- (may 2008)
Where are the marching Europacifists when you need them?
When George W Bush decided to get rid of Saddam Hussein, millions of people
(mainly in Europe) took to the streets to protest against USA imperialism.
They had no plan on how to get rid of Saddam Hussein, and they had never
marched in the streets when Saddam Hussein was exterminating Kurds or Shiites
or Iranians, but they were determined to stop the USA from bringing democracy
to Iraq. (The fact that USA incompetence and corruption later messed up Iraq
is another story altogether). (See also these articles).
The Burmese people have lived under a brutal regime that is not any better
than Saddam Hussein's. They have been turned into one of the poorest countries
in the world and terrorized daily by the generals who run the country.
This junta has only one friend: mainland China.
After Burma was struck by a devastating hurricane that killed tens of thousands
of people, the military junta has forbidden foreign reporters from entering the
affected areas. It also has forbidden humanitarian aid to the area, probably
thinking that it is bad publicity to tell its people that foreign countries
are better off than Burma; and possibly using its own people to blackmail the
world (if you want to save these people, you have to let me pretend that the
humanitarian aid comes from this military junta, not from the USA or others).
In the meantime at least one million people are living destitute, and many more
stand to die of diseases and starvation.
So where are the millions of Europacifists who marched in the streets in 2003?
Not a single person has marched in the streets to protest the way this brutal
regime is letting its own people die like flies.
The reason is very simple. Unlike the Bush administration, this regime is smart:
it is keeping reporters from covering the story. We don't see daily images
of death, therefore we assume that nobody is dying. The Europacifists who
marched in 2003 were a product of a media-oriented society. They care only if
they see it on tv and hear it on the radio and read of it on the Internet.
If they don't, then they don't care. Iraq was widely publicized, therefore
they cared a lot.
The other curse for the Burmese is that their regime is an enemy of the USA.
The Europacifists who marched in 2003 were a product of an anti-USA world
(inherited from half a century of communist propaganda). They found a connection
between USA imperialism and USA capitalism: they claimed that the USA wanted
to invade Iraq to steal the oil, not to bring democracy. They did not find
a connection between Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and the
millions of Kurds, Shiites and Iranians killed, but they did find a connection
between Bush and oil. The same people would march in the streets if the USA
invaded Burma: they cannot find a connection between the junta's madness and
the starving Burmese, but they would find a connection between USA capitalism
and some geopolitical or economic reason to invade Burma. They would tell you
that the USA caused the hurricane so to have a justification to invade Burma,
just like they claim that the USA caused the September 11 attacks.
They would tell you that there was no hurricane at all: it was all fabricated
in Hollywood, just like they tell you that there were no Islamic terrorists
on those planes that hit the World Trade Center. They would tell you that
Burma has oil, or that it is a strategic location, or whatever.
Therefore nobody is marching in the street for the poor people of Burma.
They can all die, forgotten and abandoned by the world, and by those
Europacifists who were so eager to save the Saddam Hussein regime.
A Europacifist friend once told me "every life counts" (implying that
even if the USA bombs killed just one Iraqi, it would be a crime against
humanity). Apparently, the Burmese people do not count as "life" for those
millions of Europacifists.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2007 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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