As of this writing a nonviolent movement is still in crisis in Burma, despite what the regime there would have us believe. In 1988 over 3,000 students were killed - massacred would not be too strong a word - when they protested the military takeover of their country. Their courageous, charismatic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, though she had faced down rifle squads in at least one critical confrontation (superbly dramatized in Beyond Rangoon, with Patricia Arquette), and won an overwhelming electoral victory, was not able to prevail over the regime, which has kept her under house arrest and basically pillaged the country for these nineteen years.
Commentators are noting, correctly, several features of the uprising today: it is a massive, disciplined outpouring. It relies on the immense prestige of religious orders in Burma (renamed Myanmar by the regime), and - among other differences between now and 1988 - the world is watching.
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