Myanmar - The Courage of The Individual
The ordinary citizens of Myanmar have been risking suppression, arrest and death sending out reports and images of the junta’s increasingly brutal crackdown on protests. Recognizing and fearful of the power of rapid worldwide communication, the military junta in Myanmar has, apparently, cutoff Internet access to its people.
The impulse and philosophical interpretation of the courageous noble action of those Myanmar citizens and the fearful ignoble reaction of their oppressors bears some further thought. The situation is archetypal. Throughout history, defiant, brave individuals, knowing the risks they face, have nevertheless put themselves in danger to further the cause of justice and freedom. The greater the threat, it seems, the greater the risk that such people are willing to take.
Invariably, these people act upon the impulse to do something for the greater good. These are selfless acts. In the face of great danger to ones friends, family, society, nation, or even to the human species, we can become acutely aware of our own ultimate insignificance. The importance of the self dwindles. (I discuss this phenomenon and its origins in LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do to Survive.)
Whereas for the junta, the importance of the junta becomes bloated and all important, while the importance of other groups and of society in general dwindles. Very often an individual or small core of individuals holds sway over the regime that suppresses, but if the ethos and edicts of the regime are clear and clearly enforced, the psychology of the regime spreads far and deep (one only needs to think of Hitler’s fascist Germany for a terrifying example).
The junta and other similar regimes create a set of governing principles by which they define themselves. And this is the important part: Without that set of defining principles the group does not exist. In order to further its existence, it must continue to maintain and enforce the principles. That is why such a regime will always sooner or later resort to suppression and erosion of the principles of freedom, liberty and fair treatment.
The same process can be seen in the actions of the current US administration which has knowingly and unapologetically deceived its people and acted on its own whims without seeming to see the need for sticking to the established laws and protocols of national government and international dilpomacy. The Bush administration is founded on its own self-serving principles not on the principles of good government.
To return to the courageous individuals of Myanmar (and elsewhere in time and space) who have been resisting the junta and risking their lives, such courage requires true, immediate understanding of life’s value and purpose, and the oneness of all people. It is all that stands between us and blind, selfish lifelessness.
ÂÂ