Normally, on this blog, I refrain from any political posts. Today is different. Today, not too far to the north of where I live, men with guns are terrorizing unarmed citizens and monks, who are peacefully defying the terror.
I’ve been looking around the web/blogosphere this morning. Not much sign of outrage or anxiety. Items on several media sites tell basically the same discouraging story – The Guardian for example. And there are some blogs, such as The Buddhist Blog, providing updates.
Early conditioning is powerful. I still find it a bit of a challenge to remember that Burma is also called Myanmar – but that’s the junta’s name for it and a lot of pro-democracy people are happier with Burma, so I’ll stick with Burma.
I’ve never been there. Looked across the river from Thailand, but that’s it. And at that time my attitude was (and is) that democracy-loving people should show solidarity with the people of Burma by not going there as tourists, although I know there is an argument that such a stance makes things worse.
But to date, that refusal to go into the country as a tourist has been my sole protest on behalf of the people of Burma.
Has the rest of the world – have I – become inured to thinking that things can’t improve there? Have the generals succeeded in convincing the world that resistance is futile?
Where are the crowds in Western cities, demonstrating in support of the monks and citizens who are risking their lives?
Where do we go in person or online to sign a petition? And would that help? Here’s one you could check out.
The “no attribution, please” caption on this picture reinforces the story of repression. 
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It’s sad, but we’ve become immune to such issues.
For me, personally, the plight of Burma was bought to me by a U2 song “Walk On” (it’s both sad and a good thing that popular culture is the messenger in this instance) – which was written expressly about Aung San Suu Kyi the human rights activist (and elected President).
That was in 2000. What’s happened since then? Not much. You’d think the world community would be right on top of this – maybe that time is now!
You might wonder Des, why I’m into this: I have a small hand in an online doco I’m working on about this very issue. We’ve been working on it for a few years and sadly this current siutation is just another chapter.
Des
Keep up these postings
In a civilization when love is
gone we turn to justice and when
justice is gone we turn to power
and when power is gone we
turn to violence.