Open Letter To Gordon Brown: The World Is Watching You

Dear Prime Minister

You have used strong language to express your outrage about what is happening in Burma and you have urged the world to take action in demonstrating their solidarity with both the Buddhist monks and their supporters in the general population.

You said:

The whole world is now watching Burma and its illegitimate and repressive regime should know that the whole world is going to hold it to account. The age of impunity in neglecting and overriding human rights is over.

I think the international pressure that can be made to be felt in the next few days is incredibly important. I want to see the whole of the world getting together on this.

The world is getting together in any way it can, whether it is blogging or signing online petitions or donating money or just offering words of support and encouragement to those who are managing to get information out of Burma to the rest of the world, usually at great risk to themselves.

So, the world is also now watching you and other world leaders to see what you are actually doing, rather than merely saying.

The United Nations seems to have spectacularly failed to do anything. It seems its hands are tied when Burma is not threatening the security of any other country, especially when China and Russia might threaten to use their vetoes. To send a man to talk to the military junta somehow seems a rather lame response.

Of course, you could simply say that there are diplomatic efforts happening in the background which cannot be made public. This will do nothing to make people believe that anything contructive is happening.

You could just sit on your hands and wait for the situation to be resolved, probably with a massacre of the monks and civilian population and afterwards say you did your best, but nothing could really be done to help them. Perhaps events unfolded too fast. Perhaps we have to keep to the rule of established committees and bureaucracies. Perhaps it did not really matter all that much and when you said the world was watching, what you meant was that the world was waiting for a soundbite from you.

The question, however, will forever remain: what did you actually do? We know what you have said. What are you doing?

People have been pleased with the idea that you are guided by a “moral compass”. If at any time you could demonstrate what that means, that time is now.

Your Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, said that we need institutions which “redefine the global rules for our shared planet”, so that countries such as Burma are made to feel it is better to play by those rules rather than ignore them. Mr Miliband also said: “I for one thought it was brilliant to see Aung San Suu Kyi alive and well outside her house last week … I think it will be a hundred times better when she takes her rightful place as the elected leader of a free and democratic Burma.”

Fine words indeed, but none the less mere words.

The world is changing. The world is watching and the world is waiting.

It is waiting to see what you and other world leaders actually do when the world is in agreement about the need for action. This time, words alone will not be enough.

The way you are seen to help protect the human rights of those abroad will forever reflect on the way you are perceived to be the custodian of human rights at home, whether in a crisis or just in the day-to-day events which comprise the lives of ordinary people.

So, yes, the eyes of the world are watching Burma. They are also watching you and every other political and business leader who can bring moral outcomes to the situation.

Yours sincerely

John Stevens

PS The blogging world has kept up a momentum of pressure concerning Burma, along with the conventional news media. In the spirit of maintaining that essential pressure, anyone is welcome to copy, post, distribute, translate or otherwise publish this letter in any way they see fit for the purpose of helping to change the world for the better and to assist any and all oppressed people anywhere.