The Beginning of the End?

UPDATE: LATEST VIDEO (as of Sunday, Sept. 23rd): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji_R-g8T-N4 The video clip embedded here is from Thursday. The protesters are now up to 20,000, the government is rumored to be ready to use violence against them soon, and a massive protest led by the monks alliance is scheduled for Wed. this week. This hasn't happened since 1988, and even then, not to this scale. In 1988, thousands were murdered in the streets and Suu Kyi was imprisoned for the first time.

For most of you, this clip won't put you in tears. I've been on the edge of my seat however the past couple of months watching from too great a distance as these events unfold in Myanmar (Burma). (Don't worry, Timmy. I'm not jumping on a plane. Yet... J/J!) Unfortunately, I have to utilize the BBC to get information as American networks do not cover the story. The only American in the public eye who seems overtly interested is Jim Carey, of all people, who put out a public plea on YouTube last month. I was estatic while searching videos on YouTube this morning because there were several clips of the Burmese monks' protest. This is in stark contrast to not long ago when atrocities happened here that no one knew of because no one saw them outside of "the black hole of Asia." Therefore, there was no intervention, and the terror got worse. Thank you, you brave souls who smuggled these clips out of Burma this week.

Many of you won't understand why this protest is such a big deal. I don't have the time to tell you about all of the starvation orders put on villages-especially the Christian tribes in the north of Burma. (A starvation order is when the junta comes in and says, "If you grow food here, we will kill you, your children, and burn your crops." The junta would rather they grow poppy, or die off.) Or about the thousands of political prisoners, the mass shootings in the streets during previous attempts at peaceful protest against the ruling regime, the rape, child labor, the stealing of children for the purpose of bolstering child soldier forces, the poverty, denial of democracy, etc...

Or how I've been followed in the streets of Rangoon, forced out of country for evangelizing, had the film ripped out of my camera, stopped in taxis and on foot for interrogations by plain clothes officers, been taken into "safe" rooms at tea shops so spies couldn't overhear conversations I was having with Burmese friends; how I've had all of my comings and goings carefully recorded by spies around the inns I stay in while in country, or how we would walk to church one at a time, staggered over the course of an hour, so as not to give away the church location and thus put its members at risk. I would classify all of these incidents as mere annoyances, however; nothing that even compares to what happens to the Burmese who don't have a little blue passport in their pocket.

Protest against the ruling militia in Burma has meant, and may still mean, suicide at worst; torture at best. What these monks are doing is the bravest thing I've seen done in a very long time.

The people's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who the junta has kept under house arrest since her election as president two decades ago, emphatically calls for peaceful overthrow of the regime. No commandos in the night, no weapons, no violence; simply use peaceful defiance for freedom as Ghandi utilized it against the British and Martin Luther King marched with in Alabama and Washington. The problem is that when the people have done this in the past-peacefully protested-they have been shot down in the streets. But now, for the fourth day in a row, hundreds on monks are peacefully protesting in the streets and claim they will not stop until "the enemy of the people" is removed from power.

So, why am I nervous? Well, I wonder if the regime will shoot at the monks too. It's doubtful; the militia is Buddhist as well, as is most of Burma. But everyday that these videos are released, more and more unrobed citizens are marching. There is more and more applause from civilians on the sidewalk. There are more ordinary people with children at their sides standing on their porches in protest like the monks asked them to do, more and more wearing yellow for Suu Kyi, more and more defiance in the streets. This in a country where groups of more than five are forbidden by the junta's law in order to prevent organized protest.

I'm nervous because these monks are marching right in front of the little house church I work with. I have friends and former students supporting this protest. What will happen to them?

I pray that they know that eternal freedom cannot be taken away from them. As the Christian song goes, "They can have my body, but they can't have me. Take away my sight and still my soul will sing..." nothing the militia does to them can take away what Christ can give, or has given, them. With that knowledge, I pray they have the endurance to continue marching peacefully in the face of the militia's weapons, to bring change and hope and life and the blessing of earthly freedoms, like freedom of speech and religion, to their starving land. If they succeed here, it will prove once again to the world at a time when such a reminder is desperately needed, that change-even to the point of government overthrow- must not always be proceeded by violence. That hope has me on the edge of my seat.
The Burmese people have never been as brave as now, so outspoken and defiant against the horrors they've endured. I'm tired of scanning lists of political prisoners online and finding the names of former students of mine. I'm tired of worrying about the safety of the members of the little house church. I'm tired of wondering why I didn't get a Christmas card from this or that student, like I usually do. Frankly, I'm tired of praying for compassion, peace, and humanity in Burma. But I will continue to do so until the regime's clenched fist lets go of my Buddhist friends and sisters and brothers in Christ who were blessed to be born in Myanmar at such a time as this.

See the links on the sidebar under Aung San Suu Kyi's picture for more information about how you can support the plight of the Burmese people.