It may be the worst news yet for the Burmese military cabal which continues to refuse to relinquish power despite democratic elections voting them out of power in 1990…
The first bad news for the cabal: It can no longer keep its thuggery a worldwide secret… tiny electronic eyes with seven thousand-league reach, are upon them
Equally bad news for the cabal: the citizen-originated news photos and films coming out of Burma have, for the very first time, revealed specifically the individual faces of the armed soldiers and their leaders… down to anomalies of pockmarks, scars, eye placement, skin tone, nose and ear shape. No more generic thugs; now each face clearly identifiable.
When the same military junta murdered over 3000 Burmese men, women and children in 1988 during the people rising up one more time for ‘Democracy and Decency’… back then, the specific faces (and therefore, names) of those in charge, in ‘middle management,’ and those who murdered…. were all hidden from the world.
The junta liked it that way. They could continue to ‘normalize’ diplomatic relations, for there were few proofs of the slaughter they’d engaged in. They denied such had occurred. Among their falsified claims: ‘The government had to kill a few people to defend the lives of other people.’ Counterfeit claims of self-defense. Thus, money continued to flow into their country by and for various means, from other nations. The junta felt secure.
But, today, because of electronically armed dissidents, the Burmese government is unable to hide its atrocities or the faces of the perpetrators from public view.
There’s a tale told in our family when I was a child, about a mythic king who had a golden key that could fit only one door. This mysterious door was lodged in the trunk of a tree. Inside that tree, was the treasure. But the king could use neither the key nor gain the treasure until he found that one transformative tree in the midst of a forest of ten thousand trees… only one tree carried that small golden door.
The Burmese people have always had the golden key; their courage is the proof of that. And now, like that mythic king, the cyber imagists and bloggers of Burma have found in the midst of ten thousand dead ends, exactly the right tree, and unlocked its door, and over its threshold the treasures of intelligence, images, and truth are pouring through into the greater world…
According to my correspondent in Yangon who is of a religious group allied with the Buddhists, the faces
of the murderers and those who commit assault and battery with impunity are said to be in clear focus in most all the electronic images.
It has been said amongst the elders for centuries, that to name something is to have power over it. One of the implications of this new and damning ‘photo-media evidence’ may be that the individual perpetrators of violence on hapless people will be traceable and eventually held accountable for the first time. No longer can this dark work of harming people who simply want a democracy be attributed to ‘a faceless military,’ and thereby be met with a worldwide shrug.
I don’t know what the honest Burmese will do with this colossal evidence. That thugs who gang together to attempt to silence and destroy other Burmese can readily now be identified by face and then by name, by their actual ranks, attachments, and by the faces and names of the superiors’ who’ve accompanied them as well… is a remarkable proof. Though there are professional shruggers amongst all of our nations worldwide, there are many more who are not, and great numbers of the latter inside and outside Burma… are also well armed electronically.
Some might say, ‘So what? these who do this sick damage are only the minions.’ However, in investigative work that strives to identify and name perpetrators, it is a time honored method to begin rooting out the covert truths of an egregious matter …by pressuring the lowest on the pole in order to reveal the inner workings and exact identities of those at the midpoint and at the top.
Too, there may be unexpected outcomes in revealing thugs’ identities from such clear, close-up face images…for amongst many Asians, still, there is what we in the West refer to as ‘loss of face’ … a psychic death that comes from being disapproved of and being called out publicly.
Indeed it is odd to think that a Burmese with an automatic weapon might worry about his image with family and friends, yet be willing to harm and kill on command. But, unless the soldier is a psychopath, often cultural bones regarding self and community identity, are deeper than intellectual rationalizations about ‘following orders’ to harm one’s own people.
These conflictual cultural and psychic factors in each soldier, may grant an unforeseen advantage to the pro-democracy groups, particularly those wishing to call decent-hearted countrymen away from any further enactment of this filthy business. There are dangerous ‘exile prices’ to pay, no matter which path a soldier decides to take … to stay or to exit the ruling military
… but in Burma 90% of the population is Buddhist, and the central principle is to embrace and help those who have failed morally and otherwise, rather than to do away with or destroy them.
And yes, there is worse sad news in Burma today also. I’ve been told chanting prayer is going on for the dead in Burma today. My witness says the number of deaths reported by big media is in error, that far more than nine persons have been murdered and that some of the murders have taken place in the raids of the temples and monasteries since last night.
Even though it may be true that the military has now rounded up most of the holy men and harmed and/or imprisoned a majority and are hunting the rest… the people of Burma have not given in nor given up. That is incomparably brave. Yet, what shall happen next?
No one knows for certain although many have insightful ideas and speculations. But I keep returning to the historical photos and especially the film clip documentation of what has happened in the streets in the last weeks… these are no ‘he said/she said’ smoke that takes no final shape, and is thereby considered debatable, and thus easily dismissed by thugs in Burma and by officials worldwide. The current evidences of the regime’s rot, are now stored by thousands of bloggers worldwide. This inerasable evidence … faces; the faces of those who do evil. This too oddly, seems like treasure.
Though the word ‘democracy’ surely turns black the tongue of any Burmese government hypocrite who dares to loft it, the Burmese people have the golden key and have found the tree for the forest. The golden key: Courage. The one tree in a forest of ten thousand trees, the only tree with a golden door preserving treasure: electronic transmission of the facts by the common person in Burma.
Sometimes, the mythic and the factual worlds collide for brief moments in time and create a huge shower of sparks that catches and causes transformation in all worlds. Transformation is no neat package delivered to our doorsteps tied with a blue ribbon.
Transformation is a sudden leap of progress in the midst of smoking chaos. In Burma we see a modern mythic story erupting for the good in an ancient mythic people. That may be the very signal that the time is right, for democracy is not a modern invention, but an ideal created in antiquity… and most democracies come into being in the midst of upheaval. In reality, a sudden leap of progress in the midst of smoking chaos, might be the greatest treasure of all.
UPDATES (includes some weblog reaction links):
–Some thoughts on this story and events from Jon Swift.
—Michelle Malkin reports that the military junta has now CUT OFF Internet access from Burma.
—Captain Ed looks at some of the broader issues.
–Read Bangkok Pundit.
–To read extensive commentary by blogs on this issue GO HERE.