Ken Hall: A world away, freedom and struggle ring as loud as at home - Times Herald

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Halfway around the world in search of exotic scenery and foods, I found something unexpected yet very familiar - people using politics to promote freedom and especially freedom of expression.

My wife, Barbara, and I spent a week in Thailand and almost three weeks in Myanmar, the nation formerly known as Burma. We arrived in Bangkok just as protesters started to fill the streets in an effort to get the government to resign. Their complaints center on the ruling political party, corruption, nepotism and a misguided attempt to jam an amnesty bill through parliament, trying to bring the exiled leader home and recover the billions he was convicted of embezzling.

The protests were deadly in some parts of the city but by our hotel they were peaceful, almost festive. I crossed the street, went through the barrier and for a souvenir bought one of the whistles a vendor was selling. In Thailand, it's customary to blow whistles in protest, although they manage to shout a lot as well.

My purchase caught the attention of a man who spoke very good English. He wanted to make sure that I understood what was going on - I assured him I had become a regular reader of the Bangkok Post - and would bring the news back to the United States.

As interesting as it was to be in the midst of the protests in Bangkok, an experience I had in Burma was even more exciting in a much more quiet way.

We took our trip with Grand Circle Travel, a company that makes sure you meet local people through visits to homes and schools. We were blessed with a local guide who wanted to make sure we learned all we could about his country's history, religion, culture and especially its politics.

One night in Yangon a few of us went with him to an outdoor display of political cartoons. We emerged from the noisy street into an alley 200 yards long and lined with poster-sized cartoons. In contrast to the chaos of the street, the alley was quiet, the crowd respectful as people strolled by, studied the cartoons, took pictures on their phones.

Cartoons were once part of the underground effort to protest British rule and there was cause for celebration once they could be displayed openly shortly before World War II.

Military rulers clamped down on most freedoms in the 1990s, then the Internet allowed bloggers to post cartoons anonymously. Only in the past few years have the military rulers relaxed their censorship as part of a larger effort to attract tourism and international investment. The first cartoon display of this modern era went up in the fall of 2011. We saw the third annual installment.

The Burmese have been through a lot in the past century. Colonized by the British, occupied by the Japanese, terrorized by their own military they have only recently begun to enjoy some of the freedoms we take for granted. So they are making the most of it.

Reach Ken Hall at thrkenhall@gmail.com

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