I am here because I have a purpose

(Nyo sent me her final term paper on the public administration course in Columbia University last three years ago. She won a score of 20/20 in this paper. Congratulation Nyo!! I am also happy to present your simple and abstruse thoughts in my blog. Even though it lasts three years, your thoughts seem to be still fresh for contemporary Burma)

Question

After your consultancy in Erewhon ends you fly home to take up your full-time dream position elsewhere. On the plane you are fortunate enough to be offered an upgrade to first class, and you find yourself chatting with your two seatmates, who turn out - to your astonishment - to be a multi-millionaire husband-and-wife couple whose foundation actually paid for your short-term position in Erewhon. The husband and wife start arguing about whether or not it is a good idea for them to push the Erewhon community group to take a rights-based approach to the problems faced by the Ruramin community. The husband says of course they should take a rights-based approach, but then it turns out that he's not entirely sure what he means by that other than a “moral” approach. The wife says that she thinks that the whole notion of human rights and development is 1) too vague to be useful, 2) an imposition of Northern culture on Southern communities, and 3) too political for a group that's trying to deal with basic development issues.

Then they both turn to you and ask your opinion. What do you say to this couple about whether or not you think it's a good idea for a community group like the one you worked with to take on a rights-based approach? (It’s fine either to give your honest opinion or instead to choose one side or the other and simply explore all of the arguments that support that position.) Please be sure to explain your reasoning and arguments either way.

Answer: A journey with Bill and Melinda Gates, my seat mates

Nyo: “Melinda, in my honest opinion, I will say it is a good idea to take on the rights-based approach. At a glance, it is true that the right-based approach seem to be vague to be useful. However, I believe if we are very technical in this approach, it will not be that ambiguous”

Bill: “I appreciate it because I am always a technical man. How you can be technical in rights-based approach?”

Nyo: The first technical tool we can do for rights-based approach is monitoring and evaluation by the indicators. In adopting the rights based approach, the state has never to be retrogressive. Indicators that reflect the health status of the population, the responsiveness and equity of a health system can be strong evidence that the state is really taking steps.

Melinda: Nyo, in this sense, all the developing countries that have a poor score on your indicators seem to violate human rights.

Nyo: This is a very good question. We always need the baseline data for comparisons in our indicators analysis. I like to add what we are doing about the indicators is not only quantitative but we will also do a lot of qualitative. For example, we can collect the HIV prevalence rate from the voluntary counseling test (VCT) but we need to ask interview questions to CSWs how the health workers are treating them. Does the discrimination against CSWs in culture make them difficult for access to health care? I can give more examples if you like to listen.

Bill: Great, Nyo. Continue please.

Nyo: Another good example is from my homeland Burma where the children are regarded as not valuable according to the culture of Burmese society. So children are not nourished properly when the household economics is managed in their budget constraint. Adults are given more and better food because they are regarded as more worthy beings. The state party has to make sure that there is not such kind of unsound discriminatory practices in the society and has to make effective legislative measures for such kind of things.

Melinda: Yes. I know Burma and also I know that the third secretary general of UN, U Thant of Burma. I have ever read in the literature that U Thant’s greatest desire in his life is development of child literature in Burma. It seems to me that your society doesn’t take care a lot for your children.

Nyo: Another technical tool we can apply is the budget analysis. We can put this budget analysis into a framework to see whether the allocation of budget is really addressing the needs of the society. The principles of non-discrimination in resource allocation will be powerful influence if we adopt the rights-based approach that will be monitored by the principles of transparency and accountability

Melinda: Interesting, what else?

Nyo: We have technical principles to monitor whether or not the state is doing properly or not. For example, progressive realization, taking steps forward, never to retrogress, to use maximal available resources, legislative remedy measures for process rights that will bind the state party to build up capacity of the people for their entitlement as well as rights-holders for their obligation of fulfillment

Melinda: Marvelous, Nyo! But frankly speaking, the rights-based approach seems to me that the Northern culture is imposing its standards on the southern community.

Nyo: This is a question of cultural relativism in issue of human rights. However, the UDHR in its origin is contributed by scholars of different continents. Actually the culture is dynamic. We should remember America and Europe had to enlighten themselves many times before getting into this stage of democracy and good governance. Besides, I believe the UDHR, the most fundamental document of human rights reflects the fundamental spiritual value of human beings and it is not exclusively in the sense of Europe Individualism.

Bill: I like to listen to you how you can defend self-determination as exclusively Western culture or the fundamental value of all human beings.

Nyo: Of course, there is a great research which compared many identical fundamental values of human beings and they could testify that self-determination is not the Western exclusive model and fundamental model of all Darwinians.

Melinda: Nyo, I still think, the rights-approach is too political to be done.

Nyo: Melinda, political commitment is the most important point for the success and sustainability of the national programs and development cooperation. What we are doing as right-based approach is we are trying to nail down the political commitment of good governance. I acknowledge it is also a sensitive issue to use the language of rights. However, we can be well-talented players for maintaining the balance between the progressive realization of human rights and not sensitizing the issue. We can go in positive attitude that we really believe the government is a good one for political commitment to do our expected behavior of rights-based approach. We are not making a revolution by taking on rights-based approach. Instead we are doing constructive criticism for getting good from the government that we really believe as a good government.

Bill: I appreciate it very much. At first, I think human rights are just a moral approach.

In the hands of a talented player, it becomes a powerful tool for development.

Nyo: It is up to the person who knows how to apply it. Like the concept of Taoism in Chinese martial arts, even a foliate of leaf becomes a sharp sword if the expert knows how to use it.

Melinda: You, Asian people are so fantastic! I also saw in the movie of “Hero” (Not that of Mel Gibson but Jet Li’s hero), the person who reaches the top of the sword martial arts becomes a sword himself.

Nyo: Actually this is the same principle as Jonathan Livingstone Sea gull of Richard Bach. Both are saying the power of mind beyond practice. This can also be an exemplary of cross-cut of Asia and America Darwinians.

Bill: I think there are many cross-cuts of Asia and America values in this arena of globalization. In our Hollywood movie of “matrix revolution”, I find out that the philosophy behind the matrix uses principles of Sunyata (emptiness) of Buddhism.

Nyo: Of course, the matrix is also a human rights movie. Neo is not to be influenced by the violator’s power when he has enlightenment that delivers him from illusion. A Sudanese human rights activist, Professor Abdul from the Emory Law School, is one of the staunch supporters of this concept. The power of the violator is strong only when the victims think his power is tremendous. This is the same principle as Napoleon Hill’s saying “behavior reflection from environment creates your behavior”. This is what we are doing for in all our rights-based policy to convince people to realize that they have the power of the rule of law to restrict the arbitrary power of the state.

Melinda: I remember Oracle said to Neo in Matrix Revolution. “I am here because I have a purpose”. I am convinced now you rights-based men have a very good purpose

Nyo: Thanks. Melinda. I will remember “I am here because I have a purpose”.

Why your country has two names

Dear Ako (elder brother),

I hope you are fine and enjoying your loquacious discussions with Ko Moe, Ko Sein, Ko Han and other your philosophic friends in the teashops in Burma as usual. I safely arrived in the Connecticut School of the US on Sunday and now I am writing you from my computer cluster classroom.

Our teaching assistant for economics is a nice and down-to-earth India-born guy who is also a PhD student of political science in my university. As soon as he appeared in the class, he recognized me that I was the new student. “Are you the new student from Burma?” he asked me in his flamboyant voice. When I nodded my head, he asked me another question,” I couldn’t help asking this question. Why your country has two names?”

Actually, I didn’t know how to answer it. I replied in my natural thinking,” People who love their country call our land Burma”. However Mr. Nice Guy seemed not to be satisfied with my answer.

I think in the future, many people who are interested at our country will be asking me the similar question. I feel shy to myself why I have never thought of this kind of inquiry.

I would love to listen to you how I can answer this question in a thinking way.

Yours,

Nyimalay (little sister)

The Ganges will still be crying for its falling temples

When the half-hearted Burma's capitalism was drilling the country’s resources to the avaricious swallowing of Big Head, the communist China's road to capitalism has raised its people to unprecedented growth. For Confucius’ people, economics seems to be more important than politics. Actually, the non-genuine nature of Burma's capitalism has shut down itself from globalization and authentic trade liberalization. The investment climate became desiccated like the Arabia deserts. Before I studied here in America, by seeing China’s affluent society I innocently thought, what Burmese required from Big Brother was not Democracy but generous trade liberalization.

The lay man's thinking can probably be cleverer than the smart people in many cases. But we also need to go a little deeper for verifying our common sense. In “Global Inequality”, David Dollar warned me seriously that trade liberalization alone would not work for Burma. China, India, Uganda and Vietnam are doing well in economy catching up with free trade liberalization in this globalized arena. Mr. Dollar said that Burma can not be expected to happen the same because Burma doesn't possess strong institutional structures to support free trade and open economy. Thinking conversely, as long as there are weak institutions granting the big head unbridled power and privileges for its exploitation at the small head, Burma will still fall behind the rest of the world.

To much more surprise, maybe a beginning of harmony from discord, Thomas Pogge added that this was not the mutually exclusive fault of Burma from the rest of the world. Under the existing global rules, the design of the global institutional order itself was the CRITICAL cause for the development of the problems of the world poverty. He said even the most blatantly illegitimate regime like Burma military junta has full entitlement to sell the country’s resources abroad all in the name of the country’s people. Of course, the trouser people always referred themselves as Burmese. There is not even a small trace of institutional structures in this globalized world to hinder this kind of gravely unfair evils' imposture over the people.

Today, the world biggest communist China and the planet largest Democracy India were two big patrons of “Burmese” who always protect this fatherless child from so-called abuses of the Western dominance. Apparently China and India adopts this kind of foreign policy because these two economic men of Asia think Burma economic pie as the zero-sum game. They are afraid that their current economic pie from the military junta will be lost if the Western investment comes in. For me, Chinese and Indian people were short-sighted economists who knows only how to sell the volatile products: they want to do the business on the spot and want to get money outright never thinking for twists and turns in the long run. If Asoka forthwith pays his ruby, Mao will sell a dragon without delay.

In his so far immortal,” The World is Flat”, Thomas Friedman complacent his fellow Americans’ anxiety over growth of China. He said the more developed China is, the much bigger market size will be the US because now, the more developed China has more purchasing power to consume the US products. I would like Chinese and India leaders to see how the world has already become flattened and change their current “ruby at once and dragon at once” thoughts. According to the spatial correlation theory, the US’s biggest trade partner was the developed and its bordering Canada. I believe Friedman's theory is a universal and timelessly true principle to be applied everywhere in the world where people always want to see themselves as different and couldn't find out a harmony. Imagine the opulent spending tendency of Burmese and how much aggressive in business doing nature of native Indians and Chinese in Burma. The developed Burma in the long run will inevitably and dramatically expand Asoka and Qing Shi Huang’s market empires to many times the size of the current scopes who are pathetically trying to divide a small piece of cheese under the scorns and pointing fingers from many parts of the world.

Allowing to transform Burma into the model of Western democracy and foreign investment is indeed, a win-win situation for both countries and Burma. The world is still too young to be unstinted from barbarian self-interest, a vision to find harmony, and to seek a bonhomie of brotherhood and justice.

To cap, Burma has fallen a victim to the prisoner's dilemma from materialistic thinking of two Asia superpowers. These two Asia superpowers may probably envision themselves that they are so smart for their people. In reality, they are still the jungle men. When the jungle men see a hen, they try to kill at once and eat at once. They have never thought of the wise men's way of letting the hen alive so that those wise men can enjoy the chicken eggs forever.

"Give a man a fish, he will eat for a day", Lao Tsu, the Taoism founder of China, had ever said. "Teach a man how to fish, he will eat for the whole life", Lao Tsu had directed his Middle Land fellows a universal truth. Nevertheless, China has never been a country to accept Lao Tsu's idea of trying for living honestly with the nature. In India, Swami Sukhabodhananda said “One’s effort becomes divine when where one is able to convert his business into a temple and not a temple into a business”. The Ganges River will still be crying with silent tears for the coming temples converted into business as the world will still not be a divine.

A two-capita snake

An eye-catching statement the military government declared after its auto-coup was that they were now driving Burma on the road to capitalism. The economics would no longer be a closed door and now Burma was on the track of the market economy. Hopefully, after this East Asian model of capitalism, Democracy could be the next step. Economics could probably be much more matter than politics.

Twenty six years ago, no sooner Burma’s determination for the road to socialism was proclaimed, Indian business men were forced to return home and Chinese also lost their mills and private firms in nationalization process. However, not very soon, Chinese without being trammeled by cunning Indian people revived and was able to control the power of Burma market eventually in this closed-door country. After 1988, with the proclamation of The Burma way to capitalism, the epicenter of Burma market has briskly moved back from Chinese to the hands of native people, but the people with green trousers.

The native trouser people also have two kinds of races: one race was from the blue green Kokang mountains, the Wa people who were the tycoons of opium and morphine in the golden triangle of South East Asia. The King of opium, Khun Sar was now dubbed as the peace architect for the country and he and his colleagues could now enjoy the benefits of free market while they were still able to hold the guns and rule their own army. Another trouser group was the Big Brother and his comrades of the domineering army, of course the original Tibeto-Burman group of the Pagan empire themselves, who had got free shares of businesses from the former. Once nominated as the enemies of the state, now the big cheese of opium, were the investors and bankers rising as Big Friends to Big Brother and Burma became a paradise of economic prosperity for the trouser people.

In 2006, the military claimed to the world that the Burma’s road to capitalism under his leadership was stupendously successful. They had the proof to testify that they didn’t lie to the world as the GDP in Burma was 500 million in 1987 and now it had become 6 billion in 2006. The improvement in Burma GDP under capitalism is not a canard but in contemporary Burma, at least one third of the children in the country are malnourished, 75% of the people are below the poverty line and to my knowledge, there are many graduates who were competing one another to get a job to be awarded a salary of less than one US$ per day. Why Adam Smith’s hand of self-interest has never spontaneously pushed forward for the public interest in the Burmese society?

Amartya Sen in his Development as Freedom said the affluence of the society should be measured in terms of freedom rather than measuring the GDP. Burma was good exemplary for his argument. Under the Burma’s road to capitalism, people were like the small tiny head of the two-capita snake. The big head always got the food first without sharing a sufficient amount of food to the small tiny head, becoming bigger and bigger while the small tiny head, from underfeeding became frailer and frailer. Nevertheless, the arrogant big head claimed how strong and beefy he was but without noticing his counterpart would at last poisoned himself at the final day of no more toleration and brought the knell of “State failure” to him.

Animal Farm and The Land of Vampires

All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others

In 1984, Winston was told by a thought criminal that there are two means to maintain persistence of dictatorship. The first is to make the people starve so that they couldn’t have time to think about politics. The second is to deprive the people of education so that the people could have no intellectual capacity to revolt against the government. In an essay that won a prize of my US school, I wrote that when I was in Burma, I saw myself as Winston Smith of 1984 and Neo of Matrix Revolution.

Burmese Buddhists had a very famous traditional story of Buddha. Buddha, himself had deciphered sixteen dreams of King Kosala last 2500 years ago. Burmese believe that these dreams are the omens for the events that have been happening in the country in modern days. One fearful scene of these sixteen dreams was that Kosala saw a village crow was worshipped by an entourage of Mandarin ducks who were royal birds with feathers of golden sheen. Buddha said this dream meant in distant future, there will be kings who were cowards and fools. Fearing revolt and revolution, they will elevate their footmen, bath-attendants, and barbers to nobility. These kings will ignore the real nobility of academicians in the country.Cut off from royal favor and unable to support themselves, bona fide nobles will be reduced to the services of the barbers who were deliberately raised to royalty by those wicked kings.

When I saw Su Su Nway, the winner of the Humphrey prize award in 2006, and her comrades were violently pulled out by thugs of the government in the Hle Dan demonstration this year, I felt that now the barbers were officially given a position in this country. The September Economist Journal showed this violent photo with a heading, “The Charter for thugocracy”. The word thugocracy could be a naïve term in the field of journalism and I wander if Buddha had already used this neologism in deciphering Kosala’s dreams.

I had a very close friend who had the habit of stealing and were somewhat belligerent in behavior. He used to borrow from me some money frequently at the time of my days of Burma. Just a few weeks before I came to America, he came to me and to my surprise, returned me some money and, in a proud voice, he said to me,” I had got a job in the Sunn Arr Shin ward committee (newly founded thug organization of the junta) and, now I had to attend the office every day. I asked him where his office was and he said it was in the same place with the ward SPDC office. This was one of my self-evident examples how thugs were raised by the government.

In her “Finding George Orwell in Burma”, Emma Larkin’s Burmese friend, Aye Myint, said to her, “Animal Farm (a book also written by George Orwell before 1984’) is a Burmese book because we were ruled by the dogs and the pigs”. Emma Larkin probably thought that the dogs and pigs meant the current junta. Not exactly, what Aye Myint wanted to refer were those jobless, aggressive gypsies who permeated almost all the representative positions of the government authority in wards of the villages, towns, cities and the capital in the society of Burma. I was curious if George Orwell had known these sixteen Kosala’s dreams during his youthful days in Burma. However, his three classic novels, “The Burmese Days”, “The Animal Farm” and “1984” were in Aye Myint’s words, all modern Burmese books and a representative of a Burmese social life.

I remembered my most admirable Burmese author, the editor of the Burma Guardian Newspaper, Shwe U Dawn (the pen name that means the golden peacock), was awarded the National Literature prize because of his translated book of Animal Farm. However, he didn’t directly use the name, Animal Farm for his translated book title. Being so good in abstract things or probably a forerunner for late happenings in Burma, a title that was dreadfully disgusting in nature came out from his instincts, and the title was “The Land of Vampires”.