Since a military coup in February 2021, democracy has become a dirty word in the southeast Asian nation Myanmar, also called Burma. When I arrived, I was told, “Don’t talk about ‘democracy’ or ‘international perspectives.’” So much for that lecture I was planning to give: “International Perspectives on Democracy.”
If you come, you’ll have the place to yourself. With tourists scared away by the U.S. State Department’s “level four” warning against travel to Myanmar, those who ignore the warnings and come anyway can expect warmth and attention.
In 1898, Rudyard Kipling was struck by the glory of Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon: “the golden dome said: ‘This is Burma, and it is quite unlike any land you know about.’”
At Shwedagon, I met of a group of Russian tourists. It was one of the few occasions I saw tourists in Myanmar.
I was the only foreigner at Sunday services at Emmanuel Baptist Church, one of Yangon’s best known churches. The congregation gasped when I walked in.
I headed to Khayan Township in the heart of pro-democracy territory. The township is deep in rice-growing country, a two-hour drive from Yangon. The village is on the road to Bago, a tourist destination with an elephant camp.
There was a checkpoint and at least a dozen soldiers guarding all approaches with submachine guns. They let me through for a thousand kyat, about $0.25. I have the sense that for all the heavy weapons, Myanmar soldier is not a well paid job. I ate some eggs at the village restaurant as a crowd checked me out.
The pride of this impoverished township is a gold-plated equestrian statute of Aung San, premier from 1946 to 1947 and a martyr to the cause of the country’s independence. Myanmar’s iconography is almost exclusively religious, so a statute that makes a political statement is an unusual sight.
In a country with few heroes, Aung San is a golden warrior. He is the father of Aung San Su Kyi. Her party, the National League for Democracy, was overwhelmingly re-elected in November 2020. The prospect of Su Kyi controlling a supermajority in parliament triggered the coup. She is currently under house arrest.
“People here support Aung San Su Kyi,” a local woman told me in a furtive voice. Why does the township have that unusual statue? “Everyone wanted a statue of Aung Sang.”
While Su Kyi is held in high regard in Khayan, the Muslim rebels, beloved by the international media, are less popular. The Burmese majority is Buddhist. Cows are sacred, if you haven’t heard. Restaurants in Myanmar don’t sell beef, which crimps the style of McDonald’s. “The Muslims have ‘kill the cow’ day [Eid al-Fitr],” I was told.
The government doesn’t feel the need to get anyone’s approval. There are no portraits of the dear leader, and no books in local stores extolling his virtues. In fact, there is little material about modern political subjects of any kind. Policy is set by a junta of eleven men called the National Defense and Security Council.
The Myanmar that appears in the international press is primarily the victim of a “forgotten war.” This is a trope that goes back to the 1940s. I have stayed in both Mandalay and Yangon and talked to people from the Shan country, the poppy-growing region. I can report that the security situation has improved dramatically in the last few years.
I had no feeling that the country is at war, aside from the martial law situation in Khayan. Curfew is midnight to 4 A.M., and there are a few checkpoints. Everything closes by 8 P.M. War is something that flares up now and then in distant Rakhine and Chin.
The maps of the civil war made up by the international media are nonsensical. They show parts of the country that I have traveled through without incident as being under rebel control.
Internationally, there is considerable focus on roles of China and Russia. This treats Myanmar as a pawn in great power politics, which I think is misleading. Thailand is the foreign country with by far the most influence on Myanmar, both materially and ideologically. President Min Aung Hlaing has described Thailand’s Prem Tinsulanonda as a father figure. Prem was instrumental in developing Thailand’s military-monarchy complex. The Myanmar military has no fancy ideology like monarchism to justify the self-dealing.
Although war, opium, and internet scams grab the international headlines, lack of electricity is a more immediate problem. A city house can get four or five hours of service a day. A commercial establishment requires its own generator. Electricity from a generator is said to cost ten times more than from the grid.
When I checked in, my hotel in Mandalay promised one hour of electricity a day. I guess they are giving a worst-case scenario, since there was always more than this.
International sanctions and a shattered economy leave many without hope of getting a job or leading a productive life. While much of southeast Asia booms, Myanmar’s GDP is growth was an anemic one percent for the year ending in March.
Peter Kauffner is an American in Yangon.
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