Living Silence in Burma (52 page)

A different Burma

Were Burma to achieve a political transition, what would the country be like? On the negative side, in the short to medium term, there could well be instances of political violence and communal tensions. In particular, fighting could break out between Rohingya Muslims and Arakanese Buddhists in Arakan State and between groups that have competed for control of territory in Shan State. Civilians who have lost their land to the
tatmadaw
or other settlers may also resort to violence to get their property back if the government cannot quickly find a way to address this problem. Corruption is also likely to continue until salaries are adequate, a strong judicial system is in place to deal with breaches of the law, and a culture of intolerance for corruption is instilled.

On the positive side, what would change significantly is that people would no longer live in fear. Ideally, the size of the military would be trimmed and soldiers primarily deployed to protect borders rather than wage war against their fellow citizens. The security laws would be amended and political prisoners released. Some of Burma’s beloved traditions, which have been suppressed or sanitized under military rule, could also re-emerge.
Thangyat
could again be sung during the new year’s festival, public talks by well-known literary figures could be freely organized, and comedians in
anyeint
performances could satirize the leaders of the day, both to entertain their audiences and to remind the leaders of their responsibilities to those they represent.

It would be a time of exuberant hopes and tumultuous change, but as in other newly democratizing countries, it is likely that raising the standard of living would be the key issue for most people. Trying to bring about measurable improvements quickly will be one of the biggest challenges for a new government, as will trying to redress the income gap between the rich and the poor. In many ways, Burma would probably become less distinctively Burmese as it integrated into the global economy, but Burmese would also presumably feel more confident about their status within the international community. Foreign aid would flow in, and new businesses would mushroom. Civil society organizations would expand their activities and seek a role in defining government policies. There would be an explosion of newspapers, magazines, art shows, theatre and film-making, with debates raging about how best to develop the country, how to reassess social and cultural practices, and how to reconfigure political and economic relations. Universities, markets and tea shops would be teeming with people comparing ideas and saying whatever they felt like saying, without having to worry about going to jail for it. In short, Burma would no longer be a place of silence.

Notes

Introduction

1
Integrated Household Living Conditions Survey in Myanmar
, IDEA International Institute, June 2007, p. 14.

2
Quoted in ‘Yangon to the UN: thanks, but …’,
Far Eastern Economic Review
, 25 December 1998.

1 Historical legacies

1
S. J. Tambiah, ‘The Gallactic Polity: the structure of traditional kingdoms in Southeast Asia’,
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
, no. 293 (July
1977
), pp. 69–97.

2
For instance, Victor Lieberman,
Burmese Administrative Cycles: Anarchy and Conquest, c.1580–1760
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1984
), p. 98, describes how King Thalun resettled Mons, Shans, Siamese, Laos, Indians and Arakanese in the agricultural areas around his capital.

3
E. R. Leach, ‘The frontiers of “Burma”’,
Comparative Studies in Society and History
, vol. 3, no. 1 (October
1960
), pp. 49–68.

4
Father Vincenzo Sangermano,
The Burmese Empire a Hundred Years Ago
(Bangkok: White Orchid Press,
1985
[1st edn 1833]), pp. 73–4) describes the capriciousness of many kings who had rivals and subjects killed at the slightest suspicion.

5
See R. C. Temple,
The Thirty-Seven Nats
(London: W. Griggs,
1906
) for different versions of this tale and further information on the role of
nats
.

6
See David I. Steinberg,
Burma: A Socialist Nation of Southeast Asia
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1982
), pp. 24–34, for a fuller discussion of Britain’s motives.

7
See
Chapter 3
of Thongchai Winichakul’s
Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation
(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
1994
).

8
Chao-Tzang Yawnghwe, ‘The Burman military: holding the country together?’, in J. Silverstein (ed.),
Independent Burma at Forty Years: Six Assessments
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program,
1989
), pp. 86–7.

9
See Dr San C. Po,
Burma and the Karens
(London: Elliot Stock,
1928
) for a Karen assessment of the impact of Christianity and education on the Karens.

10
Mary Callahan,
Making Enemies: War and State Building in Burma
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
2003
), p. 35.

11
Maung Maung Pye,
Burma in the Crucible
(Rangoon: Khittaya Publishing House,
1951
), pp. 15–16.

12
U Maung Maung,
From Sangha to Laity: Nationalist Movements of Burma: 1920–1940
(Australian National University Monograph on South Asia no. 4,
1980
), chs 8–10.

13
Maurice Collis,
Trials in Burma
(Bangkok: Ava Books,
1996
[1938]) discusses the social aspects of discrimination; J. S. Furnivall,
Colonial Policy and Practice
(London: Cambridge University Press, 1948), discusses the economic policies that encouraged racial divisions.

14
The Karenni State was recognized as separate from Burma during the colonial period, although it was eventually ruled like the other frontier areas. After the British had taken control of lower Burma in the mid-1850s, the British and King Mindon had signed an agreement recognizing the Karenni territory’s independence in order to maintain a buffer between the British and Mindon’s kingdom.

15
See Maung Maung,
Burma’s Constitution
(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,
1959
).

16
See Josef Silverstein,
Burma: Military Rule and the Politics of Stagnation
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1977
), pp. 58–9, for more information on the restrictions placed on states by the 1947 constitution.

17
See Kin Oung,
Who Killed Aung San?
(Bangkok: White Lotus,
1996
) for more details.

18
For an account of this period from a civil servant of Indian heritage, see Balwant Singh,
Independence and Democracy in Burma, 1945–1952: The Turbulent Years
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies,
1993
).

19
Yawnghwe, ‘The Burman military’, pp. 92–4.

20
See Manning Nash,
The Golden Road to Modernity: Village Life in Contemporary Burma
(Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press,
1965
), p. 322.

21
For more information on U Nu’s policies in the 1950s, see Hugh Tinker,
The Union of Burma
(London: Oxford University Press,
1957
), chs 4–12.

22
Nash,
Golden Road to Modernity
, pp. 280–81.

23
Callahan,
Making Enemies
, pp. 168–9.

24
See ibid., pp. 184–90; U Thaung,
A Journalist, a General and an Army in Burma
(Bangkok: White Lotus,
1995
), pp. 38–41.

25
Steinberg,
Burma
, pp. 70–1.

26
Ba Maw,
Breakthrough in Burma, Memoirs of a Revolution, 1939–1946
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1968
), p. 196.

2 The Ne Win years

1
Bertil Lintner,
Outrage: Burma’s Struggle for Democracy
(Bangkok: White Lotus,
1990
), p. 39.

2
David Steinberg,
Burma: A Socialist Nation of Southeast Asia
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1982
), p. 79; David Steinberg, ‘The Union Solidarity Development Association’,
Burma Debate
, January/February
1997
.

3
John F. Cady,
The United States and Burma
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1976
), p. 248.

4
Steinberg,
Burma
, p. 79.

5
Josef Silverstein, ‘Burmese student politics in a changing society’,
Daedalus
, vol. 97, no. 1 (
1968
), p. 291.

6
Josef Silverstein quoted in Lintner,
Outrage
, pp. 43–4; interview with a Burmese journalist.

7
Interviews with Chins whose family members were imprisoned, and see Pu Lian Uk, ‘No room for the Chin in Burman monopolized politics’,
Burma Debate
, December 1994/January 1995, p. 30.

8
R. H. Taylor, ‘Elections in Burma/Myanmar: for whom and why?’, in R. H. Taylor (ed.),
The Politics of Elections in Southeast Asia
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996
), p. 175.

9
Lintner,
Outrage
, p. 59.

10
Cady,
The United States and Burma
, p. 253.

11
Ibid., p. 254.

12
Information on the 1969–78 protests from U Tint Zaw, a former Rangoon University professor, U Aung Saw Oo, a long-time political activist, and other activists who were involved.

13
See Andrew Selth,
Death of a Hero: The U Thant Disturbances in Burma, December 1974
(Brisbane: Griffith University Centre for the Study of Australian–Asian Relations, April 1989) for a full account.

14
Ibid., p. 15.

15
Ibid., p. 23.

16
See Bertil Lintner,
Burma in Revolt: Opium and Insurgency since 1948
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1994
), ch. 7; Martin Smith,
Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity
(London: Zed Books,
1999
), chs 13 and 15.

17
See Lintner,
Burma in Revolt
, pp. 209–11; Smith,
Burma
, ch. 14.

18
Smith,
Burma
, pp. 259–60.

3 Breaking the silence

1
See Bertil Lintner,
Outrage: Burma’s Struggle for Democracy
(Bangkok: White Lotus,
1990
) for a full account of the 1988 demonstrations.

2
Ibid., pp. 75–7.

3
For a translation of one of Aung Gyi’s letters, see
Asiaweek
, 8 July 1988. Excerpts from another letter were printed in
Asiaweek
on 12 August 1988.

4
Lintner,
Outrage
, pp. 80–81.

5
In South-East Asia, men can enter and leave the monkhood at will. In Burma, Buddhist men generally enter the monkhood once as young boys and again when they have reached the age of about twenty. Most stay only for a week or a few months, although some choose to become monks for life.

6
Lintner,
Outrage
, pp. 94–103.

7
This figure has been widely cited but never verified.

8
The British Library has a collection of nearly one hundred unofficial publications from this period. See Anna J. Allott,
Inked Over, Ripped Out: Burmese Storytellers and the Censors
(Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books,
1994
), p. 15.

9
Asiaweek
, 9 September 1988.

10
Ibid., 2 September 1988.

11
According to Bertil Lintner,
Burma in Revolt: Opium and Insurgency since 1948
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1994
), p. 294, not only did the leadership of the CPB not authorize participation in the uprising but the majority of the troops (mainly Was) did not even know an uprising was happening.

12
‘Going back to work, sullenly’,
Asiaweek
, 14 October 1988.

13
The ten ethical rules are: generosity, morality, self-sacrifice, integrity, kindness, austerity, non-anger, non-violence, patience and harmony. For a more complete description see Aung San Suu Kyi,
Freedom from Fear and Other Writings
(London: Penguin Books,
1991
), pp. 170–73.

14
A student activist told me how he and his colleagues had been given leaflets to distribute with pictures of Aung San Suu Kyi’s head attached to a nude body, but they had destroyed them in disgust. He said the authorities assumed that some student groups would be happy to distribute them because they disagreed with Aung San Suu Kyi’s decision to participate in the election.