Revolution in the Arab World - Observation of a lost soul Blog

foreign policy • revolution in the arab world • revolution makers
smiling and, oddly, taking off their shoes. Their spokeswoman, a young
woman in a pink shirt who was wriggling with excitement, proposed a
“Barefoot Campaign,” to commemorate the monks of the Saffron Revolution,
who do not wear shoes. The idea was to start with 100 young people,
contacted by email and social networks. They would do something simple:
go barefoot in public spaces. “We can start with the pagodas,” said Pink
Shirt—no one wears shoes in a pagoda anyway. And people could walk
through paint, Pink Shirt said. “We can easily measure success—if we see
barefoot people and footprints everywhere.”
“When the authorities respond with arrests, how will you respond”
Auntie asked. The group had thought through this. “For safety, people can
carry a pair of broken sandals in their pocket to show the police,” said a cherubic-faced
young man. “Or you can say, ‘I’m getting ready to go running.’”
The tall man halted their excitement. “If the authorities see you leaving
footprints, they will know and arrest you.”
“They won’t know who it was if we do it at night,” said the Cherub. “Let’s
do it!” He pumped his fist in the air. Everyone laughed.
But the footprints were a problem—they could quite literally lead the
police to their prey. Then a soft-spoken young woman in a gauze shirt spoke
up. “There are lots of stray dogs and cats,” she said. “We can put a dish of
paint in front of where they live so they will walk through it.” Cats and dogs
as the foot soldiers of democracy! They looked at each other, awed by their
own brilliance, and slapped hands all around.
Near the end of the week the group watched Burma VJ, a 2008 documentary
by Danish director Anders Ostergaard about a group of clandestine
Burmese video journalists, whose footage, smuggled out of the country, is
often the only way the outside world knows what is happening in Burma.
The film takes place during the Saffron Revolution; it is precious contraband
in Burma, and most of the participants had seen it before. It is a document
of hope and valor, a record of a few weeks many Burmese consider the
high point of their lives. But after a week of CANVAS training, the Burmese
were watching it with fresh eyes.
When the film ended, Djinovic walked to the front of the room. “So what
did you think” he said. The Cherub was wide-eyed. “This was not organized!”
he said. Suddenly the Saffron Revolution looked very different. It
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