Mobile Monk Revolution

In 1988, when the people first rose against the Burmese military junta, it took weeks for news and pictures to filter out of the country and even now journalists are having to report on the recent protests from neighboring Thailand.

UPDATE: Great piece at Mobile Active on this subject.

But now we are witnessing a different sort of protest, one where mobile technology is central to galvanizing public outcry and enabling the UK and US Governments, amongst others, to condemn the violent actions of the corrupt regime.

At great personal risk to themselves people are using their mobile phones to record the violent oppression of the monks and distributing the footage to video sharing sites and blogs.

“It is amazing how the Burmese are able through underground networks to get things from outside and inside,” says Vincent Brussels, head of the Asian section of press freedom organisation Reporters Without Borders.

“Before, they were moving things hand-to-hand and now they are using the internet - proxy websites, Google and YouTube and all these things.”

From the BBC:

The use of the internet as a political tool is one of the most marked differences between the latest protests and the 1988 uprising, which was brutally repressed.

Thanks in part to bloggers, this time the outside world is acutely aware of what is happening on the streets of Rangoon, Mandalay and Pakokku and is hungry for more information.

This is a tipping point for modern revolution, one where mobile technology and the internet converge.

“The Burmese government has a very repressive filtering regime… but it can be a bit inconsistent - one of the internet service providers blocks only international sites, the other only regional ones,” said Ian Brown, a research fellow in internet privacy and security based at Oxford University’s Internet Institute.

Burma’s bloggers are adept at exploiting the loopholes.

As we did with the July 2005 London bombings, we are witnessing a dramatic shift in how news is recorded, reported and distributed and the inception of the universally networked world.

The mobile phone has been used to rally monks together in greater numbers than ever before and as the military seek to shut-down the traditional channels of communication so new ones emerge, underpinning the call for peaceful regime change.

When a world knows first hand what is occurring, it has no excuse not to act.

The ringtone revolution and not a 50 Cent in site.

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