It looks as though the uprising in Burma has been put down:
Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks
have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma's ruling
junta has revealed.
The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: "Many more people
have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be
counted in several thousand."
(Executed Buddhist monk in Burma. Image from the Daily Mail)
Faced with such pictures, some will wonder, "Was it worth it?" For the Burmese COULD have kept quiet - and lived. Instead they protested - and wound up floating face down in dirty jungle rivers. The poet once asked:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end
them?
Rather than answer directly, I'll instead point to the consequences of another failed uprising, which took place in Europe. The cost was staggering: 200,000 civilians dead, 85% of Warsaw's buildings destroyed, the surviving members of the Polish Home Army sent to German POW camps - then subsequently persecuted (or murdered) by the Soviets.
In short, the 1944 Warsaw Uprising was just about as complete and total a defeat as one could possibly imagine. And yet despite that failure, the Home Army's heroism in the face of tyranny was NOT for nothing. That's because it was an inspiration, an example, for future Poles demanding THEIR freedoms, many years later.
For the Burmese, this may all sound like small consolation, particularly now. But alas, that is all I can offer.
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POSTSCRIPT: At the Belmont Club, Wretchard gives his assessment to a Burmese letter writer, on the way forward.
You will be lonely, but there is no help for it. I would be dishonest if I
said that the road to freedom was anything else but long, wearying and full of
pain. But I know that is the road that you long to take. "Death and sorrow will
be the companions of your journey, hardship your garment, constancy and valor
your only shield." That is the path which you will embark upon, because as men
you can do no other.