Resistance, Not Repression, Is the Real Story From Burma

“ When a regime’s own defenders begin to doubt its ability to survive, it can no longer count on them to enforce its mandates. In any kind of system, authoritarian or democratic, the authority to rule comes from the people themselves and as said by Hannah Arendt, “where commands are no longer obeyed, the means of violence are of no use.”

With no moral authority, no remaining political legitimacy, increasing pressure from the international community, an increasingly tenuous hold on the country’s remaining sources of economic support, and more signs that its own defenders may be less willing to risk being on the losing side of the actual – as well as moral – conflict, the issue is becoming not whether this regime will disappear, but when. There’s no doubt this group of generals has thus far appeared unwilling to budge, but stubborn reliance on repression can be just another form of denial.

With the junta now claiming that they’ve found weapons caches in Buddhist monasteries, signs are that the regime in Burma is becoming more intent on discrediting the pro-democracy movement which, thus far, appears to have done an impressive job of maintaining nonviolent discipline in their resistance against one of the most heavily armed and repressive security forces in the world.

In contrast to the junta’s claims of “normalcy” and “restored stability,” sources inside Burma are telling some extraordinary stories of ongoing resistance over the past several days. These forms of resistance represent several categories of nonviolent tactics, and they serve as further support for the thesis that the uprising in Burma is more than a spontaneous series of protests by a few disgruntled students and monks. Some of these tactics include the following…

Posted by Dilated_Rebel
Born and raised very humbly in a “small town” in southern California, I was a product of different worlds. Literally, part of my family descends from Mexico the rest from Portugal and Uruguay. This mixture had kept me from supporting any racist psyche found...