Look For Aung San Suu Kyi

Manila – Do you wish peace for Burma? I don’t. Peace is an impossible dream.

What I wish for the Burmese people is non-violence. I wish for us Filipinos the same. Now, today, September 30, I realize that non-violence has two beautiful & deadly senses. The historical one, that it is a means to an end. The original one, the one I just invented, that it is the end in itself. Non-violence is a device to demand or effect change; it is now also the change itself.

Not peace. AJ Muste said, ‘There is no way to peace; peace is the way.’ Quite personally, I used to believe in that. Today, reading quite a few of the hundreds of Internet materials on Burma / Myanmar, about her people’s struggles under the British, Japanese, Burmese themselves; saddened by much of her history since the beginning of the 20^th century, and unhappily thinking of my own country, the Philippines of today, I realize that peace is a pipe dream.

We Filipinos ourselves have never had peace. The search for peace will never end because, in the first place, peace is unmeasurable. The Burmese want either a democracy or a republic. A democracy is ruled by the majority; a republic is ruled by law. What do we have in the Philippines? Neither this nor that. The Burmese will not get it either if they persist on the road to peace, because that’s incalculable. A vision, mission, or goal must be mensurable. Therefore, instead of seeking peace, the Burmese people, like the Filipinos, should be seeking non-violence, something achievable, quantifiable. Burma, like the Philippines, has always been a nation in the making.

Non-violence is healthier, but it may not be safer.

In the history of non-violence as an instrument for social progress, we find blood.

In Israel, in the beginning, Jesus of Nazareth preached the gospel of love, as in ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ Non-violently, he preached against the sinners – the ordinary mortals and the Roman rulers – with his parables and sermon on the mount, sermon on the plain. The rulers crucified him.

In Asia, non-violence as a tool for social change was first used in my country the Philippines. In the 1880s, we had the Propaganda Movement for the recognition of the rights of the Filipino people under Spanish colonial policy. In 1887, Jose Rizal wrote a long historical satire, the book Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not), denouncing Spanish priestocracy. The book became subversive of the status quo. Rizal is now our National Hero: in December 1896, the friars executed him.

In Africa, 10 years later, in 1906, Mohandas ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi called on his fellow Indians to defy the new Transvaal Act compelling Indians in the colony to register. In India in 1918, he began to teach his countrymen non-violent Satyagraha (holding on to truth) as a tool for social change. 29 years later, in 1947, by Satyagraha, India won independence from British imperialism. Gandhi is now India’s National Hero: in January 1948, a Hindu radical murdered him. (Actually, he had already died of a broken heart – Indian leaders had partitioned his beloved One India.)

In the US of A, in 1954, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. In December 1955, he led the bus boycott, the first great Black American non-violent demonstration in contemporary times; the boycott lasted 382 days. He led the peaceful march of 250,000 people to Washington DC, where he delivered his now-famous address, ‘I Have A Dream.’ In January 1964, he became Time Magazine’s ‘Man of the Year’ (for 1963); in December 1964, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. In Birmingham, Alabama, he led a massive protest that caught the attention of the entire world, calling for a ‘coalition of conscience.’ In April 1968, he was assassinated.

Still, we might learn from Martin Luther King’s acceptance speech of the Nobel Peace Prize, where he started with this:

I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment when 22 million Negroes of the United States of America are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice. I accept this award in behalf of a civil rights movement which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice.

Learning from Martin Luther King, we have this new definition: Non-violence is a movement with a determination for good armed only with a creative mind and a majestic scorn for risk and danger. The risk is real; the danger can be fatal. But remember: No pain, no gain. No risks, no returns.

It can be bloodless. In 1986, we Filipinos taught the world the most non-violent means for social change – People Power. With a bandit radio station, in 3 days with millions out in the streets, we deposed President Ferdinand Marcos. In 2001, with TV as tool, we repeated the great lesson of People Power, deposing President Joseph Estrada.

So I say, by way of encouragement: People Power, Burma! Then you’ll need more than 400,000 monks publicly demonstrating a coalition of conscience. You will need yourselves.

How about the rest of the world? I don’t know about you, but what I can do is help turn the bloodstained Burmese September Revolt into the bloodless Internet Revolt of 2007. So now I encourage blogal journalism. A blog is a personal story or statement, critical or creative. I prefer creative. Blogal means descriptive of a blog all in the context of the world. Now therefore, blogal journalism means reportage that relates the news as it relates to the bigger picture, or as one relates oneself to society on the basis of that news. You can of course be the newsmaker yourself – you create or do something new to honor the Burmese. For the Filipinos, go and do likewise!

Do you know where democracy is? Look for Aung San Suu Kyi. Search for Burma / Myanmar. Look for the Philippines. Democracy is the greatest good for the greatest number – as determined by the greatest number. In Burma, speech is at worst karmic, at best expensive. Is free speech a measure of democracy? No, because there’s bad free speech, deceptive free speech. Such as in the Philippines. Yes, debate is a measure of democracy; so is agreement. Yes, non-violence is a measure of democracy; so is access to the Internet.

Inside Burma, is the Internet dead? The Internet is dead! Long live the Internet!

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This entry was posted on Sunday, September 30th, 2007 at 9:30 pm and is filed under creative photography, creative thinking, creative writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.