London, a city that runs on tea and the hollow echo of diplomatic outrage, has stirred from its slumber. Downing Street, that hallowed corridor of tweed and veiled threats, has deigned to notice that the Myanmar junta has been indulging in a spot of unlicensed butchery. Yes, another civilian massacre, another stack of bodies, another perfunctory wag of the British finger.
The junta, a gaggle of gold-braid fetishists who treat democracy like a bad joke they’ve heard too many times, has once again proven that the only thing they respect is the barrel of a gun. And what does Whitehall offer in response? A statement.
A carefully worded, comma-spliced, morally upright statement that will be filed, forgotten, and ultimately used to line the bottom of a parrot’s cage. The Foreign Office, that grand theatre of futile gesture, has tutted, clucked, and expressed ‘grave concern.’ Grave, indeed.
As grave as a man’s face when he realises his gin is warm and his principles are colder. The junta, having skinned its latest batch of civilians, will no doubt be quaking in their polished boots. After all, nothing says ‘international pressure’ like a strongly worded paragraph read aloud over a biccy.
The hypocrisy is so thick you could spread it on scones. Britain, which sold arms to the junta before the crackdowns began, now plays the indignant schoolmarm. The dead are dead, the living are terrified, and Downing Street’s outrage is as fleeting as a summer fart in a force nine gale.
One can almost hear the junta’s guffaws echoing through the bamboo: ‘Oh, the British are cross? Let us massacre harder, then.’ But never mind.
The gin is still flowing, the headlines will fade, and the junta will continue its murderous ballet until the next air raid or the next statement, whichever comes first. Meanwhile, the parrot’s cage remains unlined. Priorities, after all.
