The Role of Burmese expatriates

As responsible Democracy activists living overseas we need to be especially aware of the fact that we have the undeniable duty to support the activists struggling inside the country. As individuals or as a whole group we enjoy unrestricted freedom under the sun.
Despite such freedom, an ailment called divisiveness plagues the democratic groups that are based overseas. Because of it actions and plans that needed to be carried out in a cooperative fashion by all the groups never achieved a momentum needed to create change in Burma. What needs to be done today to help the movement inside Burma is for us living overseas to become more united and to fight towards a single identifiable goal.

It is time for us to do a merciless self-examination. What most of us will find is that we lack self-reliance and we have no confidence in our own people to achieve their goal. It has been going on long enough that we have always demanded others to help us do what we need to do for ourselves. If we stop and think we pretty soon realize that there are not many things in life that gets done efficiently/timely or even at all if we just rely on others to do things for us. We cannot afford to wait any longer for the US or the International community to intervene on our behalf. The main driving force lies waiting untapped inside the country in the form of people’s power. We need to establish the fact amongst us that People’s power is the only path towards democracy. After establishing such foundation we then need to plan to how to best use such power. We need to admit to ourselves that just by sitting around nothing will get done.
We all have witnessed the selfless sacrifices that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi had made over the years for the country. As responsible persons, there is an urgent need to realize that we can not afford any longer to wait for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to bring us Democracy right to our doorsteps but instead each and everyone of us have the obligation to do our best to achieve the ultimate goal of Democracy in Burma.

U Than Aung
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Date: 15 September 2009