In my 2012 book Beyond the Left - and elsewhere on this blog - I criticized Western journalists for their fawning treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi, known to viewers of Luc Besson's cinematic hagiography as 'The Lady', who by then had long been feted as the poster-girl for Western-style democracy in Myanmar. I pointed out that there can be no such thing as a 'progressive' world leader in a world driven by profit. And indeed, the Aung San saga has all ended rather embarrassingly for the liberal commentariat.
With Dame Suu now in power, Myanmar is now seen by many mainstream commentators as a genocidal state and its Buddhist monks are promoting the military's savage violence and ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya minority in Rakhine State (as the American physicist Steven Weinberg is supposed to have said: "With or without [religion] you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion").
As the UN yesterday condemned the violence, even the Western media have been obliged to start wagging their fingers. Under fire for failing to curtail calls for genocide on its Burmese platform, Facebook, for example, has just launched its latest high-profile geopolitical intervention, banning several prominent Burmese organizations and individuals from the network and citing the need to get tough on 'hate speech'.
If 'The Lady' has well and truly vanished, Aung San Suu Kyi herself, so far, has survived politically. Most commentators have stopped short of damning her outright or of calling for her to step down from power. There is already too much egg on too many faces and no doubt Suu Kyi, for now, at least, is still seen as the West's best leadership option in the resource-rich region. And anyway, there's no reason why a massacre or two should tarnish one's international reputation when inveterate warmongers like Henry Kissinger, Barack Obama or the recently deceased John McCain are lauded for their contributions to global human rights.
Some takeaway messages: 1) The liberal media, no matter how 'progressive' they appear, will always tend to serve the interests of profit and power, not those of ordinary people; 2) Buddhism is quite as reactionary as any other religion: the Dalai Lama, its prime representative who is feted by New Agers and Hollywood celebrities, has equivocated on the war on Iraq and has expressed anti-immigrant and other abhorrent social views; 3) The people of the world don't need leaders - even supposedly enlightened female ones like Aung San Suu Kyi.
With Dame Suu now in power, Myanmar is now seen by many mainstream commentators as a genocidal state and its Buddhist monks are promoting the military's savage violence and ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya minority in Rakhine State (as the American physicist Steven Weinberg is supposed to have said: "With or without [religion] you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion").
As the UN yesterday condemned the violence, even the Western media have been obliged to start wagging their fingers. Under fire for failing to curtail calls for genocide on its Burmese platform, Facebook, for example, has just launched its latest high-profile geopolitical intervention, banning several prominent Burmese organizations and individuals from the network and citing the need to get tough on 'hate speech'.
If 'The Lady' has well and truly vanished, Aung San Suu Kyi herself, so far, has survived politically. Most commentators have stopped short of damning her outright or of calling for her to step down from power. There is already too much egg on too many faces and no doubt Suu Kyi, for now, at least, is still seen as the West's best leadership option in the resource-rich region. And anyway, there's no reason why a massacre or two should tarnish one's international reputation when inveterate warmongers like Henry Kissinger, Barack Obama or the recently deceased John McCain are lauded for their contributions to global human rights.
Some takeaway messages: 1) The liberal media, no matter how 'progressive' they appear, will always tend to serve the interests of profit and power, not those of ordinary people; 2) Buddhism is quite as reactionary as any other religion: the Dalai Lama, its prime representative who is feted by New Agers and Hollywood celebrities, has equivocated on the war on Iraq and has expressed anti-immigrant and other abhorrent social views; 3) The people of the world don't need leaders - even supposedly enlightened female ones like Aung San Suu Kyi.
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