Communicating Arts - Main Web SiteI won't be standing by all day--I seem to have other interests, whether I like it or not--but Michael Dobie's "Junta tightens media screw" seemed worth a comment.
In addition to blocking Burma's Internet backbone, Dobie reports, "Telephone lines and mobile phone signals to monasteries, opposition politicians and student leaders have been cut." [1]
The military in Burma serves to defend its ruling class and the steps taken to silence opposition underscores the stance.
The military's interference extends to attacking the communicating channels, starting with cell phone signals, used by foreign journalists.
Watch Burma go black.
In the UN Security Council, both China and Russia have been reported as treating Burma's growing conflict as an internal matter unimportant to regional peace and stability. I wonder if this may not be the last time we hear that: in computer-network-ese, if the world is not directly engaged, it's listening with great sensitivity.
"Despite the government's best efforts to drown out independent voices, images and uncensored information are still getting out of Burma.
"Some people in Burma are circumventing the government's firewalls by uploading pictures directly to data hosting sites, which are harder to trace, instead of sending images by e-mail, says Moe Myint from the BBC Burmese Service." [1]
Among other things, the whole wide world has drowned itself in two technologies: arms and communications.
One feels for the people of Burma who appear to have been cowed en masse, denied the economic opportunities made available to citizens in surrounding states, and here in this round, rendered almost but perhaps not quite voiceless.
1. Dobie, Michael. "Junta tightens media screw." BBC News, September 27, 2007.
Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim
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