The Burmese military junta is continuing to disrupt communications in the hope of stopping information getting to the outside world. Continuing with the theme of that nauseating official statement, the government is continuing to blame foreign influences for inciting the trouble. Apparently, the BBC and the Voice of America are broadcasting "a sky-full of lies".However much the military tries, you can't kill the internet. Clever Burmese hackers are sneaking on regardless through web proxies and foreign embassy connections. A YouTube user called JUVENILEBIRDS has uploaded many videos recorded over the past few days, including one of Thursday's demonstration at Sule Pagoda. This video is particularly moving: entitled "MONKS PRAYING SOLDIERS SHOOTING IN BURMA", the prayer and peaceful demonstration occupies almost a full 6 minutes. You see hundreds of people cooperating in a peaceful demonstration - moving slowly through the streets, linking hands, chanting and singing. At 3 minutes and 12 seconds into the video, you can see two fighting peacock flags: one homemade, with red ink on a white background; the other more professional, yellow on red. The fighting peacock flag symbolises the Burmese people's struggle. It is only in the last 20 seconds of the video that the situation deteriorates. The picture disappears as the cameraman runs for his life, with gunshots heard over the audio. Another of his videos, entitled Riot at Shwe Dagon Pagoda East gate in Burma mostly shows people taking care of one another. You see ordinary people kneeling to greet monks, people sharing food with each other, and people helping to wash each other's injuries.
I think these videos show something very important. It's easy to talk about the peacefulness of the monks, but they show true strength. It's clear from the video that many of the younger protestors are physically very strong and could easily use physical force against the military, but for the most part they have chosen not to. It occurs to me that the Burmese generals could kill every single one of the protestors, and yet they still wouldn't win. Because how can you win by killing those who are not afraid to die?