal de Agricultura.

 

In May 1901, an architectural competition organized by Ramón Subercaseaux and Alberto Mackenna was held to create a definitive building for the museum. The architect Emilio Jecquier was the winner.

 

After nine years overcoming difficulties, finally, on September 18, 1910, the current Palace of Fine Arts was inaugurated, located inside the Forest Park. The building was declared a National Monument on December 30, 1976.

 

The Museum of Fine Arts is the main and most jealous guardian of the national artistic heritage. The 1985 earthquake seriously affected the structure of its building. For this reason, it was currently under repair and closed to the public for a long time.

 

This building constitutes not only an exhibition place, but also a center of great activity and dissemination of artistic events.

 

It has about twenty rooms where its permanent collection is exhibited and several where temporary exhibitions are organized, others for audiovisual exhibitions and an auditorium with capacity for 300 people, which is used as a place for conferences and concerts.

 

National museum of fine arts. Photo: National Museum of Fine Arts

THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS WAS INAUGURATED IN 1910. PHOTO: NATIONAL MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS

Museum works

There are collections that range from the origins of Chilean painting to the latest trends, represented by works of new artistic manifestations.

 

During the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, few paintings were made in Chile. Chilean society and religious orders used to provide themselves with works born in the workshops of Quito, Lima or Cuzco.

 

In the Museum of Fine Arts they have preserved such relevant works as “Escape from Egypt”; by Melchor Pérez de Olguín, “Patrocinio de San José”; by Gaspar Miguel de Berrio; “Dolorosa” and “Fray Pedro Bardesi and the poor”, by anonymous Chileans.

 

After Independence, foreign artists were the ones who gave impetus to painting.

 

In the middle of the century, a first generation of national artists emerged, at first highly influenced by European precursors, such as Carlos Wood, an English sailor born in Liverpool, England, and arrived in Chile in 1819; Juan Mauricio Rugendas, Bavarian draftsman, painter and engraver, who set foot on Chilean soil in 1834; Raimundo Monvoisin, born in France, who arrived in the country in 1842; Ernesto Charton, arrived in 1844 and Giovatto Molinelli, who visited our homeland between the years 1859-1861. There are works of the vast majority of them in the museum.

 

Among the great masters of Chilean painting are, among others, "The Letter" by Pedro Lira; "The Merchant's Pearl" by Alfredo Valenzuela Puelma; “Riberas del Mapocho”, by Alberto Valenzuela Llanos; “Calle de Limache”, by Juan Francisco González.

 

The Generation of 13 is represented by artists such as Agustín Abarca, with “El Solita-rio”; Exequiel Plaza and “La Fuente”; Arturo Gordon, with “Novena del Niño Dios”; Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor and “Galician Scene”; Abelardo Bustamante with “Head of Study”, among other works.

 

There are complete collections of the Generation of '40 and the latest trends, including works by Roberto Matta, Nemesio Antúnez, Pedro Lobos, Henriette Pettit, Ricardo Irarrázaval.

 

In addition to the valuable collection of Chilean paintings, important collections of renowned foreign artists have also been exhibited, such as: Corot, Dupré, Boudin, Murillo, Teniers, Rembrandt; Rubens, Wittgenstein, Picasso, Tanguy, Brauner, Lam and others.

 

And just as painting forms an important part of the museum's collections, samples of Chilean sculpture, valuable furniture, tapestries and art objects also occupy a prominent place.

Painting Gallery and others

Note: Photos are from personal archive

With affection'

Ruben