Tao’s 2 Cents

After writing my previous post about Burma I decided I really wanted to do something. The next day while I was cutting my hair(yes, I cut my own hair), I was looking at my head and thinking about the monks shaved heads. It dawned on me that shaving my heads in solidarity with the Buddhist monks would be a good way to do something. It turned out I was right, I probably had several dozen conversations about my head and Burma. I think I raised a lot of awareness.

When I got the e-mail from the U.S. Campaign for Burma people about the rally in Washington, D.C. I decided to go for it. I spent the few days before the protest thinking about what I wanted to put on my sign and I finally got the idea after seeing an illustration of the Olympic rings with a bullet hole for the last ring.

I also got Christine to write “Free Burma” on the back of my head and added a little note on the back of the sign for my fellow demonstrators that read, “At least they can’t shoot us here…yet”. I think my drawing turned out really well and I got a lot of compliments on it. I even was featured in a CNN.com article.In fact, I saw someone on the US Campaign for Burma’s website had sort of copied the idea. Of course, it could be a case of two different people having the same idea.

As usual I thought I was getting to the protest late but turned out I got there right on time. The rally started in front of the Myanmar embassy with around 150-250 people. Several people gave short speeches including a good one by the same guy I saw talking about Burma on Democracy Now! a few days earlier. I went up to him later and told him what a good job he did.

The plan for the demonstration was to walk to the different embassies, but mainly focusing on China and Myanmar. We also went to India’s embassy because they’re trying very hard not to be involved although they could clearly have some sway but want nothing to do in angering China.

Almost everyone in attendance was wearing red or maroon, the colors of the monks robes. There were a large number of Asian people, who I assume were of Burmese decent, but also a large number of random regular people. There were also around 4 monks leading the march to the different embassies.

A lot of people had signs with photos of the violent repression. I think the photos are very powerful, but they didn’t blow them up to be large enough to see unless you were very close. There were also a lot of large photos and paintings of Aung San and Aung San Suu Kyi being carried. She really is the symbol of hope for Burma.

The main chants for the protest were “Free, free, free Burma” and “Burma, Burma must be free. Freedom, Justice, Democracy.” There was also one that went “Boycott the Chinese Olympics”, but that didn’t have a very good ring to it. I think maybe it did in Burmese, but when some people tried to change it to simply, “Boycott China”, it died out rather quickly. There were also a few chants in Burmese which I had no idea what they were saying but I joined in anyway.

Most people spent their time gathered around the speakers at the different embassies, but I went over by the street and held my sign up for the passing cars. I figured the speakers are really just preaching to the choir in a way and these random people on the street are more likely to be affected to the cause.

I got a lot of honks and waves along with the other people doing what I was doing. I did get one old white guy give me a thumbs down. It’s hard to believe an American could be against democracy somewhere, which probably meant he was just against people demonstrating anything. It seems like a very close-minded position to have and he was probably part of that 32% that goes along with everything the Bush administration says. Funny thing though is that Bush actually agrees with us on this.

It’s made me hopeful that Burma has stayed in the news, but all of the news is bad news. I read on the BBC yesterday that the last 3 main activist leaders were captured. I can’t imagine what they have in store for them. Also, the U.N. came out with a statement chastising the Myanmar junta, but it carried no real consequences. So, the world leadership remains paralyzed and just says, “oh dear, that’s dreadful” so that no one can say the didn’t disagree with it, but inaction when you have the ability to do more is just as bad.

I also read yesterday that the Myanmar junta was forcing 10s of thousands of people to march in support of them or face severe fines. How ridiculous is that? I’m sure that was some suggestion by China telling them that they need to show that the people actually support the junta, and I’m sure people do support the junta…when they have a gun in their face.

The whole situation makes me sick, we’re no closer to ridding the world of power abuses and suffering than we were 100’s of years ago. In fact, there is probably far more suffering today simply because of the much larger number of people on the planet. Ugh.

PS - If you want to see a few more pictures from the rally check out the gallery here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 14th, 2007 at 9:48 am and is filed under Leadership, Violence, Democracy, Protest, Ethics, Awareness, Media, Elections. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.