Inside Burma: Land of Fear

I just finished watching John Pilger's remarkable documentary on Burma. It's an impressive work of journalism, shot entirely in secret to avoid the censorship and brutal retaliation of the ruling military Junta. The saddest thing about the whole Burma situation is how they are forced to suffer in relative anonymity. There is little in the way of mass media coverage of the situation - not really surprising considering how much foreign investment is at stake, and how that investment is currently propping up the despotic generals who rule the country.

I first heard about Burma's democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a book by John Pilger, and ever since then I've been a huge admirer of her courage, her integrity, and her dignified eloquence. Kept under house arrest from 1990-1996, and denied contact with her husband and children for as long as two years at a time, she never broke under pressure and never lost her faith in the strength of her people. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, while she was still under house arrest.

We must do more in the West to bring the plight of Burma to the attention of those around us... we must not allow the silence of the mass media to obscure the terrible human rights abuses that are continuing on a daily basis - slavery, forced child labour, military brutality and indiscriminate suppression.

Perhaps the most moving line in the documentary relates to a question Pilger asked to a native Burmese man, if the mass democratic uprising of 1988 could happen again. Pilger relates the answer:

Imagine a zebra crossing. The traffic never seems to stop for the pedestrians. One or two dart across. The majority wait impatiently at the kerb, then they surge across, until the traffic has lost all its power. Well, we are all back at the kerb now, waiting impatiently.