Lessons from Myanmar
May 10th, 2008 at 1:27 am (General, National Politics, International Politics)
contributed by Ryan Maboloc
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo should be happy that the most insensitive and the most stupid government in the world exists not in the Philippines but in Myanmar.
The decision of the military junta in a country of 47 million impoverished people defies all laws of logic. It renders the meaning of human dignity useless and buries the hope of the Burmese people more than a thousand miles beneath the core of the earth.
While tens of thousands are dead and a million people are homeless and are at-risk of losing their lives from diseases, the junta chose to continue with holding a constitutional referendum, which reports say guarantees a quarter of parliamentary seats to the military. “It is not important”, claims one man, who says that he is more concerned about where he will get his next meal.
The proposed constitution also bars Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from seeking the presidency. Human rights advocates around the world hope that Myanmar will say “No” to the vote. But one woman who was interviewed suggested that, “one vote does not make a difference”, and continued by saying, “I will vote yes”. She is probably right. Even if people will say no to the vote, their military rulers will fix the results anyway.
But Myanmar should teach Filipinos a lesson or two. Most commentaries on Philippine politics and even our legal luminaries talk about those on top – about reforming the bureaucracy, prosecuting corrupt officials, and expelling the pretender to the highest office of the land.
Perhaps, the people of Myanmar are too impoverished and too weak to launch any EDSA-like people power to topple their government. Buddhist monks have tried but in politics, prayers can only get you to a certain level.
If I am to choose whom to lecture about John Rawls’s A theory of Justice, I’d rather select a high school class in Kapatagan, Davao del Sur than those who are in office right now. This is because two years from now, hundreds of thousands of high school students will be casting their votes – for the first time. It is sad to say that the minds of our leaders are already made up and that no matter what we do, their bank accounts have all given them hearing problems. But all hope is not lost – the youth have a critical mass, exactly the same amount of U-238 needed for atomic fission – to change the course of our history.
Related Posts:
DJB Rizalist said,
May 10, 2008 at 3:05 am
Ah, but are we so different than Myanmar, as far as much of the world is concerned? You mention “Edsa People Power” with such pride, such blind, unself-conscious pride! Yet I daresay, much of that world that wonders at Burma now, felt much the same about us because of Edsa Dos! Don’t you see. We are just like Burma! Indeed worse because the world expected us to know better! That was Mob Rule which many still do not acknowledge and speak with such Burmese-style pride. Ngek!
micketymoc said,
May 11, 2008 at 4:00 pm
DJB, I mistrust Edsa revolutions as much as the next guy, but remember when the first Edsa came about, the news agencies were positively euphoric about it, as if we were “teaching the world about democracy”. It was Edsa II that started people wondering if that was the only way we could change leaders.
Professor Maboloc, in my opinion, the comparison between Burma and the Philippines doesn’t wash. For one thing, Filipinos don’t have their backs to the wall, unlike the Burmese. The Burmese (to my knowledge) have only had a passing experience of democracy, shifting from the absolute rule of warrior kings to British colonization to a few years’ democracy to absolute rule again.
It seems rather disingenuous to compare the Burmese experience to the Philippine one, when we have so little in common.
drew said,
May 11, 2008 at 10:03 pm
“But Myanmar should teach Filipinos a lesson or two.”
You’re kidding right?