Jim Carrey on Burma's Unsung Mandela

Lest yesterday's Mandela freedom-fest in Parliament Square should go to our heads, actor Jim Carrey appears in a new YouTube video campaigning for the release in Burma of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and calling for the end of the General Than Shwe's oppressive military regime which placed her under house arrest in the city of Rangoon:

"She's a champion of human rights and decency in Asia, and a symbol of hope to all struggling people. Even though she's compared to a modern-day Gandhi or Nelson Mandela, most people in America still don't know about Aung San. And let's face it, the name's a little difficult to remember. Here's how I did it: Aung San sounds like 'unsung,' as in unsung hero. Aung San Suu Kyi is truly an unsung hero."

His video comes after nearly two weeks of street demonstrations in the most sustained defiance of the junta in a decade, sparked by a sudden sharp rise in prices for fuel and cooking gas on 15th August.

Mandela's statue should remind us — and our politicians, every time they pass it — that the global fight for freedom against oppression goes on around the world. The bronze figure should not merely "commemorate and celebrate for the ages triumph in the greatest of causes" but should daily call us to action.