Something Worth Celebrating

Caption: Aung San Suu Kyi gives speech to supporters at Hlaing Thar Yar Township in Yangon, Myanmar on 17 November 2011

Image credit: Htoo Tay Zar/Wikimedia


Every once in a while, somewhere on this planet, the good guys win one:

Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi claimed on Monday a by-election landslide for her party, which she hoped would mark the beginning of a new era for Myanmar after a historic vote that could prompt the West to end sanctions.

The charismatic Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who led the struggle against military rule in the former Burma for two decades, was one of 44 candidates her National League for Democracy Party (NLD) said won all but one of the legislative seats being contested.

The by-elections followed a year of astonishing change for a country that was in the grip of military rule for decades: the government has freed hundreds of political prisoners, held talks with ethnic minority rebels, relaxed censorship, allowed trade unions and showed signs of pulling back from the economic and political orbit of giant neighbor China.

Suu Kyi's party claims landslide win in Myanmar vote

I don't know the specifics of Burma's relationship with China, but in other ways, things clearly have changed in what was once one of the most isolated and totalitarian countries in the world. Aung San Suu Kyi's struggle against her own government has been awe-inspiringly heroic:

Aung San Suu Kyi MP AC (Burmese: born 19 June 1945) is a Burmese opposition politician and the General Secretary of the National League for Democracy. In the 1990 general election, her National League for Democracy party won 59% of the national votes and 81% (392 of 485) of the seats in Parliament. She had, however, already been detained under house arrest before the elections. She remained under house arrest in Burma for almost 15 of the 21 years from 20 July 1989 until her most recent release on 13 November 2010, becoming one of the world's most prominent (now former) political prisoners.

Wikipedia: Aung San Suu Kyi

I think it's fair to say that just about anyone who is interested in human rights issues recognizes her name. She has resisted the dictators in her country for so long that there are people graduating from college who were born after she was first placed under house arrest.

Hard to believe that it's been more than four years since I last wrote about Burma. Back then, it was not looking like anything good was going to happen there for a long time to come.

Congratulations to Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma.

(h/t Taylor Marsh)

Free Burma

Today (October 4) is Free Burma Day, a day when bloggers and other folks from around the Internet decided to call attention to the plight of the Burmese people.

We are doing it by posting nothing but articles about Burma. Of course, around here at SnS, one post a day is actually above average productivity. And given how little I know about Burma, I think one post will do it.

Here's what I know about Burma: it's been run by one military dictatorship or another for decades. It's one of the poorest countries on Earth. Thanks to the ongoing policies of their government, it is also one of the most isolated countries on the planet. According to the CIA Worldbook entry, Burma has a constitution, but it's been suspended since 1988. The BBC has put together a brief timeline of Burmese history if you want to get caught up.

Despite its isolation, Burma has received more attention recently. Dead monks floating in a river tend to grab people's attention. Buddhist monks have something of a tradition of protesting the actions of their governments. Crackdowns have started, killing, among others, a Japanese journalist. Both India and China have been reluctant to provide more than oblique support for the protests. Several countries, including the United States, have ongoing economic sanctions against Burma. Japan is threatening to cut off aid following the death of its journalist.

Peaceful protests, in short, have been brutally punished there. The degree to which countries are trying to protest Burma's behavior seem to be inversely proportional to their chance of affecting Burma. A reader wrote Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic:

If freedom is to be gained in the near-term, the Burmese junta need to be dealt a death blow that can only be administered through military defeat. Satyagraha merely provides the reason for an SPDC soldier to pull a gun out and blow someone's head off for defying an order to provide labor, food, possessions, sex slaves, or whatever is demanded by the junta. Perhaps over the longer term the strategy of non-violent resistance could work, but this presumes that the Burmese junta and its allies such as China will come to value and honor the will of the people, which seems unlikely.

The Limits Of Non-Violence In Burma

I certainly hope it doesn't come to that, because Burma's military appears to have no armed rivals in its own country. Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot else anyone can do, except try to rally world opinion. Burma's government stays isolated for a reason, and part of that reason is that they don't want what they're doing to their own people to be seen. But thanks to the Internet, one thing we can do is let the world know.

So please, if you haven't already signed the MoveOn petition supporting the Burmese people, please do so. Let Burma know that we haven't forgotten.

UPDATE: As of 8:10 AM Pacific time, there are more than 8800 participants listed at the Free Burma site. That's up from about 5000 yesterday morning.