no lower form of life

The military rulers of Burma are a pretty nasty lot - brutal, cruel and after nearly thirty years of oppression, unchallenged.

But when it comes to real-life, walking, talking human turds, its hard to go past members of the advertising industry.

These shameless bottom-feeders make the junta in Rangoon look good.

Unfair? A little harsh? You be the judge…

As some of you might know, the monks in Myanmar have had enough.

Following on from heated clashes with the security forces over rising fuel prices (including an incident where the monks took some of the régime’s goons hostage), Buddha’s blokes are taking it to the streets.

In a land where public displays of dissent are about as rare as an Ad Exec with a conscience, the monks’ show of force is a serious challenge to a dictatorship bereft of popular support or moral legitimacy.

So the small but committed Burmese community put the call out for a public demonstration today in Sydney’s Martin Place. Just for a change, I decided tag along for a little lunchtime scream & shout.

You wouldn’t call me a fair-weather friend of the Free Burma movement – more like a rolled gold blow-in.

I’ve had a very little to do with this mob over the last decade; like many Australians the plight of the Burmese people has been way down the list, if not off the radar.

Sadly, the lack of international action over the decades suggests I’m not alone.

Despite my heroic guilt, I managed to drag myself into the belly of the beast, glittering towers of glass and steel shadowing hordes of surly looking lunchtime suits, glowering at the sunshine poking through.

Yet as I wandered up the plaza to greet the happy (but very) few, my path was blocked by a ‘protest’ of a very different kind.

Twenty-strong and bristling placards, they circled the square chanting their unintelligible epithets with some gusto. But even from a distance, something seemed amiss.

The detail held some clues. Impeccably turned out in a range of neat smart causal, these looked like no ordinary red-raggers. No combat fatigues or tired Guevara’s here. No facial hair. Designer clothes.

Who are these people?

Their megaphone toting leader began exhorting his comrades: “What do we want?”

“Freedom to print!” they screamed in response.

“When do we want it?”

“Now!”

Good god, had the Government finally taken away our freedom to print?

I took a closer look and noticed that their slogans were printed in some professional font designed to create impression it was hand-painted.

Shocked, I looked to their leader, past his cream shirt and slacks to his feet.

He was wearing boat shoes. The penny dropped. Dogs!

I scurried over to the back of the column and fronted some weedy young guy, probably the work experience kid.

“Is this a marketing exercise?”

Handing me a postcard claiming ‘it’s time for an ink revolution’ he nodded sheepishly.

I politely asked him if he knew there was Burma protest ten meters away. Did they think that campaigning for ink cartridges or whatever it was they were spruiking maybe trivialised the plight of the Burmese people?

He sneered something about it being a free country and things soon got ugly.

I remember screaming at them to ‘go back to your marketing department, you scum’ and ‘piss off back to the northern beaches’ and plus other incoherent abuse.

Some laughed, others look embarrassed. One guy got pissed off and flipped me the bird. He almost got spat on.

Some time later, I fumed silently while chanting ‘Free Burma!’, watching the faux-protesters nearby as they took a breather before having another crack at the lunchtime herd.

I wasn’t so super-pissed at the concept. Sure, an advertising campaign that mimics public protest is pretty unoriginal, but activists are fair – and sometimes deserving – game.

This is Australia. It’s your responsibility to take the piss.

But parading it in the face of ordinary people trying to make a difference in the face of disinterest and apathy really irked me.

No one likes having their face rubbed in it, especially by yuppie scum.

A sixteen year old private schoolboy, collecting money for some unknown charity, caught me in the middle of a ‘Free Burma!’ and tapped me on the shoulder.

“Excuse me,” he asked. “Who is Burma?”

I told him to get fucked.


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Postscript: www.thepriceofinkstinks.com – the website being promoted by the marketing people, seems to be a front for US giant Kodak. From what I can tell, Kodak once did business with Burma but no longer, having ceased operations there some time ago.