Déjà vu in Burma

As the world's eyes turn to Myanmar, students should be especially moved by the past few weeks of tumultuous events. Marching alongside the Buddhist monks are young, idealistic university students. Despite having their friends either killed or imprisoned, their hearts remain captivated by the American-democratic way of life. The monks, too, yearn for freedom. Now as the repressive military government shuts down Internet access and occupies monasteries the free world must lend its prayers to the freedom fighters of Burma.

Does any of this sound familiar? It should.

Just in May of this year, students from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello and the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas demonstrated for the freedom after President Chavez shut down television stations. By their marching, they all seemed to look to the American way of life and say, "We want to be like the Americans."

Less than 10 years earlier, students in Tehran showed they were fed up with the Mullahs and Islamic-politics. They too, were either killed or imprisoned. Yet, as Amir Abbas Fakhravar, an imprisoned and tortured student leader, puts it, "If you overthrow the regime, we will welcome you with open arms and open hearts. People are counting the minutes for this regime to be over and gone."

Without a doubt, the students of Tehran learned well from their Chinese friends. Just like what happened at Lech Walesa's Gdansk shipyards was Cold War story of liberty, the 1989 demonstrations in Tiananmen Square should be regarded as the iconic story of the student movement for freedom. Here began the generation of liberty. As the students erected the Goddess of Democracy, they were asked by the foreign press, "Why does she have Western eyes?" The students answered, "Because that is the kind of liberty we mean."

The students of the DePaul Conservative Alliance, if not more from DePaul University (but not likely), stand as one with our Burmese, Iranian, and Chinese brothers and sisters. We must be able to carry their torch of liberty and keep America the Beacon of Hope for the world.