Modified On August 13, 2012
That’s the title of Peter Hitchens’ column detailing his trip to the heart of the darkness that is the capital of Burma. It’s from the London Daily Mail.
Among the misery and the corruption, Hitchens singles out the performance of The Moustache Brothers.
Here each night at 8.30, a small and incredibly brave group of people keep a light of free speech burning in the surrounding darkness. And it is very dark. For Mandalay at night makes Rangoon look like Manhattan.
Night falls here like a thick blanket. You must fumble your way along unlit streets, hoping that you will not fall down one of the many yawning holes in the pavement, down into the stinking drains beneath. Even the state telephone bureau functions by candlelight. And in the few tourist hotels, so empty that the bar staff volunteer to play pool with lonely customers, the air-conditioning and lights frequently fail before the generators kick in.
But do not be put off, for without tourists the symbolic, heroic resistance of the Moustache Brothers would come to an end. They are comedians who dared to mock the regime. For this crime – for tyranny is terrified of laughter – two of them were imprisoned and set to work on chain gangs.
Now released, they perform their act in English, laboriously learned, to tiny foreign audiences on a miniature stage. In truth, the performance is not very funny. But it is utterly magnificent.
It is a heartbreaking and touching thing to see these men and their families daring to say the unsayable, to laugh at the deadly serious, especially in the menacing blackness from which– at any time– vengeance might suddenly emerge.
The brothers, who had no idea that I was a reporter the night they entertained me, joke about the KGB and openly praise Aung San Suu Kyi. By the time I saw this performance I was so used to the air of oppression that I was lowering my own voice before saying anything remotely controversial. Yet these courageous people say such things out loud.
All that protects them is the interest of the outside world. If the tourists stop coming, how long can their brave demonstration go on? The night I watched them, there were four of us in the audience. If the level falls much below this, will the regime feel it is safe to shut them down and throw them in a dungeon? It is an alarming thought and raises the strange question of the international boycott of Burma.
Aung San Suu Kyi is the leader of the resistance, currently under house arrest for many years. (We recall hearing about her a few years back when we listened faithfully to John Bachelor’s show on WABC in New York. We gave up hope tha the would return to the airwaves, but, after reading this article, we found out he’s back!)
So impressed by the bravery of the Moustache Brothers is Hitchens, he ends the piece with this:
Should we long for a violent uprising, for gunfire in Rangoon, the corpses of monks and splashes of blood around the Shwedagon Pagoda? Should we hope for a Western invasion, British soldiers once again on the Road to Mandalay (where enough of them have already left their bones)?
You may wish for these things if you like. I cannot. I can only say that this is what it is like and hope that in time Burma finds its own kindly, peaceful salvation suited to its immensely gentle people.
In the meantime, if you can, go to see the Moustache Brothers. They may not make you laugh but by heaven they will show you what courage looks like.
Recall his words when next you hear a comedian in the West whimpering about how his speech is being suppressed.
H/T to BrothersJuddBlog, where we first saw a link to this excellent article.