TH #3 Taking Initiative
Towards Home #3
Taking Initiative
October, 1998
If you cannot undo it then the knot is tied
If love can't be your lover it can be your guide
But you need to pay attention to the signs
You do not need to stay between the lines
- John Gorka, Two Good Reasons
When I worked at CYO camp one summer, we took a "personality test" called the Enneagram. This test is often used in group settings to facilitate group dynamics by assessing compatibility, working styles, ways of dealing with conflict, and such. The category that I fell into, a "six," identified one of my strong personality traits as "loyalty" – to a value, a cause, and sometimes to
a particular person. Particularly apt in the explanation of a "six" personality was that this quality of loyalty was tied to rules and regularions – always needing to know what my limits were, who was setting them, and whether I agreed with the. This has played itself out in most new settings in which I've found myself including Thailand. I'm a little slow to take initiative because I want to check out what everyone else is doing and what's expected of me. Then once I have a good idea of all that, I decide whether to stick with the present pattern or to challenge it. Inevitably this translates into getting a slow, cautious start with most everything I do, but persisting until I figure out my contribution.
Perhaps because of this quality, the field of anthropology suits me well. The signature anthropological approach to being in the field is participant observation. That is, in a new, foreign setting, we set out not to control it or contribute (impose) our "expertise," but rather to take it all in and analyze the situation. Then, for those of us with an activist bent, it comes time to re-evaluate our role, our contribution, and our effectiveness. I got the observer-part down pretty quickly, and there is still a lot to "take in." I'm just now moving into participant mode.
The projects I am taking initiative on grow out of the lessons learned from previous settings, especially the work with Central American immigrants and academic research on politial transitions in Latin America. My role with BurmaNet is to compile and disseminate information about the political and social situation of Burma. Despite the military junta's censorship and repressive measures, the amount of information that Burmese and their supporters are able to gather and get out of the country is really quite impressive. Last month, I wrote my first article for BurmaNet, a project I hope will become a monthly occurrence. I have also started working on an archives project to help preserve the large amount of information being collected about the resistance and to make that information broadly available.
The most exciting project for me is a training I have started planning for Burmese exiles. I will present the issues confronted in various societies throughout the world to "right past wrongs." The material will cover efforts to hold the perpetrators of human rights abuses to account through processes like South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Nunca Mas ("Never Again") reports from South American countries that named some of the disappeared and their torturers. As the saying goes, the first casualty of war is truth. Burma is no exception. While these attempts to reconstruct the past have had varying success rates in achieving justice for the victims, at the very least they have limited the scope of acceptable lies about the past.* Limiting that scope in the case of Burma will be a mighty task.
The struggle for human rights in Burma has also been a battle for truth. The propaganda machine of the military government is a huge operation. Its Orwellian doublespeak is over-the-top. It would be comical if the voice-hand coordination was not such a vital and effective mechanism for maintaining the tight grip of repression that holds the Burmese people down. The main opposition group, the National League for Democracy (NLD), has since its formation ten years ago attempted to maneuver in the little available space inside that grip.
The mass uprising in 1988 resulted in the massacre of thousands of people and a military coup that brought the State Law and Order Restoration Council (Slorc) into power. They called it a coup, but it was a transfer of power from the military to the military – a coup in name only. During this "transfer" of power, the junta announced that elections would be held, and indeed the people were able to go to the polls in May, 1990.
When the people (including a large number of the rank and file military) voted overwhelmingly for the NLD, led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Slorc made a quick historical record-shift and declared that those elected were not to form a Parliament as originally stated. The plan all along, they said, was to form a National Convention to write a Constitution with the elected officials filling only a percentage of the seats and th large majority of seats filled by, of course, the military themselves. Then, once the Constitution was written, they would hold Parliamentary elections.
In 1995, after seven years under house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi assessed the workings of the National Convention and deemed the process so dominated by the military that it was counter the democratic principles that formed the ideological base of the NLD. In a controversial move, all of the NLD members withdrew from the sham convention. The junta's grip remained strong, and the NLD was adjusting its position inside it.
Such maneuvers are typical of the relationship between the democratic forces and the military junta. Every small move that the NLD makes – traveling to meet with one another, doing interviews with foreign journalists, hosting a study-group of youths – meets with repression and the accompanying propaganda machine that tells everyone that up is down, chaos and fear are stability, and repression is peace.
Perhaps believing that 10 years of small maneuvers was enough, Aung San Suu Kyi announced in June that with or without the military's approval, the NLD would convene the Parliament that was elected in 1990. This bold move raised the ire of the junta, and they arrested nearly all the elected MP's. Undaunted, Aung San Suu Kyi formed the Committee Representing People's Parliament to carry out its work, having received approval of those who had been detained beforehand. In August and September, students once again took to the streets and protested against the military's education policies and the general lack of political freedom. The military's response has been to carry out the strongest crackdown since 1988. Estimates are that a huge number – nearly 2,000 people – have been detained in relation to the call to convene Parliament and the student demonstrations.
Taking Initiative
October, 1998
If you cannot undo it then the knot is tied
If love can't be your lover it can be your guide
But you need to pay attention to the signs
You do not need to stay between the lines
- John Gorka, Two Good Reasons
When I worked at CYO camp one summer, we took a "personality test" called the Enneagram. This test is often used in group settings to facilitate group dynamics by assessing compatibility, working styles, ways of dealing with conflict, and such. The category that I fell into, a "six," identified one of my strong personality traits as "loyalty" – to a value, a cause, and sometimes to
a particular person. Particularly apt in the explanation of a "six" personality was that this quality of loyalty was tied to rules and regularions – always needing to know what my limits were, who was setting them, and whether I agreed with the. This has played itself out in most new settings in which I've found myself including Thailand. I'm a little slow to take initiative because I want to check out what everyone else is doing and what's expected of me. Then once I have a good idea of all that, I decide whether to stick with the present pattern or to challenge it. Inevitably this translates into getting a slow, cautious start with most everything I do, but persisting until I figure out my contribution.Perhaps because of this quality, the field of anthropology suits me well. The signature anthropological approach to being in the field is participant observation. That is, in a new, foreign setting, we set out not to control it or contribute (impose) our "expertise," but rather to take it all in and analyze the situation. Then, for those of us with an activist bent, it comes time to re-evaluate our role, our contribution, and our effectiveness. I got the observer-part down pretty quickly, and there is still a lot to "take in." I'm just now moving into participant mode.
The projects I am taking initiative on grow out of the lessons learned from previous settings, especially the work with Central American immigrants and academic research on politial transitions in Latin America. My role with BurmaNet is to compile and disseminate information about the political and social situation of Burma. Despite the military junta's censorship and repressive measures, the amount of information that Burmese and their supporters are able to gather and get out of the country is really quite impressive. Last month, I wrote my first article for BurmaNet, a project I hope will become a monthly occurrence. I have also started working on an archives project to help preserve the large amount of information being collected about the resistance and to make that information broadly available.
The most exciting project for me is a training I have started planning for Burmese exiles. I will present the issues confronted in various societies throughout the world to "right past wrongs." The material will cover efforts to hold the perpetrators of human rights abuses to account through processes like South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Nunca Mas ("Never Again") reports from South American countries that named some of the disappeared and their torturers. As the saying goes, the first casualty of war is truth. Burma is no exception. While these attempts to reconstruct the past have had varying success rates in achieving justice for the victims, at the very least they have limited the scope of acceptable lies about the past.* Limiting that scope in the case of Burma will be a mighty task.
The struggle for human rights in Burma has also been a battle for truth. The propaganda machine of the military government is a huge operation. Its Orwellian doublespeak is over-the-top. It would be comical if the voice-hand coordination was not such a vital and effective mechanism for maintaining the tight grip of repression that holds the Burmese people down. The main opposition group, the National League for Democracy (NLD), has since its formation ten years ago attempted to maneuver in the little available space inside that grip.
The mass uprising in 1988 resulted in the massacre of thousands of people and a military coup that brought the State Law and Order Restoration Council (Slorc) into power. They called it a coup, but it was a transfer of power from the military to the military – a coup in name only. During this "transfer" of power, the junta announced that elections would be held, and indeed the people were able to go to the polls in May, 1990.
When the people (including a large number of the rank and file military) voted overwhelmingly for the NLD, led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Slorc made a quick historical record-shift and declared that those elected were not to form a Parliament as originally stated. The plan all along, they said, was to form a National Convention to write a Constitution with the elected officials filling only a percentage of the seats and th large majority of seats filled by, of course, the military themselves. Then, once the Constitution was written, they would hold Parliamentary elections.
In 1995, after seven years under house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi assessed the workings of the National Convention and deemed the process so dominated by the military that it was counter the democratic principles that formed the ideological base of the NLD. In a controversial move, all of the NLD members withdrew from the sham convention. The junta's grip remained strong, and the NLD was adjusting its position inside it.
Such maneuvers are typical of the relationship between the democratic forces and the military junta. Every small move that the NLD makes – traveling to meet with one another, doing interviews with foreign journalists, hosting a study-group of youths – meets with repression and the accompanying propaganda machine that tells everyone that up is down, chaos and fear are stability, and repression is peace.
Perhaps believing that 10 years of small maneuvers was enough, Aung San Suu Kyi announced in June that with or without the military's approval, the NLD would convene the Parliament that was elected in 1990. This bold move raised the ire of the junta, and they arrested nearly all the elected MP's. Undaunted, Aung San Suu Kyi formed the Committee Representing People's Parliament to carry out its work, having received approval of those who had been detained beforehand. In August and September, students once again took to the streets and protested against the military's education policies and the general lack of political freedom. The military's response has been to carry out the strongest crackdown since 1988. Estimates are that a huge number – nearly 2,000 people – have been detained in relation to the call to convene Parliament and the student demonstrations.
The democratic forces have some "Enneagram six" in them. They are strictly loyal to the cause of truth, and on various levels have spent the last ten years evaluating the situation and attempting to challenge the repressive rules of the political game. Most Burma-watchers agree that this move to convene Parliament is the final push. There is no longer a question of whether it's time to take initiative. The time has come, and they are making the last-ditch effort to loosen the hold of the military dictatorship. Perhaps the recent arrests will prove to be the last squeeze of a hand forced to let go of its grip.
* I got this concept from a great article on this topic by Michael Ignatieff – "Articles of Faith" in Index on Censorship (The Magazine for Free Speech), Volume 25, No. 5 September / October 1996 Issue 172.
posted by PeaJayPee @ 11:50 PM
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