The Miseducation of Burma
Oct 2nd, 2007 by ashwin
The children of
UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari arrived late last week. He spoke to an ailing military junta that had bandaged their country in with the dressings of its rulers’ injuries. He met with isolated democratic leader Aung Sung Suu Kyi, too. But if anything came from either meeting, the children did not hear.
The students of State High School Number 3 in Tamwe were taking exams. And when they finished, they heard only screaming and gunshots. They did not mistake it as some celebration, some signal that their race of wits was over. Their ears had grown far too keen. They counted the fired rounds. One girl recorded them on her pocket-MP3 player. When it was over, they counted the bodies. Some said 8, some 50, some 100 bodies. They learned to estimate death. It was an inexact science.
There had been a protest outside their school. Monks, parents, children, bystanders. All were to be taken to a prison. But after more than 6 weeks of protest, most traditional prisons were full. So the children were taken to places they often dreamed of fondly. Colleges. Universities.
Of course, by now, the state had decided to remodel these homes of academia into prisons. Schools had been sacrificed in the past. In the tumultuous decade after the student rebellion of 1988, universities were closed 7 of the following 10 years. Now was hardly proving to be different. So, sitting in halls that were once soaked with words of learning, the young prisoners learned to lower their expectations for higher education.
Today, out on the streets outside Tamwe and hundreds of towns like it, other children are still redefining their expectations, and ours. Using a growing arsenal of technology, the protesting children are becoming “citizen journalists,” “enemy informants,” and counter-communicative professors to a world that has only seen a deconstructing Burma. These bloggers, photographers and camera-kids send their footage across borders and oceans, informing the world of a place that continues to insist it has nothing to teach.
They beg to differ. They’re still learning.
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Sounds like a ‘perfect storm” for a regime change.
Do you think India and China can play a positivr role here?
Absolutely - the “World’s Policeman” role we’ve self-proclaimed ends abruptly where there’s no economic interest at stake. But China and India are very interested in Burma’s resources, namely natural gas.
So while I think America has something to learn from India and China’s continued hands-off policy when it comes to foreign affairs, those two Asian nations are the only ones that wield any power in the region. It begs the question, what do India and China have to benefit from a free Burma? If the U.N. can answer that, we may have an alternative to a Saffron Revolution.