I haven’t blogged for some time now. One reason is that I have been very busy and when you get busy sometimes the creative juices don’t run fast enough. Having said that what’s new to write about? It feels a little like groundhog day…….

I’m sitting comfortably at 39,000 ft on the new A380 heading for London. It’s a lovely machine. It’s amazing what we can build and the technology we can put together and yet………….

A dictator pounds along the well worn route to genocide, societal collapse and the ignominy of international tribunals and exile in some foreign land whilst the international community looks on in horror and wonders what to do.

The sad fact is that people like Mugabe will always appear. They are our shadow, our dark side. They come as saviours representing hope but become corrupted by power, insecurity and self loathing. Democracy is damned messy, it’s painful but one thing is for sure it gives space for us to address our shadow, to address our short comings, our weaknesses and our frailties. Nothing can be done for Zimbabwe now. The play has been written long ago and we are into the final act. Mugabe like Amin before him is unravelling in a paranoiac binge of violence. It’s painful to watch the people there suffer so much.

The Burmese catastrophe simply reinforces this never ending drama. It’s like Alice in Wonderland, curious and curiouser, as those generals walk around in their own fantasy creation. Is this really happening? Can you lock up the democratically elected leader forever? Are these generals real people or some kind of virtual reality?

I say carpet bomb the country with food parcels and emergency kit. Shower the place like a mid winter storm. Get Santa and his reindeers involved.

Invasion of national sovereignty they say wringing their hands with diplomatic concern.

Bollocks….we need an invasion of humanity. Now.

Another of nature’s incredible creations, the cyclone, has wreaked havoc on Burma with the loss of life expected to be upwards of 100,000. Living around the Bay of Bengal can be a dangerous business with Bangladesh a regular guest of tragedy and Thailand more recently with the Tsunami of 2004.

Numbers of this magnitude tend to overhwhelm causing a certain numbness to appear. 90,000 or 120,000, it’s a big number. But I don’t want to dwell on that aspect of the disaster but more on what this means for Burma.

A period of searching and mourning followed by rebuilding will take place, following a similar pattern to these events, but in what framework? The miltary junta, bunch of decrepid bovver boys, has no choice but to allow the world in as it has no hope of handling this on its own. Repression yes! reconstruction nah.

If ever a message was to be heeded this is it. The Saffron Revolution was just the beginning, creating a force of energy which some might say has manifested in this terrible way. It is surely no coincidence that just 2 days away is the proposed referendum on a new constitution. A referendum where you can vote but not against it.

It’s been interesting watching the warlord generals and how they look shellshocked and dazed as the cameras focus in on them. But more than anything they look very human. Sure they have plenty of vicious thugs to carry out their torture and murder but now they look weak as they are exposed to the world.

It’s time for the world to really put the hammer down on these dictators and try and bring about some kind of change. Just being able to live without fear of being carted off to prison or a labour camp would be a good start but this may be the point at which birth, although painful, can be given to a new Burma.