Days 153-170: Myanmar Politics and Conversations
This entry includes general info and observations on Myanmar. Part of it is a bit political, and thus, not all may be inclined to read it. All names have been changed (other than ours) to protect the kind people of Myanmar who took us into their confidence to discuss ‘The Situation’ (on the off chance that the generals get wind of this blog site). [No pictures – we took no pictures of people who confided in us.]
The Situation
‘The Situation’ as it is referred to in Myanmar, is that the generals control everything. They get rich while the rest of the Burmese live day-to-day. There was a democratic vote (1990) shortly after their takeover in which the National League for Democracy (NLD) won an overwhelming majority. But the military junta decided to declare the results invalid and ‘take care of’ most of those that won. Nobel Peace Prize winning activist Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for a long time with a short period of release a few years ago. Amnesty International, the UN, and others have tried to document what all goes on (arrests, forced labor, etc.), though most of it remains hidden to us tourists. There are parts of the country that we are prohibited from going. For example, a road exhists between the Inle Lake area and Tacheliek – where we left the country. But we are not allowed on it and had to return to Mandalay and fly to Tacheliek. Some of the travel prohibitions are due to active conflict against anti-junta minority peoples (for example the Shan) and other areas is due to illegal trade (gems, drugs, et cetera).
Speaking of trade, China is pretty much the economic savior of Myanmar. An incredible amount of trade goes on between the two countries. China considers Myanmar a gateway to the Indian ocean. Even with the trade sanctions imposed on the country by western nations, Myanmar will not suffer as long as the Chinese continue to supply everything that is needed. The Burmese we spoke with regard the Chinese people in Myanmar as receiving special preference by the government from everything from university student positions to government contracts. Although there was no open ethnic hostillity that we could pick up on, it was clear that Burmese felt that the goverment was not being fair to its own citizens.
While we didn’t visit Yangon (the capital and largest city), we saw no chain stores (Starbucks, McDonalds, 7-11). Most items of everyday need (sunglasses, clothing, tanks, and what not) still made their way into the country. The economy is in shambles and inflation runs around 30% annually. The government has more than once “demonetized” the currency by siezing bank accounts and declaring large denomination notes as worthless. There is no incentive for people to save for the future lest they see their savings vanish.
We saw lots of road crews working, but we don’t know if they were paid or forced to perform ‘volunteer’ labor (as we understand to be common). We were stopped at numerous checkpoints to record passports or check paperwork or to pay a ‘road tax’. Somewhere it was mentioned that Myanmar is run like a bunch of ‘warlord states’ and the ‘road tax’ part felt like that – we didn’t pay it directly; the drivers did. It was for tourists and locals alike. As is common in other countries, every hotel recorded our passport (and visa) numbers and information. But we also had it recorded at both airports for our internal flight (sometimes on ledgers sometimes on scraps of paper), other transport means (eg. boats and buses), and before visiting sights such as Bagan and Mingun. If the generals wanted they could follow our entire trip day by day.
Media
We mentioned the government-run media in an earlier entry. MRTV is a thing to behold. The generals seem to be on it all the time. And the “Patriotic Tunes” show was the military roaming all over the place to catchy music. They also show sports, we’re told. The newspapers are in Burmese, so we aren’t sure what they said. But we did receive a front page as a wrapper for something we bought. On the cover were the generals in one picture and people laboring on a public-works project in another. Two of the other three pages had pictures of the generals attending meetings (the last page was classifieds). There are large red and white billboards all over the place, some of which have English translations about crushing the external enemies of the nation. A friendly blue and white sign read: “Provide any assistance required to the international traveler.” A sign we saw all over the country where police or immigration was concerned read: “All respect. All suspect.”
Access to the internet is restricted. On a visit to an internet cafe, we tried to bring up Yahoo mail and were presented with an Access Denied screen that read something to the effect: “The site you are trying to access has been deemed to have inappropriate material.” Fortunately, there are tech-savy individuals who have figured out a way to get around these restrictions. We even saw some girls reading a recent Economist cover story on “How to Save Myanmar”. We don’t know what the deal was with cell phones, but they are blessedly almost non-existant. We saw a grand total of three the entire time in the country.
Politics & America
We were advised to never ask a Burmese about the political situation, as it could put him or her in danger. It is illegal for Burmese to discuss The Situation with foreigners. It was ok to listen though, if they brought it up and thought no MI people were listening. An amazing number of people it seemed listened to their short wave radios to hear Voice of America. Some were faithful everyday listeners (three broadcasts a day!) and their grasp of US and world politics was amazing. The fact that these people listened to it was made even more amazing because it was banned. One person told us that his friend spent seven years behind bars for being caught listening to it.
The familiarity of American politics and news makers was surprising. For example, a conversation with a monk went something like this:
Monk A: “Hello! Where you from?”
Marcus: “Mingalaba! America.”
Monk A: “Mingalaba!” (Big smile.) “Where in America?”
Marcus: “California.”
Monk A: “The Terminator!”
Marcus: “Yes, Arnold is govenor.”
Monk A: “You like George Bush?”
Marcus: “No, he’s no good.”
Monk A: “Who will be next president?”
Marcus: “I don’t know. Maybe Hillary Clinton.”
Monk A: “No. No. Never a woman for US President.”
Marcus: “Why not?”
Monk A: “Not a woman. US people not vote in a woman. But if they did vote in a woman, it would be Condoleezza Rice.”
Marcus: “NO. I hope not.”
Monk A: “You don’t like Rice?”
Marcus: “No. She’s bad.”
Monk A: “Dick Cheney?”
Marcus: “No, no.”
At this point the monk is rasing his voice as we’re catching our transport.
Monk A: “Wolfowitz?”
Marcus: “No, no… He’s the devil. ” and half turns to Kelly, “How come we don’t have any famous good people?”
Monk A: “Howard Dean?”
Marcus: “Not a bad idea!”
This was typical, that people knew a surprising number of the names of the people in our politics and government – we didn’t have to supply them.
We were able to have conversations involving things from the Vietnam war, the Israeli pull out, the Venuzuela-US issues (what’s wrong with Pat Robertson?), the 2000 election, to NASA’s successful Discovery mission. It was good we had read the Economist, Michael Moore’s and Al Franken’s books, and watched BBC just to keep up!
During our conversations with people in all countries on this trip, the question of “where are you from?” innevitably comes up. We usually answer “America”, “United States”, and/or “California” depending on where we are. Two times out of ten, when our answer was California they respond with “Kalifornication!” (the Red Hot Chilli Peppers song) or four times out of ten “Hotel California!” (the Eagles song). A few times, and one of them in Myanmar, we were even given a short serenade. Maybe another two out of the ten times we get “The Terminator” or “Arnold” for references to our current govenor. Occassionally the subject of our commander in chief (and whether or not we like him) comes up.
The responses to our saying we were from America or California in Myanmar tended to be similar. But in at least four out of ten cases we got responses of “I love America” or “We’re pro-American. You’ve nothing to fear here.” or “I wish I could go to America.” Phrases we had not heard on this trip up to this point.
We had read in the Economist, prior to arriving in Myanmar (we weren’t about to bring written materials on the country about it’s political issues into the country – they are banned of course), was something (paraphrased) to the effect “that the question in Myanmar was not ‘Why has the US invaded Iraq?’ but ‘Why hasn’t the US invaded Myanmar/Burma?'” It was hard to believe it when we read the Economist, but not very hard to understand it after talking to the people.
Perhaps the best illustration happened when talking with the very well informed Mr. J. He had just been telling us about the number of people killed in the three explosions the previous day in Baghdad when he asked us, “Why hasn’t the US invaded Burma?”
Marcus replied, “Does Burma have any oil?”
Mr. J. said, “No oil. But we have gold, lots of gold.”
Marcus replied, “America already has lots of money. What we’re running out of is energy.”
Mr. J. replied, “We have rubies too.”
A long pause.
Mr. J. in almost a prayer like statement, “I wish I were in Baghdad right now.”
We were too stuned to reply.
During our trip, we searched for a Myanmar patch for Marcus’ backpack (he’s been collecting them) but there was a distinct lack of patriotic regalia anywhere. We did find numerous (fake) US Army uniforms, and many US flag stickers – but never even a Myanmar flag sticker. It could have been a law, but we would not be surprised if it was a lack of patriotism towards the current regime.
This actually brings us back to the Myanmar versus Burma name. The current government is responsible for changing the name from the British colonial era name of Burma to the old name of Myanmar. The NLD who opposes the government (and wants democracy instead of a military junta) still calls the country Burma. They must have a good reason for this, but we haven’t figured it out yet.
Education
We ran across various levels of English throughout our trip. From the “hello” and “bye-bye” (sometimes confused as to which is which) of the children in some areas to fluent English spoken by others. A lot of folks in the populated areas are currently learning English. For example, up on Mandalay Hill there were people wearing “Speak English to Me” t-shirts, and many people went there to practice their English with foreigners (Americans and Britons were the most sought after). We gathered that proficiency in English is considered the key to prosperity. We met a gal on a bus who had almost finished a law degree, but what she really wanted to do was be a tour guide. There were many university graduates (chemistry, economics, government) who were doing jobs that didn’t make use of their skills. One of the economics graduates we met was doing road work to make ends meet.
We also found out that people get many holidays off (thirty-something), such as full moon days. While we were there, a full moon occurred on a Friday. All the kids got off school and a lot of things were closed, while the Buddist temples were overflowing. A day off school, what kid in the States wouldn’t like that? Well, none actually, when they found out they would have to make it up on Saturday or Sunday.
Humor?
We heard another joke, not told by the Moustache Brothers, about the terrible 26 December 2004 tsunami, which also hit Myanmar. “The tsunami was coming. The generals stood up to the tsunami and said, ‘we have already destroyed Myanmar, you don’t need to come here.’ So the tsunami turned around.”
Resilience
Despite a lack of goverment-supplied services, the Burmese have managed to satisfy most of their needs (from heath centers built by the people to care for the sick to generators for power during frequent outages). For all the grief the people of Myanmar put up with, they are remarkably upbeat and by far the friendliest people we have met on this trip. The cheer with which we were greated everywhere was enough to restore one’s faith in humanity. When someone would talk to us, they wanted nothing more than to have a conversation and for us to learn about their situation. And the children – who were too young to know about politics or understand the situation – moved us by their spontaneous acts of kindness toward strangers.
Tags: Myanmar
Kelly & Marcus
September 5th, 2005 at 1:56 pm
Hi, I loved talking to Marc on Friday. It was wonderful to hear your voice! Your pictures are great and I love your poitical discussions. I had been wondering about what you were hearing. It is great that so many pepple do speak English these days. As a old poly Sci student it was interesting to get your slant on things. continue to have a geat time… love, grandma Peggy