What medium for the message?

[moe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

What medium for the message? 


By David I Steinberg 

 Aung San Suu Kyi must speak to her own people through
      the burmese cultural medium or see her internal
                          legitimacy erode 



TO whom does Aung San Suu Kyi now speak? Her stand for democracy as the West
understands it is clear, but her message in the cultural context may be more
oriented to the foreign
community than to the local people within Myanmar who have been denied by
the authorities an
opportunity to hear her or read her words. 

In the 11th century, a Burmese king from Pagan in central Burma captured
King Manuha from the
southern kingdom of Thaton, and transplanted him and many of his followers
back to that central
Burmese capital. 

The captive was placed in what we today would call house arrest. But in the
monarchical tradition,
he was allowed to build a Buddhist pagoda, as indeed all leaders have done
up to the present,
including U Nu, and Generals Ne Win and Than Shwe in contemporary times. 

To symbolise the psychic constraints to which he was subjected and the
resultant emotional stress,
he built a pagoda containing three massive Buddha figures. 

They were completely out of proportion to the space -- cramped and
constrained by abutting
walls that constricted their shoulders and a roof that pressed on their
heads. This was an
innovative, eloquent and politically acceptable means to protest his
imprisonment and convey a
timeless message. The pagoda still stands today in Pagan. 

Aung San Suu Kyi has also been under house arrest, and even after her
release her movements
and visitors have been restricted and screened. Her statements of political
freedom now are only
heard by the outside world since she no longer can speak to her gathered
followers and the press
is controlled. 

The SLORC is attempting to make her irrelevant internally. Each side seems
to have become more
intransigent, and her frustration seems to have become more strident. The
SLORC attempts to
portray her as a stooge of foreign "neocolonialism" and "hegemonism", both
led by the United
States. But in so far as her message is conveyed only to the outside world,
her internal legitimacy
may erode, and the SLORC's argument may have more local salience. 

To begin meaningful dialogue between the two sides is what realistically the
world hopes for at this
sorry state of play. To do this requires will on both sides, but whether
there are such mutual
sentiments is unclear. But in any case, the need for the opposition is to
operate within the dominant
culture of the country, and deal with the authorities on a common platform,
even if the differences
are immense. That platform is Burmese culture. 

Some 20 or more years ago, a cyclone hit the Arakan in Burma, killing many
and making
thousands homeless. U Nu, who had been released from prison by the military
but was prevented
from engaging in politics in a highly authoritarian state, made both a
humanitarian and political
statement. He walked silently through the streets of Rangoon raising funds,
as would a mendicant
monk, and his mute meritorious activities drew large, sympathetic crowds. It
was a quintessential
political statement in an appropriate cultural context. 

Perhaps it need not take building a pagoda to operate within the Burmese
context, but then again it
might. 

King Manuha's actions remind us how to speak through culture to politics.
Aung San Suu Kyi
must speak to her own people, drawing upon the traditions and resources of
her own society.