A month after the ruling military junta crushed protesting monks, killing an unknown number of people, an ominous, Orwellian calm has settled over Burma. Tourist arrivals have dropped by up to 90 percent since the military crackdown. “It’s not peace you see here; it’s a forced silence,” a 46-year-old Burmese writer who joined last month’s protests in Rangoon told The New York Times’ Choe Sang-Hun in a troubling report on the current conditions in the country. The writer—who like most people interviewed did not disclose his name out of fear of government reprisal—carried with him a worn copy of his favorite book, George Orwell’s “1984.”

It’s a fitting metaphor for the Burmese, who have been terrorized by an iron-fisted military for decades.

When the country’s revered monks rallied for democracy last month, writer Charles London followed some of the young protesters to the Sule Pagoda, joining hundreds more monks who carried flags and overturned alms bowls. The crowd watching them clapped timidly at first but their applause soon grew loud. “Politics no good here,” a young man who guided London through Rangoon whispered. “No money. You see villages...Monks try to help...”

Before this September’s protests, many tourists who came to Burma saw very little of the dark forces bubbling beneath the surface. My friends Andrea and Dan visited for three weeks in May during their eight-month trip around the world and came away happy with their experience.

Even London, who spent years with children in war-torn countries, admitted that until the protests began, his trip through Burma was a typical tourist agenda of shrines, horse-drawn carriage rides through ancient ruins and boat trips through floating villages. 

“I had seen the country shown in the guidebooks, not the one in which people suffer forced labor, torture and rape,” London wrote in his powerful essay in The New York Times Magazine. “Like one of Italo Calvino‘s invisible cities, Myanmar and Burma exist in the same space, contain the same buildings and people, but are entirely different countries.”

A few days later, he saw a photo of his young tour guide on the Internet. “His forehead was bandaged,” London wrote. “His white shirt was spotted red. I have no way to ask him what happened. He’s inside a country a tourist was never meant to see.”

Related on World Hum:
* U.S. State Department: Postpone Travel to Burma
* First Deaths Reported in Crackdown on Protesters in Burma
* As Defiant Monks Protest in Burma, Travel Debate Rages On

Photo by tarotastic via Flickr, (Creative Commons).