h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I picked up a copy of The Sun this morning at our local Burger Van. Front page was the news that a little Morroccan girl was not Madeleine. I had to ferret well into this estimable and widely read chronicle to find just half a page on the situation in Burma. There was more coverage of the 'campaign' for an EU Referendum. This reminded me so much of the quote by Neville Chamberlain about the German threat to Czechoslovakia in 1938, that it was...

"... a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing." (Neville Chamberlain)

Burma is a Chinese satellite. It's regime cannot survive without explicit support from China. If we let the dictators in Burma ride roughshod over unarmed and peaceful demonstrators, then we are sending a clear signal to Beijing. As Edmund Burke said so well:

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

A phrase that I heard oft quoted, just before Iraq was stormed. But then, that was seen as a bad intrusion into a 'sovereign country', where citizens were regularly being rounded up, horribly maltreated, killed. Burma, on the other hand ...

Ummmm, I've lost track, ... Just where is the fine line between acceptable intrusions, and unacceptable ones? Besides hindsight, of course.

I've just been listening to a radio programme about the value of a human being. It examines things from the scalp premium by the British for the scalp an American Indian, to the value of the bones, hair teeth and ash of an internee in the 3rd Reich, to the value of the East European prostitutes auctioned at a London airport (they start off at €25 in Znaim and by the time they reach London they are changing hands for €5,000), to the value of a supermodel or a famous Brazilian footballer and so on.
So what's the value of a monk in Burma when there are 400,000 of them?
OK, I'm a little cynical but I'm also trying to figure out why one missing 4-year old girl is "worth" more newspace than the all those marching monks......
On the front page of Austria's biggest selling paper (3,000,000 readers from 8,000,0000 population) are two stories: First - a story that petrol might go up 3cents and then the news that a 45-year old millionaire jeweller in Vienna has been murdered in his flat.
That says it all doesn't it? It's oil and gold that really matters or so it would appear.

Correspondents in touch with the BBC believe that as many as 6,000 people, a large proportion of them being monks, are presently in detention.

This regime has a grim reputation for torture and summary execution.

I wonder how many will return alive?

Meanwhile the British Media are more interested in the fate of some rich blonde bimbo who died in a car crash in Paris ten years ago.

Friends in America report that the media there have hardly even registered the attempted popular uprising in Burma. Their main source of news is the good old Beeb.

Ho humm... it was ever thus.

There's quite a lot about this in The Tablet this week, http://www.thetablet.co.uk/issues/1000069/
There's also an editorial, which I can't access online.

Hi Andrew

Thanks for the link. You'll excuse me if I do not register an e-mail address with this particular publication to gain access to it's free articles.

Does The Tablet have any new perspectives you would care to share with us?

Blessings,
Matholwch .

Oh! I thought this week's articles were free for everyone online, exceptionally, because of the postal strike. For Burma, try clicking on 'Conscience of a Nation'. If that doesn't work I'll try to share some thoughts (gulp!)

I did and it didn't.

The editorial says 'this is a tyranny whose cruelty knows no limits. Perhaps learning from the Chinese example [referring to Tiananmen Square in 1989] the Burmese military junta have all but banished from their country the mass media from the outside world. Only glimpses captured from mobile phones and similar means have been seen so far, almost certainly falling far short of capturing the real horror. It seems that thousands of monks were rounded up from their monasteries at night and are now held in military camps and prisons at the mercy of sadistic guards and governors.'

The editorial predicts that the reaction of the authorities could be as harsh and ruthless as in China in 1989, and maybe worse. The difference this time is the role played by the monks, 'the most revered section of Burmese society'. As the soldiers were unlikely to want to fire on them, it was decided to arrest them all at night in their dormitories. 'What trials of mental strength are now taking place between men of different faith and vicious torturers can only be imagined. There are rumours of hunger strikes. The doctrines of Buddhism and Christianity may well be different, but no prayers from a torture chamber ever go unheard in Heaven.'

Interestingly, the regime was seeking to make Burma an exclusively Buddhist society, persecuting minorities such as the largely Christian Karen and Karenni. The monks have shown they prefer freedom and human rights to such hegemony, even of their own religion.

There is much more, not just in the editorial but also in a long feature by human rights activist Benedict Rogers. The editorial itself ends 'The bravery and suffering of the Buddhist monks of Burma must never be ignored or forgotten.'

Interesting - thanks Andrew .

Did you know one of the reasons for the delay in putting down the 'uprising' was that the Army Chiefs wanted to deploy Karen and Karreni Regiments, because they would have no problem in gunning down or brutalising 'revered monks'?

As for never being forgotten, they already are by everyone who could make a difference.

Sad times...

Blessings,
Matholwch .

Thanks Math

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I didn't know that. Let's hope they do have a problem with it. It would be ironic if they helped the very people who brutalised them, and tortured their would-be allies.

Nice piece today in The Universe (another Catholic paper):

'Irish monks from the Capuchin and Carmelite orders were joined by hundreds of protesters in a demonstration along Dublin's River Liffey on Saturday in support of Burma's pro-democracy movement.' (etc.)

I wonder if the Karen and Karenni regiments have Christian Chaplains in their ranks?

Seems likely as the Burmese Army was created by the British and most of their senior officers were trained at Sandhurst...

If Christian chaplains are still allowed in the Burmese army now, I expect they would have them. Hmmm... but I don't *know* the answer.

Seems like there's virtually nothing that will persaude the people ruling Burma to let the world see what is really going on in there.

It is fear that holds them back. The same fear that fuels Zanu PF's refusal to change in Zimbabwe and in all other tyrannical governments.

The fear is "what will happen to me and my family if I ever let the people I have oppressed back into power".

To change such regimes we must address this fear. British and African diplomats achieved this with Idi Amin in Uganda, finding him a safe haven in Saudi Arabia.

Ironically it may be the very mechanism that we created to bring these monsters to justice - the International Criminal Court in the The Hague, that has fuelled this fear and may be keeping millions in misery.