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Burma

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

I've been attempting to follow the story of the catastrophic cyclone landfall in Burma. It's surprisingly difficult to get information on this, despite the fact that a minimum of 80,000 people died (and estimates, from sources such as the British government, go as high as 300,000).

One clear thing does emerge, though. Burma sounds like the utter perversion of the nation-state. It's as if the government [sic] essentially donates the labour of its people to international/corporate clients without compensation.

Every government essentially arranges for the labour of its people to be put toward economic (and other) purposes. But the whole idea of having a government in the first place is to provide shelter, health and security for its people. Not to deliver those people into the hands of the parties with the most cash to throw around.

Or maybe Burma is just the example that puts the lie to this sort of conceit.

Either way, it's appalling. We've given money towards relief both to the Japanese red cross (one donation was in Ken's name) and to an outfit called Avaaz, which seems to combine direct aid with political lobbying (my first contribution to them was to get them to lobby my own country's pathetic government to not compromise the Bali environmental discussions.