Burma’s Struggle for Democracy: A critical appraisal Maung Zarni with Trisha Taneja Here is an excerpt from my essay from the forthcoming edited volume Reclaiming Activism, Zed Books, 2014. Introduction This chapter draws upon the author’s direct political engagement in Burma’s pro-change opposition, and on his own research, to reflect critically on the struggle of the last twenty-five years between the ruling military and the opposition movements. Aung San Suu Kyi is widely acclaimed as the face of Burmese democratic activism, as a dignified and principled exponent of non-violent resistance, and the symbol of the aspirations of the Burmese people for a government, freely and fairly elected, that champions the rights and welfare of its people. Suu Kyi’s iconic status is exemplified by the award of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize—awarded a mere three years after she became politically active. This chapter questions the simplified heroic narrative commonly associated with Suu Kyi, and portrays a more complex story behind the struggle for human rights and democracy in Burma. Transnational activism centred on Burma has been plagued by disunity among national actors, and has evolved to follow the Western-Policy Lobby Model outlined by de Waal in chapter 2, with Suu Kyi acting as a national link for Western advocacy/lobby organisations. This anointing of Suu Kyi at the apex of the Burmese struggle has allowed Western policy makers to selectively craft a singular narrative about the country that is aligned to their strategic and domestic interests, without ensuring a corresponding positive change in Burmese struggles. Burma was renamed Myanmar by its military rulers in 1989, following a crackdown on the people-power movement that had challenged the country’s military rulers. Following this crisis, the then-newly-minted State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) hoped that the new name, derived from the Burmese word myanma, referring to the dominant ethnic-racial group in the country, would signal a break with the country’s colonial past. The SLORC leaders liked to blame their country’s woes on the colonial legacy, ignoring the decades of post-colonial misgovernment, especially after the army took power a quarter of a century earlier. Another twenty-five years on, despite the generals’ oft-publicized avowals of good intention and the western embrace of their purported democratization, the deeds, outlook and policies of the ruling elite remain consistent with the country’s bloody recent past. In particular, the ongoing campaigns against the Rohingya Muslims (Zarni and Cowley 2014) show the perils of democratization concerned more with symbols than substance. For several decades until recently, Burma was one of two anomalies in East and Southeast Asia (the other is North Korea), in which societies were moving towards better governance, increased prosperity and more societal and cultural openness. Following Burma’s opening to the West, signified by the November 2010 release from house arrest of Suu Kyi, the unbanning of the NLD, and the party’s subsequent participation in elections, Burma at long last appeared to be moving in the right direction. However, the political status of Suu Kyi as an individual is not a good marker of substantive change, and there is good reason to fear that the democratization and liberalization are largely a charade. It is a truism that anti-authoritarian movements and organizations tend to mirror their opponents in thinking, modes of operation and political practices, and especially to become intolerant of any view that differs from that of the leadership. And indeed, in Burma’s case, the choice to elevate Aung San Suu Kyi to an icon for democracy has had important and potentially fatal limitations, for both the domestic and international components of the democracy campaign. The Burmese democratic movement, drawing its support from a highly diverse set of constituents, does not possess a coherent set of views and prescriptions, and there is much to be said for uniting around a single leader. But having Suu Kyi as an undisputed leader has major drawbacks. Because she has been elevated to a position in which she can do no wrong, other approaches to political change that are not in conformity with her publicly expressed views, are generally interpreted by her supporters as a direct challenge to her leadership. During her years of opposition, anyone who dared criticize Suu Kyi was denounced as an apologist for the regime, and regarded as committing an act of heresy resulting in social ostracism, condemnation, personal slander and threats. In their attempts to ensure that Burmese democrats unite under Suu Kyi’s leadership, the opposition has stunted its own growth by limiting its communication with international actors to one channel and one message, even while internal and geo-political changes demand a shift in strategies. Analysts have criticized the Burmese democratic movement for inflexibility and failure to appreciate the need for a changing paradigm (Hlaing 2007) and for internal rivalries and factionalism (Taylor 2009). But neither of these faults, typical of exile and opposition movements, fully explains why the opposition movement continued to fight in the way that it did, and found itself at the mercy of a geo-political shift that assumed the garb of democracy and human rights, respected neither, and co-opted the symbols of democratic resistance to a new political order, possessing fundamental continuities with its military predecessor. The transnational advocacy movement for Burma has displayed important strengths, and in some respects is an important exemplar of the general framework advocated in this volume, able to create positive change while remaining grounded in complex national realities. Transnational activists on Burma served as a resource, supporting a national social or political movement as the primary actor. The widespread international deference to Suu Kyi’s leadership undoubtedly helped focus international policy on the domestic prerequisites and processes for democratic reform, and ultimately legitimized Suu Kyi’s long-standing insistence on dialogue with the regime. However, by transforming Suu Kyi into an international celebrity and promoting her National League for Democracy (NLD) as the principal agent of change, transnational activist groups became inflexible and unable to respond to changing realities. Their unconditional support for Aung San Suu Kyi allowed Western (primarily American) actors to selectively amplify a singular Burmese narrative, thus isolating other aspects of a complex Burmese political struggle. When political change did finally come, in a much-changed international context, the singular narrative impeded effective response to the challenges of peace, democracy and human rights in the country. The campaign for Burmese democracy therefore illustrates the shift in transnational advocacy movements, exemplifying—despite its show of public solidarity with a national icon—a transfer of the power to set the agenda from national to Western actors, and has in fact further contributed to the ongoing political crisis, armed conflict and mass atrocity in the country. This chapter will critically examine the history of Burmese activism and resistance to successive military governments, and will discuss the events that led to evolution of a Western-policy centric model of transnational advocacy, and the implications of this model for Burmese political struggles.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 12:51:30 +0000
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