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Sat, Apr 12, 1997
Burma Focus
Thajan festival in Honolulu; exploring human rights and democracy; 'Freedom from Fear'; reports from the UN Commission on Human Rights; a trip to the China-Burma border . . .Burma: we're doing something rather different today, in the interest of expanding our point of view and understanding. With any luck we'll be able to approach issues like human rights in a more honest way. Forget about China, forget about all the -isms and the ideas which make China China. Let's focus on a different idea. . .
Burma: fun and commuity in Honolulu---today we celebrated Thajan, or the "water splashing festival" in Honolulu; at least, some of us with ties to the Burmese community did. Thajan, for those unfamiliar with the festival, is a holiday mapped to the rhythms of the lunar calendar, and it comes but once a year. It essentially marks the beginning and end of the year, and unlike the single descent of the electric globe in New York on Dec 31/Jan 1, the Burmese pull out all stops and engage in some rather raucous antics for three or four days. The name water splashing in fact refers to both the acts, symbolic and literal, of cleansing one's body and mind, and one's home and temples. And indeed the whole festival is a rather cathartic release of pent-up emotions, joy and sorrow, and fun-loving games and, my Saya-ma tells me, courting among admirers who for whatever reason had found it impossible to act.
But the festival has few distinct boundaries and bleeds easily into the politics of the country, and according to those who would know, the festival marks a period in the year when sardonic political and social commentary have been traditionally tolerated. Puppeteers and singers, dancers and actors help people cleanse their minds and poke fun at those who hold court and would be king. It is unclear to me how much the current regime, the so-called State Law and Order Restoration Council (or, in the perfect acronym for "Get Smart", SLORC), tolerates anymore. The poor chaps seem particularly sensitive to any political talk these days.
Conversation among a few of us turned to the recent bombing in Rangoon, where a parcel airmailed from Japan, so they say, was delivered and received by General Tin Oo's daughter at home. The mother of two, the 34-year old became the unwitting victim of the works of "dissidents". But they were "dissidents" or "generals"? An older gent at today's Thajan get-together interpreted the whole thing as the handiwork of another SLORC general out to do in his own. "They call them dissidents". Stories of power struggles within the wholly---and perhaps holey---corrupt SLORC seep out of Rangoon once in a while, with a little more frequency in recent months. But anyway: you heard it here first. That wasn't a bomb from 'dissidents' in Japan, although the thing could very well have been mailed from there.
The conversation never follows a single thread, people interrupt and new topics are blurted out, and that was just as well. The ills of Burma are well known and felt by these people. Some are here because they can't or won't be there, and why elaborate on these points while on an outing to the park where the rain threatened and the sun did not shine.
April is the hottest month in Burma, and water, being the universal solvent, cleanses the grime as it cools the skin. Honolulu's weather was pleasantly wild, high winds building steep crests on waves that hit the beaches like the onslaught of landing crafts storming an island. The scuba divers and surfers were out in force, and there's something strikingly beautiful and militant in the contrasting colours of the green mountains in distant Manoa valley, the garden of the island, and the foreboding grey sky and humidity that hover so close above us. Tropical drab. And the conversation moved back and forth between English and Burmese, as we hunkered down to block the gusts of wind which would take the food away.
During Thajan in Burma they use fire hoses and run around in trucks, shooting people down with high-pressure torrents of water. Some young men, I'm told, stand there defiantly, laughing and boasting, telling the one who shoots, "it does not hurt." The message is clear, and the one who shoots notches the pressure upward one more degree. It does not hurt. It does not hurt.
In Honolulu for some reason fire hoses seem particularly difficult to find, and so water pistols purchased at the local drug store and a couple buckets of water provided more than enough fire power for young and old to play after having eaten a delicious meal of traditional Burmese noodles and la-peq, among other things. The latter item, la-peq, is a delicious admixture of tender green tea leaves---ground and steeped in oil, I think---nuts, this and that, and spices. It has the consistency and appearance of moist trail mix, but the caffeine in the dish is potent. One friend explained: as a high school student in Burma he and his buddies would eat the tea by the hand pull, shoveling it down, in a Burmese version of eating "no-doz", to remain awake during the long study sessions leading into final exams. I shoot back a swig of 7-Up, and the sugar and caffeine combination is high octane in the blood vessels of my brain.
The shooting begins---dancing actually---the older ones declare that they need not be made too wet---and so we sprinkle on them and save the rest for the middle-aged and younger. When it is all over the picnic stuff is packed up and people begin drifting back to their lives, in separate cars, but in close community.
Burma: Burma and China are rather different societies and are motivated by different ideas and conceptions. But both share the same voice on human rights and democracy, and their meaning. Again, focus on the ideas on what 'human rights' and 'democracy' mean. However you support these ideas, or however you disparage or doubt them, or however you are bored by them, put it all aside for just a few moments and read the texts below. Read them word by word, hang on each word. Read them aloud, and its amazing how much one learns when you slow down the pace and sound out the words.
- Aung San Suu Kyi's Freedom From Fear is so well written and well thought out; it deserves more than a few readings. 'Emerald cool we may be / As water in cupped hands . . . '
- BurmaNet has published a two-part series on the activities at the UN Human Rights Commission. UN Commission on Human Rights pt. 1 and UN Commission on Human Rights pt. 2.
- Finally, I republish here a piece written in the summer of 1994. Burma Diary, as I title it now, tells of meetings on the China-Burma border and the reconsiderations I faced.