Sadly, it appears to be coming:Despite threats and warnings and despite the beginnings of a violent response, witnesses reported tens of thousands of chanting, cheering protesters flooding the streets. Monks were in the lead, "like religious storm troopers," as one foreign observer put it.
A foreign diplomat described "an amazing scene" Wednesday as a column of 8,000 to 10,000 people flooded past his embassy following a nucleus of about 800 monks. They were trailed by four truckloads of military men, watching but not taking action. The diplomat, in keeping with embassy policy, spoke on condition of anonymity.
Everyone knows what's coming. There is something childlike in the Asian mind which allows simplistic overkill solutions to be sought. The west also does the stormtrooper stuff but operates a little differently to the Japananese/Chinese.
This thing is going to get very bloody and though we can sign countless petitions to our local member, what can we really do to stop it?
Asian mind James, define.
ReplyDeleteIn the backdrop of a time when it is quite fashionable to ridicule and demean religion here is a clear example where belief inspires people to greater good, self sacrifice and national unity.
ReplyDeleteSneering atheists please take note.
This situation has prevailed since 1962,the West was quite content to have a bunch of Generals run the place during the Viet Nam wat and after. I worked for a company that had trade links with Burma with a Heavy Earthmoving Company. The people that I met were gentle, but terrified of the junta. For it to have got to this stage it must now be very bad economically, the parallel being Zimbabwe, there is little we can do other than arm the opposition, or send some of our senior military men to negotiate a way out. They will not listen to our politicians who they consider effete.
ReplyDelete"There is something childlike in the Asian mind which allows simplistic overkill solutions to be sought."
ReplyDeleteI'm very uncomfortable about this sentence, James, and not that happy with the one that follows, either. Can you really lump "Japanese/Chinese" together as one homogenous way of understanding the world, as opposed to recognising the heterogeneity within each group, and even if you could, what would that have to do with the Burmese?
Surely. if anything, simplistic overkill is a trait of totalitarian regimes regardless of geography.
And it has - become bloody, I mean. And I agree with Wolfie, too. Uneasy about the "asian mind" bit as well.
ReplyDeleteTiberius - yes, they're inscrutable.
ReplyDeleteWolfie - stop talking sense - you're using up all your reserves.
Guthrum - you're not wrong here.
Ian - it wasn't me who originally noted it. It was western businessmen living in Japan and in Hong Kong and though it offends PC sensibilities, there is a little bit of truth in many homilies.
Sorry, James, I still don't buy it. I would want other sources than just colonial or neo-colonial businessmen. And anyway, you are ignoring the counter-example of the very Buddhist monks who have been so courageous in their non-violent protests. They are presumably mostly from the same country; are they also childlike, or is this their simplistic overkill?
ReplyDeleteYou can rail against PC sensibilities all you like, but sometimes you will still be mistaken :)