What Burma Should Learn from Nelson Mandela

BY MIN ZIN DECEMBER 7, 2013 - 12:34 PM

Madiba passed away on Thursday night. Though it was expected for some time, given his long hospitalization, I was saddened, and guilty. I owed him an apology.

I had the opportunity to enjoy a one-on-one conversation with Nelson Mandela in 2003, when MTV was preparing a 60-minute special feature in honor of his 85th birthday.

I was one of four young people selected to speak with Mandela and seek his advice during the special. We were chosen because our stories resonated with Mandela's life and the South Africa he sought to change. My own life was meant to parallel his experiences under the Apartheid regime and, more generally, we were both familiar with the struggle of building democracy. When my country's army executed a military coup in 1988, I was deeply invested in the student-led, pro-democracy movement. Since then, Burma has struggled to establish democracy, as the decades-long conflict between the military and ethnic minorities continues. Mandela and I exchanged our stories: his life in prison and my life on the run, evading arrest by the Burmese military junta.

We both had family members that suffered from the persecution of ruling regimes because of our political activities. I explained to him that my dad was arrested because of my activism, and held hostage while the military came to my home and tried to arrest me. It was 1989, and I was 15 years old. Since then, almost all of my family members have been arrested and interrogated. I asked Mandela, whose family suffered a similar fate during his imprisonment, whether he felt guilty -- and if so, how he had transformed his feelings of guilt into moral strength and positive action.

His answer was firm and encouraging. He told me that we should not take persecution personally, or feel guilt for the pain repressive governments inflict on our families. With his resolute voice, Mandela urged me to reconnect with my cause -- which is larger and more worthwhile than I am -- whenever I feel frustrated with personal misery or the lack of progress in the political struggle. After he finished speaking, he offered me a reassuring, broad smile and comforting nods; that struck me most of all. I still remember how fatherly Mandela was in his treatment of me.

Our conversation became a bit tense when I insisted that he speak out, publicly, in support of the Burmese democracy movement. My meeting with Mandela took place a few weeks after Burmese democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi was attacked by state-organized thugs on May 30, 2003. An unknown number of people died in the attack, and Aung San Suu Kyi only narrowly escaped the alleged assassination attempt.

I therefore requested that Mandela release a public statement denouncing the Burmese junta, and urged him to pay attention to the civil war and the miseries of ethnic minorities in my ill-fated country. I wore a T-shirt featuring a well-known student political prisoner, Min Ko Naing, under my shirt, and gave Mandela a gift of a traditional bag made by a Karen ethnic refugee women. I begged him: "Please join your fellow Nobel Laureates and do something public for Burma." In response, he looked me carefully in the eyes and said, slowly: "Min Zin, it is sometimes not a good idea to climb up to the top of the mountain and scream." When I gave him a puzzled look, he continued, "We often need to work on quiet diplomacy and engagement."

I responded to his words with disappointment and irritation. I thought it was a rude response. Mandela, however, stressed the importance of strategy in politics. He advised me to envision a positive outcome, rather than becoming stuck in the vicious circle of political polarization. Mandela used imagination and vision, rather than memory, to break out of the apartheid system. It's been ten years since I met Mandela, and though I still believe he could have done more for Burma's cause, I have now come to realize the core wisdom of his words, and the lesson Burma could learn from it.

These days, Burma's transition from tyranny to democracy is partly stymied by the opposition's attempt to institutionalize the memory of our past political divisions. Instead of putting forward a vision for the future and policies to make that vision a reality, the opposition leadership tends to employ a "good-versus-evil" political narrative as a key frame of reference in mobilizing the public. The opposition, of course, can gain a significant advantage by using this polarizing ploy. The public's distrust and hatred of the previous junta still poisons its opinion of the current pseudo-civilian government. However, using history as a campaign instrument has only encouraged dark forces within the establishment to defend themselves using "biology" in campaigns advocating racial and religious purity. These have ranged from an attempt to prohibit interfaith marriage, to rampant anti-Muslim hate speeches, to outright communal violence. The country is gradually sliding into a history-versus-biology political battle as it approaches the 2015 elections. What we really need is a truly democratic contest of vision and policy. The country lacks a sense of unity. True reconciliation and healing remain elusive in this fragile transition.

Mandela was right. When invoking memory becomes a political strategy, society suffers from a lack of imagination. Without a new vision for the future, we cannot move on and be reborn.

After our conversation ended, he introduced me to his grandchildren. He said to them, "Although Min Zin disagreed with me on some issues, I respect him." After a short pause, he continued: "Because he is a freedom fighter." His words electrified me. Now Mandela has passed away. I have had ten years to learn to appreciate the value he placed on vision and imagination over history and memory. I understand now. I owe him an apology -- but Madiba has already gone.

Min Zin is the Burma blogger for Transitions. Read the rest of his posts here.

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What Burma Should Learn from Nelson Mandela

Why It Makes Sense to Engage with Burma's Military

BY MIN ZIN SEPTEMBER 19, 2013 - 05:56 PM

On September 18, Burma marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the most important military coup in its recent history. When state-owned radio announced that the military had taken over at 4 p.m. on Sept. 18, 1988, I was just 14. My fellow students and I were staging a hunger strike as part of a nonviolent protest to call for the restoration of democracy in Burma.

A dreary rain was falling. A voice on the radio read the coup announcement over and over again, alternating with loud military marching songs. The noise from the radio was agonizing enough. But then we heard a series of gunshots, and when we realized that they were gradually getting closer, older students and community leaders rushed to a nearby intersection to set up roadblocks so that an approaching column of soldiers couldn't reach us and clear out our camp. The younger hunger strikers, including myself, were promptly escorted to a nearby Buddhist monastery that the opposition was using as a refuge from the military crackdown. The junta imposed martial law and a corresponding curfew. General Saw Maung, the man in charge of the coup, once notoriously stated that "martial law means that there's no law in the country."

In the military crackdown that followed, I saw people being shot to death in front of me. Thousands of people, including many of my colleagues, left for the border areas, where ethnic rebel groups helped them form a student army to wage an armed struggle against the junta. After a few months of activism, I went into hiding to avoid arrest. That period ultimately lasted nine years. Eventually I crossed the border into Thailand in 1997. I've worked as a journalist ever since.

That was 25 years ago. In 2011, President Thein Sein (once the top general in the previous junta) took office, and the government he headed soon began signaling a political opening and the possibility of reform. Thein Sein's administration released political prisoners, lifted media censorship, and allowed opposition participation in the country's parliament. Most exiles, including me, were allowed to come back home.

I recently went back to the place where we staged the hunger strike and the monastery where we took refuge. It was a surreal experience. None of the people in my old neighborhood believed that they would ever see me again in this life. They've always assumed that anyone who fled the country and lived in exile would never be able to return. Whenever they see me again, they pinch my hand as if to convince themselves that it's really me. They hope, they tell me, that our horrible past won't ever be repeated. I have the same dream. I don't ever want to relive such a tragic past, not even in memory. And yet I sometimes feel like we're reliving those old days again, right now.

People often ask me if I think the country is sliding back into the dark age of military rule. If someone had asked me that question last year, I would have given a more optimistic answer. But now, I see that Burma and my people are slipping into a state of profound anxiety as communal riots, deepening poverty, ongoing civil strife, and the rivalries of political elites ravage the country. I don't think we can rule out any scenarios. In fact, two senior insiders of the ruling party have told me that another coup could well be a last resort if the nation slides into chaos.

A coup can be carried out legally under the current constitution, and that's the likely outcome if the reforms fundamentally hurt the army's institutional, political, or economic prerogatives. The military's decision to stage a coup, however, would depend not only on domestic politics, but also on the army's geopolitical calculations.

The Burmese military has long been aware of its over-dependence on China for equipment and training as well as political and economic support. Almost all the former and current military officers I've met tell me that the quality of Chinese equipment is terrible. The officers can still remember the days when they received U.S. military assistance, which they preferred. They recall that the United States financed $4.7 million in military sales in the 1980s as well as paid for about 175 Burmese officers to attend U.S. military schools under the International Military Education and Training (IMET) security assistance program. This bilateral defense relationship was abruptly terminated by the United States when the Burmese army seized power in September 1988. That was the end of the "good old days," as one officer lamented.

Since the mid-1990s, the Burmese army has been eager to diversify and reduce its dependence on China. But U.S.-led Western arms embargoes have prevented the military from doing so. Yet the military's willingness to support political reform in Burma has won Washington's support. Now a lot is riding on the possibility of reestablishing military-to-military relations with the Western countries.

The U.S. defense secretary said in 2012 that the United States was open to forging better military ties with Burma. Early this year, the United States allowed Burma to send a team of observers to the Cobra Gold military exercise in Thailand. In late August 2013, U.S. Ambassador Derek Mitchell met with the head of Burma's armed forces, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, to discuss legal practices in military combat in a "cordial" effort to strengthen defense relations between the two countries. Australia, Britain, and other Western countries are also gradually resuming military ties with Burma.

Though the skeptics are rightly uneasy about the nature and extent of such defense relations, the opportunity to re-engage with Western militaries is an important incentive for the military's continued support of political reform.

In short, any positive political concessions the Burmese military is likely to make regarding constitutional reform and the 2015 elections rest to a significant degree on a mil-to-mil incentive package from the United States. I think that smart, timely action by the United States to reconnect with the Burmese military would be one of the best insurance polices against another military take-over. And that could well save me and my compatriots from reliving that tragic day in September 1988.

Min Zin is the Burma blogger for Transitions. Read the rest of his posts here.

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Why It Makes Sense to Engage with Burma's Military

Why Peace Is Still a Tough Sell

BY MIN ZIN SEPTEMBER 10, 2013 - 11:31 AM

Burma has witnessed the breaking of many political taboos over the past two years. Perhaps the most significant example is the use of the word "federalism" by the powers-that-be. During his recent visit to the country's northeast, Thura Shwe Mann, the speaker of Parliament, said that Burma should adopt a form of federal union. That Shwe Mann, once the number-three general in the former ruling junta, now sees fit to express public support for the federalist idea suggests that the elite's long-held phobia about decentralization is losing steam.

When the Burmese army staged a coup in 1962, it justified the takeover by claiming it was preventing the country from falling apart. The army claimed that the Shan ethnic-led political movement, which called for establishment of a federal union in Burma, was a secessionist effort to disintegrate this multi-ethnic country. Yet as the military tightened its grip on power, several ethnic groups took up arms against the central junta, leading the country into what would become one of the world's longest-running civil wars.

Now President Thein Sein's quasi-civilian government is pursuing peace negotiations with dozens of ethnic armed groups, possibly the most complicated and challenging task it has tackled since early 2011. If the president's initiative succeeds, it could mean the end of Burma's decades-long civil war. So it's worth taking a closer look at the peace process and its feasibility. Let's start with the government's plan.

Generally speaking, the whole peace process is an executive-led initiative. The Myanmar Peace Center (MPC), led by reform-minded ministers Aung Min and Soe Thein, plays an essential role in facilitating on-the-ground negotiations (as well as the ensuing complaints, protests and controversies). With the help of the MPC, the government has thus far struck ceasefire deals with fourteen ethnic armed groups despite ongoing battles with Kachin state in northern Burma and other ethnic resistance armies.

President Thein Sein has made it very clear on many occasions that the country would soon see a nationwide ceasefire signed between the government and ethnic rebel armies. The government plans to hold a grand ceremony in October of this year to sign a nationwide ceasefire accord with the 14 ethnic armed groups and is keeping the door open for other armed groups to enter the agreement at any time. The government, working in coordination with all stakeholders -- including ethnic groups, Union Parliament, the military, political parties and civil society organizations -- will then draft a framework for a national political dialogue. Thein Sein and his aides are aiming for nothing less than a complete end to the civil war.

And that, needless to say, is a very ambitious goal indeed. They'll need a lot of luck in order to pull it off.

The president and his associates seem to mean well. They hope to put the country on the right track while they're still in power and to leave behind a positive legacy. Some cynics believe the president is only in it to win this year's Nobel Peace Prize -- in fact, he's already a strong contender. Regardless of his motives, the plan has at least the potential to yield a good outcome for Burmese citizens.

In any case, the motives behind the government's push are ultimately irrelevant. The real crux of the matter is whether the government has the power to negotiate peace in the first place. President Thein Sein's administration will only be in office for another two years before the next general election in 2015. According to reliable sources, Thein Sein and many reformists are not likely to run for office again, so they're effectively brokering this deal as lame duck politicians. It's going to be a tough sell.

Two other powerful players in Burmese politics, Aung San Suu Kyi (leader of the opposition group National League for Democracy in Burma) and Thura Shwe Mann (speaker of Parliament), may have little incentive to jump on the bandwagon. As I noted in one of my previous posts, the rivalry among these three key players -- Thein Sein, Shwe Mann, and Suu Kyi -- is only getting worse. Moreover, the latter two have struck an uneasy alliance in order to outmaneuver Thein Sein in many of his recent political postures.

Recently, Shwe Mann questioned Thein Sein's approach to ethnic peace talks and asked that Parliament be directly involved in ceasefire negotiations with ethnic groups. The MPC then invited both Shwe Mann and Suu Kyi to its office for a long briefing on the peace talks. Shwe Mann has just completed an official tour in Shan state, where he met with representatives of the most powerful ethnic armed group, the United Wa State Army. For Shwe Mann, who publicly declared that he wants to be the next president of the country, this is a great opportunity to garner ethnic support for his 2015 campaign. And since Shwe Mann wants to be the leader who can claim that he successfully ended the civil war and brought peace to Burma, his timeline is longer than that of the ruling lame ducks.

Meanwhile, Suu Kyi has also announced her 2015 campaign for presidency. Her position appears to be harder to track these days. Before her release from house arrest in 2010, she supported the ethnic cause and showed political and moral solidarity with ethnic resistance groups by sending videos and other messages to them. Even after she was freed in 2010, she continued to advocate the holding of a nationwide conference to address ethnic conflicts in Burma. But since entering Parliament, Suu Kyi has toned down her stance on ethnic issues. She has said, for example, that she is taking a neutral stand in the ethnic civil war in Kachin state. It's increasingly apparent that her once whole-hearted support from the ethnic groups is now dwindling. Nevertheless, Suu Kyi remains a prominent and respected figure in international politics, and the Burmese government must still count on her when it comes to securing international legitimacy and resources.

The most important strategic players in this peace process are the armed forces: both the government army and the troops of the ethnic rebel groups. As a general rule, these armed forces tend to be more institutionalized, and their leaders tend to plan for the long term (unlike the above-mentioned politicians who are focused primarily on the 2015 elections). The armed forces on both the government and rebel sides, therefore, have relatively stable stances and strategies on issues such as territorial control, economic gains, and the consideration of geopolitical influences such as China and Thailand.

The success of the president's peace plan thus depends less on simple hard work and good will than on the tricky process of bargaining among these multiple strategic interests. Burma's long civil war comes down to more than just inter- and intra- ethnic power distributions. Among many other factors it involves the interests of neighboring countries and illicit businesses. The lifting of the federalism taboo is most welcome. But unless President Thein Sein is somehow able to work around the interests and motives of all the key players and strike a strategic bargain, the true end of the civil war in Burma remains elusive.

Min Zin is the Burma blogger for Transitions. Read the rest of his posts here.

CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP/Getty Images

Why Peace Is Still a Tough Sell

Paying the Debt: 25 Years Later, Burma's Struggle for Freedom Isn't Over

BY MIN ZIN AUGUST 19, 2013 - 10:05 AM

Twenty-five years have now passed since Burma started its struggle for democracy. It began as the “8-8-88 Movement,” a nationwide popular uprising calling for the removal of military dictatorship and the restoration of democratic government. Tens of thousands of young Burmese took to the streets, shouting the slogan: “To achieve democracy is our cause, our cause.”

I was a 14-year-old high school student when I became involved in political activism in 1988 (after two of my siblings were arrested in a student protest at the Rangoon university campus). We distributed pamphlets and leaflets in our schools, staged hit-and-run protests in neighborhoods after school, established contacts with other high schools, and went together to Rangoon University to join their protests. I went on to become one of the founding leaders of the nation-wide high school student union in Burma -- where unions are illegal and just being a member could result in long-term imprisonment.

Student-led protests eventually snowballed into a nationwide popular uprising on August 8, 1988 (8-8-88). You can think of it, without much exaggeration, as the "Burmese Spring." The public, including many sympathetic members of the police force and army, took to the streets; civil society groups mushroomed in every region and social sector; and media freedom thrived as dozen of independent publications sprang up. (Even the journalists at some state-owned media practitioners joined the democracy protests and reported on the demonstrations.) The spring, however, did not last long. Winter came early and nipped our hopes in the bud. On September 18 the military staged a coup, killing hundreds of unarmed protesters. According to independent estimates, at least 10,000 people were killed in August and September of 1988.

After 25 years, veterans of the “Four Eight” uprising came together to commemorate the movement and its fallen heroes. The biggest event in the country was held in Rangoon on the 8th of this month with exhibitions, speeches, and a theatrical performance. More than ten thousand people attended the anniversary event, where they listened to opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi give a speech. Many of my former colleagues set up a stand in the exhibition hall to commemorate the activities of high school students in 1988 and to remember our fallen stars including Win Maw Oo, Thet Win Aung, and Maung Maung Kywe. Family members of those who died in the protests of the Four Eight movement or in imprisonment were in full attendance.

For me it was an incredible reunion. For the first time I had a chance to share stories with my former colleagues, and together we filled in many of the missing parts of our revolutionary puzzle.  Some of us died, others went insane, and the rest struggled through a dark age of crackdowns, torture chambers, imprisonment, and exile. Political conviction, a sense of solidarity, and the occasional favorable twist of fate helped us to cope with those days of political turmoil and suffering. Some of us were struck by seemingly avoidable misfortunes, while others managed to make improbable escapes from this worldly hell of autocratic repression.

Many of us tend to agree that the continuing political transition is worthy of appreciation. Some of the key leaders of the previous junta attended or sent goodwill messages to the event as a gesture of acknowledgment of the role the Four Eight movement played in the political opening. In fact, the massive release of political prisoners, the removal of media censorship, Aung San Suu Kyi’s entry into mainstream politics as a member of  parliament, the return of exiled activists, and the country’s re-engagement with the West all constitute unprecedented progress that we have witnessed in a considerably short period of time.

It doesn’t mean that we don’t recognize the very substantial flaws inherent in the process so far. They include the flawed constitution that the military adopted in 2008 to entrench its supremacy in politics by reserving 25 percent of seats in parliament, by allowing the generals to appoint the three most important cabinet ministers, by authorizing the armed forces to take power in case of state emergency, and by limiting meaningful autonomy for ethnic minorities. Meanwhile we are still contending with the effects of simmering civil war and ethnic conflict, rising nationalism and communal violence, deepening poverty and a widening gap between rich and poor. The military has allowed unprecedented popular participation in Burmese politics, but they still control real political and economic power by means of the 2008 constitution and highly skewed wealth distribution. Access to power has been dramatic ally broadened, but the exercise of power remains in the same hands: the military’s.

For this reason, all of us who attended the reunion felt acutely that our mission still has not been accomplished. There is one 8-8-88 memory that has never let go of me. When we were marching during the 1988 democracy movement, the people had nothing to eat, but they made rice bags for us so that we could eat and keep marching. When we collected the rice bags, we always promised them: "You will get democracy one day." So far, we haven’t kept our promise.

I feel that our movement still owes the people for the food we ate. This is a very simple thing, but the sense of responsibility remains. The rice I ate 25 years ago still gives me the energy and power to keep going.

Min Zin is the Burma blogger for Transitions. Read the rest of his posts here.  

TOMMASO VILLANI/AFP/Getty Images

Paying the Debt: 25 Years Later, Burma's Struggle for Freedom Isn't Over

A Few Thoughts about Social Engineering in Burma

BY MIN ZIN JULY 26, 2013 - 06:37 PM

When you first arrive in Naypyidaw, as I did last week, you can't help but experience a peculiar sensation of equal parts awe and fear. In just a few years, the then-ruling military junta carved a new Burmese capital out of pure jungle. It came at a cost of billions of dollars to a country where most people live in poverty. "Only an autocrat would come up with a grandiose project like this" I mused, "at the expense of all other important things, of course." 

During his reign from 1992 to 2011 as Burma's top strongman, General Than Shwe made the decision to build Naypyidaw hundreds of miles inland from the traditional coastal capital of Rangoon. He and his comrades hyped it as one of the world's ten fastest growing cities. Today you can drive down spotless four-lane roads (almost entirely bereft of traffic) past impressive vistas of apartment blocks, ministries, and hotels. The roads are lined by rows of replanted palm trees. The gigantic buildings, roomy gardens, and neon lights glowing 24 hours a day dazzle visitors who are arriving from parts of the country where frequent power shortages and darkness are the norm. 

But dictators don't only have a fondness for hypertrophic building projects. They also have an irrepressible tendency to redesign society to their own peculiar specifications. It's an urge that also manifests itself in small, everyday things -- as I'm frequently being reminded now that I've returned to my home country again after 16 years of life overseas. 

That's the thought that occurred to me whenever I came back from my rounds in the capital and stepped into the lobby of my hotel, where the staff invariably welcomed me with the greeting mingala-ba. In practice it means "may you be blessed" (though it literally translates to "auspiciousness to you").

This greeting always amuses me. When I was a student in Burma 25 years ago, no one greeted one another with such formal affectation. The only exception was in our school classroom, where students would greet their teachers while standing at attention with folded arms. This salutation was originally adopted in nationalist schools in the 1930s when the country was under colonial rule. It was supposed to serve as an authentic Burmese replacement for the English-language greeting. "Good morning, teacher" (or "good afternoon"). 

Actually, though, the typical greetings among Burmese usually take the form of rhetorical questions: 

"How are you doing?"

"Are you well?"

"Where are you going?"

"Have you eaten your meal?" 

The greeting that tends to startle my Western friends (especially women) is one that the Burmese say when they haven't seen each other for a while: "You've put on/lost weight" or "You look exactly the same." 

It turns out, though, that greeting habits have changed under the decades of military rule. Apparently mingala-ba is the new thing. When I looked at the "Greetings" section of a recent edition ofLonely Planet's Burma edition, it advises travelers to "greet someone by saying mingala-ba." It also recommends that you should accompany the words by pressing your palms together in a prayer-like fashion -- a custom, known as the wai that actually comes from Thailand. There's nothing especially Burmese about this at all. 

In the 1990s, the junta enforced this newly fashioned mingala-bagreeting in civilian-military interactions as a Burmese norm. The sights of people (ironically teachers of public schools in most cases) putting their palms together and paying prayer-like respect to the generals were commonplace in Burmese media. A state-owned paper then claimed (in a state of delusion) that the common sight of people paying respect to generals prove how much people admire the military even though the military leaders are not dynastic kings.

Physical entities such as Naypyidaw and social practices such asmingala-ba have been put in place through direct coercion. The effects of Junta-imposed socialization shape people's interpretation of their world and define appropriate behaviors. Ultimately, imposed fashioning of norms and knowledge influences political action. 

Another striking example of this principle at work involves the census. Many people here in Burma, including many opposition activists, rather blithely accept the official government census figures, including its numbers on the ethnic groups in the country. Yet the Burmese military has long insisted on using the term "race" rather than "ethnic group." The junta deemed the number of such "races" in Burma to be 135. This is actually a figure from the colonial era that was based on a survey of linguistic diversity, including a variety of dialects, and certainly not in any traditional understanding of the term. 

Some observers point out just how sloppy the junta was when it came to conducting the census. The military, which had attempted to deny the importance of ethnicity for several decades, suddenly changed course in 1988, when it began aggressively promoting this colonial breakdown of "races." The junta claimed that these 135 races had to be consulted in the formation of any new constitution and regime. Some scholars believe that this was intended to complicate Burma's political landscape and create the impression that the pro?democracy opposition (despite winning a landslide election in 1990) was incapable of representing "country with 135 national races." Yet quite a few activists and journalists I've met here maintain that there are indeed 135 races, and they express their concerns about ethnic cleavages in the country based on this count. 

What this shows is that statistics about ethnicity have become a completely artificial construct. The world view implied by this approach has entrenched itself, making it much harder for people to imagine other ways of thinking about their country's ethnic diversity. So this is a good, if somewhat depressing example, of how the old ruling elite's way of shaping reality has survived the transition to a more liberal form of rule. 

I would argue that all autocrats tend to suffer from a kind of compulsive-obsessive disorder. As a rule, they don't like to leave things to chance -- no matter how trivial some of those things might seem to be. The old junta fit this pattern quite well. Over the past 25 years they have made extensive efforts to condition people to think and feel in ways that serve the dominant ideology. 

Burma's society is changing and whether or not I agree, there is little that one man can do about it. But let me make one caveat: If constructed practices are to be the new norm, let there at least be a little sense about it. Please don't greet a bereaved person with themingala-ba greeting, because death is not an auspicious occasion. 

Min Zin is the Burma blogger for Transitions. Read the rest of his posts here. 

CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP/Getty Images

A Few Thoughts about Social Engineering in Burma