"Everything is in reverse."
That's how my host described Burma, the southeastern Asian nation rich in resources but poor in about everything else. Except perhaps spirit: at least some segments of the Christian community and general population remain resilient and subtly subversive after over four decades of autocratic rule and a maddening array of obstacles in the way of anything like a normal life.
Indeed, things much of the world considers normal have an Alice in Wonderland quality in Burma.
The "sim card" for a cell phone costs $2000—or nearly a year's wages for a middle class professional (the phone itself is normally priced). This is just one of the ways the military government seeks to suppress dissent or even unbridled communication.
Even in person there are rules to follow: any organizing or training meeting (apart from religious gatherings) with over five people in attendance requires a permit. Traveling by bus somewhere? The government is along for the ride—the bus will be stopped and the people unloaded and checked five or six times during a twelve-hour trip.
College students are a special concern for Myanmar's rulers. After having seen students spark uprisings on several occasions in past decades, they're taking no chances. The national university has been "decentralized" to outlying locations and made into commuter campuses—all in an effort to curtail the development of a critical mass of student organizing.
Adding injury to these many insults is the poverty affecting the mass of Burma's people. The 30 percent or so of the population considered middle class earns $200-$300 a month, barely enough to scrape by. Everyone else is poorer, except for the military junta that runs the nation, and their cronies. They drive nice cars, have large houses, and consort at fancy resorts. At the other end of the continuum, salaries for farm workers or day laborers run about 75c a day; teachers earn less than that.
Life is harder in conflict areas in the mountainous areas outside Burma's central valley. The roots of this conflict, which has cost thousands of lives and displaced over a million people, lies in disagreements over the autonomy of the ethnic groups ringing the Burmese people who make of the majority of the population.
These people—the Shan, the Karen, the Palaung, the Kachin, and others—had sought more independence from the central government following Britain's post-World War II withdrawal as a colonial power. Had the young charismatic leader Aung San been allowed to rule the nation, this may have been the case. In 1947, however, he was assassinated by the military, beginning nearly 50 years of strong-arm rule and active suppression of ethnic aspirations.
At the current time, active insurgencies are taking place in several zones, creating an exodus of civilians either toward government-run relocation camps, across the border into Thailand, or into hiding in the mountains near their villages. Although Thailand is host to over 100,000 of these exiles, it resists fully acknowledging their refugee status, not wanting to upset its increasingly important economic ties to Burma (including a dam project on the shared Salaween River which threatens to displace many communities).
The current government, like its predecessors, lives in fear. And it is most afraid of Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of Aung San and leader of Burma's democratic opposition. When her party won the 1990 elections by a landslide, she was placed under house arrest and the election results were ignored by the government. Over the coming years, the government harassed and hounded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In 1998 she was again placed under house arrest, where she remains to this day.
Although she has the support of the Burmese people, a wide array of local and international organizations, and many powerful nations, she spends her time in an ill-repaired house on a heavily-monitored street in Rangoon. Roadblocks bracket the part of the street near her home, and the whole area is off-limits from six at night till six in the morning. Her only contact with the outside world is via her personal physician.
So how does the junta stay in power? For one thing, there is a 400,000 strong military and intelligence apparatus, requiring 40 percent of the national budget and the forced conscription of young men to maintain. Around a thousand leaders of the democratic movement are in jail as political prisoners. The government regularly relocates entire villages suspected of supporting insurgents, and routinely uses rape, torture and forced labor to control the population.
There is a deep strain within the people of Burma to expect strong, even dictatorial, rule from its leaders. This expresses itself in political relations at all levels, even finding its way into relationships within the family and church.
There is also a part of Buddhist teaching that tends toward acceptance of present suffering as a penalty for misdeeds in a past life and as down payment for a more fulfilling future. Christianity can tend to take this same direction, focused on future glory to the disregard of present misery and structural injustice.
One final factor may be Suu Kyi's role in her own party. With her followers seeing her as the unquestioned leader, they are hesitant to consider taking on the government without her. Thus, house arrest serves the rulers quite well, confining Suu Kyi while tying the hands of her supporters.
The US government, following Suu Kyi's lead, has helped initiate an economic embargo against Burma that has severely impacted the common people. The strictures have hit the small export sector hardest; 65 percent of textile workers have lost their jobs. Overall, the US approach has been one of confrontation and belligerence, while many Christians within the country call for engagement and a selective embargo—one that impacts the leaders instead of ordinary citizens. At any rate, the impact of any embargo will be undercut by Burma's on-going trade ties with its neighbors—especially the behemoth next door, China.
So where are signs of hope? In many quarters—from hotel staff to professionals to farmers and development workers and church leaders—Myanmar's people acknowledge that theirs is a deeply flawed society. This in itself is significant, as they have been taught from grade school onward to refrain from raising questions or thinking critically. Some religious leaders and nongovernmental groups are slowly working to enable this ability to assess and reflect.
Faith-based groups are also finding other ways to reach out to address the many needs of Burma's people. Some introduce conflict resolution skills into a society that has trouble dealing with differences without resorting to violence. Others are working to address healthcare and educational inadequacies or teach agricultural techniques that promise both increased profit and environmental sustainability.
In neighboring Thailand, Christian groups work with Burmese refugees in securing citizenship rights, emergency food, and agricultural development. The New Life Center ministers to the thousands of young women who are trafficked into Thailand each year from surrounding countries including Burma for exploitation as laborers, domestic servants or sex workers.
The New Community Project is tentatively planning a Learning Tour to Thailand/Burma in May 2007, along with support for vocational training for young women and enabling US Christians to volunteer with partners in the region for short periods of time.
What can you do? Let the US government know that a heavy-handed approach will do little to change the present Burmese regime. Find ways to support efforts by ethnic minorities to create intellectual and political space in Burma. Help the church there do its part to bring hope and peace to this troubled land. Support Church World Service ministries to refugees in Thailand. And lift up the people of Burma in thought and prayer—their nation has been written off by many as a pariah and banished to oblivion. We must help them feel that they are not forgotten, but are squarely within our circle of care and concern.
Perhaps in these ways we can join the people there in slowly shifting out of reverse and beginning to move forward—toward the full life God intends for us all.