Back to Burma
Remember how Cyclone Nargis devastated much of Burma (Myanmar) in early May, killing perhaps more than one hundred thousand people? The story has disappeared from the headlines because few American journalists have ventured into the totalitarian country since the storm. George Packer is one of those who has returned. His "Drowning: Can the Burmese People Rescue Themselves?" in the August 25 issue of The New Yorker describes Burma's condition since the cyclone with brilliant detail. Here he watches the relief efforts of a brave woman, Hnin Se:
By the time we returned to the pagoda, the rain was coming down in torrents. The world beyond the village had disappeared. Hnin Se had told me that, through her relief work in the delta, she had learned how few of her countrymen knew that they had any rights, even the right to complain. The Burmese people were even further from being free than she had imagined. But at least one thing was achieved. Beyond Rangoon, the violence of the September events had been only a rumor among the vast numbers of poor people; the criminal aftermath of the cyclone was something that they saw for themselves. “When I was younger, I hoped and waited for outside help to come to our country and liberate it,” she said. “Now I realize that we have to rely on ourselves.”
A crowd of women and children had gathered outside the pagoda, clutching plastic bags. Two men in Hnin Se’s group opened the sacks of rice and poured their contents onto a sheltered walkway outside the pagoda, making a great white mound. A young monk stood with a megaphone and called out the name of each of the three hundred and eighty-five surviving families. There were far too many people to take cover beneath the shelter, and the villagers stood in the rain, shivering under umbrellas, pieces of plastic, and straw hats, waiting for their turn to step forward and receive three scoops of rice and a piece of clothing from Hnin Se.
Throughout this story, Packer does a great job of interspersing facts about Burma's history and politics with descriptions like the one about that help us see the country's despair. www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/08/25/080825fa_fact_packer