Daw Suus Dads Army: Misplaced Loyalty or Astute Politics

By 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 of elderly 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 all the 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 the people. 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 Tatamadaw became 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 mindless obedience 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 be by 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 its alliance 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 resources including the rivers such as Irrawaddy from 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 of the people, is lacking in political integrity. This issue is more serious than just accepting donations even for a good cause it may be from the cronies. It is a question of whose

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 slight of 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 international humanitarian laws and also have to be regarded as war crimes under various 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 be pleased 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-ke wise as one may be there is always a possibility of not being mindful. END