The United Nations has released a report so damning it could curdle milk. Over 700 civilians killed by the Myanmar army, and what does the United Kingdom do? It urges sanctions.
How wonderfully Victorian. We tut, we wag our fingers, we pass a resolution. Meanwhile, the generals in Naypyidaw continue their campaign of ethnic cleansing with the impunity of Roman emperors.
This is not a crisis. It is a moral bankruptcy. The intellectual decadence of the West is on full display: we substitute action with words and call it diplomacy.
The report details systematic atrocities. But what else is new? The junta has been committing genocide against the Rohingya for years.
Now it is the turn of other ethnic groups. We pretend sanctions are a proportionate response. They are a fig leaf.
The only thing worse than the slaughter is our collective indifference. Perhaps we should consider that our own civilisation is in a state of decline, mirroring the late Roman Empire. Then we might understand that barbarism is not confined to the borders of Myanmar; it is a disease of the soul.
And we have caught it.
