Home > The Magazine > Features

Thursday 20 November 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.

She asked me how Mandela had convinced the security elite that they would be safe under black rule. ‘By not being vengeful,’ I told her. Back then her mind was already well focused on how to create the circumstances under which the military could be eased out of total political control.

Aung San Suu Kyi knows the opposition is not in any position to defeat the military with simple people power, at least for the foreseeable future. But it has succeeded in badly shaking the ruling elite. For all the images of terror we have seen in the past week, the taste of freedom will have been intoxicating for those who took to the streets and the millions of others who heard about them on the radio or saw the images on the internet. Certainly there is disillusionment now. Friends returning from Rangoon talk of encountering many frightened and dispirited Burmese.

But if 20 years of reporting the world’s conflict zones has taught me anything it is that the desire for freedom — in Burma or anywhere else — is never ever extinguished. Now, you may choose to regard that statement as naive twaddle. But I will bet you anything that history proves me right in Burma.

Fergal Keane is a special correspondent for BBC News.

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

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.

When Flash Gordon met the man with a plan

Matthew d'Ancona

Matthew d’Ancona looks back at the political twists and turns that shaped 2008

So you want to be a minister…

Gerald Kaufman

Gerald Kaufman, MP for Manchester Gorton and a former shadow foreign secretary, advises ambitious young MPs how to wriggle their way into power

Diary

Alex Salmond

The past year has certainly been interesting. Here are some of my highlights as well as some of the challenges that lie ahead:

Hold them to account

Iain Martin

Iain Martin fears that Members care too little about the erosion of Parliament’s authority

Parliamentarian of the Year Awards Recipients 2008

Awards Recipients 2008

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