Grrrrr!!!! Burma!!! (those are angry exclamation points, not happy ones)
Pardon my French, but shit is really getting bad over there. It started out with a huge oil hike and a few people started marching, then the monks joined and it turned into a big deal, then regular people started joining them, and then it got really big. So then the government imposed a curfew, starting cutting off even more contact with the outside world and shooting people and monks. This is not good. The is very not good.
The last protests were in 1988 when 1) no one knew/cared about Burma and 2) no one had blogs! Now, I can't do much with my blog, cause I'm pretty sure it's only Barbara, my mom, Danny, maybe Liz and Stacey and Erica occasionally, but for you guys, and anyone else who might be reading this, please go to other blogs and find out more.
Educate yourself.
Check out this guy's blog - http://ko-htike.blogspot.com/
He's a Burmese guy that moved to London and has set up this blog and has been taking phone calls, emails and pictures from people in Burma. The Burmese comes up as question marks, but there's some English too.
I'm not poli sci person, but all I know is that Burma is fucked up, but as long as China, India and Thailand (to a lesser extent) don't give a shit, then the military government isn't going to give a shit either.
I'm personally pissed at Thailand for being too freaking "Mai pen rai" to do anything about it. ("Mai pen rai" is the "relax, don't worry, no problem, never mind" attitude they pride themselves on, but I think is totally lame.) So this would really be a nice time for them to do something good where the rest of the world could say, "Hey, way to go Thailand! Maybe you guys aren't as spineless, juvenile and selfish as we thought!" but then again, why do they think that? Cause they had a coup just about a year ago. So we have a military junta in charge here too, although it doesn't seem to be called a junta as much anymore even though it's still the same people. And as someone on thaivisa.com (Thailand expat forum) said, military juntas tend to be friends. They even gave some medal or award to a Burmese military official last year. Fucked up!
Here's more from the thaivisa.com forum - http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=144661
It's mostly old men who sit at their computers all day complaining about everything, but some of it's interesting. They definitely know more about Thailand than me, so I read it occasionally.
And then there's always good ol' cnn.com and bbc.com to get the standard stuff.
And US Campaign for Burma -
http://uscampaignforburma.org/
Since the time when I started writing this, the first blog I posted, reported that Burma has turned off the internet. Turned off the internet! That's ridiculous!
Fuck Burma, fuck China and while we're at it, fuck North Korea.
Asia totally sucks.
Since I got to Thailand (July 2006), I've been trying to figure out a good way to visit Burma without supporting the government. It's really really hard, though. When you go, you have to exchange $200USD into, like, Monopoly Myanmar money which is only only good at certain government run places. So it seems pretty much impossible to visit Burma and not support the government. Danny also suggested visiting China and when I said I was boycotting China because they fuck up too many other countries he noted that with 1.6 billion people causing world problems is pretty much inevitable. I took that into consideration, but then saw a show on the German TV channel I get about how the Olympics are super lame too. I wasn't a fan of Beijing 2008 to begin with and after seeing the show I was really upset. So now I hate everywhere and everyone and I feel weird.
I wish there were something I could do. I know Craig and Caroline don't buy products from China, and I applaud them, but isn't everything kind of from China? I don't really know any Olympians to ask not to go. I wasn't planning on watching anything anyway. I'd like to help Burma somehow, but I have no idea how, and the only Burmese people I know live at Elephant Nature Park.
I feel overwhelmed.
I know a lot of this was rambling but that's kind of what my brain feels like right now.
posted by beth @ 2:05 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Hi Beth,
I've read your blog,then went to check out the ones you referred to.
I was very moved by the man from Singapore who had been working in Burma for 11 years .He was driving down the street with his wife and ended up shot in the leg.He posted the pictures.
Now, as I understand, the internet is turned off there. I don't understand how they can do that without effecting every aspect of life there.
I can relate to your feeling angry and frustrated. As far as I've seen, events in Burma haven't been mentioned much on local news stations.
I do, as you mention, read all your blogs at least once. I've enjoyed them, and learned from them .This information is very upsetting, but important to know. It's really the voice of people in your age group that raise awareness, and effect change.I'm going to pass the blog addresses around.Abstract events take on so much more meaning when you see the photos and read the first person accounts.
Take care of yourself.I hope you take some comfort in the fact that as one person you do alot of good and have already helped many people(to say nothing of the elephants)
Lots of love to you,
Barbara
Thanks for the igformation.
Bethie--I read your blog still!
I just read an NYT article that was put up 30 minutes ago...I guess China used some influence to get a UN envoy into Burma on Saturday...don't know if it will make any sort of difference but thanks for posting those blogs you put up, I've been following this in the news since it started happening.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/world/asia/28cnd-myanmar.html?hp
yes, very disturbing, Beth...what's the reaction of your Thai friends?
you are doing something...every person reading this is going to check those links, and then probably tell at least one other person.
you're not moving mountains, but it's a start. and probably way more than the average person is doing.
I think it's a good idea to look at the past history of a country and then judge it based on it's general direction. Are people more free now than they were 10 years ago? 5 years ago? Are they taking care of their environment? Are they generally treating their people better than they were a few years ago? All these questions can be somewhat answered using Wikipedia and Google News. I think if a country is getting better, even if it's still relatively shitty, you should sort of reward that country by visiting.
I was first really angry when China got the Olympics, but I think in the past few years they've responded relatively well to the increased attention on their internal problems. One good thing about having a big authoritarian government is that you can make big changes really fast without much trouble. I read that they randomly decided that on certain days of the week, only cars with odd-numbered license plates can drive and vice versa with even-numbered plates-- in order to combat pollution.
So that's my reason for encouraging you to go to China. It's kind of like, if you were from Thailand and you were living in Montreal in 1943, teaching Thai and you had never been to America. If you had the opportunity to visit NYC and DC, would you pass that up just because the US interned Japanese folks and still had segregation? We were doing a lot of f-ed up things then, but imagine being able to tell your/our kids that you were in the US during WW2 and all that stuff! So go to China. And also, Liz and I are planning to come out to Thailand in Sept of 2008 to teach English for a year or so.
Hi Beth,
Now you know how I feel, most of the time, unfortunately. For what it's worth,(not much), this is pretty much how it is always, somewhere. The difference is our level of awareness and proximity.
I'd argue with Danny a little. He's right that when China decides something will change, it changes, due to the dictatatorship. Have you noticed that they produce counterfeits of everything in the world, and "just can't seem to control it" EXCEPT when it comes to 2008 Olympic merchandise? Wonder if the death penalty has anything to do with that?
Where I disagree with supporting them is that North Korea, Sudan, Burma, Iran and the rest of them continue to exist ONLY because China supports them. When China decides they are gone, they are gone. So what are they waiting for?
As for the auto restrictions, I don't give brownie points for creating a 9-out-of-10 environmental disaster for 25 years, poisoning millions of their citizens, and then taking baby steps to back it down to 8.9 because "company is coming" for the olympics. I could go on for a year or so but I'll stop there.
Sorry to get so heavy.
Question: Will there be an election in Thailand in December, and, if not, is our visit vulnerable to "civil unrest"?
I'm usually not this sour - maybe you're contagious. Hope you feel better soon.
Dad
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