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The notion of external ‘help’ to the people of Burma has taken a beating from across the ideological board. The debate around the issue even made international headlines during that brief moment following the tragedy of Cyclone Nargis when Burma was apparently interesting enough to the rest of the world to warrant significant reportage (September 2007 notwithstanding). Central to this debate has been a narrow understanding of politics as the struggle over institutional authority to which opponents (otherwise in seeming disagreement) have held fast. Speaking of the Cyclone Nargis aftermath, Ban Ki-moon told the UN General Assembly in May 2008 that “this is not about politics. Our focus is saving lives.” The following month, The Irrawaddy argued that “the international community, in its efforts to depoliticize the humanitarian crisis still unfolding in Burma, may end up ensuring the ruling regime’s political survival while doing little or nothing to save lives.” More recently, this dispute flared up at the Burma Day conference held in Brussels this past October.
In the most polarized cases, this debate sets those who advocate pressure aimed at national-level political reform (or in some circles ‘regime change’) against those who argue for ostensibly apolitical (yet State regulated) humanitarian and development assistance. Not only has this debate grown unnecessarily tedious, but it’s a false dichotomy which has hindered the development of more innovative and just forms of engagement with contemporary Burma. Both approaches remain overly focused on elite politics and miss opportunities to implement politically-mindful forms of intervention which support rural villagers’ everyday efforts to resist abuse. At least, that’s one of the assertions of a new report released this week by the Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG). Given recurring discussions and debates on New Mandala, the new report, entitled Village Agency: Rural rights and resistance in a militarized Karen State is of particular relevance.
In an effort to move beyond the above debate, the report’s authors criticize narrow understandings of politics and resistance that prioritize struggles over formal authority and neglect the many ways through which civilians (especially the country’s overwhelmingly rural population) resist abuse and engage daily with the informal political processes that surround them in order to address humanitarian and livelihood concerns. This approach has much in common with those of James Scott and Benedict Kirkvliet insofar as ‘everyday resistance’ and ‘everyday politics’ are given their due place of importance. In areas of Karen State under Burma Army control, for example, village-level resistance to exploitative abuse (such as persistent forced labour, movement restrictions, arbitrary taxation and ad hoc demands) has included negotiation, bribery, lying, outright refusal, confrontation, various forms of discreet false compliance, jokes and counter-narratives, and temporary evasion. In areas of more overt armed conflict this resistance has involved villagers’ efforts to support displacement in hiding as a means of evading attacks and forced relocation by the Burma Army. Such persistent forms of resistance are amongst the most effective means currently employed to address humanitarian and livelihoods concerns in Karen State (and presumably elsewhere in rural Burma). They are also political.
Despite the success of village-level resistance strategies in addressing humanitarian and livelihoods issues in rural Burma, these efforts have largely been missed by external actors attempting to ‘help’ improve current conditions in the country. The marginalization of indigenous ‘self help’ efforts has been due, in part, to external depictions (often as part of otherwise well intentioned journalism and advocacy) of villagers in non-ethnic Burman-dominated areas like Karen State as helpless victims passively terrorized by the Burma Army. Seemingly without ability to assess and concretely respond to their situation, the voices and concerns of these individuals have been excluded from ongoing political processes (like humanitarian relief programmes and foreign policy debates) intended to ‘help’ them.
There is currently a great opportunity for external actors to help address intertwined humanitarian and human rights concerns in Burma by incorporating village-level resistance strategies into a variety of ongoing aid programmes. This requires that the far-too-often excluded voices of rural villagers be included in the political processes that affect them and that their concerns shape any related intervention.
Stephen Hull is a researcher with the Karen Human Rights Group. Their Village Agency report is available here.
Burma do not need external help like a beggar, period. Burma is nowhere near like Ethiopia. What Burma need is a normal relationship with the rest of the world. Normal political, normal economic, and normal trade relationship with the rest of the world.
Burma didn’t invade a neighbor like Sadam’s Iraq did, Burma didn’t harbor or encourage terrorist organizations like Taliban’s Afghanistan did, Burma didn’t even practice institutionalized racism like Apartheid S.Africa did, but totally unjust and unfair draconian sanctions are being placed upon Burma just for her own internal reasons.
Burma is not that much different from Communist Vietnam and Laos or Hun Sen’s Cambodia, but Burma is being singled out and punished by the international community for her efforts to quell the civil war which she inherited unfortunately as the outcome of long colonial period and brutal WW2.
Lift the Western sanctions and this debate to help Burma will disappear.
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Sanctions are obviously not really doing anything constructive. Almost certainly quite the opposite. But it seems a pity not to suggest some lifting of the uniformed tyrrany at the same time. Where exactly are we coming from here?
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It sounds to me like Hla Oo is an apologist for the Burmese generals.
Burma doesn’t have any external enemies to threaten it, yet it has the second largest army in the area. Someone else on New Mandala stated that the generals were at war with their own people. I think that’s a fair assessment.
The Burmese keep busy by murdering or jailing their own people. They make money by smuggling drugs. It’s also rumored that they’re heavily engaged in the sex slavery trade.
While the average citizen in Burma is poorly educated, the children of the generals attend the finest overseas schools that money can buy.
While the average citizen struggles on a daily basis to obtain the minimum essentials just to survive, the generals, their family members, and their cronies live high on the hog.
There is no law in Burma. People are arrested for little reason, or no reason, then sent to prison for lengthy terms. Trials in Burma are a theater of the absurd.
In short, the generals treat their own people like slaves.
The only way the Burmese people will ever become free, and achieve true justice, is to take up arms and fight the junta.
Passive resistance isn’t working in Burma. That strategy may have worked in Eastern Europe, but it will never work in Burma – the generals will break it by murdering even more people.
One day the people of Burma will be free. And when that day comes there will be a reckoning. The generals and their families, the officer corp, the secret police, the quislings – all will find themselves hanging from telephone poles.
That day can’t come soon enough.
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Couldn’t agree more Charles F . I believe you’re right about both Hla Oo and the Burmese situation. The sort of Burmese nationalism, or more correctly chauvinism, that Hla Oo manifests is largely confined to the military. It’s different from that of the rest of the Burmese nation who in the military mindset owes the Tatmadaw their very existence, not just the minorities but the entire nation. Burmese militarism too has a long history. I’d like to see them invade one of the neighbours if only to find out the reality of Ne Win’s infamous “sword against sword and spear against spear” speech in the aftermath of the July 7, 1962 massacre of unarmed Rangoon University students. Makes one wonder what a couple of container loads of AK 47s and RPGs would have done or still do. The people by and large can only identify with that part of nationalism that is anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist.
And sorry, you just can’t blame the ongoing civil war on foreigners any more than you could in the beginning since there were and still are reasons inherent in the conflict not just between the Burman ruling class and the minorities but within the majority Burmans themselves. Just as today’s Tatmadaw has no right to behave like the entire nation is indebted to them forever and ever for independence and for holding the union together so only they are entitled to rule for eternity. The game is well and truly up.
How can Burma, a pariah and failed state that is blatantly bent on exploiting and repressing its own populace, have a normal relationship with the rest of the world? The military believes they can run the entire show all by themselves with a gun to the head of the nation they rule over. How successful they’ve been so far, except in safeguarding their own grip on power, is plain for all to see. That’s also the difference between them and states like Vietnam and Cambodia today – the lack of breathing space, internal peace (genuine peace for goodness sake, not cutting deals with certain groups for mutual enrichment of the leaders) and even a bit of trickling down of prosperity.
It’s all very well talking about day-to-day village level resistance and even making a meal of it in the form of academic discourse and research. And although it’s definitely worth pointing out and extremely important in its own right all through history everywhere in the world – particularly to those on the receiving end of state repression, but dismissed by the rulers who get to write the history – it is after all natural and indeed inevitable, human nature being what it is. But since when did this ever bring about any real change anywhere anytime soon. Burmese have done it for generations already. It’s human survival instinct and ingenuity, not that they have a choice. Peasant rebellions, there’s been a few, from colonial times onwards when push comes to shove.
The history of the world is full of spilling of blood, guts and tears in the fight for the rights that westerners, many forgetful of the historic struggles of their own forebears, nowadays take for granted. Sure it would hurt liberal sensibilities if it’s portrayed as anything but a gradual evolutionary process. Who cares, certainly neither the right nor the left? And if the liberals think they’ve actually reached the “end of history” where the “old politics” is gone forever in their smug little world they have another think coming. Its demise has been greatly exaggerated.
Fragmented, individual and low level resistance often goes with low intensity conflict (LIC) or armed resistance also fragmented in the case of Burma. But this can go on and on forever as we’ve seen from long experience until some benevolent despot in shining armour shows up on the distant horizon in this particular instance, and goodness knows how often how many Burmese prostrate on their knees have prayed in front of the Buddha for this. It’s just not good enough. One day…. as Charles F. said….. and it cannot come soon enough.
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Our colonial masters English used to hang captured Burmese rebels, whether they were peasants or royalty, by neck till death during Burma’s long years of slavery under so-called very civilized British.
The children and grand children of those Burmese patriots are now in the army running Burma and they will definitely appreciate Mr Charles F.’s advance warning about their eventual demise, ha ha.
Even the mighty British Empire where sun never set couldn’t finish their ancestors off the land like they brutally did to Native Americans and Aboriginals, and Burmese will now laugh at your empty threats. They have been through too many brutal wars since Pagan 2000 years ago while building their nation.
External threats from Burmese-haters like yours and invasion calls and sanctions will just push Burmese majority deeper into the generals’ iron fists. Patriotism and extreme nationalism could be exploited even in USA as the events after 9/11 highlighted.
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Who the heck is calling for an invasion? Insecurity breeds paranoia.
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Hla Oo,
Let me see if I have your argument correctly.
The Burmese junta is angry at the British for some perceived wrong committed over 65 years ago.
So, in retaliation, they murder their own people. Steal from their own people. Commit genocide on a grand scale against their own people. Sell their women into sexual slavery. Manufacture and smuggle drugs.
That pretty much sum it up?
Wow, they sure are showing their former colonial masters.
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Paranoia? No external threats against Burma? There is no reason for 500,000 strong army in Burma?
Where are you guys living on, the trees? The Burmese civil war, started in 1948 right after the Independence, is now 60 years old, and the only reason that world’s longest civil war in modern time is still raging strong is the overt and covert helps from the foreign countries.
Have you guys ever heard of War by Proxy or Border Security Buffer Zone? Main forces of Thai Army has been stationed right behind the long border line with Burma and ready for the war. Recently they have invaded the Burmese territory and now illegally occupying a large area called Doi Lang near Mae Hong Song. (Should I mention the 5000 strong US special forces and a squadron of US airforce fighter jets there to assist the Thais too?)
One million strong South Western Army of PLA is also right behind the border with Burma, and also The Indian Army considers the border area with Burma a war-readied zone. And lately full two divisions of Bangladeshi Army has moved into the border area after the territorial dispute in the Bay of Bangal.
Ships from US seventh fleet and fifth fleet never leave the vicinity or even inside of the Burmese territorial waters while half of Indian Navy based at Andaman Island watch them. No wonder the Chinese have installed a radar station on Burma’s Cocos Island and listened their naval chatters. (There definitely is a cold war in the Indian Ocean!)
Technically Burma is still at war and the 500,000 manpower is nothing compared to the foreign forces amassing on her long and porous borders. For Burma, sadly and unfortunately for her sanctions-ravaged people too, the devastating Second World War has never finished.
In the seventies and eighties at the heights of the civil war, China with the help of Burmese Communists used to occupy the large Burmese territory east of Salween river and it took the lives of hundreds of thousands of Burmese Men and Boys as young as thirteen and fourteen from the army to fight back for that territory. I was there fighting, dropping my blood for the land, and I had witnessed the carnage with my own eyes.
Probably you Burmese haters like Mr. Charles F. and Moe Aung, yes Moe Aung you too, wouldn’t know these facts or blindly ignore them from your own pure hatred of Burma and Burmese, but I can assure you that Burmese will rather die on the battle fields than lose their mother country.
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Sadly, (although somewhat predictably) this discussion has fallen right into the polarised debate which, as noted above, “has hindered the development of more innovative and just forms of engagement with contemporary Burma.”
Hla Oo, you’re right to criticise the imposition of foreign ‘solutions’ to the challenges faced by people in Burma. However, even if harmful sanctions were removed, the humanitarian and human rights challenges facing people in Burma (which you are correct to point out arose in the context of civil war and the struggles of World War 2 and even before) would not disappear over night. And whatever you or I may say about it, there will continue to be UN agencies, bilateral agencies, international NGOs and independent foreign volunteers (as there are in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) attempting to ‘help’ address these concerns.
The problem is not so much the desire to ‘help’ but the imposition of external ‘solutions’ on the people of Burma which ignore the views and concerns of the people in the country. However, it is important to acknowledge that many people in Burma likewise view the SPDC’s ‘solutions’ to these challenges as inappropriate impositions (please read the testimonies in the KHRG report). The people of Burma (as distinct from the military) are presently engaging on a daily basis with the humanitarian and human rights challenges they face. External attempts to ‘help’ people in Burma which neglect these indigenous ‘self help’ efforts merely perpetuate the exclusion of local people from the political processes (like humanitarian relief programmes) which affect them.
Moe Aung, you’re correct to note the need for a political resolution to the State-society conflict in Burma. However, pinning all hopes on regime change misses important opportunities to address humanitarian and human rights concerns prior to national-level political reform. Politics is more than just the struggle over formal State authority and democracy is more than just multiparty elections. There are currently opportunities to democratise on-the-ground political processes which may be of more immediate concern to many people in Burma than a State-level democratic transition.
Many of these issues are addressed in depth in the Karen Human Rights Group Village Agency report. I strongly encourage anyone interested in contemporary Burma to read it.
[Also, on SPDC threat perceptions, I recommend Andrew Selth’s article “Burma and the Threat of Invasion: Regime Fantasy or Strategic Reality?” On the fallacy of the Chinese Signals Intelligence base on the Coco Islands, see Des Ball’s article “Chinese Whispers: The Great Coco Island Mystery.”]
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The numbers that Hla Oo cites are truly mind boggling. Where did he ever come up with 5000 Special Forces in Thailand?
I don’t think that there are 5000 Special Forces total. And in Thailand there are maybe 15 guys, in a training capacity to the Thai army.
But let’s put those fantastic numbers aside for a moment. Nowhere in his reply did Hla Oo address the original post by me.
If we are to take at face value that the Burmese junta fears an external threat, how does that equate to murdering tens of thousands of its own people, illegal drug manufacturing and smuggling, and sex slavery?
Hla Oo deftly dances away from the original argument. This is like stating that people who didn’t vote for Obama are racists and secretly in the klan.
People bring up legitimate claims against the junta, and Hla Oo replies that we’re only making these statements because we hate the Burmese. I wore a black t-shirt today, which proves that I hate all Burmese. It’s ridiculous.
Hla Oo, you’re trying to defend the indefensible. And you’re doing a very poor job of it.
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Sorry, Hla Oo, it’s definitely not helping your cause going on a rant and name calling. Perhaps I’m a white fella masquerading as a Burman. Do try and rise above the level of the New Light of Myanmar on such an open forum as NM. Amazing how the state media has not changed one bit with the changing times from the Ma Hsa La (Burma Socialist Programme Party) era 20 years ago. Old dog and new tricks come to mind. Or is it old wine but no new bottle.
Stephen, I’m not denying that the Burmese patient needs aspirin and an ice pack to bring the temperature down but where’s the antibiotic? Lancing won’t do it where radical surgery is indicated.
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