*5--11.02.2006
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Revolution By Numbers
A Story in Two Parts
Part One
“Which day is the revolution going to start?” asked one general to another.
“On April the nth” said the other.
“Well, remember to inject the troops with drugs to make them brutal before they start the beatings” said the first.
Revolution doesn’t start at a specified time. Did the October revolution in 1917 start at a special date? Did the Berlin wall fall on a date specified six months in advance? Which revolution, successful or not was planned in advance and warning given to the enemy? Revolutions happen organically and spontaneously. They happen when the time is ripe.
Why tell the enemy when the revolution is going to occur? If it is going to happen, then leave the choice of date until the last minute, keep them guessing, make them confused, trigger false starts.
It isn’t going to start today, so let us all organise and plan how to do it.
Part Two
One day I walked through a wood and was stung by a bee. It hurt for a while.
The next week I walked through the same wood and was stung again. I applied ointment to heal the sting quickly.
The next month I walked through the wood and was stung by a thousand bees. I died.
If one man goes into the street to protest, he gets arrested and whisked away without fuss. A short paragraph in the campaign daily. If ten thousand people protest and get beaten up, it makes the international news – for a day or a week until their interest flits somewhere else where the action is bigger. If fifty million people protest and take control of the government, the world sits up from its slumber and says “and about time too”.
If a revolution of any type is going to be successful, it will occur spontaneously, but it will be successful if everyone inside Burma and outside is involved and committed to making it successful. If you surf the internet you will know that there are dozens of Burma campaign groups, political and ethnic groups and freedom fighters all wanting the same thing –
FREEDOM. But they all seem to me to be looking in different directions to achieve it. If the revolution is going to happen it will happen at the right time, whenever that is; it will succeed if everyone who wants it to happen is working together. Now is the time to talk to our political adversaries, everyone who wants the same Freedom that we want, to be free of the SPDC. Once Burma has Freedom, then is the time to argue politics of constitution. Now is the time for linking arm in arm against the common enemy.
T David