If the 'Political Prisoner-in-Chief' Says It's All Right, Then Who Can Say Otherwise?

By Saneitha Nagani A friend of mine used to whine whenever he felt that he was being hard done by anyone saying that, Whats the point when one has to take the beatings when one was an anvil and not having the opportunity to strike back when one becomes a hammer?" (pae-phyitsin khan-byi; tu-phyittaw mantu-leik ya-yin). As for The Lady, she does not believed that 'revenge is sweet'. She was on public record that she has no intention of seeking revenge to those who have done her wrong. She said that, "I for one am entirely against the whole concept of revenge." She also told Alan Clements in her conversations with him that, "I don't think you can just forget the past but one should use experiences of the past to build a better present and future." It seems like an easy way out for someone who has been wronged by others in the past to say that he or she forgave them because they were taught by their religion to do so. What if one was taught, 'an eye for an eye'? Even Daw Suu is of the view that for reconciliation to take place 'some kind of forgiveness is essential, balanced with some degrees of justice.' To her, 'to forgive basically means the ability to see the person apart from the deed and to recognise that although he has done the deed, it does not mean that he is irredeemable.' She also believed that, 'the admission of injustice, to a certain extent, will prevent it from happening again.' No admission of injustice was ever made and these acts of injustice continue while at the same time they were saying at ad nauseam that they were now on their way to democracy. It is understandable that for those with Presidential aspirations may be willing to forgive and forget the wrongs that have been done to them but for those who are seeking closure to the loss of their loved ones it must be a big ask. Especially when those who perpetrated those wrongs, let alone admitting, have shown no signs of acknowledging the evil they have inflicted on their fellow countrymen - young, old, men, women and not even sparing the monks. Instead they just seem to go on with their lives saying, "I don't want to analyse or look back on the actions of the past, look at how peaceful my life is now, very peaceful." The intelligence apparatus in Burma had been carrying out these extrajudicial killings with impunity even during the Parliamentary democratic Government of U Nu and before the military takeover in 1962. That person who did not care to look back at what evil he had done should consider himself lucky to be living among the people whose very nature is quite forgiving. But do not push your luck too far though - even a worm can bite. Under man made laws you may be able to escape the punishment that you deserved but under the laws of karma your chickens will surely come back to roost. It is only a matter of time - when your karma ripens then you will see. What would have become of the Buddha's saying that, "the deeds you have done, good or bad, will follow you as if the carriage follows the horses?" Are these words for nothing? I do not think so. To some, it seems that the tone has been set by the most famous of the thousands of the country's former political prisoners, Daw Aung Sui Kyi, the political opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate who spent a total of 15 years under hose arrest before her release in 2010 its time to move on. That is the reason why I gave her the name, 'Political Prisoner-in-Chief'. However, we have to be careful not to fall into this 'cultural trap' as how Lucian Aye described in his book about the Chinese culture; "In Chinese political culture the imperative to be optimistic about the future discourages reflections on the past. Ritualized enthusiasm inhibits pragmatic learning through experience. Few people live as much in the future as people do in China, where most individuals are absorbed in the promises of tomorrow and where modest improvements of the day seem to herald unlimited prospects." He also added that, "If people who were unjustly jailed for two decades will not critise what was done to them, why should the authorities worry about injustices in the future?" Do you not think that he had a point there? In South Africa, amnesty was the price of securing the peaceful, negotiated collapse of the white rule. In Burma's case, it was not about the peaceful, negotiated collapse of the military rule at all. The military seems to be still 'a state within a state' - with its own major share of state budget and its fingers in most of all the economic pies. It was more like Daw Suu has been used as the monkey when the quasi-civilian U Thein Sein's government went around begging for foreign investments and lifting of economic sanctions imposed on them. She is the 'democratic face' for the 'Thein Sein's military government in civilian clothes'. There was just the meeting between the two (under the portrait of Bogyoke Aung San, the father of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and whom the military called their father now) that brought about the changes we now have in Burma. No terms of agreement were made public and there was no mention of amnesty for those who were alleged to have committed human rights abuses nor there any acknowledgement from the military of their wrong doing either.

So there is neither truth nor reconciliation but a form of 'enforced collective amnesia' cloaked under the guise of Buddhism that is bringing in the changes. One thing that I have learnt in life is that one must have the courage to face up to the consequences of one's actions. The generals may have been awarded with many decorations and medals for their gallantry and valour but most likely they were awarded for murdering of not just the combatants from the ethnic minorities' armies who were their own fellow country men - but also women and children who have no role in combat of any form. One has to ask, do they really deserved those honours? As what can be established from the evidence available to us, they lacked the courage to tell the truth. There is no chance of those in the military, active or retired, admitting their evil doings. I did not become a soldier because I did not have the courage to kill another human being and I despised taking orders from anyone. As for the other form of courage, what my mother taught us about telling the truth 'love the old if you are true, own the fault if you are wrong' is embedded in our hearts. Ready to tell the truth and willing to be punished for our own wrong doings was the courage we were brought up with. Daw Suu must have learnt quite a lot about 'truth telling' and 'amnesty' from the South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu when the two met. From what she learnt she could weigh up which way to get the country and its people out of the 'political trauma' that they have to bear during the past fifty years under successive military rule. Within her capability and the time left for her (she has turned 68 on 19 June this year) to lift the people out of their poor existence despite living in a rich and naturally endowed country she did not have the luxury to dwell in the past but rather move forward and fast. There may be some who have difficulty in moving forward without the chance of knowing what might have happened to their loved ones. They might want to know the truth of what had happen to their loved ones as some form of closure. They might not want the perpetrators and those who gave them orders to carry out their evil acts to go scot-free. I could be wrong. If the country is to move forward then some form of responsibility, or those responsible in some way has to be call upon to give their account. The people who have been the victims may not be asking for retribution if they were given the chance to know what has happened to their loved ones. We have before our eyes that those who have been wronged. They did not speak of revenge nor call for some form of retribution. For the sake of the country and for the future generations to have a kind of life they deserved as citizens they seem to have made the choice to forgive and move on. I do not think that they have no illusion about making their conscious choice to forgive those who have done them wrong. They know for a fact that the late military dictator U Ne Win made his intention clear that he would use the military to kill and not to scare. In his address to the Extraordinary Congress of the Burma Socialist Program Party held on 23 July 1988 he said that, "In continuing to maintain control, I want the entire nation, the people, to know that if in future there are mob disturbances, if the army shoots, it hits -- there is no firing into the air to scare. So if in future there are such disturbances and if the army is used, let it be known that those creating disturbances will not get off lightly." Whether their decision gave them a form of closure, a form of social catharsis or not, we will have to wait and see. It takes a better man to either walk away from a fight or to forgive even if he or she is in a position to retaliate. To my friend, there are those even when they have their turn as hammer they are magnanimous and chose not to strike. END