Home > The Magazine > Features

Wednesday 3 December 2008

Dare to dream and make your ultimate trip a reality

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Michael Henderson

Michael Henderson suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value events

Click here for exclusive articles, offers, tasting notes and discussion

The sweet contagion of freedom

The sweet contagion of freedom will outlast the bloodshed in Burma

Fergal Keane

Wednesday, 3rd October 2007

Burma is awakening from a nightmare of greed and repression.

Fergal Keane meets a family on the Thai-Burma border whose tragic story is Burma's story but remains optimistic about the chances of the Burmese desire for freedom ultimately triumphing over the junta.

Anybody who has studied Burma knows what a tall order that is. With the monks shackled, beaten and locked up, and the population cowed in the face of guns and threats, it might seem like a wilful delusion to speak of an end to the dictatorship. The opposition is nothing like a united and organised force. It exists in small pockets, mostly made up of students and intellectuals, many of them veterans of the uprising of 1988. Abroad there are vociferous Burma lobbies but they have yet to attain the force and exposure that the anti-apartheid movement achieved in the South African struggle. The fractured nature of the opposition was at least part of the reason why the population rallied behind the monks.

But there are reasons not to despair. Although the army has enjoyed untrammelled power for decades, it would be wrong automatically to assume that it is a monolith. The old Asia hands who have followed the Burma story for years tell me the best hope for change lies with younger army officers, those who have not been entirely corrupted by power and wealth. Looking into the future they must know that military rule is not eternally sustainable. And the longer they postpone an accommodation with pro-democracy forces, the greater the likelihood that it will end bloodily and badly. That is the way of things with dictatorships. It might take years to get to the tipping point but it could end very grimly for the men in uniform. Think of Ceausescu’s firing squad or Saddam on the gallows.

Previous page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 Next page

More articles from: Fergal Keane | this section

Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (1)

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Albert Ge

October 4th, 2007 8:13am

The same thing may be occur in China some day.

How I became Bulgaria’s etiquette guru

Dylan Jones

Dylan Jones is astonished to find in Sofia that the former communist country has embraced his guide to the mores of modern life — and that not everybody looks like Borat

Rudd has lurched from indecision to phoney war

Matthew Castray

Matthew Castray looks back on the Australian Prime Minister’s first year in office and audits an administration which has reviewed much and done very little

Incompetence is fine: but being offensive is sure to get you sacked

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle says that something has gone wrong when 15 South Lanarkshire social workers are sacked over a dodgy Gary Glitter joke while none of their counterparts in Haringey has even been reprimanded over the ‘Baby P’ case

Brown has played into the hands of the Tory Bullingdon Boys he loathes

Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson says that the Pre-Budget Report killed off New Labour without landing a punch on the Tories. It has paved the way for a new Conservatism, in which Cameron woos aspirational voters, focuses on government debt and looks for responsible spending cuts

Sarkozy’s dream of taming America is doomed

Irwin Stelzer

The American model of lightly regulated capitalism may be in disrepute, says Irwin Stelzer. But the French President’s ambition is deluded

Highs and lows on the laughometer

Bevis Hillier

Just What I Always Wanted: Unwrapping the World’s Most Curious Presents, by Robin Laurance

Britain cannot afford a failed Pakistan

Elliot Wilson

Elliot Wilson says that the near-collapse of the Islamic state should focus minds in this country, which is inextricably linked to Pakistan. Its implosion would stoke extremism here

Remembrance day salutes man’s ancient instincts

James Delingpole

War has a fatal attraction for men, says James Delingpole. Those who fall in combat are indeed the best and the bravest — and we shall certainly need their like again