As Roselie and I continue to immerse ourselves in preparation for this trip, we grasp every opportunity for a better understanding into the world of Burma, Thailand, and Laos. At this point, we’ve read several books, guidebooks, watched both documentary and fiction movies, searched the web, and attended a lecture. Unfortunately, many publications are dated and don’t reflect the changes over the last few years, but they do give you a sense of how it was. Here are some resources to consider:
Books
Finding George Orwell in Burma, by Emma Larkin, 2011. Quite dated but provides a human perspective of how Burmese life was at that time.
Blood, Dreams and Gold: The Changing Face of Burma, by Richard Crockett, 2015. It is the most updated summary of Burma’s history and how it arrived at what it is today. This is my favorite, and most comprehensive look. Available from Amazon in a Kindle version.
Documentaries and Movies
Lady, 2011 movie
They Call It Myanmar: Lifting the Curtain, 2012 Netflix documentary. Shot clandestinely over a two-year period, somewhat dated at this point.
Beyond Yangon, 1995. It is based on a true story….a hard watch
Websites
http://yangon.coconuts.co. Irreverent take on the news, targeted to young, professional, educated urbanites who live in cities like Bangkok, Manila, Singapore, Hong Kong, KL, Jakarta, Bali, and Yangon.
irrawaddy.com. Myanmar online news.
mmtimes.com. Myanmar news.
Lecture
University of Santa Clara lecture on Burma (Myanmar) by Dorothy Guyot, Phd and James Guyot, Phd. They have a long, loving relationship with the people of Burma dating back to 1962, when they honeymooned in Burma during the time of the military coup. They are both founders and directors of the Myanmar Foundation of Analytical Education. The Myanmar Foundation is funding the Pre-Collegiate Program at the Rangoon University in Yangon, which includes a 16-month academic program, an internship, and tuition to a leading liberal arts colleges abroad…mostly in the USA. In exchange, the students commit to return to Myanmar and participate in rebuilding the educational infrastructure. Presently Jim teaches in the Pre-Collegiate Program at Rangoon University in Yangon.
Needless to say, understanding the history and complexity of this region of the world is a lifetime project. So I tried to focus on just a couple of areas, with examples, that maybe be relevant as we visit the country. I feel as if I’m looking at the region through a kaleidoscope. Each time I read or watch something about Burma, it’s as if I’m slightly rotating the scope, which results in beautiful colors and patterns, but obscures a clear picture of the country. So it’s very difficult to ‘see’ or understand what is happening today and what it will be like in the future, because everything is filtered or distorted. What is real? What is the truth?
As an aside, I use Burma and Myanmar interchangeably. The military renamed the country to Myanmar to support the nationalistic view, yet many countries, including the US government, continue to recognize the name Burma.
Considering contemporary Burma… the one we’ll see in a couple of weeks, there are three forces that seem to be shaping its future: British colonialism, Burma nationalism, and the struggle for autonomy by minority ethnic groups.
Caught between two national giants…India to the West and China to the East… Burma has been subjected to tension and conflict for thousands of years. While we think of Burma as a single country, it is actually a mosaic of 135 different ethnic groups, each with their own cultures and languages. In the map below, the Burmese people are primarily located in the north-south valley labeled Burman (purple colored area), with ethnic groups occupying the surrounding mountainous areas. Britain’s colonization of the area superimposed a nation structure, with little regard for the underlying differences… similar to what they’d done in other parts of the world. As I mentioned in my previous posting, they created a plural society which, on the surface, was intellectually very advanced and elegant, but ignored the more fundamental, perhaps primitive drivers underneath. The results were some very negative, unintended consequences.
Ethnic Map of Myanmar
As an example, the British brought in a large population of English-speaking, educated, ethnic Indians, who formed the backbone of the Burmese government and economy, serving as soldiers, civil servants, merchants and moneylenders. In the 1930’s, the Indians originally from Chettiar, would lend money to the unsophisticated Burman farmers to purchase seed and farm equipment, with their land as collateral. In most cases the land had been in the family for centuries. When the farmers couldn’t make their payments, the Chettiar foreclosed on the land. Ultimately, less than 10% of the farmland remained with the Bamar farmers. The Burman, agrarian community grew to resent the Indians, with the Chettiar moneylenders as the lightning rod for their scorn. By the 1950’s more than 400,000 Indians were expelled, their property appropriated and given back to the Burmans. The trend to expel Indians as well as Chinese escalated in the military’s quest for nationalism. Today, the Indian population is down to less than 10%.
The second driving force was nationalism, launched with the coup of 1962, when General Ne Win and the military junta came to power. Nationalism was created by force. They decreed that Burmese was the only language that could be spoken and taught; the official religion was Buddhism; schools were closed and teachers expelled; and industries were nationalized. To this day, the people of Burma identify first and foremost with their ethnic group, and only then, and not always, acknowledge Myanmar as their country. Only the pure Burmese would be awarded full citizenship rights and could join the military or government positions. Text books cobbled together by the central government, reflected the junta’s view, ,and students learned by rote memorization. Three of the larger ethnic minorities, the Shan, Karen, and Kachin, with their different language and cultures, also had their own, separate, militias. They were subjugated by the Burman military. Muslims, Christians, and Hindus had their rights curtailed, were expelled, persecuted, or imprisoned. All newspapers and their content were regulated by censors. Nothing could be published without first passing through the censorship channel. Failing to adhere to their ‘corrections’ resulted in jail time.
However, to my surprise, the most insidious attribute woven into the fabric of Burmese governance is the intermingling of business and the military. Since the time of the coup, the country did not have enough money to pay the military personnel. Soldiers were encouraged to either get a supporting job (farming), or to leverage their position of power, to acquire the necessary cash. Consequently, there are very few businesses that are not owned, or governed by the military. Members of the military were sanctioned to take national resources and sell them. The lucrative gem business is owned by the leaders of the military. They sponsored the clear cutting of teak forests for export, to profit from the insatiable Chinese appetite for the rare wood, with the proceeds lining the pockets of the military’s leaders. Note, that in 2014, they imposed an export ban of raw timber in order to develop the domestic wood processing industry… but where do the profits go? One economist noted that while the international community provided some aid, for every dollar of aid into Myanmar, four dollars left the country. To understand the scope of the problem, by the year 2000, the country had a standing army of more than 400,000 personnel (four times the size of Britain’s army). The primary mission was not to defend against other nations, but rather to control the populace and ethnic groups. The country was held together with the barbed wire of oppression.
Yangon (Rangoon) had been the capital of the nation until it was moved to Nay Byi Taw, in 2006. This new capital was constructed, from scratch, in an area about 150 miles north of Yangon. No one really knows the reason behind the move, but two speculations, one internal focused and the other external, seem to make the most sense. Internally, a government and military presence closer to areas of chronic unrest might provide more stability. Externally, they felt that Yangon, a port city, would be hard to defend against a foreign attack. George W. Bush’s administration, at the time of his ‘axis of evil’ period, labeled Burma an “outpost of tyranny.” Congress passed the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003, which gave the President the authority to a “build democracy” in Burma (part of our nation-building imperative), and to plan for the reconstruction of Burma, after the military government was removed. Not surprising this could stoke fears and result in defensive actions.
This brings us to the third and final driver in the future of Myanmar: the ethnic group’s struggle for autonomy. They want their culture and language back. They want the natural resources in their state. They want freedom from the control and oppression of the Burmese military junta. At what point will they become powerful enough and brave enough to break free? We have numerous contemporary examples of authoritarian rule overpowering the desire for autonomy – Yugoslavia with Tito and Iraq with Hussein are just a couple. Unfortunately, the era of colonization has created many such governments in Southeast Asia. Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Laos are all examples of authoritarian states, sporting various degrees of stunted democracy, subject to politics of religion and ethnicity.
What is the future of Burma? It is not clear that a pure democracy as envisioned by Aung San, her NLD party, and the US is the right outcome. If you draw a line to represent a spectrum of governance alternatives, with military dictatorship on one end, and pure democracy on the other side, Burma would mostly likely be near the middle of the spectrum. It is presently moving from the military end, towards democracy, but will likely end up somewhere in the middle – a benevolent authoritarian leader supported by the military. That is, to find that delicate balance between enough force to prevent the country from shattering into several ethnic or religious nations, and enough ‘freedom’ and aroma of democracy to make life pleasant. Many of the other countries (Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Singapore, Indonesia) in the region have settled somewhere in the middle of that spectrum…their similar history (re: colonization) has brought them to a similar solution
As you can see, I’ve devoted most of my attention to Burma. Laos and Thailand also deserve attention. This is especially true with the death of a loved, but authoritarian King in Thailand. It is now a country in crisis, as it tries to figure out how and by whom the country will be led. We should be able to get a sense of the attitudes and emotions at play as they are in the midst of a one-year period of mourning. We’ve been told to wear dark, subdued clothing. Nightlife in Bangkok will be dark for the first 30 days. No doubt, this is an interesting and impactful time to visit this region.
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