It's late on a Wednesday evening here in Chang Mai. By this time tomorrow I should be in a (rather charmless) hotel room in Rangoon. I'm booked into my usual hotel, the Eastern, not far from the Botataung temple. I'm not really packed yet of course, but I think I have most of what I need assembled, including books to read, books for a friend, and my Burmese language book. Perhaps I should take a bigger bag, just to not feel squeezed? That's always the question. I like to try to get away with having just hand-carry, but it's a pretty silly objective when flying a short distance into an airport that's not big and not really busy. If these are the small things I'm wondering about, you'll say, then clearly I'm fine.
I agree.
Today I went with a friend to a talk/seminar at Chiang Mai University, CMU as it's known. It's a good bicycle ride away. In the morning rush hour it can be a slow trip in a rot daeng (shared taxi) or a car, but on bicycles, weaving in and out of the cars, we got there easily. The last part of the ride was through the leafy airy campus grounds, with a cool breeze blowing. The talk was about the Karen in the camps and other places along the Thai-Burma border, about their networks of relationship based on religion, and on how humanitarian aid is affected by and affects those networks and connections. Dry stuff you mght think, but the speaker, an academic from Germany who works in Mahidol University in Bangkok named Alex Horstman, had very interesting findings and analysis to share.
He linked his research, which is primarily with the Christian networks (his colleague is focussed on the networks and relations of the buddhist Karen), with the early conversion of Karen by missionaries in the nineteenth century. There's still very active missionary work going on amongst the Karen in Burma and in the camps, but the missionaries are Karen themselves. And much of the leadership of the KNU, the Karen army that is battling the Burmese, is also Christian. The speaker suggested that there's an increased militarisation happening amongst the Karen along the border, those who have come to believe that theirs is a struggle of good versus evil. He suggested to us all, but especially to the KNU guys who were there, that they think about changing the model, perhaps giving up their arms, and trying to work another way.
It's the old old problem of exile and the ongoing struggle of the persecuted: attitudes harden and it's hard to see another path. Meantime there's been sixty years of struggle and suffering and still there are refugees, and attacks by the Burmese army and a seemingly dead-end fruitless struggle.
All the more reason to be impressed by the willingness of the opposition in Burma to be flexible, to agree to participate in elections and engage with the current government. It's very difficult to step back from a hard-line position, even when the other side gives a little. For they never give all that one wants, just a little. Instead of holding out for the moon, Aung San Su Kyi and her party have engaged in dialogue (while asking for more openness, a stop to bloodshed, etc) rather than digging in their heels and refusing to be at all flexible.
How can we ask people who have suffered a lot to move on and compromise? Well we do ask it all the time. In South Africa the Truth and Reconciliation Commission didn't end people's pain. It did allow the victims to face the aggressors and murderers, but that's all. And for some it must have been excruciating and unfair and impossible. But they did it. And somehow that country has managed to move forward rather than staying locked in the past.
I know all this is simplistic talk in some ways. But it seems important to acknowledge how difficult, almost impossible, it can be for people to move past old pains and grievances. (Look at how divorcing couples can stay angry and bitter for years, even when it damages their children and their mental and physical health to stay so angry and stuck.) And how much more difficut to move forward when the conflict has been going on for three generations, as it has with the Karen, and when people on both sides are so committed to their version of the story?
Human beings are creative and have a great capacity for problem-solving. But when the emotions are engaged so deeply, it takes a huge effort of will, personal and political, to move forward beyond the patterns of thinking and reflexes of the past. it hasn't happened in israel-Palestine; it hasn't yet hapened in Burma; it has happened in Ireland and in South Africa.
So there is hope, at least conceptually, for us all.
And meantime, to get down to the level of basic human pleasures, I have been eating very well these last days, especially because I've been out with Eating Asia - Robyn Eckhrdt and Dave Hagerman - several times, and in between I've been frequenting some of my favorite roadside/streetside stands. Last night with Robyn and Dave I was at a small place at the edge of town that specialises in fish laap. We had that, and a brilliant village-style northern tom yum with chicken, a plate of pla som (soured fish patties that had been fried), and some pak kana, Chinese kale, stir-fried with crispy pieces of pork belly. Yum.
And now I'm headed to the land of brilliant noodles and fab lunchtiime rice meals featuring lots of condiments, as well as curries and salads, etc. I probably won't be able to post here while I'm gone, though occasionally I've been able to break through the firewalls or whatever they're called, while in Burma. If I don't find a way around, I won't be posting again until after I fly back to Chiang Mai on December 11...
Happy Thanksgiving to the Americans among you (I admit to being thrilled at not having to eat turkey at all this year). Let's hope that we all get better at compromise and at reconciling ourselves to a less than perfect relationship with our more difficult neighbours.
Showing posts with label Karen people. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Karen people. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
RUNNING THOUGHTS & CROSS-BORDER ISSUES
There’s a bank of fog on the eastern horizon and some scattered mackeral clouds in the sky, tinted gold against the turquoise blue by the sinking sun to the west. It’s been a lovely day, like its predecessors, clear mostly, bright, and a lot warmer than a week ago, so that I can be in light cottons in the daytime and even into the evening. Running in baggy cotton shalwar-type pants (that date from Udaipur and a nice tailor there, in 2003) and a loose light cotton top before eight in the morning I am running with sweat by the time I’ve done my little two to three mile trot in the morning. The coldest of the cold season seems to be over, is what I’m saying.
Last Friday I headed north in a car with Fern and Noi, who is also from Chiang Mai, and an American friend visiting from Beijing. We stayed two nights at Fern’s lovely farm (checking things out before the immersethrough crew arrives) where the bougainvillea is in bloom, and the garden flourishes. We ate Jam’s wonderful Shan (Tai Yai) food one night and the second night brought home lots of eats from the Fang market and picknicked on it all, sitting by the fire outside.
Up north at the farm the mountains on the Burmese border are right there, dominating the western horizon and making the air cold, especially at night. It was strange and wonderful when I woke up that first morning to see my breath in great puffs and feel chilly when I ventured out from under the covers. There was dense fog in the morning, frequent in cold season up there. Everything becomes mysterious and dew drips from the trees and bushes. Eventually the sun breaks through and drives the mist away, and the world is transformed. Gone the mystery!
As I was running yesterday morning I was thinking about bad sidewalks and the pleasures of running. What makes it so great? There can be cars and exhaust, and hot or cold weather, and bad sidewalks, and yet it is still such a pleasure to just trot down the street. I guess endorphins truly are an addictive drug, and running is the easiest supplier of the drug, so there we go!
Speaking of pleasures, there’s a new Burmese restaurant in town, a place called D-Lo. Went there last Monday with a small crowd, including J and A, who were the ones who told me about the restaurant. By the time we pushed back our chairs, several hours of eating and conversation later, we’d tasted almost every salad on the menu as well as a number of curries. (Burmese salads are just brilliant. Naturally then, the salad chapter of my Burma book (manuscript due in June, book should be out in 2012) threatens to drown the rest. It’s a nice problem to have!)
D-Lo is so good that Fern and I think we’ll take the immersethrough group there next week for supper. Burmese is another piece of the northern Thai culinary landscape, less embedded than Shan/Tai Yai, but definitely connected. The more I learn here and in Burma, the more I know I don’t know, but at least I’m seeing more of the cross-connections, geo-political and cultural and culinary too.
The cross-connections in this complicated endlessly interesting region were the focus of a seminar I went to yesterday at Chiang Mai University. The Social Sciences Faculty is now putting on a series of talks and events relating to Burma, about one every two weeks it seems. The news about the situation in Burma is not common knowledge in Thailand. These seminars are a chance for university students and others to get informed. This one was titled “A Man Made Disaster: Implications for Thailand of Burma’s Health Catastrophe.”
In Burma the government surplus is in the billions of dollars but government spending on health care is less than one dollar per person per year. Most of that spending these days seems to be on buildings, not on services for patients, and most is in Rangoon and Mandalay. The consequence is that people in eastern Burma on the Thai-Burma border area, and also those in other border regions, have no health care at all. In eastern Burma the infant mortality is staggeringly high (30% death rate for children under five), and one woman in twelve dies in pregnancy or childbirth.
The seminar was concentrated not so much on these distressing statistics as on the fact that because of poor health care and lack of preventative medicine in Burma, and because of the war being waged by the Burmese army against the ethnic minorities in the border areas, diseases that have been all but eliminated in Thailand are endemic in the border regions, diseases like tuberculosis, filariasis (elephantiasis is one version of the disease), and malaria.
There are over two million displaced people from Burma in Thailand, and a constant flow of people fleeing across the border. It’s an ongoing humanitarian crisis. But even for those not moved by the plight of others, the situation bears thinking about: like it or not, the dire medical health situation in Burma can and will affect Thailand in a serious way sooner or later.
One group that’s working to try to help border populations is the Backpack Health Worker Team. They use volunteers from the communities that are being helped (Karen people in Karen areas, Mon in Mon areas, etc). The volunteers travel into Burma on foot carrying packpacks full of medical supplies such as vaccines, antibiotics, etc. It’s been going for nearly fifteen years and now serves hundreds of villages.
All this would not be necessary of course if the govenment of Burma were providing services or at least not waging war on the border populations. It’s one thing when there’s a natural disaster or endemic poverty; it’s another thing when the suffering is largely wilfully caused and avoidable.
How do people deal with their rage and anguish in this situation? Many flee to where the living is easier, and who can blame them? But many others become involved in trying to help, as teachers or community activists or Backpack volunteers or...
It’s all another reminder that a lot of the pain in the world is caused by people hurting people intentionally. Those of us not born into that kind of situation cannot imagine it. We can only try to stay aware and find our own individual ways of trying to help.
Last Friday I headed north in a car with Fern and Noi, who is also from Chiang Mai, and an American friend visiting from Beijing. We stayed two nights at Fern’s lovely farm (checking things out before the immersethrough crew arrives) where the bougainvillea is in bloom, and the garden flourishes. We ate Jam’s wonderful Shan (Tai Yai) food one night and the second night brought home lots of eats from the Fang market and picknicked on it all, sitting by the fire outside.
Up north at the farm the mountains on the Burmese border are right there, dominating the western horizon and making the air cold, especially at night. It was strange and wonderful when I woke up that first morning to see my breath in great puffs and feel chilly when I ventured out from under the covers. There was dense fog in the morning, frequent in cold season up there. Everything becomes mysterious and dew drips from the trees and bushes. Eventually the sun breaks through and drives the mist away, and the world is transformed. Gone the mystery!
As I was running yesterday morning I was thinking about bad sidewalks and the pleasures of running. What makes it so great? There can be cars and exhaust, and hot or cold weather, and bad sidewalks, and yet it is still such a pleasure to just trot down the street. I guess endorphins truly are an addictive drug, and running is the easiest supplier of the drug, so there we go!
Speaking of pleasures, there’s a new Burmese restaurant in town, a place called D-Lo. Went there last Monday with a small crowd, including J and A, who were the ones who told me about the restaurant. By the time we pushed back our chairs, several hours of eating and conversation later, we’d tasted almost every salad on the menu as well as a number of curries. (Burmese salads are just brilliant. Naturally then, the salad chapter of my Burma book (manuscript due in June, book should be out in 2012) threatens to drown the rest. It’s a nice problem to have!)
D-Lo is so good that Fern and I think we’ll take the immersethrough group there next week for supper. Burmese is another piece of the northern Thai culinary landscape, less embedded than Shan/Tai Yai, but definitely connected. The more I learn here and in Burma, the more I know I don’t know, but at least I’m seeing more of the cross-connections, geo-political and cultural and culinary too.
The cross-connections in this complicated endlessly interesting region were the focus of a seminar I went to yesterday at Chiang Mai University. The Social Sciences Faculty is now putting on a series of talks and events relating to Burma, about one every two weeks it seems. The news about the situation in Burma is not common knowledge in Thailand. These seminars are a chance for university students and others to get informed. This one was titled “A Man Made Disaster: Implications for Thailand of Burma’s Health Catastrophe.”
In Burma the government surplus is in the billions of dollars but government spending on health care is less than one dollar per person per year. Most of that spending these days seems to be on buildings, not on services for patients, and most is in Rangoon and Mandalay. The consequence is that people in eastern Burma on the Thai-Burma border area, and also those in other border regions, have no health care at all. In eastern Burma the infant mortality is staggeringly high (30% death rate for children under five), and one woman in twelve dies in pregnancy or childbirth.
The seminar was concentrated not so much on these distressing statistics as on the fact that because of poor health care and lack of preventative medicine in Burma, and because of the war being waged by the Burmese army against the ethnic minorities in the border areas, diseases that have been all but eliminated in Thailand are endemic in the border regions, diseases like tuberculosis, filariasis (elephantiasis is one version of the disease), and malaria.
There are over two million displaced people from Burma in Thailand, and a constant flow of people fleeing across the border. It’s an ongoing humanitarian crisis. But even for those not moved by the plight of others, the situation bears thinking about: like it or not, the dire medical health situation in Burma can and will affect Thailand in a serious way sooner or later.
One group that’s working to try to help border populations is the Backpack Health Worker Team. They use volunteers from the communities that are being helped (Karen people in Karen areas, Mon in Mon areas, etc). The volunteers travel into Burma on foot carrying packpacks full of medical supplies such as vaccines, antibiotics, etc. It’s been going for nearly fifteen years and now serves hundreds of villages.
All this would not be necessary of course if the govenment of Burma were providing services or at least not waging war on the border populations. It’s one thing when there’s a natural disaster or endemic poverty; it’s another thing when the suffering is largely wilfully caused and avoidable.
How do people deal with their rage and anguish in this situation? Many flee to where the living is easier, and who can blame them? But many others become involved in trying to help, as teachers or community activists or Backpack volunteers or...
It’s all another reminder that a lot of the pain in the world is caused by people hurting people intentionally. Those of us not born into that kind of situation cannot imagine it. We can only try to stay aware and find our own individual ways of trying to help.
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