Burma s Animal Farm: A Real Story

By Saneitha Nagani Whenever I read George Orwell s Animal Farm I cannot help relating it to what has happened and what is happening in Burma. The events that took place since the country s independence from Britain in 1948 until now have been like living in Orwell s fairy tale but it is not one bit like being in a fairy tale for us at all. Whether you are from an ethnic background or you belong to Burmese majority, your life under the military regime will be brutish and short . Today I am like Snowball or even Mollie, who managed to escape from that blessed place and I considered myself fortunate to be able to tell how life was back then. The trouble is that for most of us in the same fate still can find it hard to come to terms with living in exile . As the Ved Mehta, the writer living in the United Sates of America for more than forty years but still felt that he needed to write about India, said in a radio interview that, the older one grows the more vivid grows the recollection of childhood and that for a writer his early experiences are very important. I am not a writer but I need to write about my country of birth even though I am better of living in a democratic country with a very generous people. My recollections of my childhood grew more vivid with my age. Likewise, my recollection on reading George Orwell s Animal Farm is vivid as ever too. Especially when I can relate it to the events in Burma with Orwell wrote in his story. The book I had read back then was a paperback with a pig on its cover. It was cruel of me to use it as a sign of dissent and also to irritate my director (who is a Chinese Muslim) I would put up the book in front of my face as if I was reading it. I did it rather to annoy him than to insult his belief. In the end he could stand me no more so he went to our departmental head, the director general to get me out of his section. I too was please to be out and be working in another section with a director with a human face. Like Major, our Bogyoke (Aung San Suu Kyi s father) dreamt and struggled throughout his life to gain Burma s independence from Britain. His dream of a unified Burma was shattered when on the eve of independence he and his colleagues in the cabinet were assassinated. We were able to drive Farmer Jones out of Manor Farm but under Ne Win since 1962 Burma was like Animal Farm under Napoleon. I cannot say that U Nu can be compared to Snowball since he had done very little for the development of the country. His quasi socialist ideology mixed with Buddhist characteristics has development program Pyidawtha Sihman-gaing (Heaven on Earth project) that was more of a kind of pork barrelling rather than nation building. However, Ne Win and his Revolutionary Council used U Nu and the alleged foreign power behind him as Napoleon uses Snowball and Mr Jones as bogey men to shift the blame on. If you think that Squealer was good to be the one sent round the farm to explain to whatever the new arrangements were to the other animals, the military regimes of both past and present, has Kyaw Hsan, Ohn Gyaw and others in the state controlled media were way beyond the Squealer s league in spin and lies , distorting the truth and rewriting history. For example, Ohn Gyaw when he was a foreign minister blatantly lie and told the world that the death of Leo Nichols, an honorary consul for Nordic countries in Rangoon and a close friend of Aung San Suu Kyi, in custody was on no fault of the government but because of the fatty foods he ate.

Like a chameleon, Ohn Gyaw, was quick to change his colours. When some who were junior to him in terms of service were promoted before him he did not seemed to care. The reason he was not promoted was that he stood on his principles and refused to submit a paper even when he ordered to do so by the then foreign minister. He had my respect then but it was soon lost when he was totally out of whack and he agreed to become a full fledged member (din-pyei) of the Burma Socialist Program Party. The policy then was one have to be a full member of the party to be appointed to certain key position. If you are of certain religion other than Buddhist (Christian or Muslim, and especially Muslim) then you career ends at the level of a director. It is something like China has for its Red and Expert policy during the era of Chairman Mao Zedong where party cadres are appointed in important positions with the power to over rule 'technical experts' even in their field of expertise. One may asked that whether a full fledged member had more conviction than a non member when it comes to ideology , I can only say by my experience that a dishonest idiot can supersede over a smart and honest one by joining the party. Burma, during the post independence period and it s flirtation with parliamentary democracy system until the Ne Win military take over of power in March 1962, the politicians were like Snowball and Napoleon. Nothing could be done because of their disagreement. Orwell in his story wrote about the two that, These two disagreed at every point where disagreement was possible. (Doesn t this remind us of what we are having with our politicians on climate change , carbon tax and on refugees and offshore processing ?) Fortunately, unlike those in Burma and unlike Napoleon in the Animal Farm, these politicians do not have to worry about either the military coup or military intelligence or the dogs of Napoleon that would came bounding at a high-pitched whimper from him. Like Snowball, U Nu (Mr Tender) was the one who could easily won over the majority of people in Burma by his speeches and the religious cloak he puts on when campaigning. Ne Win though was more like Napoleon who relied on his hounds. Jessie and Bluebell gave birth to nine sturdy pups but they were taken away and raised by Napoleon in secret. He used them to drive out Snowball and also to keep other animals in check. Ne Win, as a founder of the Military Intelligence used agents like Aunt Lynn Htut, his boss Khin Nyunt and among others Myethman Tin Oo (Brigadier Tin Oo with spectacles) to suppress and stamp out dissent; to oppress the people of Burma from all walks of lives. That includes children of primary school age. One might call it a coincidence but unfortunately Burma, like Manor Farm, also has neighbours like Mr Frederick and Mr Pilkinton of the neighbouring farms Foxwood and Pinchfield. Not to mention Chavalit Yongchaiyudh and Thailand s preying on Burma s woes, China and India have been the main beneficiaries of the military regime s misrule in Burma. They made billions dollars worth of investment in gas and oil industries as well as for the use of port facilities for transhipment of oil and gas from the Bay of Bengal to Northeaster parts of India and across Burma to the Yunnan Province in China. It is not a coincidence either when the likes of Mr Whymper, the solicitor living in Willingdon in Orwell s fairy story acted as an intermediary between Animal Farm and the outside world, lobbying firms such as Jefferson Waterman International and lobbyists like Ann Wrobleski, Jackson Bain, Morton I. Abramowitz. Richard L. Armitage, Michael H. Armacost and many others made money out of Burma s image problem.

Countries and academic who called themselves Burma experts and those who had to worry about their moral integrity insist on calling Burma by its former name instead of Myanmar just the same as those farmers and neighbours of Manor Farm like Mr Frederick and Mr Pilkinton insist on calling Manor Farm as it was known under Mr Jones and not Animal Farm. For lobbyists in academic clothes calling themselves Burma experts, including the United Nations organisation, its Secretary General, and a number of special envoys appointed, neither have spine nor principles to stand on, so as a face saving measure they used a slash as Burma/Myanmar. Burma s Animal Farm is not short of characters like Minimus with a remarkable gift for composing songs and poems in its arts sector. Just as Ne Win had Raju for the main task of preparing and tasting all the food before Ne Win ate, a young pig named Pinkeye had a similar role making sure lest the food for Napoleon should be poisoned. The similarities between Orwell s Animal Farm and Burma under successive military regimes have been inexhaustible to cover in a short piece of mine. However, whenever you look at the televised news on the toasts the leaders of the two countries extend to each other in official state banquets be they between Burma and China, Burma and India or Burma and any other country in the region for that matter, one would never missed the point that it would be impossible to tell them from man to pig and from pig to man . END