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Daw Suus Dads Army: Misplaced Loyalty or Astute PoliticsBy
Saneitha Nagani
I am sure that Daw Suu did not have the much loved BBC Comedy
Series Dads Army in her mind
when she referred to her love for and the ties that bind her to
the Burmese military. The BBC Dads Army- a
comedy series launched in July 1968 with a group ofelderly
soldiers and a stupid boy- became an instant
classic with the viewers. With its gentle humour, nostalgia and
pride in the men who gave their all for their
country the series was much loved by the viewers. Unlike that
BBCs Dads Army the army that her father
founded has become one organisation which is composed of men
whose greed knows no bounds, men who take
all they can, what they can, where they can and whenever they
can. It has become a state within a state or a
Sopranos state like the one they have in North Korea called
Bureau 39. It has become a rotten egg since the
military takeover of power in 1962 led by one of the founding
fathers of the Burmese military - General Ne
Win.
Not only has the late military dictator U Ne Win broke the
promise he has given at the Commanders
Conference of the Patriotic Burmese Forces (PBF) in Pegu on 12
August 1945 that We want you, the people
and those who will be leaders of the country that the military,
with all the hardships it has gone through, with allthe sacrifices
it has made, with all the deaths that has occurred in their
struggle for independence, it should never
become an entity to protect the interests of a handful of
people, nor should be an entity for personal gains but it
must be for all thepeople. Not only his signature signed as the
Commander of the Frontline Headquarters on
the Declaration was worthless; the blood-vow that he had made
with his fellow Thirty Comrades was no more
than an opportunistic prelude to an epic betrayal. The Burmese
military or Bama Tatamadawbecame a killing
machine for all those who dared to defy them in their quest to
enrich themselves.
Jerome Bruner was very clear when he wrote in the foreword for
the Stanley Milgrams book that, Stanley
Milgram's Obedience to Authority shocked us all when it appeared
thirty years ago. How could people deliver
increasingly devastating electric shocks to a fellow human being
just because they had been requested to do so
by a professor in charge of an experiment. Alas, the books clear
warning about the ravages that mindlessobedience can create echoes
even more loudly today than it did then. Ordinary American solders,
on orders from
their officers, have been broadcast routinely brutalising and
humiliating jailed Iraqi prisoners. And brutalising
them routinely, even taking snapshots of their acts, smiling
with satisfaction for the job well done! They said
they were obeying orders to soften up their captives for later
interrogation however ambiguous those orders
were later found to beby official inquires.
Despite the fact that she was being treated very badly by the
military; having to spend more than 15 years under
house arrest and had herself almost killed in an assassination
plot master-minded by the Burmese military and
carried out by a group of thugs working under the direct
commands of the military. She may graciously
forgave them and she may not refrain herself from saying openly
having fond ties with them. Since, according
to her, it was her father who founded the military in the first
place. The military that her father founded was to
liberate the people of Burma from the British colonialism and
not to enslave them. Her fathers military and itsalliance with the
Japanese Imperial Military were also not without cost either. The
period of Japanese military
rule may lasted only three years but the acts of tyranny and
barbarous treatment subjected to the people have left
a long lasted legacy of the Burmese military mistreating its own
people. The military was founded to protect
and safeguard the country, its people and the natural
resourcesincluding the rivers such as Irrawaddyfrom
being pillaged and plundered by people from neighbouring
countries not the other way around.
I do not want to go as far as to question her political
integrity. But I think she must have misplaced her loyalty
in this case. To mention in her own words what she meant by
political integrity she have said in her interview
with Alan Clements that, Political integrity means just plain
honesty in politics. One of the most important
things is never to deceive the people. Any politician who
deceives the people either for the sake of his party or
because he imagines its for the sake ofthe people, is lacking in
political integrity. This issue is more seriousthan just accepting
donationseven for a good cause it may befrom the cronies.It is a
question of whose
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side youre on the people or the military. My career ended
because I took a stand on the side of the people
and defied the then government. At least, in my own way I have
shown whose side I was on.
To me Daw Suu declaration of her fondness of the military is
like an advertisement from the Ancestory.com.
The guy in the ad was saying, just because someone in his family
has owned a pub, he wondered whether he
would be entitled to make a claim for inheritance of the pub.
Daw Suu, just because her father Bogyoke Aung
San founded the Burmese military, should not sound insensitive
to the sensitivities of those Burmese
(including the ethnic minorities such as Kachins, Kayins, Shans,
Mons, Chins and so on) whom or whose
relatives have suffered abuses under the military rule. She has
every right to put her loyalty and affection
towards the military as long as she does not forget the victims
who suffered at the hands of the Burmese
military. A politically astute move it maybe, but to a true blue
or die-hard followers like me it was akin to
intentionally or unintentionally being given a slightof hand by
someone you have looked up to.
Daw Suu need not be reminded of the crimes that the military
have committed or crimes that they are still
committing. Nor she should be reminded either that on this very
day, at this very hour, at this very minute they
are shelling areas in Kachin State with Swedish made 105mm and
120mm cannons, bombing day in day out
from the air with Russian made Mig-29 jets, Mi-35 helicopter
gunships in the areas where the ethnic Kachins
lived. By any standards, these acts committed by the Burmese
military are in breached of the internationalhumanitarian laws and
also have to be regarded as war crimes undervarious international
conventions. In the
era of responsibility one can never hope to have sustainable
peace and progress without accounting for the past
crimes, either in terms retributive or restorative justice.
Where will South Africa be without its Truth and
Reconciliation Commission?
Broad-minded as she is, Daw Suu may be able to forgive what have
been done to her. She may be able to
separate the person from the deed. To take it from her own
words, To forgive, I think, basically means the
ability to see the person apart from the deed and to recognise
that although he has done that deed , it does not
mean that he is irredeemable. There are aspects of him that are
acceptable. To wholly identify a person with his
deed is a sign of inability to forgive. For example, if you
always think of a murderer in term of the murder, you
will never be able to forgive him. But if you think of the
murderer objectively, as a person who has committed a
murder, and there are other aspects to him besides that deed he
has committed, then youre in a position to
forgive him.
From whichever aspects one may look there are some deeds which
will be hard for the victim or victims to
forgive the military, particularly in cases when the
perpetrators have shown not a slightest sign of remorse for
what they have done. For example, the parents of the girl who
was only 15 years old then shot and killed in front
of the US Embassy by the military in 1988 (the girl was on the
cover of the Time Magazine and Alan Clements'
book 'Burmas Revolution of the Spirit') were denied of their
Buddhist rites of offering dana on her death
because she specifically requested her father that such a rite
should not be carried out for her unless and until
Burma achieved its genuine democratic form of government. How
long her parents will be denied of this ritual
no one can tell for sure. Neither the monks who have suffered
from burns and wounds incurred from the use of
incendiary device by the security forces a few months back in
the Lepadaung Taung Mining project would bepleased to see or hear
Daw Suu open display of affection for the military. The egg, even
when fresh, is not a
good thing to be thrown at ones face let alone a rotten one. One
may be wise but there is always room for
improvement by being mindful. Since the saying is, pannya shi,
thadi-phyi-kewise as one may be there is
always a possibility of not being mindful. END
