The ongoing trial and anticipated incarceration of democracy icon Aung San Suu
Kyi has revealed the impotency of Myanmar's opposition forces and the inability
of the outside world to affect change with the embattled country's ruling
military junta.
Even before the trial resumes on June 12 and the international scrutiny
eventually begins to fade, the pro-democracy movement must confront the grim
challenges to its continued political survival. The international community,
led by the European Union, the United States and the United Nations, will also
be sent back to the diplomatic drawing board to weigh alternative strategies to
somehow engage the xenophobic government. Meanwhile, the suffering of Myanmar's
citizens continues.
The next big benchmark for all concerned is the scheduled 2010
national elections - the so-called "road-map to democracy".
While the trial of Suu Kyi has been taking place, the Myanmar regime has not
stopped its preparations for the controversial vote. Regional commanders are
increasingly making campaign trips to different parts of the country,
expounding election rhetoric to locals. The generals have also urged
government-aligned businessmen and entrepreneurs to stand in the election. Even
the rare regional criticism have had little visible effect.
There are reports that many political groups are waiting for the enactment of
an election law expected to come out this year before making their decision on
the election. At this point, however, the only confirmed candidate parties are
the government's State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and the
government-backed Union of Solidarity and Development Organization (USDO), an
allegedly thuggish force used to suppress anti-government activities.
Some within the opposition camp are now claiming that the 2010 election might
not happen at all if Suu Kyi is jailed, as is widely expected. "If the junta
jail her they might as well forget about 2010 and any semblance of credibility
- without her and the NLD [the Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy], 2010
is rubbish," said Dr Maung Zarni, a leading activist and founder of the Free
Burma Coalition whose efforts led to the withdrawal of the Pepsi company from
Myanmar.
According to one analyst, the regime seems prepared to proceed from "show
proceedings" to a "show civilian government". A source from Naypyidaw, the new
capital, said that the government had already ordered furniture for congress,
parliament and the supreme court.
Despite the likelihood of Suu Kyi's extended jail term and the unlikelihood of
the regime agreeing to the NLD's preconditions, a senior NLD opposition leader
in Myanmar has not ruled out joining the election.
"We cannot be too emotional about her. We still have to wait and see," the
leader who requested anonymity told Asia Times Online.
Others anticipate that the forthcoming election laws will strip the NLD of its
status as a legal party. For the generals, the NLD's abolishment would burn any
tenuous claim the government had to a credible democratic process. For all the
criticism of its inefficient leadership, the NLD has served the people as a
symbol of hope. In the consciousness of the Myanmar public, the NLD has fought
against injustice on their behalf.
This kind of illusory emotional dependence might be why the regime did not
completely quash the entire NLD leadership years ago. Instead, the party was
allowed to exist as a suppressed and dysfunctional political entity - a group
occasionally made a scapegoat by the regime for all the problems facing the
country.
As the drumbeat of international condemnation for the government continues,
political forces in exile have stepped up calls to punish the regime. These
forces - a disparate group of some seven alliances comprising more than 100
parties - are harboring hopes that people inside the country will launch a
revolution.
The calls have fallen mostly on deaf ears. Even though such a revolution is not
theoretically impossible, another 1988 uprising or Saffron Revolution such as
in 2007 would not come about without brave citizens prepared to sacrifice their
lives in street battles against machine gun-toting soldiers.
Successive generations have fought against the regime since its 1962 coup
against a civilian government. All have been brutally suppressed. As evidenced
by the monks-led protests in 2007, it was not the scholars, opposition leaders
and campaigners, most of whom sought exile, or political leaders inside the
country, most of whose children are studying or working abroad, who took to the
streets. Instead, it was disgruntled and mostly uneducated young people who
strode forward against the flying bullets.
A majority of young people such as these are from poor families. They
anticipate only two things: to join in detonating what former prime minister of
Singapore Lee Kuan Yew called the "time-bomb" of Myanmar's dictatorship; or to
leave their homeland to work and study abroad.
It is these young people faced with a defunct education system and an crumbling
economy who will determine the future of Myanmar. It is important to understand
what they face.
A crisis of education
Each day, throngs of people jostle for passports at the Burmese Immigration
Office in Yangon. The sought-after exodus attests to the colossal damage
successive military leaders have done to the country. Commuting in overcrowded
buses, an average worker makes an equivalent of $30 per month. Sometimes, it is
the only source of income for a whole family.
Many high school graduates leave for neighboring countries to work as laborers.
It wasn't always this way. The now-shuttered Rangoon University was once the
most prestigious university in Southeast Asia. Now, students in state-run
universities newly built in remote parts of Myanmar are not allowed to visit
any other department from that where they study. Entrances are protected by
iron doors and guarded by university lecturers forced to work as security
staff. Any kind of group activity is discouraged.
In the bleak classrooms, students memorize a 20-page history book about the
British colonization in English, which they already learned throughout high
school in Burmese. According to a 2008 study by Macquarie University, Myanmar
spends a mere 1.4% of gross domestic product on health and education, less than
half that spent by the next poorest member of Association of Southeast Asia
Nations (ASEAN).
The regime tried its own style of a market economy in the early 1990s, and was
successful to some extent from 1995-1997. "The generals think they can follow
China's model by enticing people with money and making them forget about
politics," said a local resident in Yangon. "The short period of economic
prosperity was almost spawning a generation indifferent to politics and distant
to the 8888 uprising. They lost that generation in the Saffron Revolution."
With no legal enforcement and rampant corruption, the market economy turned
into a failure. The junta is now eviscerating the country's natural resources
for its only source of income. Much of an estimated $2.5 billion from the
annual gas export is being used to build the new capital, Naypyidaw, according
to local reports.
Acts of atonement
The killing of monks in 2007 created a discord in the monastic order, an act
considered a great crime to Myanmar's Buddhists. In response, junta chief
Senior General Than Shwe has used a bewildering variety of methods to make up
for his crimes of karma and sustain his rule. For one thing, commissioning a
jade Buddha image resembling his appearance and facial proportions in
Shwedagon, the largest pagoda in Myanmar. Also ubiquitous all over the country
are Buddha images he and his family donated. Many of those images are strangely
housed in glass cases, presumably on astrological advice.
"Glass in Burmese pronunciation is hman meaning 'correct'. So, every
time you look at the Buddha image through the glass, you are supposed to have
the impression that he [Than Shwe] is correct," said the same local resident
who declined to be named.
Despite reports that there are officers within the military establishment who
resent Than Shwe's idiosyncrasies and alleged crimes against his own people, it
is doubtful many in the military will turn against the system on which they
depend. There is a fierce animosity towards military personnel among the
Myanmar public.
While the trial of Suu Kyi continues, Myanmar citizens can't but look on in
despair. Defiance is shown in small, personal ways: some release balloons,
others free fishes and the most daring distribute photos of Suu Kyi.
Towards evenings in Yangon, old people tune in to the Burmese-language
broadcasts of the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Voice of America and
Radio Free Asia in an attempt to smother their anger. Many young men march to
cafes to watch football, while many girls and women glue themselves to Korean
movies nightly broadcast by state-run television.
Under the decades of dictatorship, the citizens of Myanmar have become masters
of resilience, even in the most difficult circumstances. As long as the current
injustice keeps going on, they will be forced to do so once again.
Swe Win is a former political prisoner now working as a freelance
reporter.
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