Patrice Riemens on Fri, 30 May 2008 23:04:20 +0200 (CEST) |
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<nettime> Burmah (Night) Oil ... |
In olden days, a standing joke about London private clubs (eg "The Expolrers'" of Jules Verne fame) was that older gentlemen were spending their afternoons swallowed-up by immense crapauds and sipped Sherry while perusing 'The Times' and discussing "the situation in 'Beurmaah'". I think we seriously should do the same, about 'Beurmaah', minus the crapauds (and possibly the Sherry ;-) Highlighted by the bleak aftermath of the cyclone disaster, the nightmarish nature of the Burma/ 'Myanmar' regime is now for all to see, if not, alas, to understand: as our political future. General Than Shwe and his gang of bemedalled SLORC cronies represent the wet dream to which _all_ current politicians in power the world over aspire in their rare moments of relaxation (admittedly they're usually far to busy adressing the day-to-day challenges of/to their leadership to dream very much). Far from being a regression to some kind of brutal, primitive order, the Burmese political dispensation is a hyper, infra-(and post-? ;-) modern realisation of the cyberpunk (*) anti-societal format: dispense with the people - we no longer need them. Or at least as human beeings. And since the breed is ultra-resilient and apparently un-exterminable (remember Indonesia after the Suharto coup?), they are totally expendable and we can go on for ever, while enjoying our privileges, and paranoia. Mark my words: we live in the twighlight of Human Rights. The more these are asserted in theory and pronouncements, the more they are attacked in hidden ideology and not-so-hidden practice. Alain Minc (in)famously asserted that democracy was not the natural state of society. But then neither is the market in the end, but the total night of the fatally extermination-prone tyranny of the sick few. Exodus anyone? Just like Bihar, but worse than Bihar: Burma is our future, in all its horendous details (local applications may however vary). No cheers this time from patrizio & Diiiinooos! (*) OK I already hear Messrs Gibson, Sterling and Stephenson cringe...;-) # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org