`Support the monks' via Facebook
- From: Chim <ChimS1@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2007 11:14:02 -0700
After Burma trip, Toronto youth started Web hub that has rallied more
than 160,000 to the cause
Sep 30, 2007 04:30 AM
Tamsyn Burgmann
Tamara Cherry
Staff Reporters
A young Toronto man's modest Internet campaign to support Burmese
protestors has exploded into an international forum for tens of
thousands typing around the world.
Since its creation 10 days ago, 19-year-old Alex Bookbinder's Facebook
group, "Support the Monks' protest in Burma," has amassed more than
160,000 members.
The social networking page has become a newswire on happenings in the
governing junta's violent crackdown, a mouthpiece for nearly 200
discussion topics and a planning space for demonstrations from
Vancouver to Hong Kong.
"We've had people from within Burma posting to get information to news
agencies in the West," Bookbinder, a first-year arts student at the
University of British Columbia, said yesterday.
After backpacking through Sri Lanka, Thailand and Cambodia, he arrived
in Burma in mid-July. He flew out Aug. 14, a day before protests began
over high fuel prices.
Buddhist monks and other protestors have met increasing violence from
the junta. On Friday, Vancouver-based miners Jet Gold Corp. and
Leeward Capital announced they'll suspend Burma exploration and
withdraw from the Set Ga Done gold property.
With few foreign journalists permitted to operate there, photos and
news trickled out via the Internet until the military cut off those
leaks, too.
"We are the eyes and the ears for the people," Bookbinder said. "If we
are monitoring the issue properly, then hopefully, by letting the
regime know it is under surveillance, we can potentially stop massive
human rights violations from being perpetrated and realize the dream
of a democratic Burma."
Since Sept. 19, Bookbinder said news has been breaking on the message
board as it happens.
"I just got out of Burma two hours ago," wrote Charlie Carstens, a 24-
year-old Atlanta, Ga., native who worked as a researcher for Sitagu
International Buddhist Academy.
"I have been living in a monastery in Sagaing for the past nine
months. As the conditions deteroriate(sic), the monks want you to hear
their voices. The monks are looking to you. They know they can't do it
on their own. They know that you know that sanctions are not enough."
In near darkness at an empty Rangoon beer station last month,
Bookbinder was prompted to create the Facebook group in support of the
massive uprising for social justice.
In hushed tones, a local friend he had met while backpacking
throughout Southeast Asia told him: "From the day I was born, I have
lived in constant fear and have been raised to live in constant fear."
Bookbinder made the group to get word out to his friends. Membership
has been growing by the thousands every hour.
The site urges members to rally in support of the protests. Over the
coming week, vigils are planned in major cities worldwide. A "global
coordinated day of action" is set at noon Oct. 6.
"I don't see it as a lost cause, but there's already a hell of a lot
of people dead," Bookbinder said.
The North York teen graduated from Northern Secondary School in 2006,
having worked nearly three years for the Toronto Star's circulation
department. He took off to India in January.
The unrest has kept Bookbinder's mind returning to his friends there.
"I was concerned about their safety because public dissent is
forbidden," he said. "I wasn't even trying to start anything, the
group was just for people I knew, people around here. But it just
exploded."
Facebook users can see the group "Support the Monks' protest in Burma"
at: www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=24957770200
.
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