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Holiday homecoming for U Thant's
daughter
By James Borton
WESTPORT, Connecticut - Aye Aye Thant's Cape Cod
residence in affluent Westport is indistinguishable from
her neighbors', but its suburban facade masks an
interior inextricably bound to her Irrawaddy Delta
memories.
Any guest entering her house is
immediately transported to Thant's Burmese roots - from
her family room enriched by beautiful embroidered
indigenous tapestries and exquisite sculptured Buddhas,
and then on to a private study lined with books,
complete with numerous silver-framed photographs of her
distinguished father, U Thant, the third secretary
general of the United Nations (1961-71), alongside US
presidents Lyndon Johnson and John F Kennedy and many
other notable world leaders.
This soft-spoken
devoted wife and mother still wears her traditional
longyi, an ankle-length wrapped skirt. She has
raised four children - three daughters, Khinlei Myint-U,
34, A-Thi Myint-U, 32, and Aye Myint Myint-U, 28, and a
son, Thant Myint-U, 36. All grew up in the United
States. On December 25, she was to return to Myanmar on
a pilgrimage to her father's grave, along with her
husband, Tyn Myint-U, a mathematics professor at
Fairfield University in Connecticut.
"My husband
and I depart from New York on Christmas Day, and
although I have lived in America since 1957 when my
father was first appointed as an ambassador at the UN,
my heart still belongs to Burma," said Aye Aye.
Aye Aye Thant's last trip to Yangon was on
December 5, 1974, for her father's burial. During that
memorial service, thousands of students and Buddhist
monks seized the body of her father as a
government-organized funeral procession was about to
proceed and abruptly transported it to Yangon University
to be buried in a university compound. The incident
resulted in a three-day standoff between students and
the government.
"Yes, there were some serious
problems regarding his final resting place. The students
wanted to give him a state funeral and the government
decided that they could never allow that ... so for
three days, the family, which included my husband and my
father's brothers, negotiated a settlement between the
government and the students about the burial. In the
end, the government granted a site for the mausoleum,
and I am returning to visit the burial site again," said
Thant. She added that she has heard that only recently
has the government taken steps to spruce up her father's
resting place.
Although students at the
university had demanded that U Thant receive a formal
state burial, the government of president Ne Win chose
not to comply and closed all the universities.
Throughout that languid and still December evening, the
body of U Thant continued to lie in state under the
watchful eyes of students and monks until the vigil was
violently interrupted by soldiers, which resulted in the
death of an unknown number of students and imprisonment
of many activists.
"Many Burmese still refer to
it as 'U Thant's uprising'," said Aye Aye, and implied
that it was as if the entire Yangon populace felt the
need to wake up from its political lassitude to
demonstrate some courage and offer authentic signs of
respect for the country's acclaimed international
statesman.
The university students had rallied
and demanded a shrine for U Thant. Ne Win, who himself
died a few weeks ago in Yangon, and U Thant had never
been on friendly terms. U Thant was a steadfast
political ally of former premier U Nu, whom General Ne
Win ousted from power in 1963 in a coup.
As her
soft-spoken diplomatic father was in his day, Aye Aye is
keenly aware that Burma, or Myanmar as the ruling junta
calls the country today, is at a crossroads: the junta
(the State Peace and Development Council) maintains its
desire to preserve military control while granting
selective freedoms to the opposition party, headed by
Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD).
Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD party in 1990 won
Myanmar's first and only general election since the
military seized power, but the military still refuses to
recognize the election result. Since gaining
independence from Britain in 1948, Myanmar has remained
one of the most isolated countries in the world: plagued
by poverty, with half of its 53 million population
underfed, forced-labor issues, victimization of ethnic
women, narcotics trafficking, and a widening AIDS
epidemic.
Over the past year, a staggering
government deficit, shortfalls in energy supplies and
continuing foreign-exchange shortages have plunged
economic activity to an all-time low and contributed to
a rapid depreciation of Myanmar's official currency, the
kyat.
"I am not a political scientist in a
formal sense but have always remained interested in
political activities because I grew up in such an
environment with my father and his diplomatic friends,
so I guess it is fair to say that I am mindful of
activism," smiled Aye Aye.
Aye Aye Thant
believes that the West's isolation of her country only
contributes to greater resentment and misunderstanding.
As a result, she thinks the average American knows
little about the generous and peaceful Burmese spirit.
Although the present government appears to be trying to
project a new image of change, particularly in light of
the recent death of Ne Win, Aye Aye believes that
vigilance and skepticism are still necessary.
Nevertheless, she ruminates about what action or
course her father would take if he was still living. "I
know he would push for engagement, since he was always
involved in global humanitarian issues, he would insist
that the US State Department sanctions be lifted," said
Aye Aye.
Critics of the junta, including Jeremy
Woodrum of the Washington, DC-based Free Burma
Coalition, react differently on the subject of
engagement. "The government continues to mount its
international charm offensive, but there have been no
substantive political dialogues with the NLD as promised
upon the release of Aung San Suu Kyi earlier this year,"
said Woodrum in a telephone conversation.
Meanwhile, the US State Department appears to be
taking more of the junta's internal policing of the drug
war at face value. In a speech a few weeks ago,
assistant secretary of state James Kelly said that
"Burmese cooperation with the international community on
narcotics issues has continued to improve in real
terms".
And last week the junta-sponsored
Myanmar Times reported that the US charge d'affaires,
Carmen Martinez, offered congratulations to the country
for its efforts to cut drug production and reiterated
Washington's support for a home-grown political
settlement in Myanmar.
It's noteworthy that
Myanmar's voice of hope, Aung San Suu Kyi, returned in
1988 to her childhood home on Inya Lake and began
working toward the country's renewed struggle for
democracy against the dictatorship. Notably, Aung San
Suu Kyi spent a year in New York in 1969, certainly
learning about American culture, but also receiving some
guidance and support at the UN from Aye Aye's father.
While in New York, Suu Kyi was often invited to
receptions and dinners at U Thant's home overlooking the
Hudson River. As a recent graduate from Oxford steeped
in economics and political theory, Suu Kyi shared her
views with a new mentor, U Thant.
"I would like
to see Aung San Suu Kyi while I am back in Rangoon, but
of course, we must be cautious about any political
conversations, since I am a guest, and I will approach
her as a friend," said Aye Aye. "And perhaps she might
tell me what I should be doing," she quickly added.
Aye Aye said her last communication with Suu Kyi
was in 1988 in a telephone call from Bangkok. At that
time, the Burmese housewife established Emergency Relief
Burma in New York, an organization that supplied
much-needed medicine, blankets and clothing.
"After September 1988, when the military took
over one more time, and she was placed under house
arrest, we simply lost contact with one another," said
Aye Aye.
Despite the daily hardships and
political struggles suffered by her country, Aye Aye
reminisces about some of the sweeter moments in her
childhood. Memory and her strong ancestral identity
sweep her heart along the Irrawaddy to scenes of the
once large extended family in their Pantanaw home.
"I always said this to my children, that they
did not have the kind of experience I had when growing
up in Burma, which was the closeness of having
grandparents and aunts and uncles around every day. Even
though we were affluent by Burmese standards, we had to
share rooms. I would wake up in the middle of night and
I can still see my grandmother smoking her cheroot and
having a conversation with my aunts and uncles in the
middle of the night. It always gave me so much security
from that family closeness," said Aye Aye softly.
"When I came here to the US for the first time,
I opened my eyes and wished that I had that same
feeling. In the USA, my children speak about privacy and
space, just the opposite of my views. My earlier years
gave me so much warmth and affection, and that is what I
think about now as I prepare to return home," she said.
Her father began down the road to global
diplomacy as a schoolteacher. He spent years teaching
English and modern history at the National High School
in Yangon. Aye Aye proudly acknowledges that another
Thant generation is already back at the UN. Her son,
Thant Myint-U, earned his PhD in political science from
Cambridge and is working for Kofi Annan, the seventh
secretary general of the United Nations, helping to
shape UN global policies.
Like her father, Aye
Aye Thant is deeply philosophical. She also has no
illusions that it will not be a slow and long winding
road to Myanmar's democracy. But over these holidays,
she is reminded of what her father once said:
"Governments, systems, ideologies come and go, but it is
humanity which remains."
(©2002 Asia Times
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