Lecture 9 - Burma-Myanmar: Beyond paradoxes and parameters

Lecture: Burma-Myanmar: Beyond Paradoxes and Parameters
Ko Ko Thett
Co-ordinator, Asia Europe People’s Forum
Article: Expanding military, shrinking citizenry and the new constitution in Burma
Susanne Prager Nyein., Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol 39, No. 4, Nov 2009, pp 638-648

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Burma-Myanmar is a country I know very little about, having only followed western media debate about the advisability of economic sanctions and the selection of Aung San Suu Kyi as a Nobel prize winner, and recently having seen the film documentary Burma VJ. I remember also having enjoyed reading the historical novel The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh, which describes an Indian-Burmese family history.

The lecture presented recent Burmese-Myanmarese political history, factors influencing the current political situation, and possible outcomes.

The article re-stated the main ideas of the lecture, although the tone of the article’s conclusion was maybe more pessimistic than that of the lecturer; “the structural conditions of military rule and the civil-military relations makes the prospects for a real shift in the power relations in Burma look dismal” (p646). This conclusion can be considered relatively straightforward, since no military dictatorship willingly gives up power, and the debate around the Burmese New Constitution thus becomes of little relevance. A very nice observation in the article was the change in the description of the common populace from “working people” (lok tha pyi thu) during the time of Ne Win to “the class on the bottom” (a kye khan luh than; sa:) used by the current military regime (p644).

The beginning of the lecture presented horrendous human development statistics and an overview of Burma’s post-WW2 constitutional history. The lecturer then presented a series of parameters defining Burma’s political situation: the military (Tatmadaw), the people, geopolitical conditions, the political culture, and inter-ethnic conflict.

The key elements defining Burma-Myanmar’s fate are: Tatmadaw; the people including the Burmese political opposition; and the aspirations of the minority ethnic groups.

As with all military groups, Tatmadaw has its own mythology. It views itself as superior to civilians and the sole guardian of national unity. Its three main national causes are all nationalistic; non-disintegration of the nation, unification of the multi-ethnic nation, and preservation of national sovereignty. The ideas are very similar to those of the Indonesian military of Suharto’s era.

The people and the political opposition are in what the lecturer called “a double bind” – if they take part in political debate, following the rules of the regime, they legitimize the system; if they remain outside the system, they have little influence. The situation is common to all groups agitating for change in a non-democratic system, for example, during the Soviet era, or during various independence struggles (cf. Lai Kek and Chin Peng factions in the Malayan Communist Party during the late 1940s). A further factor affecting the Burmese-Myanmarese people’s attitude to politics are the scars of the brutality of the military - forced labour, poverty etc - and the scars of complicity - in a dictatorship everyone makes compromises (Note the large number of military, 500,000, relative to the size of the population). I briefly worked in Romania shortly after the fall of Ceausescu, and the legacy of mistrust and disillusion lingers long after the fall of a dictator.

The many minority ethnic groups of Burma have suffered greatly and there has been almost constant strife: the Karen uprisings, conflict with the Sha, discrimination against the Muslim Rohingya minority, expulsion of the Indian-Burmese, repression of the Anglo-Burmese community, etc. For positive change and development to occur, any democratic Burmese-Myanmarese government must be able to meet, even minimally, the aspirations of the minority ethnic groups for guarantees of cultural freedom.

To conclude, I would like to comment on the differing fates of Burma and Malaysia. They were both British colonies, they were both run by the British on relatively similar lines, they were both, for the standards of the time, relatively well-developed, they were (and are) both multi-ethnic, and they both gained independence as a consequence of Japanese occupation and British imperial fatigue. Yet, they have taken different paths: Burma a via dolorosa, and Malaysia, while not a path of sunny uplands, relatively steady political and economic progress. The reason is probably merely the chance of history. In Malaya, the Malayan Emergency of 1947 to 1959 was handled such that although British and Anzac soldiers fought against Malayan Communist Party insurgents (primarily ethnically Chinese) it was deemed an ‘emergency’ not a war, i.e. a police operation not a military operation. The Malayan army and police force were composed of Malays, but the Special Branch, who aided the British and Anzac military, were Chinese and able to provide excellent intelligence. The outcome was that when the country gained full independence the supremacy of civilian rule over the military had been cemented such that neither Malaysia nor Singapore, which was then part of Malaya, has political systems in which the military play a dominant role, unlike the other Southeast Asian nations.

Trick or treat?

This year Halloween came early for employees of the university. At 14.03 on 28th October all employees received the following email.

"XYZ University has decided to start co-operation procedures concerning the university's entire personnel in order to rationalize its operations and improve competitiveness. A briefing concerning these procedures will be held today at 15.00 in XYZ Hall.
- Rector XYZ"

So, what are "co-operation procedures"?

They are negotiations between staff representatives and the employer that are obligatory under Finnish law when employees are to be made redundant.

Needless to say, the email caused some considerable consternation.

Elk's Street was unable to attend the meeting at such short notice, although did spy a national broadcasting corporation vehicle heading in the direction of the university. In an atmosphere of silence, staff were told that 30-50 people would be fired and the redundancies would affect all units and all staff, including researchers and teachers.

The announcement was big news in the local media with headlines such as "XYZ University staff silenced by surprising lay-offs" and "News of lay-offs surprises university staff".

And then the spinning began.

With gobbledegook messages such as:

"The co-operation procedures are a result of the implemented measures above and pending long-term plans. The aim is to create the best possible operational preconditions for the expertise that supports the university's strategy. For this reason, the university has decided to strengthen the resources of functions which support the university's targets and core know-how."

And the appearance in newspapers of statistics of mysterious provenance and of an accuracy that would make Brezhnevian bureaucrats blush, under headlines of "Administration swallows in XYZ twice as much as in comparison university".

When unions representing workers pointed out that the university was not under such financial strain that immediate lay-offs are unavoidable, and when it became clear that the university does not yet have a defined strategy, the propaganda spinning accelerated.

Interestingly, the right-wing student union came out with proclamations such as "students support lay-offs", probably because the neoliberal business theory taught here proclaims that lay-offs of state employees must by definition be good. The caveat that any changes must not be to the detriment of the student body becomes rather untenable in a context where the rector has acknowledged that "compared to international standards the teacher-student ratio is dreadful."


What does Elk's Street think?

This farce has been extremely damaging for the image of the university. There was absolutely no need for such grand announcements; rationalisation measures could just have well been carried out by not replacing retiring workers and transferring workers from one function to another, particularly since the redundancies seem to be affecting the support staff more than teaching or research staff. Following the disastrous implementation of the so-called new university pay scheme, this has been another example of the unbelievable incompetence of university management.

While the university will still be able to attract students - today's news is tomorrow's chip wrapper - the effect on staff will be more long-term. Motivation has already been affected, there is no point working hard if you are in for the chop, and people are honing their CVs and tending to their network of contacts. The ability of the university to attract and retain good members of staff has been badly damaged. It is already difficult enough to get good people to work here. The location is remote, in a small town in the middle of the forests, and the salary, with the exception of those on professor pay scales, nationally and internationally uncompetitive. As it becomes evident that the university had no clearly defined strategy when the announcement of redundancies was made, it is increasingly obvious that the aim of any strategy is to reduce the number of employees; research and teaching considerations are secondary.


How will Elk's Street be affected?

Elk's Street is unlikely to be made redundant in this round of lay-offs but the outlook for 2010, when the new Finnish university law comes into force, is somewhat stormy. The new law is ostensibly to give universities greater autonomy but is basically a Helsinki-based money grab. Only the new so-called "peak" university, an amalgamation of three existing universities in the metropolitan area, has been guaranteed funding, with the regional universities left to fend for themselves. University staff cease to be state employees, meaning a considerable reduction in benefits (pension, medical etc) and protection against redundancy.

There is one last thing to note - Finland is going through a wave of announced lay-offs and retrenchments, with daily announcements in the past weeks. The fact that the announcements started immediately following the elections, when the usual suspects were returned to power, is of course entirely coincidental.