Tragedy and Hope in Burma

http://cynicsandidealists.wordpress.com/2008/11/12/tragedy-and-hope-in-burma/

November 12, 2008 · No Comments

A Burmese prison cell (AAPP museum)
Dreadful news out of Burma today. Fourteen pro-democracy activists were sentenced to 65 years in prison by the Burmese junta…65 years in a Burmese prison is essentially a death sentence. These fourteen activists, all members of the 88 Generation organization (named after Burma’s 1988 democracy uprising), represented Burma’s greatest hopes. They wanted reconciliation not revolution. Peace not war. Democracy over dictatorship. Yet, once again, the military junta has smashed Burma’s hopes. Among those sentenced was one Nilar Thein, a brave young woman who had spent a year in hiding following last year’s democracy uprising, a year in which she was not even able to see her young baby. I woke up this morning to a BBC World Service interview with Nilar Thein recorded last January, when she was still in hiding. You can listen here: BBC interview with Nilar Thein


When BBC’s Jonathan Head asked if Nilar Thein ever had any moments of doubts and weakness after months in hiding, away from her baby daughter, this is what Nilar said:


“No, I have no doubts. After spending years in prison, I have become very firm in my beliefs. I was held in solidarity confinement, my health was failing, but I refused to sign the statements the authorities gave me. What I want to say is that if you hold onto your beliefs you can overcome anything. Today, there is every chance that I will be captured. But until that day, I will do what I can do.”

In addition to the fourteen 88 Generation activists sentenced, another 26 people were sentenced, including monks, a well-known labor rights activist, Su Su Nwe, and Nay Phone Latt, a 28 year old blogger. It’s strange…I’m 28 and I’m here blogging about politics…but I can hardly conceive of Nay Phone’s being given a 20 year prison sentence merely for posting a cartoon of Burma’s dictator, Senior-General Than Shwe on his blog.

Many of these activists had already spent years in Burmese prisons, and knew the harsh conditions that would await them. Yet that knowledge did not discourage them from taking up their struggle once more. They could have gone back to their lives, to their families and children, to their monastaries. Instead they willingly gave their lives to an ideal: a free and democratic Burma. That ideal has long been a dream deferred in Burma. I am, as this blog’s title suggests, an idealist, but I am also a cynic. And I know that Burma’s struggle is a long and hard road, that grows only longer and harder by the day. Last year’s incredible uprising, taken against all odds, inspired…but also failed to further the democracy movement’s goals.

There is always hope, however. As the sentences were being meted out today, Min Zeya, the 88 Generation activist, is reported to have cried out: ““Only 65 years? We will never be frightened.”

Much of the world was buoyed with hope by the US’s election of Barack Obama this week. Hope is a good thing. A necessary thing. Hope is like the breathing machine that keeps the incredible Burmese democracy activist and writer Ludu Sein Win alive in his home in Rangoon, where he is apparently considered too frail by even the Burmese junta to re-arrest him despite his defiance and outspokenness (though not too frail to continue his rails against the dictatorship!). Hope is what enabled Nilar Thein to hold onto her ideals all those terrible months in hiding. Hope is, I’m sure, what keeps Aung San Suu Kyi’s spirit alive despite all those grinding years under house arrest.

And while I am distraught about all of these activists being thrown into hell, I too can at least be hopeful


Ko Bo Kyi accepting the Human Rights Watch award
that there are people like the Burmese human rights activist Ko Bo Kyi fighting on their behalf from exile. Last Thursday, Ko Bo Kyi was bestowed with Human Rights Watch’s highest honor at its annual Voices for Justice dinner in New York. I was able to attend as Ko Bo Kyi’s guest. Ko Bo Kyi is the co-director of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma (AAPP), an organization based on the Thai-Burma border that advocates for prisoners in Burma. Ko Bo Kyi himself spent seven years in Burmese prisons. He was first arrested when he was 18. He was tortured. And, during one prison sentence, he spent three years in solitary confinement. When Bo Kyi finally left Burma, to escape a third round in prison, he fled to Thailand where he established AAPP in exile. Bo Kyi is one of the most selfless individuals I have ever met. Since he escaped to Thailand, Bo Kyi has worked tirelessly on behalf of Burma’s political prisoners. He has helped win prisoners their freedom, and helped provide them with material support. He has also given them hope. Here is a recording of Bo Kyi’s acceptance speech.





Hope will keep Burma’s movement alive, of that I am sure. And Burma’s people will one day succeed in their struggle. But Burma needs so much more than hope right now.

Noam Chomsky, in an interview with the Bangkok Post over the summer, questioned the power of non-violent protest in a country like Burma:

“The rulers have a good thing going for themselves, nothing to gain by yielding power and no major risks in using it violently. So that’s what they’ll probably do, until the military erodes from within. Mass non-violent protest is predicated on the humanity of the oppressor.”

There is no humanity within the leadership of the Burmese junta. These are men that give orders to soldiers to shoot Buddhist monks. That give orders to soldiers to rape young girls. Men who horde humanitarian aid designated for victims of a devastating cyclone.

Perhaps then, it is time to stop treating the junta as if they can be reasoned with. Time to stop these diplomatic games with the UN. Time to try something new. How long must the Burmese people wait before the world acts? Another forty years in hell? I’m not sure even hope can live that long.

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