citizens in danger

Last week BBC encouraged people inside Burma to share their stories: Accounts from inside Burma. At the very bottom of the web page, the following message has been written: "At no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe any laws." Appropriate of course, considering Burmese people risk jail and abuse for telling the world what has been going on. It's "citizen journalism" at its most interesting and perhaps cruel, mass media actors taking advantage of the upsurge of amateur quasi-reporters in conflict-areas. With the possibility of air-time on BBC and CNN, people will probably be more willing to take chances. It must represent a rather delicate dilemma for the media industry, and I don't know whether a warning such as the one above solves it.

memories

Red for Burma day
Originally uploaded by Marika.

November 2000: I'm sitting on the floor in a London apartment, browsing colourful books about Burma. Next to me, a Burmese monk and his friend. I have just finished interviewing them for my master-thesis, which concerned the use of the Internet among exile-Burmese people. I did interviews with nine Burmese people during my ten days in London. I also interviewed people from the non-profit media organization Democratic Voice of Burma in Oslo.

The meetings made a huge impression on me. I know wearing a red shirt isn't much of an action. But it feels meaningful to be part of a global symbolic protest.

45 years of military repression is just surreal.