TH #12 Exiles and Expats

Towards Home #12

Exiles and Expats

April, 2003

Exiles, émigrés, refugees, and expatriates uprooted from their lands must make do in new surroundings, and the creativity as well as the sadness that can be seen in what they do is one of the experiences that has still to find its chroniclers, even though a splendid cohort of writers that includes such different figures as Salman Rushdie and V.S. Naipaul has already opened further the door first tried by Conrad.
– Edward W. Said, Reflections on Exile (2000), p. xiv

So, what is Thailand like? When I get this question, I never know how to answer because Thailand is complex and heterogeneous, like everywhere. I would never presume to give any sort of summarizing statement about what Thailand is like.

So what's it like for me? On this, I can claim some authority. I can cheat the trap of generalizing by stating the truth of according-to-my-experience. I am a Western expatriate in an exiled Burmese community. This identity is the overarching factor that affects who I am here and what my impressions of Thailand are. For people far away, "Burma" and "Thailand" are easily blurred into "somewhere in Asia," and perhaps even mistaken for Brunei and Taiwan, or Bali and China. Thailand and Burma have a history of animosity towards each other. To live near the border of Thailand and Burma means to experience the glaring differences between the two countries – politically and culturally for sure, but also on a very personal level. Most of my opinions and feelings about Thailand are caught up in how Thai society deals with the situation in Burma and how Thai people treat the Burmese.

As an expat, one of my first challenges when I arrived here five years ago was to learn the language. But which language? Burmese and Thai seemed the obvious choices, but there were also reasons to learn the Northern Thai dialect or one of the minority languages of Burma, such as Shan or Karen. One of my early impressions of the expat community working with Burmese in Thailand was that many of them were bitter towards Thais because of how poorly Burmese are treated here. But those who spoke Thai seemed less jaded. I decided that although my focus was Burma, I wanted to be able to communicate with Thais too. Without the language, I knew I would have an impossible time trying to make sense of all that was new, different, and confusing.

Much of Thailand is surprisingly similar to the United States, particularly the consumerist culture. We have our fast food restaurants, convenience stores, and shopping malls. In that regard, I have a simple but comfortable lifestyle with cable TV, an air conditioner, newspaper delivery, and coffee shops galore. One of the differences I have encountered, though, is with communication styles. Thais tend to take great care of a conversation partner's emotions, and foreigners are often viewed as rude in their directness. One friend explained to me that "do you want to go to a movie on Friday" does not sound like a true invitation because it's not emotive, as if the inviter doesn't care one way or another if the invitee goes. Better to say, "I would love for you to go to a movie with me on Friday." Even a gesture as seemingly universal as a smile takes on different meanings here. I frequently see a motorbike driver stopped by a policeman for not wearing his helmet, both of them smiling and interacting like long-lost friends as the policeman extracts the 200 baht fine. A smile like that in the U.S. would probably imply that there was something fishy going on.

It can be a disturbing realization that what holds true for me, what seems "normal," may not hold true for others. From a fairly sheltered and stable childhood in suburban Indiana, where there was lots of pressure to be normal, I took progressive jaunts away from home to Spain, Texas, and then to DC where I met people from all over the world who traveled all over the world. This exposure to things non-Hoosier made me curious about how others viewed the world and prompted me to challenge my own narrow-mindedness and views of what should be. I liked the challenge, and when I'd get overwhelmed by difference, I would remind myself of what anthropologist Clifford Geertz wrote: "if we wanted home truths, we should have stayed at home." Anthropology 101 teaches the importance of cultural relativity, i.e. that most people's views are rational within their cultural context. Thai prejudice and discrimination against Burmese is an important factor in my work here, and with this basic anthropological lesson in mind, I try to understand the complexities of those dynamics rather than with simplistic generalizations about Thai or Burmese character.

Like me, the Burmese are also guests in Thailand but they are guests of a different sort. In immigrant-advocacy circles in the U.S., there is much talk about the fuzzy line between "economic migrants" and legitimate refugees, and the same fuzziness affects the Burmese here. Generally, there are three categories of Burmese in Thailand: refugees who live in refugee camps; migrant workers who do agricultural, industrial, or service work; and exiles doing political work. But if a refugee is a person who must flee a homeland for fear of persecution, then they are all refugees. The distinction here is about what they end up doing once they get to Thailand, not the reasons they left Burma. In contrast to all the land-of-smiles fawning that Thailand heaps onto Westerners, people from Burma are looked down upon, discriminated against, and in the worst cases, raped and killed with impunity. They have difficulty obtaining legal recourse to such abuses if they are here without legitimate papers. Most of my colleagues cannot move freely, for fear of traffic checkpoints where they will be asked for identification that they do not have. Even for those who have learned the Thai art of smiling and brotherly congeniality, being Burmese in Thailand can be hazardous.

As a Westerner, I am virtually immune from the kind of struggles that Burmese exiles experience in Thailand. At the first intersection I come to on my way to work, the police frequently set up a checkpoint to collect fines for not wearing a motorcycle helmet or for not having one's license and registration updated. I have passed that checkpoint dozens of times and have never been stopped. In contrast, three co-workers have been pulled over at checkpoints. One had his motorbike impounded, another paid a $25 "fine" (bribe), and in one case my co-worker went to jail for three days. If any of them had been with me on my motorcycle, we would not have been stopped.

How Thailand is for me cannot be separated from how it is for my Burmese colleagues. Most of my scorn is reserved for the government, especially security forces such as the police and army, who have too much power over the daily lives of the Burmese and too much political influence for a so-called democratic society. On the other hand, I have gotten to know a number of Thais who sympathize with their neighbors. I know Thai artists, teachers, and activists who don't accept the stereotypes and prejudices about the Burmese. They feel a strong attachment to those struggling for democracy and human rights in contrast to the blind patriotism and simplistic nationalism that distances most Thais from the Burmese. These are the Thais who have taken up the task of educating Thai society about the problems faced by the Burmese. Others are trying to get the Thai government to support the democracy movement instead of its own business interests in Burma. And there are others whose work is not directly related to Burma – taxi drivers, farmers, waitresses – who also sympathize because of some natural inclination toward open-mindedness and compassion.

The recent events in Burma – the government attack on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's motorcade that resulted in a massacre and her subsequent incarceration – have prompted increased sympathy among Thais for the Burmese. As I write this newsletter on a night train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, about 500 people have gathered in Chiang Mai for a candlelight vigil in support of the Burmese democracy movement leader. The Burmese exiles have greater access to the international community – media, embassies, the United Nations – than the people inside Burma. We all experience mixed emotions when high-profile attacks like the one on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi occur. No one wants harm to come to her, but only when the military's actions focus on the famous leader does the international community respond. Daily pieces about Burma on CNN and in the The New York Times raise hopes that governments and the United Nations will stop trying to engage the junta and will start bringing real pressure to bear so that they will transfer power. Will the international community now take real action to prompt "regime change" in Burma?

The Burmese reaction to the U.S.-U.K. war in Iraq highlighted how desperate the society is for change. A majority of Burmese I know didn't have much to say about the war beyond wanting to know why the U.S. won't force regime change in Burma, arguing that the military junta is at least as cruel and ruthless as Saddam Hussein's regime. While I don't agree with the call for military intervention, I can understand why the Burmese would want it. Many of them have been in exile since 1988 – for 15 years. Even with access to the international community, the Burmese in exile are still quite constrained by the Thai government, and that constraint leads them to call for outside intervention. Earlier this week, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shiniwatra broke with the long tradition of non-intervention in Burmese politics by calling for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's release. That same day, a dozen Burmese exiles protested in front of the Burmese embassy in Bangkok, and their message was exactly the same as the prime minister's. Despite this seeming alliance, the activists were arrested. Without legal documents in Thailand, their efforts are extremely limited. Outsiders have greater freedom need to take up the cause. The Burmese here have to go about their work carefully, and they experience a sort of internal exile in Thailand, censoring themselves, not making any of their work too public, avoiding drawing any Thai government attention to themselves.

I mostly experience this internal exile vicariously through Burmese colleagues, but to a lesser extent I also guard my words and action. When I meet Thai people for the first time, I am vague about the work I am doing until I know for sure that they will be sympathetic, or at least not hostile. This experience of (very limited) internal exile has prompted me to review my personal history. In what ways have I self-censored while in the U.S.? In what ways do I still hold back all I could say? As a white male, I had never really considered the issue before I came here. But now I ask myself, who in the U.S. censors themselves? What about the internal exile caused by race? In college, I lived in a house of about 60 white guys and two black guys. What was it like for those two? At the time, it didn't even cross my mind that their cultural norms might be different from the rest of ours. And what about the only Filipino family who attended my high school? My view of race at the time was literally black and white. They weren't black, so I didn't even think about how their lives might be different from what I knew – everything from language to academic and professional expectations. I wish I would have been more open-minded and curious then, to have been looking for the differences, to sympathize, commiserate, or advocate as needed.

I am surprised by these insights, the spiraling pattern of learning and how one experience can provide layers of insight into past events. On a much larger scale, this learning spiral is what my work on transitional justice is all about. Argentina and South Africa have been through a transition to democracy. What lessons do they have for Burma? Do I have a role in sharing those lessons?

When it comes to "my role," my thoughts often return to Indiana. I grew up telling myself that I would teach in a small town Indiana high school, and I am still hounded by the idea that if I want to do good in the world, I should do it in my own backyard. I like the idea of being some sort of bridge, helping suburban Hoosiers understand why I think attention to other societies is important. But maybe this focus is misdirected. Maybe this Hoosier-focus is a no-place-like-home deceit or brainwashing, what Salman Rushdie calls "the world's head laundry," drawing me back like Dorothy to Kansas. I worry that any return to Indiana would leave me feeling even more an outsider than I do here in Thailand. And perhaps this outsider status has greater benefit here in Thailand than in many other places.

It feels like a luxury for me to have part of my gaze on the rest of the world and on the future. A luxury and a unique advantage, because as a Westerner involved in the Burmese struggle for human rights and democracy, it is easier for me not to be reactionary, to be proactive. The project on Transitional Justice is a preparatory project, laying the groundwork for what will be done when the military loses power. I've recently had trouble with maintaining staff because the long-term benefit isn't immediately evident, and the emotional pull and obligation of responding to immediate needs influence people from Burma more strongly than me. This isn't to say some people from Burma don't play that role, but it suits me, both for my personality and my non-Burmese identity.

I recently took an e-mail survey designed to share new or interesting things with friends who may not have thought to ask you things like, what's your favorite color? or do you prefer chocolate or vanilla? One of the questions was, if you could have any job in the world, what would it be? It took me only a split second to realize my answer: the one I have. And that fact seems like an incredible gift. I would not rather be doing anything else. And it also made me realize that despite all the similarities, the major difference between exiles and ex-pats is choice. If I want, I can go home.

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From The Ground Beneath Her Feet
Salman Rushdie

Disorientation is loss of the East. Ask any navigator: the east is what you sail by. Lose the east and you lose your bearings, your certainties, your knowledge of what is and what may be, perhaps even your life. Where was that star you followed to that manger? That’s right. The east orients. That’s the official version. The language says so, and you should never argue with the language.

But let’s just suppose. What if the whole deal – orientation, knowing where you are, and so on – what if it’s all a scam? What if all of it – home, kinship, the whole enchilada – is just the biggest, most truly global, and centuries-oldest piece of brainwashing? Suppose that it’s only when you dare to let go that your real life begins? When you’re whirling free of the mother ship, when you cut your ropes, slip your chain, step off the map, go absent without leave, scram, vamoose, whatever: suppose that it’s then, and only then, that you’re actually free to act! To lead the life nobody tells you how to live, or when, or why. In which nobody orders you to go forth and die for them, or for god, or comes to get you because you broke one of the rules, or because you’re one of those people who are, for reasons which unfortunately you can’t be given, simply not allowed. Suppose you’ve got to go through the feeling of being lost, into the chaos and beyond; you’ve got to accept the loneliness, the wild panic of losing your moorings, the vertiginous terror of the horizon spinning round and round like the edge of a coin tossed in the air.

You won’t do it. Most of you won’t do it. The world’s head laundry is pretty good at washing brains: Don’t jump off that cliff don’t walk through that door don’t step into that waterfall don’t take that chance don’t step across that line don’t ruffle my sensitivities I’m warning you now don’t make me mad you’re doing it you’re making me mad. You won’t have a chance you haven’t got a prayer you’re finished you’re history you’re less than nothing, you’re dead to me, dead to your whole family your nation your race, everything you ought to love more than life and listen to like your master’s voice and follow blindly and bow down before and worship and obey; you’re dead, you hear me, forget about it, you stupid bastard, I don’t even know your name.

But just imagine you did it. You stepped off the edge of the earth, or through the fatal waterfall, and there it was: the magic valley at the end of the universe, the blessed kingdom of the air. Great music everywhere. You breathe the music, in and out, it’s your element now. It feels better than “belonging” in your lungs.

Vina was the first one of us to do it. Ormus jumped second, and I, as usual brought up the rear. And we can argue all night about why, did we jump or were we pushed, but you can’t deny we all did it. We three kings of Disorient were.

And I’m the only one who lived to tell the tale.

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For a long while I have believed – this is perhaps my version of Sir Darius Xerxes Cama’s belief in a fourth function of outsideness – that in every generation there are a few souls, call them lucky or cursed, who are simply born not belonging, who come into the world semi-detached, if you like, without strong affiliation to family or location or nation or race; that there may even be millions, billions of such souls, as many non-belongers as belongers, perhaps; that, in sum, the phenomenon may be as “natural” a manifestation of human nature as its opposite, but one that has been mostly frustrated, throughout human history, by lack of opportunity. And not only by that: for those who value stability, who fear transience, uncertainty, change, have erected a powerful system of stigmas and taboos against rootlessness, that disruptive, anti-social force, so that we mostly conform, we pretend to be motivated by loyalties and solidarities we do not really feel, we hide our secret identities beneath the false skins of those identities which bear the belongers’ seal of approval. But the truth leaks out in our dreams; alone in our beds (because we are all alone at night, even if we do not sleep by ourselves), we soar, we fly, we flee. And in the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the nonbelongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks. What we forbid ourselves we pay good money to watch, in a playhouse or movie theatre, or to read about between the secret covers of a book. Our libraries, our places of entertainment tell the truth. The tramp, the assassin, the rebel, the thief, the mutant, the outcast, the delinquent, the devil, the sinner, the traveler, the gangster, the runner, the mask: if we did not recognize in them our least-fulfilled needs, we would not invent them over and over again, in every place, in every language, in every time.

No sooner did we have ships than we rushed to sea, sailing across oceans in paper boats. No sooner did we have cars than we hit the road. No sooner did we have airplanes than we zoomed to the furthest corners of the globe. Now we yearn for the moon’s dark side, the rocky plains of Mars, the rings of Saturn, the interstellar deeps. We send mechanical photographers into orbit, or on one-way journeys to the stars, and we weep at the wonders they transmit; we are humbled by the mighty images of far-off galaxies standing like cloud pillars in the sky, and we give names to alien rocks, as if they were our pets. We hunger for warp space, for the outlying rim of time. And this is the species that kids itself it likes to stay at home, to bind itself with – what are they called again? – ties.

That’s my view. You don’t have to buy it. Maybe there aren’t so many of us, after all. Maybe we are disruptive and anti-social and we shouldn’t be allowed. You’re entitled to your opinion. All I will say is: sleep soundly, baby. Sleep tight and sweet dreams.