Yangon in shades of grey
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 14: The Trouble with Paradise
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Mark Juddery
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In only one South-East Asian city I have visited can visitors walk around without fear of crime. The streets are paved with classic restaurants and teahouses, but the ubiquitous sights of McDonald's banners and neon Coca-Cola signs are nowhere to be seen; corporate America is notably absent. The town centre is also the spiritual centre: a spectacular temple, said to enshrine the relics of the Buddha himself.
The markets are clean, odourless and well stocked. The hucksters are never aggressive, even smiling kindly when you say "no thank you" and wander away. Could you imagine such a scene in Kuta Beach or Hanoi?
The people must be among the world's friendliest. The streets are lined with attractive colonial architecture. There is no internet access, so you can't even read your email – a situation that, once you become used to it, makes the place even more idyllic.
Welcome to the ideal Asian city.
BUT, AS ALWAYS, THERE'S A CATCH. This is Yangon. When I visited in December 2000, it was still the capital city of Myanmar (better known by its previous name of Burma), a nation run by a military dictatorship not renowned for quaint concepts like ethnic equality and freedom of expression. In my more cynical moments, I was reminded of It's a GOOD Life, an eerie short story by Jerome Bixby that became famous as an episode of The Twilight Zone television series. In that story, a town's population goes through life in forced bliss, terrified of what the most powerful resident will do if they so much as confess to a negative thought. Perhaps, I thought, that would explain the strangely cheerful people of Yangon. The state is trying to attract tourism, so it would be unwise to make Western visitors feel anything less than welcome. After all, they might complain to the authorities.
When I set foot in Myanmar, I knew about the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), that notorious group of faceless men who stand accused of terrible human rights abuses, and have the Nobel Prize-winning opposition leader under house arrest. Human rights groups, like the Burma Campaign UK, urge people to stay away – as does the imprisoned opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
So when I found myself visiting, I struck a deal with my conscience. While there, I would try to be appalled and disgusted by anything I saw around me, then write about it upon my return to Australia (where I could do so without being arrested).
Sadly, I had a wonderful time. That wasn't supposed to happen.
When I returned home, I tried to sell a travel story: "Another Side to Myanmar", or something like that. The reaction was more surprising than it should have been. Travel editors stated that their conscience wouldn't allow them to publish anything about Myanmar. It was a noble sentiment, but – as they would happily publish stories on trekking through China or the sights of downtown Beirut – somewhat inconsistent. Eventually, The Canberra Times published my story about the friendly people, the temples and the architectural beauty of Yangon (better known, thanks to colonial British mispronunciation, as Rangoon). Not everyone was happy. "Your travel writer Mark Juddery probably deserved his holiday," wrote one kind reader, "but it is a pity that he didn't take it somewhere with his eyes fully open. Burma – or Myanmar, as the military regime which ‘runs' it calls it – is a place of pain and repression."
(Like the US State Department, the Australian media mostly refuses to toe the SPDC's line and call the nation by its official name. In the nation itself, however, nobody seems to call it anything else.)
Undaunted, I offered a story to a magazine that prided itself on its trendy and broad-minded readers. Something on Myanmar, I thought, would be ideal for their travel section. They agreed, and I sent them an article describing the food, the markets and the spiritual aspects in loving detail. They sent it back, asking me to rewrite to include more about the politics.
My second draft mentioned (as requested) that Myanmar was controlled by a despicable military dictatorship, and discussed this in some detail before getting to the point: a travel story, for the travel section (as assigned), explaining the reasons why – despite everything – it is still worth considering.
I was ordered to do another rewrite, with more of "the facts". My response was a polite email explaining that, while I often read about the evils of Burma, I saw very little of this on my visit. Perhaps this is due to the notorious secrecy of the government. Whatever the case, I had been assigned a travel story (as offered), and that was all that I felt qualified to write.
They sent the story back, saying that if I didn't want to condemn the government, they weren't interested after all.
(Presumably, they considered any pro-Myanmar story to be unethical. As a struggling freelance journalist, I knew a little about ethics. If an editor assigns you a story, and makes you rewrite it into something else, he is ethically obliged to pay you for at least some of your time, right? Perhaps not.)
A few months later, I was talking to some friends about the ethical concerns of the various editors towards the government of Myanmar. "As if we're any better!" snapped an American friend. So the SPDC refused to accept Suu Kyi as the democratically elected leader? The way he saw it, his own President Bush had done something similar. (Different method; same motive and result.) This particular friend, I can safely say, would never vote for Bush. Nonetheless, he had a point. If we refuse to visit a nation where the government is guilty of widespread corruption and human rights abuses, there is precious little of the world that we can visit. Luxembourg perhaps?