And Now for Something Completely Different

I write this from home.  The last two days in Yangon went by in a blur of activity — interviewing Rotary Peace Fellows, making connections — and then came the long trip home.  As luck would have it, I arrived between two blizzards, and so all is well.

Except that my Myanmar story is unfinished.

I grew up so eager to get to Europe. And I finally was able to finagle it when I was in college — in fact, I got to Europe three times in four years of college — not bad, eh?

And it was wonderful.  But somehow, Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower and the Coliseum all looked just like the postcards.  It was only in the early ’90s, when Frank and I went to Prague, that we discovered what was to us — to most Americans — an undiscovered Europe.  From the moment we got off the train, as we walked through the streets with an inch of snow on the ground and hundreds of years of history around us, all was magical.  Later, Prague has been “westernized” with tourists and corporate names, but when we were there, all was undiscovered country.

That’s how I felt about Myanmar.  Where else can you find a country in which the men (not just the women but the men) wear traditional costumes?  Where Buddhism is “real,” not the touristic version? Where what you see on the ground is so much more than the guidebook anticipates, and much more confounding?  A country where my guides were sharing their Buddhist teachings with me rather than  what they thought would be entertaining and definitely not what the guidebook and historians might better suggest?  And a place where people are actually pleased to see Americans?

I asked Ashley what message I should give to Americans, and her answer was unequivocal:  Ask them to come to Myanmar and see for themselves, she said.  And here is what they will see:

A country moving with difficulty into democracy.  Yes, the elections were remarkably untainted (thanks in good measure to Ashley’s hard work).  But still:  Myanmar has the same constitution it had under the military, a constitution that sets aside 25% of seats in the parliament for the military.  The man who was writing a new constitution was gunned down two weeks ago at the airport.  At the airport, in the middle of the day! With him died the best hope for a new constitution, and the best successor for the Lady, Aung San Sui Kyi, whose health is not good.

Note that with the existing constitution, it is still illegal to discuss things like the Lady’s health.  Freedom of assembly is also still illegal.  So when the expats came together on January 21 to witness against the new American administration, they were breaking the law.  Around 100 people showed up, carrying signs and demonstrating quietly, but when the police showed up, they quickly disbursed and ran off.

Myanmar’s democracy is fragile.  Recent events are teaching us that even after almost 250 years, a leader without scruples can push our democracy to a breaking point.  How much more so in a country where democracy is brand-new, and voters don’t know what it means to vote; elected representatives don’t know what it is to represent; et cetera?

Plus, the current government is living with the evils of the old.  The West refused to trade with Myanmar under the military government.  This was probably the right call, but of course it hurt the people before it hurt the military. And with no one else to do business with, the military did business with China, their oversized neighbor to the north.  As a result, a pipeline of oil runs through Myanmar to enrich China — and the new government has no clout to rewrite the terms of the agreement.  That’s just one example of many, we were told, that are hampering the new government, and causing consternation among a population that wants change.

Change.  Where have we heard that before?

And so I’m home.For now.