This spot entitled The Magic Pool was produced in Burma by the director Moe Thorn, featuring in the main role Adam Fraser as tourist. Please watch and share!

My experiences with companies in this respect are very diverse. I have seen very generous support, and I have seen quite snub reactions. It was first my appreciation for the supportive ones that led to the idea to create a website where people involved in nonprofits can share positive experiences and express their gratitude. Then, I thought, this could also be a good way to share the information among nonprofits in order to make their work easier.

The website where discounts for nonprofits are collected and reviewed (with a voting system) is now online in a beta test run. Some more feature will be added during the next weeks.

Of course, this is not meant to “punish” the helpers by sending them loads of clients who pay less or nothing.

Fasting for 12 days, Anna Hazare, 74, decided to end his hunger strike on August 28 morning only after receiving a letter from the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. The Indian Premier assured the strict follower of Bapu (Mahatma Gandhi, India’s Father of the Nation) that the Parliament had accepted all major issues raised by Anna Hazare for discussion for enacting the anti-graft law.

Burmese pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi extended her support to the movement and expected more people would come forward to raise voices against socio-political evils in the coming days. Nobel laureate Suu Kyi, who also preaches Gandhian philosophy, expressed her heartiest solidarity to the people of India for their fight for a corruption free India.

The Union government led by Indian National Congress party initially overlooked the issue and submitted a seemingly week anti-graft law in the Parliament. Some of Congress leaders even made ridiculous
statement that Anna himself was a corrupt person and so he does not have right to speak against corruption. Anna Hazare was also put in Tihar jail for some time, but soon the government faced the hit and retreated.

Meanwhile the civil society groups under the banner of India Against Corruption have poured their supports for a powerful Jana Lokpal that may even question the Prime Minister’s Office in need. Emerged as a living legend for over one billion Indians, Anna Hazare continues the protest in the form of hunger strike in the capital city,

These thoughts came to my mind when I saw a table on Wikipedia that shows a ranking of tourists ordered by the country of origin. While it might tell you a lot about economic impact, I really don’t understand why to group tourists by country unless you want to make conclusions about the mentality, the specialization of outgoing tour operators or the mobility in the respective country. But then you would be advised to look at the ratio, not the total numbers. Otherwise, you simply end up with the banal fact that large countries are more likely to bring about large numbers – like more gold medals, more Nobel Prizes, or more criminals. The same, of course, applies to the number of tourists.

So I recalculated the ranking by relating the number of travelers to the total number of the population. Here is the result:

Expressing resentment at New Delhi’s continued military relationship with Naypyidaw, hundreds of pro-democracy activists and various Indian civil society groups demonstrated in New Delhi on July 22, 2011 arguing that ‘supplying arms to the most brutal military dictatorship may have grave consequences to millions of innocent lives’. It may be mentioned that the Indian government had recently supplied 52 military trucks load of arms and ammunition to the Burmese government. India maintained its strategic and military relationship with the Burmese regime even after receiving brickbats from the international community.

“It is hurting and awful that the Government of India has breached its democratic principles by supplying arms and ammunitions to the Burmese military rulers, which are identified as the world’s most notorious military regime.

Of course, this trip evokes also some thoughts on the political situation. The travelers observe that things most natural in wealthy and free countries might, on the other hand, belong to the realm of dreams in Burma.

This film can be considered good practice in responsible tourism: Aware of problems and the own responsibility, carefully planing the journey, and sharing their joy with the locals.

Watch the film here online:

Click here to view the embedded video.

 photo: Hot Knees Media

One item caught my attention first (since my knowledge of French is shamefully underdeveloped): A graphical animation of the political landscape in and around Burma. Its authors are the same who made the cartoon parts of the brilliant “Happy World” documentary.

In the lead text we are told that “the Burmese opposition consists of more than just Aung San Suu Kyi and the [NLD] political party.” Did anyone doubt it? The authors apparently respond to the ignorance of huge parts of the public and some tendencies of mainstream media reporting because this message is actually nothing new and it has often been misused as pretext to deal with regime-supported organizations like Myanmar Egress, allegedly to try alternative ways that are said to be more promising. So this effort to combat an oversimplified picture should certainly be welcomed, yet applied with due diligence and awareness of possible pitfalls.

Simplifying for the sake of teachability always bears the risk of sacrificing the accuracy. But compared to a high number of unprofessional websites campaigning for Burma that are often half completed,

We have decided to go a different way than the usual projects that present you with pages of information and advice. We engage travelers by asking them to tell their travel stories, and we equally involve Burmese locals by complementing both voices side-by-side.

Have I aroused your curiosity? Then please check out the site here.

source of photo

When you talk to refugees who have managed to leave Burma and struggle for survival in one of the complacent neighboring countries, you learn that most of them dream of going to America. However, they have no clear idea about life there. From their countrymen who have managed to get there, only success stories seem to make it back to the camps. Indeed, in the slums of Delhi or hiding from police in Kuala Lumpur, every other place must look like paradise.

Compared to the general population’s living standard in past resettlement destinations such as Romania, countries like America feed your hope to achieve material wealth. But once you are there, chances depend on your stamina, on your luck, on the color of your skin. Just like in many other places of the world. There is no compensation for all the suffering at home nor a reward for past good deeds.

While opportunities have been bad in Asia, many refugees, once resettled to third countries, begin to realize that their restricted lives have provided some kind of protection from the need to personally respond to challenges.

Tourism to Burma is one of the core questions of how to deal with the regime and with the country that’s in its grip. This is not only because tourism is considered one form of foreign investments. It also reflects the commitment of the global public.

A reply is not easy since the possibility to encourage the locals, to raise awareness about the situation inside the country and to spread the wealth to the people is closely connected to foreigners being inside the country. And still: It is not less outrageous than foreign investors helping the regime to cover up its human rights abuses when tourists are complacent or even despise the locals.

I see it as something positive that the discussion has moved from a yes-no-question towards an inquiry on how to do it right.

Officially the Southeast Asian country has transformed into a democracy after the 2010 November general election, but the ground realities for the poor Burmese remain the same. And the outcome is the continuous fleeing of Burmese to neighbouring India, Bangladesh and Thailand. If the earlier exodus was of pro-democracy political activists, now more and more common Burmese are leaving the country for better live and living in abroad.

For India, the burden of refugees primarily from Chin State of Burma is carried by Mizoram. With its around10 lakh population, the Burma and Bangladesh bordering Indian State gives shelter to nearly 80,000 migrants. Leaving aside two thousand Burmese recognized by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and staying in New Delhi, the rest are scattered in Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur.

Facing the situation, the Mizoram government also finds it difficult to deal the migrants from Burma.