God, Love, and the Free Burma Rangers

"We told them about God and love. These are the words that Free Burma Rangers believe. Without God, without love, we get lost. Just like what’s happening in Burma, many problems we are facing because the leaders don’t have love for their people. So young people when they come here, we tell them to love God, to love each other, to forgive each other. We welcome everyone, every religion, every ethnicity."

This was one of the powerful things that stayed with me after talking to Doh Say, a Karenni fighter and trainer with the Free Burma Rangers. More and more these days, we are hearing from Bamar students and activists about the trainings they are undergoing at ethnic camps. But so often we are hearing about these experiences from the Bamar perspective, and so it was refreshing to check in on the side of the trainers.

When I asked Doh Say about the guiding principles of their training, he kept coming back to this feeling of unity, and of love. While a belief in God and faith in Jesus Christ guides so much of his own work, Doh Say was clear how members from the multi-ethnic and multi-religious Burmese society were all equally welcome to learn at their camps, and that these wholesome values were actively taught and instilled, so that they could work towards the new Myanmar they all hoped to build.