Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know (4 page)

World concern has also focused both on the failed Saffron Revolution—the demonstrations by Buddhist monks in the fall of 2007 that were brutally suppressed—and the tragedy of the May 2008 Cyclone Nargis, which killed about 138,000 people with over 190-km winds and a 3.5-meter tidal surge in the Irrawaddy Delta area of the country. Over 2.5 million people were affected, and many lost their homes. These countless immediate personal tragedies impinge on our consciousness. But we should not only consider the longer-term decline in standards of living among the afflicted, many already suffering from malnutrition and disease. The affected Irrawaddy Delta region is the rice bowl of the state. It produced 65 percent of the state’s rice, 50 percent of its poultry, and 40 percent of its pigs. The cyclone’s impact has spread far beyond its immediate range.

These issues, with such stark statistics, are pressing and acute, but focusing on them alone offers only limited analytical insights into that country. Burma/Myanmar presents many more complexities, challenges, and crises, some of which have greater worldwide significance than is first apparent. Its problems are difficult to ameliorate or solve. We would do well to be attentive to that little-known state, for its history, geographic setting, diverse social systems, cultures, and influence extend far beyond its frontiers; its regional and global relations influence the present. It will likely affect the future in even greater measure, for it is positioned at the nexus of potential China–India power rivalry.

As valid as our immediate concerns about Myanmar may be, a far broader range of issues should prompt our interest in that unfortunate land. We have been more concerned about political repression’s impact on human rights than human rights issues arising from endemic poverty, yet the latter is equally important. Myanmar is currently one of the poorest states in the world. Humanitarian assistance is needed not just to alleviate poverty or assist cyclone victims but to deal with the entire decaying social infrastructure: health, education, agriculture, and nutritional services, especially for infants and the very young. High infant mortality rates and malnutrition deny a future for a burgeoning population of over 50 million diverse peoples who a half-century ago were predicted by many to become the wealthiest and most developed in Southeast Asia.

Myanmar’s tragic present is not confined within its borders but spills over its frontiers and littoral to neighboring states that have attracted the downtrodden: refugees, the minority poor, dissidents, and others who feel they no longer can face political, economic, or conflict conditions at home. Some bring with them diseases, such as malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS. Some are exploited for economic or sexual reasons. Some become involved in international criminal activities, such as the narcotics trade, and many sell their labor for jobs that neighboring populations consider demeaning. The Myanmar administration seems to be unwilling to address or perhaps incompetent to solve these issues. Adjacent states, especially Thailand and Bangladesh, are consequently under stress in dealing with these problems and peoples. Regional concerns thus mount.

Myanmar is also geographically strategic. Sandwiched between the great and growing cultural, economic, and military powers of China and India, and contiguous with U.S. ally Thailand, Burma/Myanmar’s numerous indigenous minorities spill over into these and other countries. Former Prime Minister U Nu once said, “We are hemmed in like a tender gourd among the cactus.” Historically, Myanmar’s internal Chinese and Indian
(those from the subcontinent) minorities have been economically powerful, creating tensions and antagonisms with the majority Burmans. Burma’s neighbors have both sought to influence it and to gain access to its natural resources. As a consequence, Myanmar has become an important element of regional power rivalry—the nexus on the Bay of Bengal. China has penetrated deeply into it, which in turn has prompted India to shift policies. Myanmar also remains a major concern to Thailand and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations—the ten countries of the region). The country is a central actor in the region, and both its resources and support are coveted by neighboring nations even as its policies are condemned from a distance. As one eminent Southeast Asian said of Myanmar relations, those states around Myanmar have “the burden of proximity,” whereas those farther afield have the “luxury of distance.”

This role is not simply regional. Myanmar connects to the western approaches of the most strategic natural waterway in the world—the Malacca Straits. This is the critical strategic and commercial link between the Middle East and East Asia, which depends on Middle Eastern oil reserves. It is the strategic supply route west between the military bases of the United States in the Pacific and its Middle Eastern bases, such as Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean. It is the trade route east for India. Its impact is also important for such states as Japan, which regards China as a potential rival. Bypassing the Malacca Straits and shipping oil and gas directly through Myanmar to southwestern China—a significant Chinese policy objective—is seen by Japan as inimical to its national interests.

Since July 1997, Myanmar has been a member of ASEAN. Myanmar’s politics have proven to be something of an embarrassment to the other member states, although none have had immaculate political histories or spotless democratic reputations. Its influence extends beyond that critical regional body, however. Through the ASEAN Regional Form (ARF), ASEAN has relationships with the European Union, Japan, China, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries.
Whatever these states may think of Myanmar, they are linked to it through ASEAN’s umbrella.

We should also be interested in Burma/Myanmar because of its thousand-year history as an important realm in the region. Powerful kings expanded the state from its core in what is now central Burma to incorporate the frontier regions that are now part of Burma/Myanmar. They were also aggressive against all neighbors. Neither the Thai nor the Burmese have forgotten that in 1767 (and in 1564 and 1569) the Burmese destroyed the Thai capital of Ayutthaya, which is still the name for Thailand in Burmese, and controlled parts of what is now northern Thailand for decades. A classical Burmese dance is still called by that name, and the Thai continue to make movies about their valiant defenses against the invading Burmese. After conquering Burma in World War II, the Japanese gave Thailand areas of Burma’s Shan State, which were returned after the war. The Burmese view with deep concern the Thai and American annual joint military exercises called Cobra Gold, which some Burmese believe is a prelude to armed intervention, and deplore America’s virulent anti-Burmese junta rhetoric. Burmese officials view Thailand, which has a security treaty relationship with the United States, as its surrogate.

On its western frontier, Burma also invaded Manipur and East Bengal, leading to the first of three Anglo-Burmese Wars (1824–1826, 1852, 1885) and a long, bloody period of pacification. Incorporated into the British Empire as a province of India until 1937, Burma was governed on an inappropriate Indian model with dire consequences. It declared its independence on January 4, 1948, following India and Pakistan.

Burma’s border regions, which have been porous and ethnically arbitrarily determined since the colonial era, have weakened the central state’s authority and compounded its problem of legitimacy. Mark Twain is famously supposed to have said that if history does not repeat itself, it often rhymes. The Bangladesh border arbitrarily splits a Muslim population, and Burmese military actions have forced two massive migrations
in the past thirty years. Northeast Indian Naga rebels, as well as those from a variety of other ethnic groups in that poor region, have sought refuge in Myanmar; eliminating this threat was a factor in changed India–Myanmar relations. Historical memories in any case are long, and sometimes bitter.

Burma has extensive, underutilized natural resources, including oil, gas, teak, gems such as rubies, jade, copper, and a variety of metals and minerals as well as hydroelectric potential that are coveted regionally and internationally.

Burma has also a rich cultural heritage—remarkable art and architecture that was influenced by, but also affected, the region. Its experience with Buddhism, too often overlooked in the concentration on more accessible states in the region, may offer insights into its roles in Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka. Burmese Buddhist shrines attract devout pilgrims from Asia and beyond; World War II graves still prompt visits of relatives and descendants of those fallen—both Japanese and Allies.

Burma/Myanmar is unique and not easily comparable to other states. Its historical experiences preclude simplistic transference of its lessons abroad. It presents an array of issues that, considered in comparative focus, may help us understand not only Burma/Myanmar but other states that face a set of similar (albeit not identical) dilemmas. Indeed, it has much to teach us about intractable social and political problems throughout the world. Such inquiries may also contribute to our theoretical understanding of a number of those conundrums that bedevil other states. Internal conditions in Myanmar as well as foreign responses to them may provide lessons about the efficacy of such approaches in and to other countries.

Burma/Myanmar features many of the problems facing multicultural states and raises a basic question: how might societies with disparate ethnic and linguistic groups achieve national integration without destroying local cultures—creating
nations and not just states? Should there be a uniform state school curriculum in the national language, or can other local languages be taught, and if so, at what levels? Civil–military relations are also an issue in many developing states, and in Burma the Burmese military has retained effective power since 1962—certainly one of the longest such reigns in the modern era. Political and social pluralism is important in many societies, and Myanmar may offer lessons on the effect of the presence or absence of various components of civil society on its people and the political process. We could draw from Burma’s sad experience with economic development how better to encourage equitable and sustained growth that spreads across a diverse population. The military’s opening to foreign investment and the expansion of the local private sector have not met economic expectations, and one might ask how rent-seeking and corruption affected the attempt to reform a rigid socialist system.

We should question how international and indigenous political legitimacy symbols and attitudes may differ and may be perceived, and what effect these views have on both internal and external state actors. What does it take in Myanmar for a government to be considered legitimate by its various peoples and the international community?

We need to know what kinds of foreign policies toward Myanmar have proven to be effective or ineffective. International organizations can learn valuable human rights lessons from the Burmese situation that will help the international community—individual states, international institutions such as the United Nations or ASEAN, and international nongovernmental organizations—improve conditions there. The Myanmar case may help us understand whether the international community can effectively promote democracy, pluralism, and better governance elsewhere, and if so, over what period and to what extent.

Individual states and international institutions have employed an array of policy instruments. Sanctions, isolation, engagement, military, economic, and humanitarian
assistance—all have been tried at various times by various organizations in recent years. Politics and influence groups within foreign states affect policies in dealing with Myanmar or other “difficult” states. Is Myanmar a “failed” state, a “weak” state, a “fragile” state, a “rogue” state, a “pariah” state, a “thuggish” state? These are terms used by foreign powers and institutions, but what do they mean, and what effect does their use have on Myanmar itself and on its relations with others?

The junta that rules Myanmar does not allow public analysis of its problems and is highly sensitive to alternative views. Orthodoxy is required; censorship of all publications and media, including imported books and journals, is ubiquitous. Many Burmese living abroad, including exiled intellectuals, are often under constraints because of citizenship worries or because families are still within the country. To criticize the regime or veer from the approved dogma could bring trauma or jail. In addition, few Burmese, foreign scholars, or policy makers outside of that country can afford to invest the time and finances to study that unique set of cultures. Jobs are scarce, remuneration meager, interest limited, and any but individual psychological rewards are minimal. So Myanmar is often considered an enigma.
Inscrutable
used to be the term applied by the West to societies that were culturally different, but the word really reflected our own unwillingness to try to comprehend the actual conditions abroad.

Should one have the temerity to try and study this fascinating land and its peoples and cast inscrutability to the dustbin of history, the obstacles are extensive. Myanmar is opaque in research terms. Access is limited except within a few nonpolitical fields. Some geographic sections of the state are off-limits. Although tourism has been officially encouraged by the government for over a decade, it is discouraged by the political opposition—the National League for Democracy and many
foreign human rights groups. In 1988, Thailand had 100 times as many tourists as Burma; Nepal had 10 times as many. The media is rarely allowed in, and reporters that enter often do so under the guise of tourists. The bureaucracy is usually reluctant to assist scholars because any negative views they might later express abroad could have dire consequences for those who originally approved the research. Survey research, interviews, and fieldwork are carefully scrutinized, and those who cooperate with foreign researchers may be subject to harassment and/or interrogation. Telephones are tapped; scholars are sometimes followed.