Far and Away: Reporting from the Brink of Change

Myanmar was a British colony until 1944, known as Burma until 1989. The British occupied part of the territory in 1834, then cobbled the multiethnic country together as a buffer for the Raj in India, expanding to the country’s current borders by 1885. The colonial administration ruled the various ethnic groups directly, demanding only loyalty to the crown. Burma became a major battleground between the Allies and the Japanese in World War II, and the country lost hundreds of thousands of civilians. Military hero General Aung San—the father of Aung San Suu Kyi—forged a pact of ethnic unity as a means to gain independence from Great Britain, but promised the ethnicities regional autonomy if they would support him, assuring them that they could withdraw from the federation after a decade if they were unhappy with the centralized government. Then Aung San was assassinated even before independence was granted in 1948, and a dysfunctional democracy emerged. The Karen, the Shan, and the Kachin ethnic groups declared their independence. All wanted to break away from this artificial country that had not, they felt, fulfilled its promises. In 1962, the failed democracy collapsed in a bloodless coup led by Ne Win, former head of the Burmese army. He controlled the country for a generation of entrenched isolation and economic mayhem under the banner of socialism. By the mid-1980s, Ne Win, in power too long, resorted to increasingly brutal tactics, with intense censorship, pervasive graft, and oppressive control: citizens had to register everywhere they went.

The 1988 student uprisings, in which Aung San Suu Kyi first emerged as a significant figure, sought to replace Ne Win’s autocratic version of socialism with democracy. They were galvanized by a fight in a tea shop during which a student was killed by police. The students were young and inexperienced, however, and after several months of burgeoning protests during which Ne Win resigned, the military responded with a violent crackdown (believed to have been orchestrated by Ne Win), indiscriminately killing students, monks, and even schoolchildren. Students had led the uprising, so the new military government restricted education, believing that uneducated people were easier to rule. They thereby dismantled one of Asia’s fine educational systems, with literacy at the time approaching 80 percent. Initially, universities were shut down; then private and missionary schools were shuttered as well. In 1990, the country held its first free elections, in which Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD won a landslide victory, but the military refused to relinquish control.

A country that the British had left with reasonably well-managed institutions had morphed into one with no human infrastructure, no legal infrastructure, and only a dilapidated physical infrastructure. There was no education, no health-care system, no railway service. Once-maintained roads, bridges, and railways soon deteriorated to near impassibility. This police state relied on a network of informers. Tea shops where students had once gathered were targeted by military intelligence. Fortunately, informers were fairly easy to spot: members of the military were the only ones who regularly wore socks, to keep their boots from rubbing against their feet. A knowing eye could identify even snoops in sandals by the rings around their ankles.

The so-called 88 Generation always remained active; some set up radio stations in neighboring countries to keep opposing viewpoints in circulation. The spirit of protest never disappeared, and after another two decades of subjugation, discontent boiled over with the Saffron Revolution in 2007, after which a quasi-democratic constitution was introduced in 2008. It is in some ways an admirable document, but it contains deeply troubling clauses. One stipulates that the military is guaranteed 25 percent of the seats in Parliament, while another blocks any changes to the constitution unless they are supported by more than 75 percent of the parliamentary vote. This creates a broad military veto. There is popular debate about how exactly the constitution should be changed, though there is broad agreement that the role of the military should be reduced and that government processes should be more democratic. Can the constitution be amended to enshrine rights for ethnic minorities? Can the military veto be restricted? Can urgent environmental issues be addressed? How should the constitution be enforced? At least four hundred laws remain on the books that contradict the basic rights it establishes.