The Himalayan Arc

by Namita Gokhale

  Myanmar’s tragedy was compounded by the fact that Suu Kyi’s own conduct as a leader fell significantly short in performing many of those duties. Suu Kyi has remained largely silent about the violence against Rohingyas, blaming ‘both sides’, thus equating the handful of ragtag Rohingya insurgents with the well-armed Myanmar army.

  The Burmese have been stoic, even stubborn, taking blows and bullets as they have risen against tyranny. Thida spent six years in jail, fell seriously ill and when released, she continued to press for liberty. As her autobiography Prisoner of Conscience shows, she bore no bitterness towards her captors; she credited her strength to Vipassana meditation.

  What else can explain their perseverance?

  An individual’s faith is quiet and personal; it can be singular and nourishing. It can strengthen the individual who is reflective, calm, and meditative. The angry monks’ faith is arrogant and majoritarian. It diminishes the country. Myanmar has both.

  Almost floating above the city, Shwedagon seemed to be away from the din. But that spiritual tranquility was misleading. There was ferment within. Sule Pagoda, sitting at the heart of the city’s noisy, bustling centre, had witnessed the students in 1988, and monks in 2007 rising, facing bullets.

  In 2007, when the monks’ protest was crushed, I had written a poem:

  THE SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING

  The Zen Master had asked once:

  ‘What is the sound of one hand clapping?’

  The pupils bowed low, scratching their heads.

  Today, I read a blog of a woman who calls herself Dawn, living in Rangoon:

  ‘At 2.00 p.m., I heard that buses have stopped running on Sule Pagoda Road.

  Someone from the office went out to there,

  and came running back when there were shots being fired. I heard the gunshots too, but it sounded a lot like clapping.’

  The Master wanted to know the sound of one hand clapping.

  The soldiers have two hands

  One holds the rifle, the other pulls the trigger.

  So they used both hands – and Dawn heard the sound of two hands clapping.

  The Master is silent, like the monks.

  And in that stillness, I heard the sound of one hand clapping.

  The day before I left Yangon after one of my visits, I asked Ma Thida, ‘What would you do if you met that prison doctor again?’ She paused for a moment; she hadn’t been asked that question before. ‘She was a victim of a corrupt system,’ Thida finally said. ‘She asked the authorities to move her somewhere away from me. I feel sorry for her. How could a prisoner have authority over an officer?’

  Some do; that is how truth speaks to power. Thida was free even when she was in jail. When he was released from prison, Kyo Kyo Gyi said he had left a smaller prison and was now in a larger one – Myanmar had not yet become a democracy. Today, Myanmar looks outwardly free, but remains imprisoned by its past and its hatreds.

  A ‘FIERCE’ FEAR

  Ma Thida

  In the surrounding darkness, bright lights focus on the speaker on the stage – a famous writer. The noise of an electric generator competes with his speech. He uses vivid metaphors to illustrate the wrongdoings of those in parliament and the government. The audience responds with cheers and applause: ‘Yes, they are idiots! Curse them some more!’

  The speaker needs to wait a while for the people to calm down. But soon enough, words from his speech hit a nerve once more, and the audience goes wild again.

  This is a typical scene at literary talks in Myanmar. Historically, these talks were a traditional affair that became popular during Myanmar’s colonial days, but they were unofficially banned by the military junta during its rule. Though they have once again become popular since the relaxation of restrictions in 2010, most attendees have never experienced such events before. In fact, the audience, especially those from the rural areas, has had no exposure to literature at all, given the overwhelming censorship in the junta years.

  It is clear that awareness of different literary forms is low even amongst users of social media, who are likely to be urban, well-off, and more exposed to literature. So much so that posts on online forums, such as Facebook, often include the disclaimer: ‘The following is a satire. Please don’t take it seriously before you make [derogatory] comments.’

  This lack of awareness is a reflection of how the dictatorship in Myanmar crippled literature, the arts, and media. From 1962 to 2000, all major print and broadcast media was owned by the state. The small-scale private media covered uncontroversial topics such as music, celebrity news, entertainment, and sports. As a result, many citizens – including some writers – think that the media is merely a tool to be used as a weapon for shaming or for propaganda. People also underestimate their own right to information, and the role of the media in ensuring this right. State media was used for government propaganda messages and the media-in-exile turned into an activist-media, determined to counter the heavy censorship and severe forms of control that stymied access to stories. In taking on the role of promoting democracy, the media-in-exile often lapsed into anti-government propaganda. As a result, instead of seeing independent media as a source of balanced coverage, people still think that all media is either pro- or anti-government. This is why some writers try to dictate their own opinions at literary talks, rather than providing a holistic perspective with different points of view.

  During the years of censorship, with a draconian censor board in charge, a writer could not write anything that might be seen as remotely anti-government or anti-establishment. Ordinary citizens learned what was going on inside the country either through ‘fiction’ magazines or foreign-based radio stations. To get past the censorship process, writers needed to be careful about the way they wrote, compelling them to find creative solutions.

  Metaphors, for example, were used not just as an aesthetic tool, but to bypass the eyes of the censor. One example is the story by a famous writer and journalist, Hanthawaddy U Win Tin. In late 1988, Tin wrote a story about a crab. The crab, being hard-shelled, was well protected and could not be harmed. However, the mosquito, despite being a far smaller animal, could bite the eyes of the crab, leading to its eventual death. The message to readers was to look for tiny weaknesses even among the strong and well-protected people in power. People drew the conclusion that the socialist government of Ne Win was the crab that could be destabilized if a weakness was found. Though there was heavy censorship at the time, the censors allowed this story to be published. In later writings, other writers frequently used ‘crab’s eyes’ as a metaphor for dissent. Changing the name, gender, dates, and other important facts to disguise the true story behind the ‘fiction’ was another common practice for generations of fiction writers in Myanmar.

  Oppression by a dictatorship – five decades in the case of Myanmar – not only affects people for the duration of the rule but has a long-term impact on their way of thinking. These changes in mindset are hard to reverse – fear prohibits curiosity and learning, even after restrictions are relaxed. This repressed fear has already had a huge impact on people’s awareness levels and interests. For instance, today, the only common area of interest and knowledge shared by writers, speakers, and their audience is the country’s current situation; topics that deal with the current scenario are loosely grouped and categorized as ‘politics’. Given the lack of exposure to literature, and because news was earlier disguised as ‘fiction’, many see literature as a form of media. ‘Political issues’ are at the heart of all communication between writers and their audience. Even poets write poems based on current affairs topics, such as land confiscation by military or government cronies, or student strikes for education law reform.

  Since reality was heavily fictionalized, readers found it hard to separate hard facts from fictionalized elements. Ordinary citizens could not openly talk about the ground realities. A heavy surveillance system operated under the Special Branch during the socialist days and the Military Intellig
ence Service during the time of the military junta. Self-censorship became a common practice for all, not just writers, because of the fear of losing one’s job, being banned from writing altogether or worse, being imprisoned or tortured. Even reading certain books, which were banned or blacklisted, came with the fear of reprisals. In the media, since no press entity could run without a licence, the Press Scrutiny Board (operating from 1962 to 2012) would instruct licence-holders to dismiss staff members from their publication.

  In Myanmar, because there is a small pool of ‘formal’ names to choose from, people use nicknames to distinguish themselves from their namesakes. Readers only get to know a writer’s nickname, but not his or her ‘formal’one, with the exception of really famous writers. When writers were blacklisted by the military junta, their nicknames could not appear anywhere in print media, broadcast media, or even in the obituaries section of state-owned newspapers, effectively blacking out any public presence or engagement.

  After the famous writer Thar Du died, the names of his sons appeared in his obituary alongside their pen names – with the exception of the youngest, Min Lu, who was in prison for writing satirical poems. Only Min Lu’s formal name was mentioned: Nyan Paw. However, the blacklisting of only the nicknames could be helpful on occasion. The famous poet known as ‘Tin Moe’ would have been denied a passport, as he was blacklisted by the authorities. However, he used his formal name ‘Ba Gyan’ to apply for a passport and got it easily, since it was not commonly known and had not been blacklisted, enabling him to leave the country.

  State violence towards activists has also had a huge impact on peer groups. Segregation and social discrimination towards family members of political activists was common practice. Even at school, children of imprisoned writers, editors, and activists were discriminated against by both teachers and other students. After activist Dr Zaw Myint Maung, now the chief minister of the Mandalay division, was imprisoned by the junta in 1990, his children were treated badly by their teachers and peers. People thought they might be seen as enemies of the state if they showed any signs of supporting the family. During a prison visit, Maung’s eldest son once told him that though Maung might be a hero among dissidents, he was not one in his own family.

  Militarization, centralization, and ‘Burmanization’ (Myanmar’s majority race is Bamar) were effective tools used by the dictatorship to consolidate its hold on power and everything, including art, was affected. Due to the decades of Burmanization, when only the Burman identity was promoted as a tenet of nation-building, most art forms do not reflect or include minorities. Yangon remains the only hub of art in Myanmar and other demographically, ethnically, and socially marginalized populations cannot easily access art or even the means to create it. The sub-standard education in schools and colleges, in addition to the censorship and propaganda deployed by the dictatorship, made citizens not only fearful but also ignorant about basic things like human rights. There is also widespread ignorance about the world outside.

  In addition, since many people were not allowed to know what was happening in the world, including in neighbouring countries, they were only able to compare their current situation to their own past experiences. This is why ordinary people often say that the 2008 Constitution (implemented in 2010) is better than no Constitution under the military junta – even though it is not democratic. Awareness about civic issues is low. During the era of dictatorship, the education system demanded that students memorize texts, while prohibiting discussion and argument. Fear has also destroyed the normal process of thinking; there is a saying in Burmese: ‘Tway ma lar, thay ma lar so yin, thaymae (Given a choice between thinking and dying, people choose to die).’

  Passivity in the general populace is one impact of repression. It has also brought out the most basic instincts of self-preservation. Such attitudes cause people to become selfish, in that they think of their own security before others’ and ignore the possible impact or consequences of their actions on others. I believe this phenomenon, to become ‘fierce’ about one’s own well-being, is a reaction to living under an oppressive regime. ‘Fierce’ individuals do not seek to exact revenge on those who caused them harm; instead, they target weak individuals or minority populations – those who cannot retaliate. These acts of revenge are fuelled by a continued fear of dictators and brutal governance. It is my observation that writers and media personnel cannot always escape this cycle of behaviour, since brutality and state censorship were used to control them for decades. Fear not only makes people fierce in terms of their behaviour, but also in how they express those thoughts.

  The surveillance system made writers and even ordinary citizens distrust each other. The surveillance may not have been overtly carried out by the visible apparatus of the state, but it relied on informers. This caused a great deal of insecurity and distrust of anyone but one’s immediate family members. Though hatred towards the authoritarian rulers may be an overarching emotion that is widespread among the population, it remains hidden within families, because people are afraid to talk to non-family members about their miseries.

  Since people were forced to suppress their own opinions, the lifting of restrictions led to venting of repressed feelings of despair, anger, and hatred, and ultimately, violence. Most people still have no space to speak out; they attend literary talks as a form of catharsis. While many of them are still wary of expressing themselves, they feel happy when their thoughts are given voice through the bold and vivid speeches of writer-speakers. But the ‘lecture format’of these events prevents ordinary citizens from participating and exercising their right to express their opinions freely.While people cannot hide their desire to seek revenge, they stop short of exacting it against those who harmed them – their previous fear of the authorities keeps them passive. Instead, they find scapegoats who cannot harm them back, but may share freak similarities with their oppressors.

  The narration of a story at a literary event will give an idea of how this works:

  There was a clerk called ‘A’. He was seen as a very polite and quiet person at his workplace. His manager, ‘B’, was a very arrogant and aggressive person and staff members only had bad things to say about him. But the clerk never showed any feelings and refused to gossip about B. Every day the clerk was treated badly by the manager, but he kept silent. At the end of each day, however, as soon as he left work, he went to a street massage shop. Since he was a regular customer, the owner always called for the person who usually took care of the clerk. This shop gave not only foot massages, but also pedicures. (In Myanmar, touching someone’s foot is still seen as a servile act by many people). After being pampered by his masseuse, the clerk paid the fee, poked the masseuse’s shoulder, and said, ‘Goodbye, B.’

  The trick to the story is that name of the manager and the name of the masseuse are the same. Both the writer-speaker and listeners enjoyed this story, as it was a blow against ‘managers’ and other executive officials. They enjoyed the way the story’s ending had B bowing down to touch A’s feet. They applauded wildly.

  For me, this story and the reaction of the listeners reveal the thought-disorder affecting Myanmar’s people. Employee A hated Manager B but he could not, or dared not, argue with him. Instead, he held on to his anger and couldn’t swallow his desire for revenge. He found someone whose name was also B, only a bit younger, poorer, and with a low social status. He enjoyed treating Masseuse B as his servant, even though he couldn’t change his situation at work, where he was the servant of Manager B.

  This truly reflects Myanmar’s deep and rotten societal wound that breeds intolerance, a desire for revenge, and the diversion of punishment from the powerful guilty to the powerless innocent. The relentless and forceful assault on people’s resilience leads to this lack of tolerance. Some forms of hate speech in Myanmar have been very effective in igniting mob violence because people have been holding on to their anger and now, there is a desire to seek revenge against whoever they can target with impunity, for their past
sufferings. The naivety of people, even in literary hubs, about what is going on in other parts of the country, has encouraged some forms of ethnic and religious tension.

  The long dictatorship has taught Myanmar’s people that problems are solved only through violent reprisals and social discrimination. Since the dictatorship used existing laws to punish citizens, people think that the law is there to protect the government and allow it to take action against its own citizens. The culture of a dictatorship is truly infectious; most people just want to become dictators themselves when they have the chance. The blame-game becomes ubiquitous, since most people have no other way of contributing to the shaping of the politics in the country, nor do they dare to do so.

  Media and literature in Myanmar cannot remain successful without having sensational or sentimental elements. Most people are looking for their bitterness and pain to be represented and wait for opportunities to wreak their revenge. While ordinary citizens want to read or listen to people blaming the parliament or the government, they see these practices as performances that belong firmly in the media domain or literary sphere. Most do not care that their right to knowledge has been violated by the lack of pluralism in spaces devoted to media or literature.