Land of the Lost
Source : Brook Larmer, Newsweek (International Edition)(July 29)
Even Burma's generals are beginning to realize that they can no longer keep their country isolated from the world.
July 2001 --- Burma's military rulers love to bash the evil influence of the Western world. But there is one legacy of colonialism they can't seem to live without: golf. Over the past decade, as the generals have gained notoriety for running one of the world's most repressive (and economically disastrous) regimes, few people have given them credit for dramatically improving their golf games. But sneak into almost any golf club in Burma-the old British-era courses or the new ones feverishly being built by businessmen with military ties-and it's plain to see: the names of Army officers are engraved on the championship plaques.
THEIR PROWESS is unsurprising, given how thoroughly the game has pervaded the ranks. Every morning at the City Golf Club in Rangoon, dozens of military officers in creased khakis and saddle shoes traipse off the first tee, followed by platoons of young female caddies. (The girls, who wear bright red lipstick and easy smiles, perform different jobs for their 35-cent fee: one hauls the clubs, another holds the parasol, one lines up the putts -and all applaud politely after each successful shot.) Not every officer hones his game in such luxury. Along a mountain road in rural Shan state, two rifle-toting soldiers recently kept watch over a group of slave laborers chained together at the ankles. Twenty yards away, under a grove of trees, several military officers gathered solemnly around their superior-and watched him practice his putting in the bumpy red dirt.
The military's obsession with golf reveals the deep chasm between rich (them) and poor (nearly everybody else) in Burma. Even more dangerous: it exposes the hypocrisy of a junta that has self-righteously isolated the country from "the decadence" of the West while enjoying its luxuries themselves. During nearly four decades of Burma's hibernation, the generals have tried to legitimize their brutally inept rule by claiming the mantle of the ancient Burmese kings. But they have succeeded only in turning Burma (which the regime renamed Myanmar in 1990) into the most needlessly miserable country in the world. Now, as globalization makes isolation seem ever more anachronistic, Burma's long-suffering population is craving contact with the outside world. So, in their own way, are the golfers in the saddle shoes.
Underdevelopment has an undeniable charm. At first glance, the Burmese countryside is an achingly beautiful reminder of what Southeast Asia must have been like before the onslaught of the modern world. No urban sprawl, no belching factories, no McDonald's or 7-Elevens. Burmese men still wear traditional, skirtlike longyis. Burmese girls still apply dashes of sandalwood paste to their faces as an alluring sunblock. And at dawn young monks in saffron robes still walk barefoot along dirt roads, alms bowls in hand. The grace and simplicity of life in Burma-and the visitor's sense of being the first to encounter it-owe much to the country's long isolation.
But behind the beauty lies profound misery. Withdrawing from the world has not simply locked Burma into a time warp; it has sent the country hurtling backward. Fifty years ago newly independent Burma had Asia's most vibrant economy. Today it is a basket case that ranks among the poorest economies in the world. The main thing keeping Burma afloat is an illegal narcotics trade that is reportedly twice the size of the official economy. Forced labor is widespread, and the paying jobs aren't much better. Near the village of Penwe Gone in central Burma, a group of teenage girls trudge up and down a steep river embankment carrying buckets of sand on their heads to a road-construction site. One of the girls, wearing a green headdress and red lipstick, says she walks three hours to and from the river each day to go to her job. She works eight hours a day for the equivalent of five cents an hour. She is 13 years old.
Burma's health and education systems were once the envy of Asia, but they have been gutted even as the military has doubled in size, to more than 400,000 men. The universities, hotbeds of protest in 1988 and 1996, have been closed for much of the past decade. (They reopened last year on campuses far from the city centers, and students have to sign a written promise that they will not engage in any antigovernment activity.) But education doesn't count for much these days; few jobs pay a living wage. Why else would a college graduate with a degree in physics be cleaning toilets at a five-star hotel, or a clerk at an appliance company be selling her body at night in Rangoon's Chinatown?
More than half a million people (out of a population of 42 million) are infected with HIV, including 90 percent of all intravenous drug users and nearly half of all sex workers, according to foreign aid groups. More Burmese are dying each year from malaria and tuberculosis epidemics, but AIDS is already killing an estimated 48,000 a year. The regime, which had outlawed the use of condoms until 1993, has made matters worse by publicly denying the existence of the epidemic. "The government says Burma is the most moral place on earth," explains one foreign aid worker, "so how could it admit to having an AIDS crisis?"
Burma's rulers could do what they have always done: blame their crises on sinister intrusions from outside. In 1988, when a student uprising pushed out longtime ruler Ne Win, the military called the protesters "stooges of external elements" and restored order by gunning down more than a thousand demonstrators. Two years later they annulled an election won by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi because Western-style democracy was "inappropriate" for Burma. To this day they justify imprisoning her supporters and keeping her under house arrest by arguing that the democrats are being manipulated by foreign interests.
To justify their own rule, the generals have hearkened back to Burma's past. Today the tightly controlled media portray the current leader, Than Shwe, and his two deputies, Army chief Maung Aye and intelligence chief Khin Nyunt, as the natural heirs to the Kingdom of Pagan, the monarchy that reigned between the 11th and 13th centuries in what is considered Burma's most glorious era. The military men ride around Rangoon in a parade of Land Rovers rather than elephants, but they govern using the same old rituals of royalty. They take endless tours inspecting the hundreds of dams and bridges being built, in part, as monuments to their regime. They hold court with groups of engineers and economists, dispensing wisdom about the glories of the precolonial past. And all the while they require their subjects to show them respect with a shikho, the deep Buddhist bow made with hands clasped together in front of the face.
Like the kings of old, Burma's generals have made exaggerated shows of Buddhist devotion. They have donated money to build or repair hundreds of shrines, and they even added a ton of gold to the sublime Shwe Dagon Pagoda in Rangoon. Of course, most Burmese-80 percent of whom are Buddhist-see through these political ploys. (The generals don't help matters by walking into monasteries wearing military uniforms and sidearms.) "The regime is seeking solace in illusions of grandeur," says one former government official in Rangoon (who, like every other Burmese, refuses to be quoted by name). "They're intent on reviving the glories of the past instead of coming to grips with the changes in the world."
But the world is not ignored so easily. Their own economic situation is not a problem for the generals; most of the military brass are members of the elite, with mobile phones, computers, golf clubs and a cut of highly profitable business deals, both on the books and off. But for the rest of the population, more than half of which is under 25 years old, the feudal economy has proven a disaster. "It's a tale of two nations," says one diplomat. "The elite live in the First World of Rolexes, Land Rovers and gold rings. The rest live in the Third World." In Rangoon homeless migrants sleep in bundles on the streets. In Mandalay people tie plastic bags filled with leftovers to the lampposts so the poor have something to eat. "The generals know the economic situation is irreversible," says one shopkeeper in Mandalay. "They can continue to make millions, but it's not sustainable as a nation. The economy will bury them."
Like North Korea-the only other Asian country to reject globalization-Burma has taken tentative steps to break out of its isolation. In the mid-1990s the country opened up to foreign investment and gained acceptance in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. But most of the foreign investors who had plans for factories, infrastructure projects and five-star hotels pulled out a year or two later. (The amount of foreign investment approved in 1998-99 was $30 million, just 5 percent of the total the year before.) Why? A combination of the Asian financial crisis, the 1997 U.S. sanctions against new Ameri- can investment and Burma's predatory capitalism. (The local partners of joint ventures had a bad habit of usurping any business that was profitable.) The International Labor Organization tightened the noose in November 2000 with a new set of sanctions. "We have lived in a shell for 30 years," said Foreign Minister Win Aung recently. "Now we are trying to get out of isolation. I hope the international community will not force us into a corner."
It's unclear how far the regime really wants to emerge, though. "Isolation is good for them," says one Burmese businessman in Rangoon. "If they open the doors, it threatens all they have." As in Pyongyang, the generals in Rangoon want to attract investment from the West without letting in dangerous Western influences. At most the regime is loosening up some restrictions on Western entertainment as an escape valve for citizens. In a Rangoon cafe crowds of Burmese can gather to watch men in tights beat each other silly in World Wrestling Federation matches. At least 30 new sports journals have opened, mostly to follow English Premier League football and financed mostly by avid gamblers. What most people really want, however, is to connect with the world. At night, residents of Rangoon and Mandalay tune in to the BBC, Radio Free Asia or a Burmese- exile program from Oslo-all broadcast in Burmese. "It's the only information from the outside world we can get," says one Rangoon teacher, noting that e-mail service-which started last year-is still limited to 2,000 subscribers, who are tightly controlled. Like many others, a tour guide listens to the BBC with earphones so his neighbors won't report him. He should know: he says a friend of his, an Army captain, manages a network of 6,000 informants.
Listening to the BBC is not the only form of escape. With schools closed for so long, tens of thousands of young students are enrolled in private classes for English instruction or computer training. In the town of Nyaunglebin, about four hours north of Rangoon, 150 men and boys sit in the shade of a video theater watching "The Rocketeer" in English. Outside, the Burmese owner speaks in fluent English, which he learned entirely by watching American movies. He's never met an American before, so he wants to try out a phrase he learned in a movie the day before. "Get outta my face!" he says in a perfect Brooklyn accent.
That, of course, is what Burma's rulers continue to say to the rest of the world-and what most Burmese wish they could say to their government. But as in other repressive societies, the most insidious consequence of Burma's long hibernation is the chilling effect it has had on individuals. No one dares criticize the regime in a group or on the phone; people feel safe expressing their feelings only with a trusted family member or friend. "Our greatest isolation is the isolation we feel from one another," says a woman in Mandalay, shaking her head wearily. There is one place that businessmen and diplomats go to make sure there are no bugs or informants listening: the golf course. But even there they have to watch out for those guys in the saddle shoes.