This is not a dress. This is a sacred robe of the ancient psychedelic monks

I am not Bob Geldof, I am not Al Gore, I am not Johnny Oxfam but I am so fucking frustrated everytime I read or think about Burma - which is getting to be more and more. I must admit that I usually tend to hold onto my opinion about world issues such as Burma as alot of people in my life use E! Entertainment as their main news source. The more I hear about Burma the more I want to get militant with the worlds leaders. How can a country hold elections, decisively elect a party, only to be gripped by 40years of oppressive military dictatorship. And as time goes by it comes to be accepted as the way Burma just is. We do not hear a thing about it because all international websites are banned within Burma, speaking out is banned, acting out is banned, at the moment standing in a group of more than 5ppl is banned. How many people were exploited to build the new capital city of 'Myanmar' in the mountains? How much of the national budget is spent on the military or ridiculous projects such as building a new city in the middle of nowhere. The country is being run into the ground. I am quite ignorant when it comes to alot of the world issues at the fore today but something that stands out to me about Burma is the reason for all of the control. It is not an oppressive regime based on religion or racism or expansion it seems to be solely based on power. The junta oppress the people because they can. No one has stopped them, no one did anything when they killed thousands of protesters in 1988, no one has done anything while they have kept Suu Kyi under house arrest for over a decade.

The U.S. do have weapons, trade and investment sanctions on Burma but the problem is that Burma does not need the West for any of these things, they are being supported by China. I think now is the best time to act as China are trying to put a legitimate face on for the Olympics. As we speak monks and students are protesting and troops have been deployed. If no one does anything again then we are all fucked, the Burmese in the right now, the rest of us eventually.

I am not proposing some kind of invasion and I am thankful Burma is not rich in oil or uranium or whatever else is fashionable so there are not countries knocking at the door with their tanks to 'help' them. I think we should ramp up the sanctions and threaten to boycott the Chinese Olympics if the situation is not rectified. The problem is that it is almost desirable to the Chinese that Burma are excluded from the rest of the world. In 2005 they exported just under $1Billion worth of products into Burma. To convince them something needs to change we need to risk them losing something more valuable - what would be better than world leading countries not turning up to their 'perfect' Olympics built on corruption.

This photo was taken in the last few days, hundreds of people have been arrested for peacefully demonstrating, monks and students are having tear gas used on them, curfews have been placed on the nation.