SubscribeThe Burma Syndrome
Posted in MCWC on September 6th, 2007. By Manuel Castells.
Burma (or Myanmar as it is now called) has suffered under the grip of a military dictatorship for more than two decades. This authoritarian rule is in contradiction with the burmese culture, deeply informed by buddhism and tolerance.The pro-democracy movement, whose symbol is a woman, Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Prize winner for her contribution to peace and freedom from a non-violent philosophy, has staged several major protests, particularly in 1988, to unseat the rulers by the pressure of the people and of international public opinion. Yet, the nationalist officers have been able to resist, using harsh tactics, jailing and torturing opponents, and suppressing unrest by using gangs of thugs who attack protesters and in some cases make them disappear. However, if the regime can get away with its systematic, blatant violation of human rights is thanks to the silent support of Southeastern Asian countries that prefer the stability of the military regime to the unknown of a more assertive burmese democracy. Similarly, while the United States condemns the repression of the military, the US government never took effective measures to defend the civilian leaders of the country. Furthermore, China is not unhappy to have a strong and friendly Myanmar regime to counter Thailand’s influence in the region. And last but not least, networks of drug lords (that master huge resources and political influence in this area of the world) seem to have significant connections in the military and police forces of Myanmar. But the world changes, and so does Burma. A new generation of students and young professionals is more aware of the outside world, in part thanks to the growing use of the Internet. Of course, the government censors and surveills the Internet, but it cannot entirely control the messages and images that circulate in the web when they are broadcast from different countries. Networks are global, politics is local. So, in August 2007, there have been important demonstrations against the dictatorship in Rangoon (now Yangon), the main city of the country, initiated as a protest against the increase of the price of fuel, a move that has aggravated further the plight of people on the brink of survival. Students and young workers and professionals seem to be at the forefront of this protest that in spite of violent repression has been going on for weeks. In fact, the demonstrations are smaller than those in 1988 but they are having a much greater impact in the public opinion, and have extended to other cities. Observers cite as an important reason of this enhanced impact in people’s consciousness the use of the Internet to broadcast the demonstrations, including the image of the new leader of the movement, a 34 years old woman, Su Nway, who has escaped the police until now and can be seen by every Internet user in the midst of the demonstration, in a clear defiance to the power of the army. So, what is significant here is the use of the Internet not just as an interactive mean of communication but as a broadcasting channel of potential mass distribution.
In recent years, a number of social movements and alternative cultural expressions have used the Internet and wireless communication networks to build the communicative autonomy of the people vis a vis the mass media controlled by business and government. This is the emergence of what I have called “mass self-communication”. But many analysts, including myself, have emphasized primarily the importance of interactivity and horizontal networking in the new communication system. What the case of Burma and several other experiences in the world (eg. Venezuela) show is the capacity to use the Internet to broadcast a one way message to a mass audience as an alternative channel of distribution to the controlled television. Since in conflictive situations many people do not dare to engage in Internet interaction out of the fear they will be identified, the browsing of Internet images (even if the IP addresses may be detected by a sophisticated crawler system) is a much safer procedure to pick up the news. And to know that you are not alone in your opposition to an apparently invincible dictatorship based on brute force is an extraordinary source of motivation and hope. Indeed I remember in my years as a student activist in Barcelona under the Franco dictatorship how important were the news of protest that we could grasp from foreign radios, particularly the BBC in Spanish. We also were tuning to a Communist radio (called La Pirenaica because they were pretending to broadcast from the Pyrenees but in fact they were in Bucharest) but this ended up being counterproductive because their claims were so inflated that when we would look through the window and saw quiet streets that according to the broadcast were flooded with anti-fascists protesters, we concluded that all was propaganda, and our fight might be hopeless.
It would have been very different if we could see it, because then, if our street was quiet we could rush to the nearby boulevard or town where the action was depicted in the broadcast to realize the strength of the many sharing the struggle. But we did not have the Internet. Of course, we ended up reaching democracy, but it did take Franco’s death to make it possible. The youth of Burma cannot wait that long because they have a multiple head military dictatorship. So, they stage their demonstrations, at great risk, and use them to produce the images that may give strength to many others around the country, and ultimately increase international pressure on a regime as despicable as shown by the actions of its thugs against the youth who have grown up under its rule. It is because Internet can substitute for television that this image making effect can be created.
This substitution effect is of course not confined to political demonstrations. It embraces the whole range of Television-based programming. IPTV on the one hand, and the distribution of TV originated video via the Internet, including wireless Internet, are major trends that are undermining the queen of the mass media, TV as it used to be. A Russian teenager I know arrived this summer in California to spend her vacation and could not really watch TV because during the summer American networks just do repeat episodes of their series, and she had already watched everything from Siberia last year. Of course not in Russian TV, but in the Internet where every episode of a popular series is posted by someone the minute is aired on TV, and sometimes even before so. Thus, until now what was considered the substitution effect of Internet on television was the fact that the young audience is dropping TV in favor of multitasking and the Internet. This is indeed taking place. But something of great relevance is happening simultaneously: the displacement of traditional distribution channels of television by the Internet. In the same way that young people do read newspapers but not in print, they do watch TV but on the Internet. This is the Burma syndrome. It is not about just politics. It is about ending the monopoly of broadcast TV by using the power of the Internet. While the managers of the traditional broadcasting business are finishing their lavish luncheons and lighting up their cigars before taking their siesta they do not realize that when they will wake up their TV rooms will be empty, and their credit cards canceled.
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