As Defiant Monks Protest in Burma, Travel Debate Rages On
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 09.25.07 | 1:27 PM ET
As thousands of defiant Buddhist monks rally for democracy in Burma (or Myanmar) despite of warnings of a military crackdown, travelers watching in awe from afar continue to debate the ethics of visiting the country. Arthur Frommer yesterday denounced tour operators who continue to lead groups into Burma and called on all travelers to boycott the nation. “Shockingly enough, several major U.S. tour operators continue to operate trips to Myanmar, despite pleas not to do so by the country’s democratically-elected leader, the Nobel-prize-winning Aung San Suu Kyi,” he wrote. “On occasion after occasion, Mrs. Kyi has emphatically stated that such visits simply support the brutal, thuggish military junta that now rules Myanmar.”
As the BBC has pointed out, Aung San Suu Kyi once told reporters: “Tourism to Burma is helping to prolong the life of one of the most brutal and destructive regimes in the world. Visiting now is tantamount to condoning the regime.”
Yet others have maintained that the question of visiting Burma isn’t so black and white.
As Thant Myint-U, a former fellow at Trinity College who has relatives in Burma, wrote in the Times Online (UK) in May:
Responsible tourism can help to lift many ordinary people from poverty and an influx of outsiders will hasten the possibility of political change. And it’s just not true that tourist money props up the Government. Nearly all hotels are privately or foreign owned (including all the big ones). It’s easy to avoid the few Government-owned hotels if you want—the Lonely Planet guide spells it out.
Journalist Emma Larkin, author of “Finding George Orwell in Burma,” recently spoke with NPR about the protests. She called the monks’ uprising “totally unexpected” and termed a government crackdown “not unlikely” if the protests ensue. Frank Bures reviewed Larkin’s book in 2005 for World Hum.
He wrote:
Larkin, however, gives the most elegiac account of life in Burma, and what is probably the best travel book on the country since Norman Lewis’ “Golden Earth: Travels in Burma” was published in 1952.
And what comes through most clearly in her, and Orwell’s, Burma is a colossal sadness, as well as the humor and patience that lets the Burmese bear it until the day when some of the last people living Orwell’s nightmare can finally wake up.
We can only hope that day will come soon, and that it will come peacefully.
For travelers wishing to express support for the monks, Ethical Traveler offers one way.
Photo: AP.
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Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
Carpetblogger 09.25.07 | 5:10 PM ET
This debate makes me insane. Why is Burma subject to this much debate over “responsible” tourism when places like Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and even Russia are not. No one seems to have any problem going to Tibet.
I don’t mean to diminish the suffering of the Burmese but there are lots of other places that are really, really bad too that do not have attractive, photogenic, sympathetic Nobel Prize winners asking people not to do something that has little or no impact on the regime anyway. Memo to travellers: do you seriously think depriving the junta of your tourist dollars or euros or pounds is going to have much impact on a government that already controls vast amounts of gems, opium and natural gas?
Watch your ego and don’t overestimate your own impact. Go and see for yourself how bad things are and try to keep your money out of government controlled enterprises, if only to make yourself feel better. Go and see what it’s like and encourage your governments not to invest there or don’t buy from companies that do business there.
But don’t get caught up in the hype. Lots of people in Burma disagree with the tourism ban because it’s one industry where money does trickle down to ordinary people.
It’s been almost 20 years since Suu Kyi was elected and nothing has changed. How long ago did she call for this tourism ban? It hasn’t worked. New tactics are needed.
Frank 09.25.07 | 8:35 PM ET
Who decides who goes and who doesn’t? Too often I hear hypocritical NGO’s rail against travel to Burma, yet they have no problem traveling there themselves.
Also, I saw “Emma Larkin” speak at Book Passage. She was asked a question if she thought it was OK to travel to Burma or not. She replied, “I’m ambivalent…”. Ambivalent after just spending a year or more traveling throughout the country and saying she wanted to go back in the future? Come on! It shows how much Political Correctness has permeated debate these days.
Frank
Eva Holland 09.26.07 | 8:47 AM ET
First shots fired, one reported killed so far.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070926.w2myanmar0926/BNStory/International/home
Frank Bures 09.26.07 | 12:04 PM ET
Just for the record, this Frank is ambivalent too. Seems like there are points on both sides. Not sure what political correctness has to do with any it.
Frank 09.26.07 | 4:57 PM ET
Frank Bures –
You can’t travel in Burma extensively – and plan to return for travel in the future with or without the junta – and be ambivalent about travel there. To say so seems to me to be bending to the political winds on this issue, which say this: don’t go.