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Personal computer, TV, full refrigerator, clean suburban streets with well-stocked shops, jump in the car and drive to the mall, or maybe a trip to visit Grandma, no real threat of crime, nice neighbors, newly-built schools, honest (if slightly dense) cops and competent doctors. Sound familiar? It should. Most Americans are wealthy beyond description. The poorest immigrant family in the Bronx enjoys two communal treasures only vaguely rumored among 90% of the world's population -- civil liberty and the rule of law.
Most Europeans have neither. If they could legally emigrate to the States, there'd be a mass exodus of sexy Italians and grumpy Krauts tomorrow, enthusiastic new Americans in search of jobs, cheap consumer goods and single-family homes, the kind of Wal-Mart normalcy we take for granted in places like Nebraska. Behind the drive-through bank tellers and 24-hour 80-channel cable TV service, something huge and historic separates John Doe, average American, from the world,s unhealed misery. Let's be brave for a minute and switch off the flashy promos and bumpers. I want to show you Burma.
Most Burmese schools, if you can call dirt-floor huts schools are closed. Private tuition at the homes of teachers is banned. The government found that students, besides their academic pursuits, were also discussing politics with their mentors. At a handful of state universities, ruling party officials conduct political indoctrination courses. Teachers are paid $4 a month. Railways workers survive on $3 a month. These are the Burmese middle class. Forced labor is "widespread and systematic," and implemented with "a total disregard for human dignity, safety, health, and basic needs of the people," according to a recent U.N. report.
The BBC managed to record a short interview, asking her if the NLD was receiving support from overseas? Aung San replied: "Our support is mostly domestic. So far we have not heard anything from abroad. Communication is not that easy. It is a wonder to even have this conversation."
The interviewer asked: Is it true that, since the Burmese people are struggling to survive economically, they do not have any time and are not interested in politics any more? "That is not correct," Aung San insisted. "The majority of Burmese people are well aware that their economic woes are all related to the political problems. But since the majority of the Burmese people are being threatened by the authorities, they are all living in fear. To free them from fear is an ongoing process that we are engaged in... The goal of democracy is not far away. I am not saying this just to give hope. I do not believe in having hope and doing nothing to acheve it."
Before the Berlin Wall fell, people were shot while trying to flee East Germany. That's not the issue here. Burmese patriots are fighting for freedom at home, instead of running away to the West. They want justice in Burma. They have the guts to stand up and risk being shot by a military junta, rather than "get along and go along" with the government.
So, the bottom line for America is pretty simple. At a minimum, we have to face the fact that our lives are squandered in triviality. If you recline in conspicuous comfort, risking nothing, fighting for nothing, your country will slip soundlessly and wordlessly into infamy -- an imperial Infobahn of bread and circuses, helpless to resist the next cigar joke or porn site, deaf and dumb to the meaning of human courage. There is no dignity, no freedom in serving the cowardly status quo, always smiling at the boss and telling jokes, whether the boss is a blood-stained tyrant or an over-stuffed party animal.
Ten years ago, in September 1988, the military junta took power, murdering thousands of unarmed students and opposition activists who came to hear a speech by Aung San Suu Kyi, a woman who leads the National League for Democracy. In 1990, the NLD won 80% of the seats in Burma's parliament. The junta forbade the parliament to meet. Today, about 900 of NLD's members, including most of the surviving members of parliament who haven,t fled the country, are in dentention without trial. Aung San Suu Kyi is confined to "house arrest." She is forbidden to travel or speak to foreign journalists. Last month the 10th anniversary of the founding of the NLD was celebrated in a low-key ceremony held in Rangoon. The junta responded by arresting 700 party members and 200 MPs, threatening the death penalty if Aung San tried to convene a parliament without government permission.
A young Burmese student leader, Moe Thee Zun, echoed Aung San's courage in a statement to The Bangkok Post (Sept 27): "We must continue to march bravely without wavering," Zun said. "Students, workers and the ethnic minorities must keep up their fight to regain their rights. No one can stop us from attaining this goal."
This article is based on information provided by The Burma Project. Wolf DeVoon is a writer and webmaster living in Scotland, the United Kingdom. This is his second op-ed submission to the G21.
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