As reported by Nu’man bin Bashir, the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, said
The believers in their mutual kindness, compassion and sympathy are just like one body. When one of the limbs suffers, the whole body responds to it with wakefulness and fever.
مثل المؤمنين في توادهم وتراحمهم وتعاطفهم، مثل الجسد إذا اشتكى منه عضو تداعى له سائر الجسد بالسهر والحمى
The Rohingya Solidarity Rally wasn’t much, but it was something: a few hundred people, some signs and chants, a double handful of speakers, in Dealey Plaza right by the gruesome green X for a couple of hours. Cars honked in support as they sped by on Elm or Main, volunteers handed out bottles of water, children played, most people huddled in the shade, trying to say cooler on a nice, hot, late-summer day in Dallas.
There were Muslim speakers, of course, but also Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, and (presumably) Christian, all proclaiming support for the Rohingya people. It’s complex, as all things halfway around the world probably are. The Rohingya are a stateless minority group that have been in Myanmar for 3+ generations. They’re denied citizenship and face all the persecution (and probably more) that non-citizens face in countries around the world. In August, a small group of Rohingya freedom fighters burned a couple of government buildings, and in response, the Myanmar Army (and, apparently, some random Buddhist citizens) has burned dozens of villages to the ground, indiscriminately killed men and children, raped women and girls, and pretty much escalated their long, slow ethnic cleansing/genocide project, with the tacit support of Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.
The things we humans get up to astonishes, and may Allah grant ease and support to the oppressed, and may He destroy the oppressors, Ameen.
And may He count me not among the oppressors, and protect me, my family, friends, and neighbors from oppression, Ameen.
I shot a pack of Instax in the LC-Anstax and finished off a roll of FPP 320 T in the Ricoh 35 ZF, but, really, I was there to show solidarity, to try to massage out some of the pain in my heart for my brothers and sisters halfway around the world. As the Prophet, peace be upon him, told us, “The believers in their mutual kindness, compassion and sympathy are just like one body. When one of the limbs suffers, the whole body responds to it with wakefulness and fever.”
Interestingly, Paul wrote something similar in his first letter to the Corinthians:
24 …But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
I bet the other religions have something similar, and it’s instructive that all the different speakers came out: we are all humans, all here on this planet together for a short time, why do we make it so hard on each other?
Allahu Alim.
So, pictures. First up, Instax.
They came out a bit dark. I’ve had this Instax for awhile, stored in the refrigerator. I wonder if it’s old film, or the LC-Anstax? Next time I shoot it, I’ll try to remember to set the ISO to 100 and give a stop of extra exposure, in hopes of bringing up the shadows some.
And now, some FPP 320 T from the Ricoh. It’s a nice film, if a bit grainy. It’s supposedly Tungsten balanced, but I had no problem getting good color in broad daylight, and had great trouble getting good color under tungsten light… It was also very hard to get the Remjet off: my usual baking soda bath/prewash did nothing, the remjet started to dissolve in the develop stage, and I did a baking soda wash between dev and blix, and again after blix and before stab, and still had to wipe off thick black gunk after, and wipe the negatives down again before scanning.
Somewhere in there, I got a scratch down the full length of the roll, on the emulsion side, probably from my rushed wiping technique. Oh well.
All in all, it was great to be a part of a relatively diverse group of people, all there to show solidarity to a persecuted minority halfway around the world, though, to be honest, I sometimes wonder what my African American brothers think when they see me, a white boy, shouting “No Justice, No Peace!”
#blacklivesmatter and Rohingya lives matter, and I don’t do enough to support either. May Allah guide me to better, ameen.
