Burma Issues

Like most capital cities, Yangon has its
share of conspicuous consumption and prosperity, particularly when taken relative to other parts of Burma. A visit there will not reveal, even to the most astute traveller, the extent to which dictatorship, distrust, poverty and violence have eroded the social base of the country as a whole. Notwithstanding this, some indication of nationwide trends can be gauged by observing dynamics between city dwellers.

Yangon can be likened to a can of soda that, shook up, has been put back on the shelf. Tightly regulated, tension bubbles through simple daily interactions. Conflicts rage over minutiae as minutiae collectively shape lives and people are bereft of avenues for complaint, other than one another. The army is rarely on the streets, but police are everywhere and are widely feared, although subject to private humour and ridicule the likes of which are not extended to the army. Jokes are qualified: 'I'm talking about the police, not soldiers. OK? Don't misunderstand.'

What a visitor to Yangon is likely to misunderstand is the apparent openness exhibited towards them by people. Most tourists go home with genuine stories of Burmese warmth and hospitality. Coming from outside the system, a visitor holds no threat to a local, and, at best, a relationship with a foreigner may be both economically and personally enrichingÐthe inverse of typical dynamics in a relationship between locals. Amid the stifled political atmosphere and intense competition for the scarce social and economic advantages to be found in the capital, there is less and less room for either loving kindness or public debate.

Unsurprisingly, atop the list of social concerns is the rising cost of living. While housewives queue in muddy tax-free markets set up by the government as an attempt to alleviate growing discontent, the emaciated homeless lie comatose in gutters adjacent to ubiquitous teashops. The perception of wealth in Yangon is that the 'haves' have it either due to military connections, by working overseas or both. Consequently, it is a city of people wishing they were in another country. On street corners, hawkers flog U.S. immigration lottery forms. Visitors are regularly asked, 'How can I get to your country to work? Can you help me?' Japan is still seen as the ideal destination, and private tuition courses in the Japanese language rival those for English. Chinese also is popular. Others learn Italian or German, nursing hopes that the domestic tourist industry may at last take off.

Money means private enterprise. Along main roads, cigarette and beer hoardings cast shadows over notorious red and white government slogans. Supermarkets for the elite and foreign workers stock almost exclusively imported produce, most from other parts of Asia. While private computer teaching centres open up in small spaces around the city, in government offices, batteries of women shuffle thousands of limp brown documents from one pile to the next.

Forging ahead with the Stalinist-style development model that has characterised its policies and claims to a mandate, the military government continues to coordinate the construction of bridges and dams around Yangon. Big projects are, of course, worthy of opening ceremonies with speeches, ribbon-cuttings, balloons and thronging masses. Granted that such structures have a function and place, generals are strolling across new bridges in a city where the majority of people have no running water, no sewerage and part-time electricity (an improvement on previous years). In Yangon, the 'three joys' are 'the electricity is on,' 'the water is running' and 'the rubbish has been cleared.' By night at least, new bridges serve a greater purpose as local residents gather to talk and read under the lights. Foreign investment plans have emphasised the construction of new industrial and elite residential developments; yet amid the promise of future prosperity, landless migrants from rural areas labour long hours inside factory walls and construct tiny dwellings for entire families in ditches outside.

Most schools in Yangon are running two 'shifts' of students per day. Only elite downtown schools operate on a 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. schedule. Classes average 40 to 50 pupils per teacher; but in some cases, they have up to 70 or 80 pupils. Students are obliged to attend 'tuition' courses outside of regular class hours, allowing teachers to supplement their meagre incomes, but creating resentment among poorer families. While technically non-compulsory, students not attending tuition courses will inevitably 'fail.' Schools in Yangon are now operating under a constant assessment regimen proposed by UNICEF and other international agencies over the traditional annual examination system. Although a more progressive and equitable approach to student testing, it has also greatly increased teachers' workloads, reducing time available to earn through other activities outside of school hours and certainly not encouraging new teachers to join what is already a profession of diminished status. Schools are generally poorly equipped and constructed in contrast to the images of multimedia centres, computers and gleaming rooms shown on state television.

With the supposed easing of media policy, many new private publications have appeared during the last few years, but most are trashy crime news spreads, entertainment and movie broadsheets and football magazines. Meanwhile, credible publications are being run out of business. The government television monopoly persists with a diet of songs and dances, 'news,' Japanese and Chinese soap operas and football games. A small percentage of the population has access to satellite TV; but for most, the only independent news comes via the overseas radio stations, which seem widely listened to and, hence, are subject to regular vitriolic attacks in the state media.

On certain days of the week, discussions across town turn on triple- or double-digit figures. Not the cost of rice or new bus routes, these are the lottery numbers. Two lotteries are most popularÐboth technically illegal but tolerated by the authoritiesÐ three digits are from the Thai lottery, two digits from the more recently introduced official government lottery. Everybody playsÐ young and old, male and female, lay people and monks. The lottery offers a distraction from the difficulties of day-to-day existence and provides an element of surprise and hope in lives otherwise unsurprising and apparently without hope. Yangon's lottery obsession characterises the city. As one punter summed up: 'Winning the lottery is the only way we'll ever get out of here so why not?'

ANWAR IBRAHIM
864 DAYS IN PRISON
(as of February 1, 2001)