Living Silence in Burma (25 page)

Every summer vacation, Lin Htet’s parents took him and his siblings to a rural village so that they would understand the hardships of the
poor. ‘My father hated privileged people exploiting peasants,’ Lin Htet said. ‘And he didn’t want us to be rich people but to be educated people.’ In the village that Lin Htet and his family regularly visited, there was no school, hospital or electricity. There were no cars, only cows. Lin Htet’s father encouraged his children to ride the cows and roll around in the dust with the village children. Once Lin Htet and his siblings settled in, they enjoyed themselves, but when it came time to head for the village the next year, they resisted again. Particularly once they were teenagers, they wanted to spend their holidays hanging out with friends in the city, but Lin Htet’s father insisted they return to the village so that they would understand the suffering of others.

Like Than Dai’s father, Lin Htet’s father did not allow the family to participate in government-sponsored activities. Lin Htet talked about how, when he was young, he wanted to go to the Armed Forces Day celebration to see the fireworks and other amusements, but his father refused to let the family go. As a teenager, Lin Htet remembers secretly fantasizing about becoming a military doctor. He thought to himself, ‘I would get a lot of respect. Girls would like me. I’d look really smart.’ But he knew he could never do it because of his father and his father’s dissident friends. Lin Htet said they always told him and his brothers that if someone asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up, they should answer ‘a revolutionary’. Such talk terrified Lin Htet’s mother’s relatives.

Even though Lin Htet grew up in a family that promoted resistance to military rule, his parents found it difficult to accept Lin Htet’s decision to take up politics at the tender age of fifteen. After the March 1988 demonstrations broke out, Lin Htet skipped school one day to attend a secret meeting at the zoo. As some students were break-dancing to music on their tape player, others quietly conferred with an older female student, who explained to them how they could work together with the university student activists by distributing pamphlets. Many of the eager young high-school students, including Lin Htet, took up the cause.

When Lin Htet arrived home, his mother asked him where he had been. Afraid she might become angry, he lied and said he had come back from school. But his mother replied that Lin Htet’s teacher had already come by and told her that he hadn’t attended school that day. Lin Htet remembered, ‘She took a broomstick and asked me again, “Where did you go?” At first she was worried I’d been smoking. So I told her I’d attended the high-school student meeting.’ This only made matters worse. She scolded him angrily, reminding him that his eldest
brother and sisters were already in prison for their participation in the demonstrations, and that was upsetting her terribly. He ought to think of her feelings. And besides, he was far too young. She started beating him with the broomstick.

At this point, Lin Htet’s father came into the room and told his wife to stop. He said, ‘I know he’s young, but we should give him the facts and let him think for himself. It’s up to him whether he wants to get involved or not. But first we should explain to him in more detail about political life and family life.’ Lin Htet remembers that his mother was weeping, and he felt very sorry because he missed his arrested siblings too. Every night, his mother put their photographs under her pillow and recited prayers for them. She had even gone to a fortune-teller to enquire what magical actions (
yadaya
) she could take to improve their chances of release. And now Lin Htet had become another burden for her.

His father, though, insisted on discussing the situation with Lin Htet. He told his son how harsh a political life could be and said that he didn’t think Lin Htet was old enough to make an informed decision. He asked Lin Htet to think about the family, and in particular his mother and his grandmother, who had also come into the room and started crying. But given his political upbringing and the mood in his high-school class, Lin Htet felt compelled to act. Throughout the 1988 demonstrations and the election campaign period, he participated in student politics. When military intelligence imprisoned Min Ko Naing and other student activists in mid-1989, Lin Htet realized he too might be arrested. One evening he came home in the rain, and his mother greeted him at the door with the words, ‘Go! Go!’ Military intelligence agents had been there looking for him and were still lurking around the neighbourhood awaiting his return. He fled into the night and has not been able to return home since.

Lin Htet’s mother’s reaction was typical of many Burmese families who find out their children have become politically active. But the way she and her husband and Than Dai’s parents raised their children was quite unusual. Most families try to insulate their children from political realities and urge them to conform. Parents worry about their children’s safety, but many also depend on their children to take on some of the family’s responsibilities. With a deteriorating economy and high inflation, many older children are expected to help pay for their younger siblings’ educations. Moreover, grown children in poor families are expected to provide financial support for their ageing parents. If children are in and out of prison, on the run and unable to get jobs because of their political activities, how can they support their family?

The demands of the family and the democracy movement pull politically aware individuals in opposite directions. Some choose to stop their political activities so they can take care of their families, while others decide that they must work for their country despite their families’ objections. By entering politics, activists realize they are also potentially putting their family members at risk, as parents and siblings are sometimes harassed or denied jobs because of their activities. Many activists find wrestling with these tensions extremely painful.

For young women, the decision to participate in political activities is particularly difficult. Single women are not supposed to go out alone or with male friends; they should be accompanied by parents, aunts or older brothers until they are married. They cannot easily stay out late at night to attend meetings or not come home to sleep. If they do go around with male colleagues or sleep elsewhere, they can be accused of being ‘bad’ girls. Such cultural norms make it even harder for young women than for young men to take up politics.

Shifting values

It was not until 1988, when large numbers of people joined the pro-democracy demonstrations, that ideas about activists changed. In the early stages, only university and high-school students and other long-time but often socially marginalized political activists joined in. Yet when the soldiers retreated to their barracks and the government seemingly collapsed, more and more of the parents who had raised their children to go along with the system joined their sons and daughters on the streets. Mothers took an active role, cooking for hungry protesters and joining in the marches.

During this brief six-week period, values changed. When the pro-democracy forces appeared to be winning, those who were most active in organizing the strike committees gained prestige and respect in their communities. Often shunned in earlier days, older activists like Than Dai’s father found themselves the centre of attention during those heady days of freedom. At the same time, hatred of the military grew dramatically as many people witnessed soldiers brutally firing on unarmed demonstrators, including children. Thus, some military men were shocked when they were suddenly ostracized even by those closest to them.

One soldier named Maung Maung, who returned to his home town in Karen State shortly after the coup, discussed the cold treatment he received from his friends and family. Ten years had passed by the time I interviewed him, but he still clearly felt upset. He remembered:
‘Before the ’88 demonstrations, when I took leave and met my friends and classmates, they warmly welcomed me. They were proud of my being a soldier. But after the ’88 affair, when I took leave and went home, they didn’t even want to speak with me.’ Even his parents were unhappy with him.

Maung Maung was a member of Light Infantry Division 22, the division most responsible for the 1988 killings. But during the shootings he had been in a remote border camp, only vaguely aware of what was happening in the urban areas. When he arrived home, his father asked him accusingly, ‘Do you know what Division 22 did in Rangoon?’ Maung Maung said that he explained to everyone that he wasn’t involved in those shootings, and that he would never shoot students even if he were ordered to. But his friends clearly didn’t believe him. ‘At that time I felt very sad,’ Maung Maung said. ‘It really affected me.’

Maung Maung maintained that he had originally joined the military because he was impressed with the
tatmadaw
’s image. But after the shootings, the military no longer had any dignity in the eyes of the people. He said: ‘Previously people loved us and looked on us as people they could rely on. But now they look at us with disgust. Also in their eyes, now I see fear. I can’t deal with that. That’s why I didn’t stay for my whole leave time. I had ten days, but after seven days I went back to my battalion.’

When the military refused to transfer power after the 1990 election, family attitudes changed again. Soldiers had lost much of the respect they had once had, but parents again began thinking that officers in the military had the best chance of a secure career. Sons were again encouraged to seek entrance into the Defence Services Academy. Moreover, the authorities’ technique of making life difficult not just for activists but also for their families turned many people against their activist relatives.

Kyi Kyi, a young woman who was sentenced to four years in prison for continuing underground political activities after the 1990 election, explained how her mother’s treatment of her changed over time. When she first joined the movement in 1988, her mother was worried. Her husband had died several years before, so she had had to raise her children alone. But Kyi Kyi’s mother gradually became more supportive, because, Kyi Kyi says, she herself had suffered so much.

While Kyi Kyi was in prison, her mother regularly brought her food, but her relatives had all turned against her. Many served in the military. When Kyi Kyi was released, none of her relatives would talk to her, even when she visited their houses. Kyi Kyi tried to resume a normal life and sought work to support her mother and siblings. Yet whenever she managed to
secure a job, a military intelligence agent would show up and inform her employers about her political background. After that, the employers would be scared to keep her on and would fire her. In one instance, the cleaning girl at a company where she worked admitted to Kyi Kyi that even she had been ordered to keep a watch on her.

The military intelligence officer also often came to Kyi Kyi’s home to question her or order her to come to his office. Kyi Kyi refused to go with him, but her family was scared and implored her to go. He used crude language with her and demanded that she tell him where she had been, whom she had met and what they talked about. This was hard enough on Kyi Kyi, but what was worse was that even her mother and her younger siblings started to blame her. She said, ‘They asked me what I had done. Of course I said, “Nothing.” My family thought I must be up to something to be treated this way. I became a sort of black sheep in my family.’ Finally, Kyi Kyi could no longer stand the pressure and left home.

Some children have faced even more extreme forms of disapproval from their parents. One woman I interviewed who had participated in anti-government activities in the mid-1990s was publicly disowned by her parents in a newspaper announcement. Although her family got word to her beforehand that they were doing it only because of military pressure, it was still emotionally upsetting for her.

Although the military’s actions are meant to break up resistance among the civilian population, military families are also affected by their policies. The SPDC Secretary-1, Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt, felt compelled to disown publicly one of his sons, Dr Ye Naing Win, when he married a Singaporean woman.
¹
After all the regime’s rhetoric against Aung San Suu Kyi for marrying a foreigner, Khin Nyunt’s son’s marriage was highly embarrassing.

Split families

While there are families that are purely anti-government or pro-military, many families have relatives in both the military and the democracy struggle. Thus, in past demonstrations, there have been instances where some relatives were taking part in the protests while other relatives were attacking the demonstrators. Older siblings who had gone into the military officer corps, and had been appreciated for regularly sending money home, became pariahs. Younger siblings who had looked up to their older brothers with admiration now viewed them with repugnance. The realization that the enemy was part of their own family was too much for some to bear.

A soft-spoken former student activist named Zaw Lwin, who comes from a town in central Burma, explained how he was raised with the idea that he would become an officer; his three male cousins were all in the army or police, and his mother had encouraged him to follow the same path. But in 1988, he joined the student demonstrations. The political climate had changed, and so did his mother’s perspective. For more than two years, she fed and supported him and his colleagues as they moved from the demonstrations to election campaign work.

Zaw Lwin’s aunt in Rangoon was a teacher, and her son was an army officer. In 1988, she told her son that if he shot any students, he should not return home. She said the students were her pupils and she loved them. Zaw Lwin said that his cousin was so frustrated that he cried. He had graduated from the university and knew what was right and wrong, but he was thinking of his family’s survival. He was already married and didn’t dare challenge his superiors’ orders.