The massive protests and resulting crackdown has been top-of-the-hour news for the entire last week here in Oslo, Norway... I'm surprised there hasn't been a thread about this yet. (And no, I'm not going to call it Myanmar.)
To see thousands of crimson-robed Buddhist monks marching in the streets so boldly is incredible... one has to understand the status of monks in Southeast Asian society. These monks have balls of steel, if you ask me, but I just wonder what good any of it is really going to do. They are doing so much to get the world's attention, and they have our attention... but for what?
I'm not going to sum up the details here, since I assume you all have access to various online news sources, but I did want to post
this piece from a recent editorial about the events, from the Seattle Times.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by SeattleTimes
The United States watches this upheaval from an interesting emotional and political distance. Even the involvement of a religious community in a political struggle takes on a measure of detachment with no obvious U.S. interests at stake.
The clashes in Myanmar take place in a global neighborhood where the U.S. is largely on the outside looking in, with precious little political and economic influence.
This is virtually a case study for how the political and economic influence of two emerging powers — India and China — can be used to restore peace and avoid bloodshed. How will they exercise their diplomatic skills and economic might to quell a nasty, disruptive fight in the neighborhood?
There are lives to save. How does China negotiate a conflicted role as peacekeeper and as a central government worried about democratic aspirations of its own populace?
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I hate the fact that because the US (and most of the West) has no real interest in Burma, that they are just going to sit there and say, "Uh, please use UTMOST RESTRAINT, and stuff. Thank you." What the fuck is that going to do? Here, yet again, is a grass-roots movement for democracy, exactly what the US is supposed to care so much about (and supposedly our justification for intervening in Iraq, among other places)... but we all know that nobody really gives a shit.
Sure, we'll sit around and watch it on the news, maybe some hippies among us will sport a red shirt this weekend in solidarity (yes, I've seen a group on Facebook for this very cause), but then what? Life will go on, as usual, in Burma. Oooh, sanctions, how scary... as if that's going to make the military junta think twice about crushing their own citizens, after how many years of treating them like shit. The whole thing pisses me off... that we have to resort to hoping that CHINA will do something to slap Burma's hand? Yeah, right.
Just wondering what you all think. Maybe this belongs in Politics. But I just want to get it on the boards somewhere, at least.