Living Silence in Burma (23 page)

Despite their own dislike of the military regime, most parents raise their children to conform with military domination, and even to become part of the system. When they were younger, a number of parents
themselves participated in anti-government rallies, but as they aged and nothing changed, many began to see resistance as futile. Like parents everywhere, Burmese parents want their children to be successful and financially secure. They don’t want them to become politically active and end up in prison.

In order to protect their children, many parents discourage them from critically examining military rule. One man, who was a university student in 1988, talked about his mother’s reaction to his realization that the government’s policies were not benefiting the people. After the March 1988 demonstrations, his university was closed and he came back to his home town, where he struck up conversations with local businessmen and people around the market. One day he said to his mother, ‘I have some weird feelings which I’ve never had before. There is something wrong with this system.’ She told him, ‘Don’t take it seriously. This is life.’

As Aung Myat, a sweet-faced young man in his twenties, put it in 2008, no one he knew in his generation was interested in politics in the years before the 2007 monks’ demonstrations. His parents never talked about politics, so he didn’t think about it either. He said, ‘We only knew that other countries were rich, and we wanted to be rich too.’ He didn’t like some of the restrictions he faced, but like others, he just thought about how to get around them. For instance, if he needed official authorization to do something, he would pay a bribe. He didn’t think about whether this was right or wrong, and he certainly didn’t think about his rights. He said that, since he didn’t know the meaning of freedom, he just stayed quiet.

In Burma, most families are close knit, and parents are very involved in their children’s decisions about education and work. Not surprisingly, those who can afford their children’s university fees strongly encourage them to major in subjects leading to secure and high-paying jobs after they graduate. Entering the Defence Services Academy, a university-level programme that trains military officers, is one option that many parents favour. Other prized careers include becoming doctors, engineers or administrators in the civil service. Although their salaries may be low, those who enter these professions will have a guaranteed job and will be provided with perks such as housing and the opportunity to make money on the side, often through corruption.

But with the civilian ministries generally headed by military men, nonconformists are quickly weeded out. To enter any of these professions, a high-school or university graduate must have no history of anti-government political activities. Thus the need to foster conformity begins
early. Parents encourage their children to join government-sponsored organizations, because those who don’t are viewed with suspicion. Since the formation of the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) in 1993, high-school and university students are expected to become members. Teachers, who themselves must be USDA members, pressure students to join, sometimes by threatening lower grades or even expulsion if they don’t. Some students find their names added to the rolls without ever being asked. Others willingly join so they can take advantage of special classes, which are offered only to USDA members.

Under the BSPP, outstanding students were honoured by the ruling party. Today, outstanding students who score highly in school exams are recognized by the USDA. The USDA also presents awards to outstanding members of organizations closely affiliated with the military regime, such as the Myanmar Red Cross and the fire brigades.

With many middle- and upper-class mothers so involved in their children’s education that they regularly go through their school work with them, the greatest pride for parents is to have their child selected as an outstanding student. No matter how smart their children are, however, if they are caught writing anti-government pamphlets or drawing political cartoons, they will not be honoured for their academic achievements.

Students who are arrested for participation in a local demonstration or for the distribution of political pamphlets are marked for life. They might not be able to finish their schooling, they will find it difficult to obtain a job in the civil service or a company, and even finding a marriage partner becomes complicated, as parents worry that former political activists will bring nothing but trouble to their families. Thus, in order to ensure their children’s well-being, most parents encourage them to go along with the regime, or at the very least to keep any negative thoughts to themselves.

Moe Thee Zun, the student leader, explained the attitude of parents when he was growing up in Rangoon in the 1970s and 1980s. He said:

    One type of parent strongly supported the BSPP and thought the BSPP could develop the country. Some parents hated the BSPP but said to their children, ‘Don’t play with fire. If you want to do anything against the government, pack your bags.’ They really thought it was useless. Even my parents said, ‘Son, don’t make any problem. Get your education. Make your life better. You can go abroad.’

The relatives of Ma Pyu, a university student who campaigned for the NLD in the 1990 election, expressed similar sentiments. They told Ma
Pyu’s parents: ‘Ma Pyu doesn’t know anything. Why are you letting her do this political work, fighting the government? Our government is very big and your daughter is so small and has no knowledge. It’s useless.’

The attitude of Ma Pyu’s relatives is exactly what successive military regimes have tried to cultivate. The relatives took it for granted that the people in power knew everything and ordinary people did not have the capacity to change the situation, so they should stay quiet. Not only did her relatives see themselves as powerless, but they sought to disempower Ma Pyu as well.

Despite the tremendous value placed on education in Burma, most parents have done little to make up for the regime’s silence on much of the country’s recent history. In particular, parents do not bring up past incidents of resistance, or they use the failure of such incidents as cautionary tales for why their children should remain politically passive. Parents know that the authorities are either not teaching these events in school or are distorting them, but they generally refrain from discussing such subjects at home. Some parents’ silence can be attributed in part to a belief that it is not their duty to explain politics, but often it is due to a feeling that it is better if their children don’t know. Other parents discuss only the negative consequences of past events, such as the numbers killed during the 1988 demonstrations and the regime’s ability to reassert control. This is used as evidence of the futility of protesting. Few young people in the early 2000s knew the names of the leaders of the 1988 demonstrations, or any details about which groups in society participated. Some parents even discourage their children from reading serious books for fear this will lead them into politics. Thus, children in Burma grow up thinking that there is no reason to question the situation in their country. They and their family might be suffering as a result of government policies, but these problems are taken as unavoidable. No one has given the youth a frame of reference for critiquing their country’s current situation.

When children obtain positions in government, their parents are relieved. One diplomat with several dissident uncles but conformist parents told me that he had joined the foreign service to please his parents. Initially, he unquestioningly accepted the government’s line that human rights should be considered only after there was economic progress. Without having ever studied how political rights were understood in other countries, he bought the ‘Asian Values’ argument that collective security was more important than individual rights. It wasn’t until he had lived abroad that he began to see things differently. Finally, his ideas changed so radically that he ended up defecting.

The children of military officers in particular grow up believing that it is right for the military to run the country. Military officers’ families are given special privileges such as access to better-equipped hospitals, sports facilities and housing. They are taught that they deserve these benefits because they are the ones who are sacrificing for the country. Few question this logic unless they spend time abroad. For instance, Kyaw Kyaw, a young man whose father was a high-ranking officer, has lived in a Western country since the late 1980s, and his views have been completely reshaped by his experiences outside the sheltered environment in which he grew up. He said when he was young, he appreciated that his family’s status was higher than that of ordinary people. Knowing that he would immediately be released whenever he was stopped by the police, he would brazenly drive over the speed limit and commit other traffic violations.

Kyaw Kyaw explained that he understood the inequities that existed in Burma only after experiencing an open society. He was surprised that, in the West, even top political leaders’ sons had to obey the law and work for success. Now, he says, he is ashamed of his past. He thinks people should have to earn their cars and their houses, rather than receive them as gifts because of who their fathers are. Going back to Burma after ten years, he was shocked by the lives of some of his former friends from military families, who thought nothing of spending more money than an ordinary worker made in many months in just one day on food, drink and women. He found them to be totally unconcerned with the problems that ordinary people were facing. After he had expressed his dismay to his family, his parents became worried that he might air his views publicly. They urged him to continue to live abroad.

Having gone through the crackdown on the pro-democracy uprising in 1988, the regime’s refusal to honour the 1990 election results, and the crushing of the 2007 monks’ demonstrations, few people outside the military talk about the current regime with enthusiasm, but they also have no idea about how to effect a change. While parents might reminisce about the past when their salaries went farther and goods were cheaper, they rarely link their complaints to a political programme of action. As much as Aung San Suu Kyi has called on people to resist unreasonable demands by the authorities, such as the extortion of supplementary school fees, parents tend to feel that they can best serve their children by going along with the regime. While they may believe that ultimately their children would be better off under a democratic government, they see that anyone who works for change is soon arrested.

As Ne Myo, a farmer and part-time carpenter from Mon State, explained, even if the government-imposed rice quota is too onerous, farmers cannot protest because they have to think about their families’ survival. He said:

    Let’s say I get arrested and go to prison because the farmers gathered at my house and demonstrated. My family will starve. Since I’m afraid my family will starve if I go to prison, I won’t dare to participate in demonstrations. Since I don’t have food to eat and I’m struggling for food, I have to be afraid of everyone and I have to keep my head low, whether they are doing the right thing or not.

The rural population of Burma is affected by military rule more than the urban population because, in many areas, villagers must perform forced labour on infrastructure projects and act as porters on military operations, unless they can pay bribes. Few have enough money to do so regularly. In addition, farmers who cannot provide the annual rice quota, which must be sold to the government at a price well below the market rate, must buy rice at the market price and sell it back to the authorities at the government price. As a result, farmers often have trouble providing for their families, and family members have increasingly migrated to neighbouring countries so that they can earn money to send home.

Unable to afford their children’s school fees, Ne Myo and his wife joined several hundred thousand illegal Burmese migrant workers in Thailand, leaving their four young children with their maternal grandparents. Although their salaries at a garment factory were far below the Thai minimum wage and police raids left them without a penny some months, they managed to send money home regularly for school fees, food and clothing. Ne Myo explained: ‘Now that I’m working in Thailand, I can send my children at least four outfits each a year. I can tell my parents to buy good-quality rice. They can eat good curries. I am happy.’

Ne Myo’s own father was able to pass on only his carpentry skills to Ne Myo, but Ne Myo wants to do more for his children. He thinks that if his children are well educated, they will live an easier life than he has. But the price he and his wife have had to pay is high. In order to provide for their children, they cannot live with them. When he sees Thai children on their way to school, he is reminded of his own children. ‘I become really sad and tears well up in my eyes,’ he said. ‘I miss them very much.’

Ne Myo and his wife are admirable parents, doing all they can to take care of their children. Moreover, the grandparents don’t have to suffer
unduly because they now have enough money to pay off the military men who come to the house to extort fees for porters and forced labour. But by feeding money into the system that has put them in this untenable position, they are inadvertently helping to prop it up. I say this not to criticize families trying their best to survive but to demonstrate how a military regime becomes self-sustaining even when most of its citizens are opposed to it. The collective effect of almost every family protecting its own members is that challenges to military rule are generally not promoted or valorized except in rare situations, such as in 1988, when it looks as if real change is imminent.

Meanwhile, more and more middle-class parents have urged their children to seek careers abroad, even selling their property to finance the move. Once the children are established and begin families of their own, their parents often join them to take care of the grandchildren.