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Monday, 01 October 2007 |
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How very 21st century! The monks, peasants and democrats are revolting: but in 2007 that means chopping off Internet and mobile services so nobody knows what’s going on. But who, in this case, is 'nobody'?. It’s not us.
The twenty-four hour news channels are crying foul. They bleat about why they cannot cover a conflict due to a military dictatorship’s stubborn insistence on cutting communications links to the outside world. Innocent monks or citizens may be facing death in Burma but the 24NCs are more worried that they cannot bring graphic footage and first-hand reports of shootings and beatings to their couch-bound viewers. This inconvenience is more important than the chance that a democratic opposition might be seeking to organise and manage itself.
A half-Burmese friend of mine drew my attention to this and stopped my chagrin in its tracks. The comms blackout imposed by a foul junta in Burma causes less harm to overseas armchair critics – up to and including political leaders – than to the country’s citizens themselves. Ask yourself who is more important on a ‘need-to-know' basis’? “He’ll have been out there on the streets”, says my friend of his uncle; “but I have no idea now where he is and he can’t talk to me any more.”
In the old days, blatant abusers of comms freedom were formally (although laughably) held to account by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). I won’t list the serial abusers as we get hammered by agitprops for those gruesome countries each and every time we name them. Needless to say they emerged unscathed in Geneva or New York.
Coincidentally, the un-named countries who regularly resort to cutting off access to ICT at times of national stress are the same countries whose companies are selling telecom equipment to Burma. And that’s before we get into military stuff.
So, to turn this argument on its head: Britain, Russia, China, Israel, India and the USA are in the clear. Wow! That’s a tough fiction to write. Brings the house down in Rangoon, however. Not that we will see it, or hear it…
Jim Chalmers
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