WORLD VIEW:I T IS easy to take a stand when it costs you nothing. Mary Manning knew that in the early 1980s when she saw her government issue statement after statement criticising South Africa while Ireland retained most of its business, sporting and other links with the apartheid regime, writes Joe Humphreys.
She and some of her colleagues then decided to take a stand - a proper stand, that is - by refusing to handle South African goods being sold here by her employers. The 11 Dunnes Stores workers gave up their income for two and a half years. They were intimidated and insulted by some of their peers. They were humiliated and even spat upon.
Their stance, which among other things changed government policy on apartheid in South Africa, was finally commemorated last week in a ceremony in Dublin. At about the same time, EU leaders were preparing for a Brussels summit that showed how little values have changed in the world of international diplomacy.
Amid all the brouhaha over Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, it went virtually unnoticed that European governments discussed possibly the two biggest human rights challenges in the world today - Zimbabwe and Burma - and they concocted a stance that was guaranteed to cost them nothing.
In an end-of-summit declaration, the EU's 27 member states urged the South African Development Community to deploy observers to monitor the planned Zimbabwe elections, and warned of possible new sanctions against Robert Mugabe's regime.
That was not as objectionable as what followed.
The EU expressed its "continuing deep concern about the humanitarian situation in Burma/Myanmar following cyclone Nargis" and said the need for a "genuine transition to democracy" in the country was stronger than ever.
What went unmentioned in the communique was that France is still doing business with the Burmese junta. Last October, a month after the Burmese military went on a killing spree attacking unarmed monks, the EU agreed to sanctions against certain firms with links to Rangoon.
Excluded from the ban was the French company Total, the leading member of a consortium that is developing the Yaduna gas fields, the largest cash cow of Burma's ruling State Peace and Development Council.
Last year, French president Nicolas Sarkozy indicated there would be no fresh investment by Total in Burma, but his officials have insisted that the current project should continue because of the potential cost of terminating it.
Apart from this grubby little bit of economics, last week's communique failed to mention Burma's ever-deepening links with China, a country the EU is increasingly wooing for business.
Naturally, the EU has no problem telling lowly African governments how they should deal with a rogue nation on their doorstep. But as for telling China the same thing, and risking upsetting its notoriously-prickly ruling party, well, that is another matter.
This is despite the fact that China is directly undermining Europe's policy on Burma. Three months after the EU introduced its limited sanctions, the Chinese government signed contracts with Rangoon for a 900-mile, multibillion euro pipeline between the Burmese coast and China.
The response of the Burmese government to the recent cyclone, which killed an estimated 100,000 people, has heaped insult on to decades of injury. Humanitarian workers who have tried to help victims of the disaster have faced obstruction and even persecution.
Earlier this month, a team of civilian aid volunteers known as "The Group that Buries the Dead" were reportedly arrested for carrying out unauthorised work. So too a number of Burmese bloggers who had posted stories on the crisis to the outside world.
Perhaps most obscenely, the Burmese government announced in the midst of the disaster it was extending the house arrest of Nobel laureate and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi for a sixth consecutive year.
An Irishman who has worked extensively in Burma in the humanitarian field told this reporter that he was once threatened with deportation for merely exchanging a greeting with one of his neighbours.
"The guy was suspected of being a member of the opposition so I had to stop talking to him," said the Irishman, who feared repercussions for himself and others if he was identified. "There are a lot of things you have to swallow in order to stay there. The secret police have someone watching on every block." In a letter to this newspaper recently (June 6th, 2008), the film-maker John Boorman made what he called "a modest proposal" on Burma: that we support the Karen people - probably the most downtrodden ethnic group - with money and arms.
An even more modest proposal would be to follow the example of Mary Manning and her colleagues, and lodge some form of protest for which we are willing to accept a personal price.
Here are a couple of dates to think about: On July 11th, Sarkozy visits Ireland; on August 8th, ironically, the 20th anniversary of Burma's democratic uprising, the Olympic Games open in Beijing.
Isn't it time, on this thankless cause of Burma, we took a proper stand?