Western democracy activists, stay the hell out of Burma protests!

The regime has killed Buddhist monks before if they dared protest. And the present situation is very dicey; it could easily blow up into another Tiananmen Square.

Pundita is extremely upset that some foreign democracy activists are labeling the Burma protests "the saffron revolution," after "color" revolutions in former Soviet republics.*

The color revolutions are infamous, the world over, for foreign government meddling! Nothing raises the alarm more for repressive governments than mention of the color revolutions.

I wish the Western democracy activists would zip their lips, because yapping about revolution of any kind in Burma can get many thousands of Burmese killed in the coming days.

I am so tired of the activists using the same playbook, no matter how different a situation! Don't they ever think? China supports Burma's government, and Beijing lives in terror of a color revolution breaking out in China.

The (London) Times knows all this, yet today they headlined a story as the 'saffron revolution.' Very irresponsible journalism, very.

The only edge the monks have is that the economic situation in Burma has become a disaster. Burma's Muslims have joined with the Buddhists to protest the conditions -- another reason not to label it a saffron revolution.

Today 10,000 monks marched between a protective corridor of civilians of about the same number.

Here is useful background from Malaysia's Star about how the protests started.

* Burma's Buddhist monks don't even wear saffron-colored robes.
3:40 PM UPDATE
"Pundita,
If you want to talk about acting responsibly, then I think you should call the country by its proper name, Myanmar. Insisting on calling it Burma puts you in league with the very Western activists you decry. The government changed the name to distance itself from its past ruled by colonial overlords, the British.
Chu in Washington, DC"

Dear Chu:
I do not decry the goal of the activists; I decry their cookie-cutter tactics, which ignore the vast differences in cultures and political situations.

I thought about the issue you mention before I published the post. Pundita stayed with "Burma" as a gesture of solidarity with the country's opposition groups. They maintain that the current regime, which changed the name, is not legitimate and that the name change does not reflect the will of the people.

Also, the etymology is not a Western or British invention. According to Wikipedia:

Within the Burmese language, Myanma is the written, literary name of the country, while Bama or Bamar (from which “Burma” derives) is the oral, colloquial name. In spoken Burmese, the distinction is less clean than the English transliteration suggests.

However, I take your point about former Western colonies wanting to break from reminders of the colonial past.