LITTLE ROCK — “From this day on, the official language of San Marcos will be Swedish. Silence! In addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside . . . so we can check. Furthermore, all children under 16 years old are now . . . 16 years old!”
-Esposito, addressing the subjects of San Marcos, after taking power of that fictive little country in Woody Allen’s Bananas.
AFTER Esposito gives his order about the underwear, Woody Allen’s character mumbles: “What’s the Spanish word for straitjacket?” Clearly, some folks let power go to their heads.
Which brings us to Burma . . . or Myanmar or Birmania or whatever it’s called this week. Somehow a story in the Washington Post appeared on our desk along with a note written by a friend: “Did you read this? North Korea crazy . . . .”
Burma isn’t in the news these days just because of its “election” earlier this month. One could be forgiven for asking why the ruling junta would bother with staging an election at all. Answer:Because like all tyrannies, the regime seeks a semblance of legitimacy. So it pretends to be a democracy, not that anybody in Burma or anywhere else is fooled. Any more than any Russians over the age of 12 believed Soviet elections were legit. (With 98.99 percent of the vote going to the Communist Party’s hand-picked candidates.)
But pseudo-elections are only one of the cosmetic changes ordered by the regime in Burma. Among the others:
First, the powers that (completely) be changed the country’s flag. And the nation’s official seal, too.
Also, the national anthem.
Oh, yeah, and the country’s name.
Be sure not to call it the Union of Myanmar any more. It’s now the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. (Another 1970s comedy comes to mind: The Life of Brian. “Judean People’s Front? We’re the People’s Front of Judea!”)
The new flag is yellow, green and red, with a white star in the middle.The junta didn’t explain what the colors meant. Nobody dared ask. Challenging the ruling class in Burma is a good way to find yourself a head shorter, or at least behind bars.
OFFICIALS up and down the Burmese/Myanmarese chainof-command were said to have been ordered to take down all the country’s old flags and burn them. Down the memory hole and all that. Not only that, but-Befehl ist Befehl! Orders are Orders!-the person taking down the flag had to be born on a Tuesday, and the person raising the new flag had to be born on a Wednesday. Got that?
For all we know, said flagbearers may have been ordered to wear their underwear on the outside, too, so that the regime could check, but we can’t confirm that. In Burma/Myanmar, Union or Republic thereof, it’s not easy distinguishing satire from reality.
But we can confirm what Burmawatchers are saying: All these changes were probably made in accordance with the dictates of . . . astrology. (How’s that for a state religion?) Apparently the secretive rulers of Burma regularly consult with their court astrologers. Atleast that’s how the experts explain the sudden changes. Being a Burma expert must be a little like being a psychiatrist, only with more bizarre patients.
Yes, North Korea-crazy . . . .
THIS WOULD all be as funny as a Woody Allen movie, or at least an early Woody Allen movie, if the junta ruling Burma weren’t so dangerous-at least to its own people. Sure, the regime held an election November 7th, but the result was scarcely in doubt. The fix was in. Even the United Nations saw that much. Heck, even the New York Times recognized it. Who knows, maybe even NPR noticed.
While the regime makes substantial changes to its anthem and seal, it’s not about to make substantial changes in how it treats its people, i.e., miserably. Burma is noted for tolerating sweatshops, human trafficking and child labor. Sexual violence is said to be one way the junta controls its subjects.
This is the regime that honored its Nobel Laureate by putting her under house arrest for 15 of the last 20 years. Only after the election did Burma’s generals release the heroic Aung San Suu Kyi, who responded by making it clear that she would continue fighting for democracy in her country.
According to Amnesty International, since 1989 some 1,300 political prisoners have been imprisoned in Burma after sham trials. But of course. If you criticize the regime, there’s no such thing as a fair trial in that despotism, not when the generals control the courts. An independent judiciary would be such an inconvenience.
Here’s the real puzzle: Some say Voice of America will cut the hours it broadcasts to Burma now that the election is over. For heaven’s and the Burmese people’s sake, why? To reward the dictators for holding a phony vote? The Obama administration should do the exact opposite, and provide the people there with even more information about what’s really going on in their prison of a country. It would be the American thing to do.
If the rulers of Burma want to keep trying to fool their people, that’s their decision to make, even obsession. But America-America!-should be in another, opposite business. Is the Obama administration-and Congress, which controls funding for VOA-listening?
North Korea has been described as the crazy aunt in the world’s attic. She’s constantly pounding on the ceiling, raising Cain, firing off shots, making demented demands and wild threats. Every now and then she’ll cook up something that goes BANG! and makes the rest of the world nervous. She’ll yell down imprecations followed by threats of war and sometimes more than just threats. (See last week’s headlines.)
Aunt Crazy is also fond of producing nutty conspiracy theories interspersed with “news” about Dear Leader’s golf scores. Yes, crazy. Then she’ll get eerily quiet-and hairs really start standing on end as the world waits and wonders what her next move will be. And hopesit isn’t nuclear.
But now the crazy aunt has a sister. One that puts on a nice smile for everybody while jailing and torturing and killing. You’d think the Burmese dictators have been taking Ahmadinejad lessons.
At this point, we won’t say which sister, Burma or North Korea, is worse. Just that they both need straitjackets.
Editorial, Pages 84 on 11/28/2010