Burma Shame
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The world has a great number of brave people. Precious few of them have editorial positions in the American media.
Still available within our individual memories is the uprising in Burma, one of too many corrupt junta hells that pockmark the planet. Though rumbles of resistance there were reported in the foreign journals, the American media did not take notice of Burmese battle lines until red robed marching monks passively resisted.
And were shot.
And then we heard nothing more.
I’ll acknowledge that journalism from within oppressive regimes is difficult on good days. Not withstanding, we should be amazed by several elements. First, we should hold in wonder that American media will devote almost the entirety of a news cycle to a newly dead pop singer and almost nothing to people dying in streets fighting for basic freedoms. Second, we should remain in awe that people fighting for their freedom will risk everything.
A movie soon opens in San Francisco that shows the resolve of people denied basic liberty and the savagery of those who do the denying. Cobbled together from cell phone and digicam recordings made by average people, Burma VJ is one of those rare documentaries that teaches something about the true nature of the world and not the artificiality of opiated opinion (eg, Anything produced by Michael Moore. Perhaps we can send Moore to Burma – the soldiers there could use a broad sided barn).
The power of video is always compelling, even if it involves Charlie Gibson monotonically intoning over video remnants of a deceased song and dance man. Cheap video cameras combined with the Internet’s agility have made citizen journalists the new, true power in global affairs. Last week they showed us a woman dying in the streets of Tehran and the cruelty of cabals. This week Uighurs were wasted and their neighbors showed their fate world wide on YouTube. The most either event earned with American media was the likes of Brain Williams bothering to show five second scenes followed by a lengthy report on gingivitis.
What makes Burma VJ worth seeing is that the story of human resistance and inhuman repression is told with clarity. People, no different than you, but pushed beyond the limits of human endurance, protest oppression, resist, die and risk worse in order to continue filming and smuggling footage out of country and onto the ether. Ponder this while complaining that your health insurance is pricy and ask yourself what you are willing to risk.
And also ask yourself why Katie Couric can’t be bothered.
The film opens on July 17th at the Lumiere in San Francisco and at the Shattuck in Berkeley.
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