Britain has, in a move that will surely send tremors through Naypyidaw, issued a robust condemnation of the Myanmar junta following the slaughter of dozens in a rebel village. Yes, that’s right, chaps. Another mass grave, another round of perfumed outrage from Whitehall. The Foreign Office’s press release was, I’m told, dripping with the sort of moral clarity usually reserved for a vicar discovering someone’s nicked the collection plate.
Let us pause to savour the theatre. Here we have a junta that treats human life like confetti, and Britain’s response is a strongly worded paragraph. One can almost hear the scraping of chairs as diplomats shuffle papers, the clinking of teacups, the solemn nodding. Job done. Another crisis averted. Well, not averted, but certainly condemned.
Now, I’m no military strategist, but I’ve watched enough episodes of Yes, Minister to know that a condemnation is the diplomatic equivalent of a stern look from a librarian. It works wonders on overdue books. On genocidal generals? Not so much. The junta, I suspect, is quaking in its combat boots. They’ll probably tear up their little red book of atrocities and start anew, all because Britain said “naughty, naughty.”
Meanwhile, the rebel village smoulders. Families weep. The sun sets on another day of impunity. And somewhere in a London office, a civil servant pats themselves on the back for a job well worded. The truth is, our collective outrage is a currency so devalued it could buy you a stale biscuit in a Wetherspoons. We have condemned so many things that condemnation itself has become a form of participation. It’s the bare minimum, the moral equivalent of a tweet.
But let’s not be too harsh. Perhaps the Foreign Office is planning something more substantial. Perhaps there are secret talks, back-channel negotiations, a plan so cunning it would make Baldrick weep. Perhaps they’re waiting for the junta to exhaust its supply of ammunition through sheer boredom. Or perhaps, just perhaps, the only thing that will stop a junta is something Britain no longer has: a spine made of something sturdier than aspic.
I suppose we should be grateful. Grateful that we live in a country where the worst we face is a railway strike or a shortage of gin. Grateful that our government’s most pressing foreign policy failure is the occasional ruffled feather of a European ally. For the people of Myanmar, the gap between a British condemnation and a bullet is about the width of a diplomatic pouch.
So raise a glass, if you will, to the brave diplomats of Whitehall. They have done their duty. They have condemned. And the junta, no doubt, will continue to do its duty too: kill, maim, and suppress. The circle of life, as Elton John nearly sang, is a bloody mess.
