Burma, blogs and buddhist monks

There is a blogger in Burma that I've been reading lately. She reports on things she sees, without trying to state opinions. She doesn't participate in the protests, even states that she doesn't know what to think. She often questions if she might get in trouble just by writing in her blog, and her recent entries feel stifled by self-censorship.

Given that it is quite possible that her site might be shut down soon, I'm posting an impressive photo from her site which shows monks marching in the streets during one of the first few days of the protests. I think it's a power picture. I don't know know if I can even imagine what it would feel like to stand up against an oppressive and violent government, with thousands of your fellow citizens around you, and risk everything. I can't imagine what is going through their minds.



In the first few days of the protest, things seemed to go well. The monks marched, and the civilians joined them. Then two days ago, the soldiers began shooting. That night, they raided monasteries, beat and arrested monks, and left blood stains highlighting their violence on the floors and walls.

All of this has been watched by the world - attention focused by the accessibility of images and personal accounts and the instantaneous nature of the internet. The images and the event is captivating. The bright robed monks marching in thousands makes for an impressive image. The story of the ongoing Burma resistance - 47 years now - is pretty amazing. Every day, more and more people around the world are starting to pay attention (one Burmese exile living in Thailand says that overnight his readership went from a few readers a day to tens of thousands).

So with all these things coming together - the impressive images of saffron robed monks, the story of a country rising against an oppressive military government, and this relatively new accessibility and speed of information making it difficult for atrocities to go unnoticed by the world- is there going to be a different outcome?

The Burmese government shut down the internet today, in hopes of shutting off the flow of information from there, but images continue to escape. People all over the world -literally - are watching as events unfold there, and apparently, that makes the generals a bit uncomfortable. (Apparently, they believe our imaginations are not as bad as the actual things they plan to do to the protestors). But does it really matter if the world is watching? Given that we are still separated by time and geography, watching things unfold in our offices and living rooms, does the audience make any difference?

So far, it seems that the internet has allowed us to be better spectators of historical events occurring around us. I'm not convinced, however, that it has been proven to inspire greater participation or empower a sense of global citizenship. What happens in Burma over the next few weeks, and how the world responds, will be an interesting study of just how "connected" we've really all become.