COMMENT 
A monk holds his bowl upside down, a significant gesture in Burmese culture: thabeik hmauk is the Burmese word for 'boycott', and it means "to upturn one's alms bowl" in a symbol of mute rejection of alms from those who have incurred a monk's displeasure. This photograph, taken by Burmese activist Htein Win, is from the street protests in Rangoon in September 2007.
(Photo: © Htein Win/BMC)
Was the crack-down on street protests in Burma the expression of a political stand-off or was it symptomatic of a deeper malaise?
In Burma, state media reported that over 2,000 people were arrested during the crack-down.
However, BBC sources in Burma reported that as many as 10,000 people – many of them monks who led the marchers – were rounded up for interrogation.
The fate of an unknown number of detained civilians was also unclear.
The crack-down left at least 10 people officially dead, including a Japanese journalist. But many, including diplomats, fear that the death toll is far higher.
Dozens are feared to have died during repressive reaction to the protests, which were triggered by a government decision to raise the price of fuel.
On 15 August the government announced the increases, which doubled the prices of petrol and diesel. The cost of compressed gas – used to power buses – increased five-fold.
The mark-ups hit Burma's people hard, forcing up the cost of public transport, and triggered a knock-on effect on the prices of staples such as rice and cooking oil.
Pro-democracy activists led the initial protests in Rangoon.
When 400 or so people marched on 19 August, it was the largest demonstration that the junta-governed nation had seen for years.
Monks taking part in the demonstrations (Photo: © Racoles/Flickr)
The monks began participating in large numbers after troops used force to break up a rally in Pakokku on 5 September.
Their participation is significant because of the reverence in which they are held and because of their numbers in Burma.
Historically, monks have been prominent in political protests in that country.
Pundits say that the doubling of fuel prices was 'the last straw' for the monks, who'd witnessed the country's grinding poverty first hand.
A group, called the Alliance of All Burmese Buddhist Monks, emerged to co-ordinate the protests.
On 21 September it reportedly issued a statement describing the military government as "the enemy of the people".
The group, it is said, pledged to continue its protests until it had "wiped the military dictatorship from the land of Burma", and called on people across Burma to join its members.
Key members of the opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD) also joined the protests, after initially distancing themselves from the action.
China, Burma's closest ally and seen as having most influence on the ruling junta, called on the leaders to restrain from violence. But it has maintained its traditional reluctance to interfere in another country's domestic affairs.
As yet, the Burmese authorities have shown no signs of responding to international pressure.
"It's frightening even to think about the fate of those monks," said a senior US diplomat in Rangoon.
She alluded to conditions in Burmese prisons being "very grim, with reports of torture".
Aptly, she added, "The message has to get to the generals [in Burma] that this is not how a legitimate government acts in the 21st century."
What's at issue in Burma is the prevention by an unelected junta of a people's rights to assembly, to articulation of its human rights and to protest.
Burma (officially known as Myanmar) has been in the grip of military rulers since 1962, when General Ne Win took power in a coup.
Ne Win was forced to step down in 1988 and was replaced by the current crop of army personnel. They have used intimidation and force to remain in power for 19 years.
In 1988, when economic and political grievances also produced peaceful mass protests, the ruling group used force and repression to extinguish the movement.
Some 3,000 people died in the killings that followed.
Of course, the erosion of civil liberties is not peculiar to Burma.
Did you know that the 2005 Anti-terrorism Act in Britain effectively abolishes "
habeus corpus"?
It's been argued that we have only to look at Britain under the Blair government to see the gradual erosion of a society's civil rights – see
here – but the difference is that the latter process was enabled by legislation within a democratic society and in full sight of an electorate that can make its views known politically and vocally. The Burmese have no such recourse. These protests are an exception.
Humanly and politically speaking, there's a justified longing in Burma for change, freedom, justice and reparation.
Denial of the same is, in Christian terms, sin.
From a Christian viewpoint, in theological examination of the problem of responsibility for sin, a lot of emphasis is given to subjective liability, ill will and intentional guilt.
When the sin involved is the oppression of a nation, however, another, all too pertinent focus can be placed on the less visible but ever-present forms of objective guilt: collective, institutional, social and structural sin.
Given the situation in Burma, we need to monitor vigilantly any subtle or unsubtle attempts to suppress further a nation crying out for the freedom to decide its own destiny.