How Much Did Your Freedom Cost You?

First published September 26, 2007.
Updated: April 1, 2016

Police Beat Protesters

In the paragraphs below is a clipping from ABC News, Australia, concerning the beating and imprisonment of a large number of monks and students in Myanmar (Burma). We’ve seen it before in all parts of the world, including Tienanmen Square in 1989, and Hungary in 1956, just to name two.

But have you ever stopped and wondered what freedom costs? In a world where everything seems very easy for some, others have to fight and often surrender their lives in the hope of gaining the freedom that we often just take for granted.

I’ve included this as a thought for today. Maybe it’s time to give thanks for the things that we so often take for granted. Maybe, it’s time for citizens of the world to write to the embassies of countries like this, saying that they can’t justify buying that nation’s products, until it stops…

The Article:

Police baton-charged a crowd of about 700 anti-junta protesters including students and some Buddhist monks who gathered near a pagoda in Burma’s main city Rangoon in defiance of a ban, witnesses say.

The police charged the crowd that had gathered for a ninth straight day of protests, beating students and monks alike with batons outside the Shwedagon Pagoda, Burma’s holiest shrine, according to witnesses.

There are reports security forces have used tear gas to disperse monks trying to enter the Shwedagon Pagoda and that about 80 people have been arrested.

Soldiers and police fired warning shots into the air and used tear gas to break up thousands of people who had gathered to cheer 1,000 monks marching into downtown Rangoon, witnesses said.

As the Buddhist monks neared the pagoda, thousands of people cheered the clergy and then began shouting at the security forces “You are fools! You are fools!” Full Story

Update April 1, 2016

More than eight years after the uprising in Myanmar (Burma), a democratically elected government is finally in power.

Will it last? Only time will tell.

While citizens in Western nations such as the UK, US, Germany and Canada etc. can often take freedom for granted, we need to remember the quote by Leonard H Courtney:

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!

How much did your freedom cost you?

A link to the swearing in of the new president from BBC News!