The spirit of freedom is abroad, and has landed momentarily (and we might hope, permanently) in Myanmar/Burma, in the person of thousands of Buddhist monks who are defying the thugs in the ruling military junta and staging the biggest anti-government protests in nearly two decades.
Let us hope the military junta don't repeat their murder of 3,000 protestors in those student protests two decades ago.
Let us hope too that if the anti-government protests are successful in overturning the military dictators, the spirit of freedom will be guided more by rational political philosophy than feel-good Buddhist bromides, or else Myanmar/Burma will remain as mired in poverty and authoritarian rule as it has been for most of the modern era. Let us hope.
But don't think you can go there and help the monks overturn the thugs. Liberty Scott reminds us that if you and your friends wanted to help confront the dictatorships in Burma (or in Zimbabwe or Syria for that matter) as a private citizen, then Helen Clark and the Labour government, supported by the pacifists in the Greens have banned you doing that.
After all, the state is sovereign isn't it?
4 comments:
Despite the curfew imposed by the military government in Rangoon, it's already being called the "Saffron Revolution." We'll see how this plays out. Thanks for the update!
The greens are just trying to keep
people stupid enough to vote for them, in New Zealand.
Yet another robbery of the rights of man. The greens decided on this bill the same way they created the anti-Smacking bill, by making all dicipline equate to child abuse, and all bravery equate to merceneryism.
Indifference to the plight of the Burmese must stop. This blog lays out recent events and what is happening is appalling.
For fuck's sake, somebody send some planes in there and bomb the shit out of the generals.
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