The appalling state of human rights in Burma is largely overlooked on the world stage. But it means a lot to those who live there. And it’s those who live there that are risking much to take a stand. The New York Times is reporting that:
The largest street protests in two decades against Myanmar’s military rulers gained momentum on Sunday as thousands of onlookers cheered huge columns of barefoot Buddhist monks and shouted support for the detained pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
While it gives me hope for Burma, it also worries me. The same article notes that:
The public display of discontent in Myanmar mirrors that of the previous uprising — anger over a brutal and incompetent military government that has turned one of Southeast Asia’s best-endowed and most-sophisticated nations into one of its most-repressed and poverty-ridden.
That previous uprising – in 1988 – resulted in a bloodbath. I wish I could do more than this. I wish the world would do more than nothing.