Beer Garden Politics
Thuzar’s
younger sister, Cho, is a fourth year medical student and we arranged to meet
her and her friends after their class at 4.30pm. The Institute of Medicine is
located at a different campus from the University of Yangon next to the Yangon
General Hospital. The lecture halls are similar to ours at NUS with wooden
tables and benches except that the air-condition is replaced by ceiling fans.
Cho told us the campus and facilities are exactly the same as those used by her
mother 40 years ago. We are going back in time to the 1950s. In fact, I don’t
think Yangon itself has changed much since then. It is a grim indication of how
far Myanmar has developed as a country after the Second World War. Once touted
as the “rice-bowl” of Asia and one of the better prospects of post-war Asia
due to its rich natural resources, Myanmar was embroiled in fifteen bloody civil
wars with the restive ethnic minorities, the economy ruined by years of
mismanagement under the military government and most recently the country has
suffered immensely under international trade embargo, economic sanctions and
denial of humanitarian assistance.
We
were introduced to Cho’s friends – Mee Nge, Aye and Phyo. They just came
back from a 3-week rural attachment at Ok-pho township where they were involved
in health screening, education, surveillance and maternal and child care. We
thought it may be a good idea to have both the Myanmar and Singapore medical
students present their project to each other in June. Mee Nge was the prom queen
of the class in year 1; she married the next year and had just become a mother
last year! (what a pity!) Aye and Phyo were both my age and all of them come
from middle-class families. It is not expensive to study Medicine in Myanmar
unlike in Singapore. It costs no more than 2000 kyats a month (S$5). Phyo owns a
beer garden together with a few friends and he invited us there for a drink at
night. We exchanged ideas and views on many topics including our education
systems, healthcare and future careers, but it is their frank and perhaps blunt
comments on their country’s political future that left a lasting impression on
me. Phyo gave an apt description of Myanmar’s current situation – the root
of the problem is political, the rest – medical, education and economy are
more like opportunistic infections. Once the political problem is resolved, the
others will automatically follow suit. They were acutely aware of the state of
affairs in the country which will not improve in the near future. Their
education was disrupted for three years because the campus was closed down by
the government. During the bloody student demonstrations in 1988, they had
friends who were shot dead and some being thrown into jails where they still
languish. They want to study overseas once they graduated because they have no
future in Myanmar. If they want to help their fellow countrymen, they have to
earn enough money overseas first before returning. The rural folks are very
poor; they have nothing to eat at all. The government gave them rice rations for
only 8 months and they were left to fend on their own for the rest of the year.
Worse still, they do not know their basic human rights – that it is their
right to be fed and clothed properly. Some don’t even know why there is a day
and a night. Ignorance, compounded by a lack of education contributes to this
never-ending vicious cycle of poverty and deprivation. Primary and middle school
education are free and supported by the government, but most children drop out
after primary school as they are needed to plow the field to feed the family. As
Aye put it succinctly, it is impossible for a student from the countryside to
make it to university in Yangon. This is the first time I had a
“politicized” discussion with the locals. Last year during our visit to
Mandalay, I had the opportunity to talk to a group of young men. They said that
in Myanmar, people don’t talk about politics as it is futile, they only talk
about money. Of course they are Yunnanese. Though I’ve known a bit about
Myanmar from the internet and newspapers, it is really a different feeling to
hear it yourself from an ethnic Burmese who have stayed in Myanmar all his life
– you can literally see the angst, despair and feeling of hopelessness in his
eyes.