by Alex Wagner
Earlier today, on the other side of the globe, President Obama announced that he had seen “flickers of progress” in the isolated Southeast Asian country of Burma, also known as Myanmar.
Result, Secretary of State Clinton will visit Burma next month to engage is historic, high-level talks with the new Burmese government, an effort to steer the county back on a path of prosperity and ultimately, democracy.
For the last five decades, Burma has been one of the most repressed countries on earth; a place of broad and unceasing human rights violation, where countless innocents have been jailed, slaughtered and otherwise disappeared.
An so, for the people of Burma and those of us in their exiled families, the announcement of progress, however dim, and however flickering offers something far more powerful than just optimism.
It offers us hope that soon, sooner than anyone thought, really, Burma may return to humanity. And that the dignity of an entire nation may one day be restored.