In Continuum.

Rag & Bone Man

Something for the rag and bone man
"Over my dead body!"
Something big is gonna happen
"Over my dead body!"

This entry may be a little too late, a few weeks in delay. It is strange how I have never found the time to comment on this issue, and it was an issue that I felt very strongly about over the past few weeks. Like I have mentioned before in other politically charged entries, I don't consider myself to be a political person in nature. I try to draw the lines, marking the territories of my life from one that involves politics. It is like a beast with claws, taking a piece of cake in the lives of everybody. We can't run away from the influences of the power at be, we cannot live in the mountains and say that we have finally isolated ourselves from the rest of the world, the chaos that comes along with any form of political intervention. Even in the mountains, you are still going to be affected by the smoke that drifts in from the cities, from the fires that broke out in the streets and the houses being burned in protest of a corrupt government. Even in Singapore, it is not possible to eradicate your existence from the palms of the government, because they have everything they need to know about you, with a few keyboard buttons away. They have the absolute say over the course of your life, and there is nothing we can do about it - unless we decide to fight back.

A couple of weeks ago, the monks in Burma - or Myanmar as they'd like to call themselves - started a peaceful rally in the streets of Yangon, to protest against the junta that has been ruling the country since 1962. I remember seeing the pictures and the videos for the first time, the way the monks marched through the streets in their red robes, dying the streets into a river of red. It was as if the red robes were a symbol of all the bloodshed that ever went on in the country over the years, unnoticed to the rest of the world. It felt like a subtle protest amidst the peacefulness of the monks, like the image of a black fire. It was a force burning and raging, yet it didn't have the brightness to reveal itself to the public so blatantly. The monks marched through the streets in silence, with their flags and banners adrift in the air that was filled with much hope. A hope for a change, a hope for freedom. A hope for a difference, a hope for a revolution.

Someone's son or someone's daughter
"Over my dead body!"
This is how I ended up sucked in
"Over my dead body!"

The citizens joined in the peaceful march, joining their hands together and created a long chain that shielded the river of monks from either sides. It was meant to be a peaceful protest, very much like an ordinary protest would in other countries. They were monks after all, and you don't usually see monks carrying machine guns and stuff, running into buildings to make a military coup. In my impression, monks would usually stay within the temples and mind their own businesses. They are probably the closest you'd ever get, if you want to rid yourself of political control. However, if the monks are walking the streets because they believe that the people need to do something about the government, then there has got to be something seriously wrong with the political structure itself. It is like a class nerd throwing a table at you after you have been teasing him for too long. He usually minds his own business, and would rather sit in the corner and read his textbooks. So if he is pissed off, you must have done something severely wrong.

It all began with a hike in oil prices I believe, and people were sick and tired of the way they never had a say in what the government does to them. Like I mentioned, the march started with people gathering from different cities in the country, to protest against corruption and the ruling military forces. However, such acts cannot be tolerated in the eyes of these military rulers. They are not going to allow a bunch of monks to march the streets, protesting against their rule. So they activated the military to stop the riot from growing to every inch of the country. They thought that the methods employed in 1988 would work this time around, they thought that by wiping away the opposition forces, they are going to gain control all over again. By 'wiping out', I meant through killing their opponents, eradicating them from the face of the Earth completely. Not a lot is known about the attempted revolution in Burma in 1988, because the country has been closed to the rest of the world, very much like a caterpillar in its cocoon. Nobody knew what went on inside the country, and nobody left the country to tell the world either. The atrocities were left unchecked, and 8000 people were killed because the government 'intervened'. Not this time though, not anymore.

I'm gonna go to sleep
And let this wash all over me

The world is watching, with our cameras and with our computer monitors. The international press has infiltrated the borders of their country, and are giving us live feeds of the situations there. The tragedies in 1988 is no longer the case nineteen years later, with the rest of the world being kept up to date with whatever that goes on before the scrutiny of the camera. So the soldiers kept their fingers off the triggers, the police raised their loudspeakers to warn the public instead of their batons. Warnings were given beforehand, everything seemed under their control. That went as far as the first few days until havoc broke loose on the streets, and the soldiers start to open fire into the crowd of monks and civilians alike. People were arrested, others were detained. Everybody scrambled for cover as the stray bullets covered the skies with their deadly trails of death. Everybody ran for their lives, everybody else watched and they saw. The monks being dragged through the streets, the hordes of soldiers jumping off trucks to aid areas with more protesters, blood being spilled on the streets and cars being burned, and the Japanese journalist being shot and killed at point blank. It was the beginning of the end, and the end of a beginning, all at the same time, all over again.

The world watched in disgust - I watched in disgust - as the government lost their patience. We watched as they tackled the rioters in their own ways, while the rest happened off camera and deep in the jungles where they were brought to. A military officer managed to escape the border of the country into Thailand, and was received by their neighbors on the other side. He escaped, not because he wanted to run away from his duties, but because he couldn't take the blood and the deaths under his rifle any longer. His words resonated through the speakers of every television around the world, and the horror in his eyes remained fixated on the screen for the longest time. I watched with my own eyes, fixated on his own until I couldn't take it any longer. I turned off the television, walked into my darkened room, and started an entry about our impatient neighbor.

We don't really want a monster taking over
"Tiptoe round, tie him down!"
We don't want the loonies taking over
"Tiptoe round, tie them down!"

The concept of a rebellion is a not a new one. Ever since ancient China, there has been cases whereby people have overthrown an emperor for one reason or another. As early as the Shang dynasty, rulers have been overthrown numerous times because of their incompetence, and that has been a practice ever since those days. Be it a peaceful march or a violent rebel against the powers at be, many ways have been used to make their voices heard and their actions known. The terrorists use bombs and the civilians, the monks in Burma elected a peaceful march that turned into a blood bath, others like Ghandi preferred to take a walk. Many pockets of people around the world has attempted to achieve some form of revolution in their own countries, with their own ways and their own means. But how many of those revolutions has succeeded? How many times have we told ourselves whenever there is a protest going on, that it is not going to work for sure? Our generation is in need of a change, a miracle of sorts. Our voices have been toned down, because the powers at be are also the ones who control the media. We do not have our voices though we have our mouths, and we do not have our ideas though we have our minds. It is like somebody muted us from afar, as we are just a passive audience in a theater, waiting on the world to change.

The reason why I love the movie V for Vendetta is because of the political issues that it brought up. Are we going to remain as these passive audience, or are we going to do something about the situation that we are in. Are we going to sit in our living rooms and pretend that nothing is wrong, or are we going to spark off a revolution that may change the course of the generations. In truth, not a lot of attempted revolutions in our generation has been successful, simply because of the powers at be has become even more powerful over the years. A crisis creates opportunities, and everybody knows that for a fact. A piece of news about bloodshed always makes a better headline than a piece of news about a peace treaty being signed. It is all about the money, and it is all about the powers within the hands of the wrong people - the same story all around the world.

I was in school the morning after I saw the news, and I walked up to my Burmese friend to tell him how much I admire the monks from his country. He gave me an awkward smile, because that statement came out from nowhere at all. But I guess, it mattered little if he understood what I was trying to say at all. I believe that I had the right to voice my opinion, as much as the monks had the right to voice out theirs. They had equal rights - as humans - to go onto the streets if they feel that they have been oppressed, if they feel that they have been compromised. After all, the people shouldn't be afraid of their governments, the governments should be afraid of their people. Words from V resonated in my head as I watched the videos being repeated over and over again, of monks running up against the rows of soldiers armed with semi-automatic weapons, without any weapons but a chest full of courage and hope. They feared little and risked everything, but still they did what they did, because they had to do it. Even if things are not looking good now, even if the junta are still very much in power now, they are still trying, still hoping. After all, behind every face and under every skin, there is an idea. And ideas - are bulletproof.

I don't believe the crisis in Burma is going to cease anytime soon. I don't believe that the junta is going to give up their powers to Aung San Suu Kyi, or any other political leaders that stand for democracy and freedom. A solution has been proposed, that the only way for the situations in Burma to change is to have the younger officers take over the ruling generals in the future. It is merely a matter of time, but how long more are we going to wait, and how much of the military regime are they going to change? The world is growing impatient, and so are the people living in Burm - at near poverty. Being one of the saddest countries in the world, one starts to wonder what the people of Burma must have done in their past lives to deserve a karma like that. To be trapped and locked up in a country where the government will not hesitate to point their gun barrels into their people's faces. How much more suffering, before these people turn into rag and bone men?

May pretty horses
Come to you as you sleep
I'm gonna go to sleep
And let this wash over me