A disturbing use for bicycles (Comments: 0)

This is from a BBC story on the crisis in Burma:

In several pockets of Rangoon, people are even reportedly guarding monasteries against night-time government raids.

One man described how locals took it in turn to wait outside the monastery gates, to flash warning lights on to any military trucks coming near. Some are even said to be armed with handmade weapons, such as slingshots and arrows made from the spokes of bicycles.

You should read the rest of the article.

I lived for several years in Japan, and worked for a few different newspapers and wire services there. We spent a lot of time covering Burma (I refuse to call it Myanmar) and its people’s heroic struggle for freedom. For some reason, this country has always struck a chord in me. Maybe it’s the quiet dignity of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, or the strong union of the monks and the masses. It’s easy to let stories like Burma pass by unnoticed. And it’s just as easy to focus on them at the expense of our own internal troubles. It’s a complex world, as David Rovics says.