CIRCUMVENTING THE JUNTA: HOW BURMESE EXILES USE INDEPENDENT MEDIA TO FOSTER CIVIC CULTURE AND PROMOTE DEMOCRACY
by
Daniel Gawthrop
A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS in PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION
We accept the thesis as conforming to the required standard
------Dr. Gilbert Wilkes, Thesis Faculty Supervisor Date School of Communication and Culture Royal Roads University
------Dr. David Black, Internal Committee Member Date School of Communication and Culture Royal Roads University
------Brenda Belak, External Committee Member Date
------Dr. Phillip Vannini, Thesis Coordinator Date School of Communication and Culture Royal Roads University
------Dr. Joshua Guilar, Director Date School of Communication and Culture Royal Roads University
ISBN: 978-0-494-52181-6
Circumventing the junta 2
ABSTRACT
Nearly five decades after toppling the last civilian government, Burma‘s military leaders continue to rule the once-prosperous country by subjecting its population to a litany of human rights abuses. In recent years, the advent of independent media has shed more light on the junta‘s brutality while allowing Burmese exiles to expand their pro-democracy networks. Independent media‘s influence has become all the more important since the ―Saffron Revolution‖ of September 2007 and Cyclone Nargis in May 2008. Research on independent media by Burmese dissidents provides valuable insight for journalists as well as human rights campaigners. Drawing from interviews with seven Burmese exiled media producers based in Northern Thailand, this paper applies network society theory to an examination of how Burmese exiles use independent media to foster civic culture and promote democracy. It concludes that independent media counter the effects of Burmanization by expanding the public sphere and crossing ethnic boundaries.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis would not have been possible without the assistance of the Vancouver Burma Roundtable, whose members welcomed me to their monthly meetings and led me to contacts in Northern Thailand where I was able to locate interview subjects. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Brenda Belak, who served as external reader for this project, for sharing her knowledge of Burma as well as her many contacts. In thanking my interview subjects for their time and insight I must single out Mu Laing Thien of Burma News International, who was generous in helping set up interviews and arranging travel to Mae Hong Son. To prepare the project I am grateful to my thesis advisor, Dr. Gilbert Wilkes, my second reader, Dr. David Black, and my thesis coordinator, Dr. Phillip Vannini, for their advice and wisdom. The library staffs of both Royal Roads University and Simon Fraser University were courteous and helpful at all times, and I‘m grateful to fellow program member Erin Mullan for her inspired document sharing and spirit lifting. Thanks should also go to the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which provided financial assistance that allowed me to complete the MA program, and my colleagues for covering my absences from work. Finally, I would like to thank my partner, Saw Aung Htwe Nyunt Lay, for his patience and support while I worked on the thesis project.
Circumventing the junta 3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction...... 4
Background 6 The roots of authoritarianism in Burma...... 6 Censorship, self-censorship, and dissent...... 10 The Internet and Burma...... 14
Literature Review...... 16 Public spheres and civic culture...... 16 Globalization...... 17 Network society...... 19 Independent media and human rights...... 21 Independent media and Burmese exiles...... 23
Method...... 28
Findings...... ……………………………………………………………………….31
Identity Religious identity...... 31 Political identity...... 34 Isolation...... 37 The effects of isolation...... 37 Countering isolation...... 40 Independence...... 44 External pressures – the opposition...... 45 Credibility reduces fear...... 48 Enhancing the public sphere...... 50
Conclusions...... 52
References...... 56
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Circumventing the junta: How Burmese exiles use new media to foster civic culture and promote democracy
INTRODUCTION
Nearly five decades after toppling the last civilian government, Burma‘s military leaders continue to rule the once-prosperous Southeast Asian nation by subjecting its people to a litany of human rights abuses (Maung Maung Gyi, 1983; Lintner, 1990; Skidmore, 2004).1 The junta, or Tatmadaw, also known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), is regarded as one of the world‘s most successful practitioners of Orwellian totalitarianism (Larkin, 2005a).
Forced labour and relocation, rape, torture, and extrajudicial killings are facts of life in Burma.
However, as with other successful totalitarian regimes (van Creveld, 1999), the generals avoid accountability while preventing the Burmese people from accessing a range of information sources that might reveal the extent of the oppression and encourage collective resistance to it.
In the two decades between the August 1988 student demonstrations and Cyclone Nargis in May 2008, the international community has become better informed about human rights abuses in Burma under the military dictatorship. This is largely due to the efforts of exiled
Burmese journalists and dissidents (Zaw, 2006), and their use of the Internet, cell phone technology, desktop publishing, and other forms of new media since the early 1990s (Maung
Maung Oo, 2001; Brooten, 2004, 2006). Although the junta has found ways to suppress information in the wired age (Hachigian, 2002; Kalathil, 2002, 2003; Open Net Initiative, 2005),
1 In 1989, Burma’s generals changed the country’s name to the Union of Myanmar. Skidmore (2003) sees “Union” as the junta’s euphemism for the subjugation of Burma’s many minorities under the army’s control. “Myanmar” literally translates as “fast and strong“. At the time, the junta—then known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC)—claimed the new name was ethnically neutral and promoted national unity. While the United Nations accepted the name change, the Burmese opposition movement did not, and prefers ‘Burma’. Since usage has become an indicator of one’s political position with regard to the junta, I am declaring a bias here by using ‘Burma’ throughout. ‘Burman’ refers to the majority ethnic group, ‘Burmese’ to the language and the country’s various peoples and geography.
Circumventing the junta 5
Burmese exiles in the diasporic pro-democracy movement continue to break down the junta‘s firewalls. The development of Burmese independent media networks has had a major impact, both in terms of facilitating access to family, friends, and allies inside Burma and in educating the broader international community (Eng, 1998; Everard, 2000; Troester, 2001). The importance of independent media‘s role in advancing human rights in Burma has become even more apparent since the ―Saffron Revolution‖ (Clapp, 2007; Talbot, 2007; Wasley, 2007) and
Cyclone Nargis (Ball, 2008; Charney, 2009).
This thesis is concerned with the question: how do Burmese exiles use independent media to foster civic culture, promote democracy, and alter the political discourse in and about
Burma? The objective is to shed new light on how Burmese exiles use independent media to create alternative public spheres, thus not only adding to the literature on independent media but also providing valuable insight for independent media producers and other journalists worldwide.
The underlying assumption of the researcher is critical and constructivist: a post-modern, post- colonial perspective recognizes that multiple factors (Western sanctions and boycotts; economic and military investment by China, India, Thailand, and other nations; the regional diplomacy of non-interference and non-intervention; and the conflicting agendas of the country‘s multi-ethnic population) contribute to political gridlock in Burma and cannot be discounted in any analysis of independent media‘s impact. What‘s missing from the literature to date is analysis on how independent media have helped to develop civic culture in Burma, particularly given key differences between communication resources available in 1988 and those available in 2007. By focussing on the experiences of Burmese independent media producers, I hope to shed light on how civic culture in cyberspace challenges authoritarian information monopolies while empowering dissident exiles.
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The paper begins with a background on the history of authoritarianism, xenophobia, censorship and dissent in Burma, and how Burma exemplifies a ‗surveillance society‘, plus a brief summary of independent media‘s development in the country. The background is followed by a review of the literature on public spheres and civic culture, globalization, network society theory and the Internet‘s emergence as a form of network society, the birth of independent media in the context of human rights and its presence on the Burmese mediascape. The primary research involves an ethnographic study of Burmese exiles who work with independent media.
Using in-person interviews with seven Burmese dissidents based in Thailand, the paper looks at how independent media producers use their sources inside Burma to reach audiences at home and abroad with their respective media. It looks at the importance of identity in forming these exiles‘ sense of civic culture, how their work reduces cultural and geographic isolation, and how the policy of editorial independence reduces fear while enhancing the public sphere inside
Burma. The methodology is qualitative in its approach: it combines the long interview structure with active interviewing techniques that engage the subject as an active participant in meaning- making. The analysis uses narrative inquiry to identify important themes common to all seven subjects. Ultimately, it is hoped that the results and analysis will contribute to the literature on independent media and political resistance, particularly as these involve diasporic communities.
BACKGROUND
The roots of authoritarianism in Burma
In the nearly five decades since the March 2, 1962 coup that signalled the end of democracy and the birth of totalitarian rule, Burma has closed itself off to the outside world so dramatically that visitors often describe a country that seems lost in time—to the extent that even
Circumventing the junta 7 a 1952 travel journal still seems contemporary (Kaplan, 2008). Because of Burma‘s isolation, political debate about the country tends to focus only on events since 1988 and the role of Nobel
Prize-winning pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. However, any assumption that Burma‘s problems can be attributed exclusively to the junta and the lack of democracy fails to recognize the impact on the national psyche of three Anglo-Burmese wars, a century of colonial rule, the
Japanese invasion and occupation, six decades of civil war waged by ethnic minorities, and
Communist insurgency (Thant Myint-U, 2006). The roots of authoritarianism in Burma run far deeper than the military clampdowns of 1988 or 2007 and long predate the 1962 coup.
In the nineteenth century, the kingdom of Burma—which had been established for a thousand years—suffered military losses that would end with colonial occupation (Thant Myint-
U, Chapters 6 & 7). First, in 1824, Burma challenged Great Britain over the East India
Company‘s interests in the Bay of Bengal. After two years of bloody fighting and devastating losses, Burma abandoned its interest in Jaintia, Chachar, and Assam, ceded to the British their own provinces of Manipur, Arakan, and the Tenasserim, and agreed to pay indemnity fees to the equivalent of US $5 million. This humiliation was followed by a second war with the British in
1852 that led to the British seizure of Rangoon and other port towns in the south. Finally, in
1885, the British conquered Mandalay and declared Burma a British protectorate.
In deposing twenty-eight-year-old King Thibaw and sending him into exile in India,
Britain simultaneously ended the Burmese monarchy and launched a colonial era that would disregard centuries of Burmese culture. Burmese resentment of the foreign occupier—which today‘s Tatmadaw, or military junta, uses to reject all Western influence—stems from this period. From the royal family‘s humiliating eviction from the Glass Palace—instead of a ceremonial procession, the deposed monarch and his relatives were placed in ramshackle
Circumventing the junta 8 wooden carriages and quietly escorted to a waiting riverboat—to British soldiers‘ disrespectful habit of stomping into Buddhist temples wearing boots, the British occupation of Burma was a constant violation of national dignity.
One of the more offensive imports was the gentlemen‘s club: a hallmark of the British class system, it excluded Burmese from membership, putting natives at the bottom of the social hierarchy (Gravers, 1999, p. 3). Like other colonial governments, the British also weakened the
Burmese socio-economic fabric by administering the local economy in a manner that diminished the role of village headmen (Charney, 2009). Imposing taxes, for example, forced a population more familiar with subsistence farming and barter to adapt to a monetary system of trade and wage labour (van Crevelt, 1999, p. 319). Like other subject peoples, the Burmese saw their land repossessed by a foreign power intent on developing its own commercial interests. Although hill tribes and ethnic nationalities would welcome Christianity and ultimately incorporate the
Western faith into their traditional ways of life, the British imports of Western education and religion were brought to Burma with the colonial intent of eliminating indigenous forms of language, learning and worship. This was all part of the colonial policy of pacification: only by bringing ―peace‖ to the natives and quelling resistance, the British believed, could Burma become ―civilized‖ enough to develop democracy and its own constitution, and thereafter rule itself (Gravers, 1999, p. 9).2
What neither the British nor the Burmans anticipated by the early 1940s was how the rising tide of nationalism among the Shan, Karen, Kachin, Mon and other ethnic minorities— combined with the imperial ambitions of Japan and the growing influence of Chinese
Communism—would derail the ambitions of Burman nationalists who dreamed of one united,
2 Such colonial abuses are frequently cited by the junta to justify an official state policy of xenophobia that sees all foreign influence as evil.
Circumventing the junta 9 independent republic. These factors would come into play during the twenty-year period between
1942 and 1962, the first six years of which were possibly the most tumultuous in Burmese history: they included the forced removal of the British by a Japanese invasion, followed by three years of Japanese occupation; a brief return of the British at the end of World War II, followed by prolonged negotiations for independence; a civil war in Karen state; an agreement with the
Shan, Kachin and Chin minorities to join a united Burma, with an ‗escape clause‘ after ten years; and the assassination of revered independence leader Aung San, and several cabinet members, only months before independence in January, 1948. The fourteen years of democracy that followed were chaotic, and included a two-year ―caretaker‖ military government.
Events between 1824 and the brief window of democracy after 1948 planted the seeds of authoritarianism that would lie dormant in the Burman nationalist psyche until 1962. The recurring themes of this period—the threat of foreign intervention, the indignity of colonial occupation, and the destabilizing effects of internal disunity—were potent fodder for patriots like
General Ne Win, one of the ―Thirty Comrades‖ who had received their military training from the
Japanese at Hainan, fought with the Japanese to defeat the British, and held high positions in a
World War II puppet government army whose militaristic ―One Blood, One Voice, One
Command‖ motto remains the de facto slogan of the Tatmadaw today (Thant Myint-U, p.233).
Contemporary discussion of Burmese politics seldom mentions that the Anti-Fascist
People‘s Freedom League (AFPFL) government of U Nu actually invited the military to run a caretaker government in 1958, when the economy and ethnic insurgencies had become too difficult for the democratically elected government to manage. U Nu returned to power in 1960.
However, by early 1962, with Shan and other ethnic leaders renewing threats to secede from the
Union, Ne Win invoked the national unity theme to justify absolute power under military rule.
Circumventing the junta 10
He cited ―greatly deteriorating conditions in the Union,‖ including the Shan demand for federalism, which he believed would have destroyed the Union—even though conditions were no worse than in 1948-9, when Burma was threatened by rebellion from two Communist parties, army mutineers, the white-band Peoples Volunteer Organizations (PVOs), and the Karens
(Maung Maung Gyi, pp. 184-185). The military has held the country in its iron grip ever since.
Censorship, self-censorship, and dissent
The end of parliamentary democracy in Burma signalled the end of freedom of expression and of the press. After 1962, the liberty to criticize government policy in public—a privilege
Burmese writers and artists had enjoyed since 1948—was revoked. In August, 1962, the new government passed the Printers‘ and Publishers‘ Registration Act, which required all publishers to register each new book and provide copies to the Press Scrutiny Board (PSB), which had the power to forbid distribution. The government offered publishers incentives for good behaviour, such as national prizes, and set guidelines for authors to follow. ―Bad‖ behaviour resulted in rejected manuscripts or magazines appearing with pages missing or words covered with silver ink, a practice that continued through the 1990s (Krebbs, 2001).
Burma‘s creative community soon learned how to self-censor. The very act of writing became so allusive or drenched in irony that the only way for an author to address a taboo subject was through the construction of metaphors whose veiled meaning would hopefully be discerned by the reader but without being detected by the censor (Allott, 1993, p. 31)3. Self- censorship had a debilitating effect on serious and independent-minded writers, many of whom felt they had to abandon original writing and instead earn a meagre living translating works from
3 One short story included in Allott (1993), “The Advertising Wagon”, published by Ne Win Myint in 1990, is an apparently simple tale about the return of a man to his native village. The narrator notes that nothing much has changed in the two or three decades since he left, except that the travelling cinema has been replaced by the video parlour. Some readers have interpreted the story as a comment on the failure of the junta to deal with the economy and modernize the country.
Circumventing the junta 11
Western literature (Allott, p. 3). This climate of censorship had a lasting impact on the production of original literature in Burma. Larkin4 (2005b) describes a tour of the country forty years after the coup in which new literature was virtually non-existent and intellectuals zealously guarded their faded editions of translated English colonial classics like Rudyard Kipling‘s Kim.
In an interview with U.S.-based National Public Radio online, Larkin explains how Burmese writers today use creative and clever ways to get around the censors. For example, one
would write an article about, say, the Swedish health care system and how wonderful it is and how well it works, and put this in his paper. And it wouldn‘t be censored because it has nothing to do with Burma. But hopefully his readers are intelligent enough to perhaps compare this to the total lack of health care in Burma, and the lack of medicine, the lack of qualified doctors. And this is one way of critiquing indirectly what‘s going on in Burma in front of the eyes of government. (NPR.ORG, 2005)
Forcing dissidents to speak or write in code is a triumph of authoritarianism. By neutralizing or weakening the impact of dissent, the junta maintains control of the population and, of course, its grip on power. Foucault (1977) describes such societies as panoptic in nature: those subject to a permanent condition of disciplinary siege in which state power, in an attempt to neutralize the effects of counter power inspired by it, infiltrates every level of society. Ultimately, citizens resisting the power become surrounded by it, thus rendering their opposition impotent. One of the more effective tools of the Burmese panopticon is the informant. Skidmore (2004), citing
Foucault, notes that the modern deployment of state power involves
making citizens believe that the exercise of such power is permanent. The almost unanimous perception in Burma that informers are everywhere, all of the time, is certainly a triumph of the panoptic model of state power (Skidmore, p. 77).
4 Emma Larkin is a pseudonym for an American-born, Southeast Asia-raised, Bangkok-based journalist. “Larkin”, who frequently visits Burma, chose to use a pseudonym to protect not only herself but her Burmese sources.
Circumventing the junta 12
The presence of government informants in virtually every public space in Burma—from coffee bars and hotel lobbies to the house next door—fuels the paranoia that drives the panoptic society and becomes a powerful force for self-censorship. In a surveillance society, where state- of-the-art ―spy centres‖ can intercept phone conversations, facsimiles, e-mails and other electronic communications (Skidmore, p. 70), an indiscreet comment can lead to a jail sentence.
In such a climate, the average citizen in Burma must develop psychological survival strategies to be able to trust others and manage their fear. When the country‘s brightest hope for democracy,
Aung San Suu Kyi, receives a six-year sentence of house arrest for comparing the ―fascism‖ of the junta to that of the Japanese occupiers during World War II (Skidmore, pp. 62-63), or when
Nelson Mandela‘s name is suddenly excised from all magazine articles because the fellow Nobel
Prize winner called for Suu Kyi‘s release (Krebbs), the resulting publicity has a chilling effect.
Acts of censorship such as these lead to self-censorship among the public, which only adds efficiency to the junta‘s fascist mechanisms of domination (Skidmore, p. 75).
A climate of censorship and self-censorship also strengthens the junta‘s propaganda efforts.
In September 1988, an interim government was replaced by another military junta. The new leaders called themselves the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). One of
SLORC‘s first orders of business was to convince the population—and the rest of the world— that the mass killings of the previous summer were but a minor street skirmish. In mid-January
1989, the SLORC invited 46 Bangkok-based journalists to visit Burma for the first press tour of its kind since the 1962 coup. Although the reporters were shadowed by uniformed military police and plainclothes agents of the Directorate of Defence Services Intelligence (DDI), the visits to
Rangoon, Loikaw, Taunggyi, Meiktila and Pagan revealed more than the junta intended (Lintner,
1990). In Taunggyi, the journalists witnessed a group of students shouting down a government
Circumventing the junta 13 spokesperson for saying that mass shootings in the city by government troops the previous
September, which killed 74 people, were in response to aggression by demonstrators (Lintner,
1990, p. 167). The students drew applause by responding that the shootings were unprovoked.
Apart from carefully orchestrated events designed to impress foreign governments, such as massive drug burnings, no such media tours were ever held again.
Historical revisionism soon became the modus operandi of Tatmadaw propaganda.5 In
December 1988, the state media said that all accounts of indiscriminate shooting into crowds of demonstrators in August and September were just ―rumours and unsubstantiated reports‖
(Lintner, 1990, p. 182). In an article in Asiaweek (January 27, 1989), General Saw Maung claimed that only 15 demonstrators were killed in Rangoon after the SLORC‘s takeover and that
―over 500 other deaths‖ had also occurred ―during the lootings and the destruction of factories and workshops‖.6 The spin doctoring appeared to have an effect: before long, foreign diplomats and even United Nations personnel were referring to the previous summer‘s machine gunning of unarmed demonstrators as ―the disturbances‖ and other such euphemisms propagated by the
Tatmadaw (Lintner, 1996). SLORC spokesman Kyaw Sann exemplified the junta‘s unique gift for Orwellian newspeak and bafflegab when he responded to internal and international outrage over the mass killings and the SLORC‘s failure to provide a balanced account of events:
Truth is true only within a certain period of time and one is to practice truth taking into consideration time and place. What was truth once may no longer be truth after many months or years. A government that is based on the tatmadaw will never lie (Lintner, 1990, p. 176).
5 Lack of transparency is another: Among eight Southeast Asian nations measured in a study for their openness—in terms of responding to requests for access to official documents—Burma placed last. The generals approved only four per cent of requests, behind Indonesia and Vietnam, which each approved 18 per cent. (Blanton, 2002) 6 Most estimates place the total number of deaths caused by the army, during the 1988 student protests and their aftermath, at 3,000 or more.
Circumventing the junta 14
The Internet and Burma
For many Burmese exiles, cyberspace was a far more attractive battleground than the jungle. By the mid-1990s, student protesters from 1988 who had continued to fight the government from the border areas found that they were more than willing to trade in their AK-
47s for desktop computers (Eng, 1998). The ability to connect with networks from the privacy of one‘s home made virtual communities a more efficient weapon for pro-democracy activists.7
The Internet was a crucial factor in dissident exiles‘ ability to attract international support. The Washington-based Free Burma Coalition, founded in 1995 by a Burmese graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, galvanized American students, drew widespread media attention and helped force more than forty multinational corporations to withdraw from Burma, including ARCO, PepsiCo, and Texaco (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Burma_Coalition). At about the same time, the BurmaNet project (www.burmanetnews.org) was established by the
Open Society Institute (OSI) and run out of Chiang Mai. BurmaNet was the first online web service to connect exiled groups through an e-mail listserve, providing a daily diet of news stories focusing on human rights abuses in Burma. Other pro-democracy organizations whose websites predate the independent media movement include the Burma Campaign UK
(http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/), Canadian Friends of Burma (http://www.cfob.org/), the
Burma Project of the OSI (http://www.soros.org/initiatives/bpsai) created by George Soros, and the Alternative Asean Network on Burma (http://www.altsean.org/).
The Tatmadaw was slow to respond to these developments. In early 2000, the SPDC introduced the Internet in the form of Intranet, but it was heavily monitored by Myanmar Post &
7 Of course, the technology went both ways: informants for the junta were just as much a network as the pro- democracy or ethnic independent media groups. The difference was that—unlike informants, whose networks grew no larger than the junta authorities to whom they reported—independent media/pro-democracy activists were networks of soft power whose potency lay in their ability to expand their audience by convincing more and more exiles and international observers of the correctness of their vision of Burma.
Circumventing the junta 15
Telecommunication, a government agency, and by Bagan Cybertech, a private ISP formed in partnership between a former English DJ and SPDC General Khin Nyunt‘s son (Ko, 2005). In
August 2000, the junta conducted its first e-mail campaign against the National League for
Democracy. In an attempt to discredit Aung San Suu Kyi, the e-mails—sent daily over the course of a week to any journalist known to have written about Burma—trivialized the political opposition by likening a roadside standoff between Suu Kyi and government soldiers to ―a jolly jaunt into the countryside‖ for the NLD (Crampton, 2000). In the early years of Internet use in
Burma, cybercafé proprietors were required to monitor patrons‘ web surfing every five minutes.
At the same time, the junta was eager to show the world that it saw the value of information and communication technology (ICT). In late 2000 and early 2001, the SPDC heralded its arrival in the IT Revolution by signing an e-Asean agreement in Singapore and launching Burma‘s first ICT park. But only the government and its intelligence service were seen to benefit from IT inside the country, and since dictatorships and democratic technology were unnatural partners, there was much cynicism at home and abroad regarding Burma‘s prospects for producing ―the next Silicon Valley‖ (Maung Maung Oo, 2001).
The ―Saffron Revolution‖ of September 2007 and Cyclone Nargis in May 2008 put
Burma back on the map for international news media, however briefly. These events also revealed the extent to which new media had evolved as social organizing tools and, particularly in the case of Burma, how pivotal a role dissident exiles and independent media producers played to ensure that the stories got international attention. The independent media producers who were interviewed for this study shared their experiences in distributing information both within and outside of Burma during the period surrounding both these events.
Circumventing the junta 16
LITERATURE REVIEW
Exploring Burmese exiles‘ use of independent media in the context of civic culture and democracy requires an extensive review of literature on five subject areas that flow from the research question: public spheres and civic culture; globalization; network society theory and networked politics; the development of independent media as ‗soft power‘ in the struggle for human rights; and the history of independent media in and about Burma.
Public spheres and civic culture
Research on public spheres and civic culture begins with Jürgen Habermas (1976; 1989;
1996), who defines public sphere as a network for communicating information and points of view that ultimately help shape public opinion (1996). Habermas locates the emergence of the public sphere in Enlightenment Europe as a product of bourgeois, early capitalist society: the traffic in commodities and news created by long-distance trade gave birth to a new civil society in which activities and dependencies once limited to the household emerged into the public realm
(1989, p. 15; p. 19). Civil society was ―a network of associations‖ composed of ―more or less spontaneously emergent associations, organizations, and movements‖ with ―nongovernmental and non-economic connections and voluntary associations that anchor the communication structures of the public sphere‖ (1996, p. 367). Bennett and Entman (2001), Dahlgren (2001,
2003), and Sparks (2005) examine the public sphere in a contemporary, globalized context. For
Bennett and Entman, the public sphere was comprised of physical or virtual locations ―where ideas and feelings relevant to politics are transmitted or exchanged openly‖, such as cafes, magazines, and TV talk shows (pp. 2-3). For Dahlgren, the public sphere‘s dominant feature— media—is strictly egalitarian: ―technically, economically, culturally, and linguistically within
Circumventing the junta 17 reach of society‘s members‖ (2001, pp.35-36). For Sparks, a healthy public sphere grants all citizens equal rights and is consistent with the principles of participatory democracy.
Although the philosophical underpinnings of the public sphere and civil society are rooted in Western enlightenment theory, these ideas are nonetheless important in the context of
Burma because of how they relate to another key Habermasian concept: legitimacy. Habermas
(1976) defines legitimacy as ―the worthiness of a political order to be recognized‖ (p. 182). No political system can secure the loyalty of the people ―without recourse to legitimations‖ (p. 180); it is within the tension between the Burmese junta‘s lack of legitimacy and the constriction of
Burma‘s public spheres that this paper examines the role of independent media by Burmese exiles.
Civic culture is a key element of the Habermasian public sphere. For Dahlgren (2003), civic cultures are concerned with how people develop into citizens, or active members of their communities. The concept of citizenship invites us to consider democracy‘s ideals of universalism and equality and confront the gap between the ideals and the reality. Dahlgren defines civic cultures as the cultural patterns in which identities of citizenship, and the foundation for civic action, are embedded; thus, viable civic cultures are necessary prerequisites for a functioning democracy. For Giddens (2003), civic culture (or civil society) is the social space between the state and the marketplace, between the public and the private, where family and other non-economic institutions reside.
Globalization
Giddens, Appadurai (1990, 1998) and Gills (2000) examine civic culture in the context of sweeping changes brought about by the global economy since the late 1980s, particularly ways in which the advance of global communications and the Internet has contributed to the spread of
Circumventing the junta 18 democracy. During the 1990s, the added accessibility of information via the Internet meant that life for many people in restrictive, non-Western societies was no longer lived as a fixed and determined fate (Giddens, p. 72). The growing importance of the imagination in social life— fuelled in part by the increasing deterritorialization of people, images, and ideas from elsewhere—meant that more people throughout the world were conceptualizing reality ―through the prism of the possible lives offered by mass media in all their forms‖ (Appadurai, 1998, pp.
53-54). This was consistent with an emerging ―globalization from below‖: a politics of resistance in which the less powerful could take a leadership role in constructing the new practices of global civil society (Gills, 2000, p. 8). Given the intrinsically open framework of global communications, argues Giddens, the information monopoly upon which the political system was based was becoming obsolete (pp. 72-73).
Appadurai‘s contribution to globalization literature is especially useful in the context of exiled Burmese media. The complexity of the new global economy has led to fundamental disjunctures between economy, culture and politics. To explore these disjunctures, Appadurai
(1990) looks at the relationship between five dimensions of global cultural flow: ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, finanscapes and ideoscapes. Under the global economy, the landscapes of group identity have shifted. Groups are no longer ―tightly territorialized, spatially bounded, historically unselfconscious or culturally homogenous‖ (1998, p. 48). On the contrary: ethnic groups, sectarian movements, and political organizations operate more in ways that transcend specific territorial boundaries and identities. Thus, Thai cities such as Chiang Mai,
Burmese refugee camps, and Thai-Burma communities straddling the border can be said to represent a confluence of ethnoscapes and mediascapes: geographic concentrations of ethnic
Circumventing the junta 19 culture and informational sources which, combined, contribute to independent media‘s ability to foster civil society networks and develop civic culture within the Burmese diaspora.
Network society
Network theory connects the political, social and economic realities of globalization with corresponding technological change of the era. For Manuel Castells (1996; 2000; 2001), network theory is at the heart of communication theory because it opens up the possibility of seeing convergence, multimodality, and interactivity in the relationships between technology, politics, culture and ethnicity (Rantanen, 2005, p. 143). For Castells, the new global economy and civic culture that revolutionized communications and media represented a paradigm shift from industrial to informational modes of development: from a system where the main source of productivity resided in new energy sources to one where productivity lay in the technology of knowledge generation (1996). Networks, or sets of ―interconnected nodes‖, have existed as long as human interaction. Before the IT revolution, however, networks tended to be outperformed by organizations, whose vertical chains of command and control made them the more public
―fiefdoms of power and production‖ (2001, p. 2). The advent of computer-based information technologies, however, changed all that.
In the network society, Castells predicted, the new communication system would radically transform space and time (1996, p. 375). IT networks would flourish because they operated in the space of flows, ―a new spatial form characteristic of social practices that dominate and shape‖ this new network society and is characterized by ―the material organization of time- sharing social practices that work through flows‖ (1996, p. 412). The space of flows was made up not only of electronic circuits and information systems but also of territories and physical spaces ―whose functional or symbolic meaning depends on their connection to a network‖ (2000,
Circumventing the junta 20 p. 696). Unlike mass media, computer-mediated communication (CMC) is non-elitist: notwithstanding realities of the ―digital divide,‖ it is generally accessible to much of the public.
For Castells (2001), Bennett and Entman (2001), and Bennett (2003), the ―virtual community‖ challenged old assumptions about the nature of community as culturally homogenous and spatially bound. Many of the social movements emerging in the Information
Age were ideally situated to harness the power of instrumental flows and cultural codes that are embedded in computer-based networks. Castells (2001) identifies three important features of these movements. First, they were mobilized around cultural values: the Internet provided a place for social movements to attract people who shared those values and to disseminate them throughout society. Second, social movements filled a gap left by mainstream, ―vertical‖ organizations that were losing their moral authority, social influence and/or financial clout in the
Information Age. Finally, social movements were united by their need to match the global reach of the nation-state with their messages. The most influential of these movements were simultaneously ―rooted in their local context and aiming at a global impact‖—thus turning the
―think globally, act locally‖ ethos of 1970s and 80s on its head (p. 142). These movements achieved global reach with transnational campaigns that used mediated communication to unite like-minded activists from around the world.
Bennett and Entman (2001) see mediated communication as serving a number of important functions in the contemporary public sphere. In addition to providing good or bad information, it offers ―engaging or stupefying‖ perspectives on social issues, stimulates conversations between friends and strangers alike, and provides a range of ―political, scientific, and socially authoritative or dubious sources‖ on social issues that audiences are free to accept or reject (p. 5). Bennett (2003) explores some of the ways in which digital communication networks
Circumventing the junta 21 have shifted the political goalposts in favour of ―resource-poor players‖ by offering strategies that lie outside the conventional arena of electoral and special interest politics. He concludes that particular configurations of digital networks facilitate—among other things—permanent campaigns, the growth of broad networks regardless of the strength of social identity or ideology ties, and the transformation of both individual member organizations and the growth patterns of whole networks. Personal relations, he argues, are the ―glue‖ of the movement.
Independent media and human rights
Much research has been done on the development of independent media and the
Internet‘s role as a new media tool for social justice movements and human rights campaigns.
Downing (2003), Mayo (2005), Coyer (2005), Dahlgren (2003), and Gillmor (2004) have all looked at independent media‘s ability to mobilize large numbers of people for collective action in real time as well as build upon existing networks for future actions and news gathering. While the Zapatistas of Chiapas in 1994 were the first social movement to make a global impact using the Internet (Mayo), the Independent Media Centre (IMC)—to which the 1999 ―Battle in Seattle‖ protests against World Trade Organization meetings gave birth—has since become the template for online global activist networks (Downing; Dahlgren). Using up-to-the-minute reports, photos, and audio or video footage, the newly established Indymedia (www.seattle.indymedia.org) bypassed the corporate media to inform the global public about the anti-WTO protests while stimulating broader international discussion about the important issues at stake (Downing).
Coyer looks at the various independent media centers that were established in London,
Canada, Mexico City, Prague, Belgium, France, and Italy in the year after the Seattle protests, as well as others that soon appeared in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, South Africa,
Nigeria, Israel, Palestine, Russia and India. (By 2005 there were more than 120 IMCs throughout
Circumventing the junta 22 the world.) Gillmor and others have raised concerns about ―indy‖ media‘s uneven track record, due to the lack of editorial supervision and centralized control over what gets posted. However, researchers tend to agree that IMCs in general have played a positive role in emerging global civic cultures. First, as Downing observes, they serve as an alternative public sphere to that of mainstream media—often in close relationship with political and social movements, but without seeking hegemonic influence over these movements. Dahlgren describes how IMCs provide important critiques of mainstream media, while Coyer summarizes how IMCs uphold the principles of editorial independence (to the point of turning down major financial support, such as Indymedia‘s rejection of a ―no-strings-attached‖ $50,000 grant from the Ford Foundation) and how they tend, due to their participatory nature, to be more democratic than media created by corporate interests.
Joseph Nye (2004) would argue that these qualities make IMCs, and independent media in general, agents of soft power. As non-state actors, independent media producers are a dramatic example of how the nature of power has changed in the global information age. Nye sees politics in this era as partly ―a competition for attractiveness, legitimacy and credibility‖ in which ―the ability to share information—and to be believed—becomes an important source of attraction and power‖ (p. 31). Nye defines soft power as ―the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments‖ (p. X); it rests on ―the ability to shape the preferences of others‖ (p. 5). Its behavioural patterns—attraction and agenda-setting—are a counterbalance to the behavioural patterns of hard, or military power such as coercion and deterrence.
Independent media producers from diaspora communities in particular have been able to take advantage of the Internet to wield soft power. Digital technologies enable large numbers of people who live far away from their native lands but have shared histories to form large virtual
Circumventing the junta 23 communities with ties to other like-minded networks (David Bollier, in Nye, p. 92). For dissident exiles, independent media allows them to present more attractive visions of reality to audiences back home. (Nye cites recent examples of cyberlinks between foreign nationals and local citizens in China, Ghana and Zimbabwe to demonstrate how the Net helped effect political change from a distance.) While traditional power politics is often about whose military or economy wins,
Nye—citing two Rand Corporation consultants—concludes that politics in the information age
―may ultimately be about whose story wins‖ (p. 106, my emphasis). In this game, governments compete not only with other governments but with organizations and non-state actors (NGOs, independent media) to build up their own credibility and undermine that of their opponents.
Independent media and Burmese exiles
Western communications theory, which looks at civil society through a liberal democratic lens, poses a problem when discussing democracy, human rights, citizenship, and ―soft power‖ in the context of Asian authoritarian dictatorships.8 In Burma, as in other Southeast Asian countries, Western concepts such as human rights and citizenship are historically non-existent.
Burma also poses a unique dilemma for exiled independent media producers and other overseas dissidents: unlike other ―plugged in‖ exiles who seek democracy from abroad for their countries,
Burmese dissidents are exiles from a rogue state whose guardians have no legitimate claim to power. The following researchers go to some lengths to address these issues.
Piper and Uhlin (2004) examine the network society and civic culture through a strictly
Asian lens. Although the concepts of human rights and citizenship have little cultural relevance in Southeast Asian history, they note that a new type of citizenship has evolved in countries from the region that have histories of struggle with colonialism, independence and authoritarianism
8 Communication theory texts, as well, “rarely address theories developed outside the west, albeit with the exception of the postcolonial theory tradition associated with Fanon, Said, and others” (David Black, personal communication, June 30, 2009).
Circumventing the junta 24
(p.14). The ―8.8.88 Generation‖ of student activists in Burma, embracing this concept of citizenship, saw democracy and human rights as prerequisites to a healthy public sphere. These students, and other dissidents who followed them into exile, found allies in civil society groups from other countries in the region, such as Malaysia and Singapore, whose members shared
―common principles of democracy and human rights, often in opposition to their governments‖
(p. 15).9 These allies were willing to engage in regional networking activities in support of
Burmese democracy despite—or perhaps because of—their status as citizens of nations that could hardly be described as beacons of human rights (p. 20).
In terms of research on the Internet, independent media, and the Burmese experience, useful contributions have been made by Krebbs (2001), Troester (2001), Kalathil (2002),
Kalathil and Boas (2003), Hachigian (2002), Brooten (2006), Chouliaraki (2008), and Ball
(2008).
Krebbs (2001), in a project to examine the degree of ―cyber-empowerment‖ among
Burmese dissidents, was the first to measure the impact that new media were having on Burma‘s pro-democracy movement by the end of the 1990s. Comparing media coverage related to the
―8.8.88‖ student revolt with that surrounding the eleventh anniversary of that event and another series of pro-democracy protests in September 1999, Krebbs found that the period between the
Internet‘s emergence in 1991 and the protests of 1999 had seen a significant shift in overseas public discourse about Burma. By 1999, civil society groups and NGOs were using the Net to put added pressure on the regime, which had previously been impervious to foreign media infiltration. It helped that, by this time, the Internet was providing access to far more primary sources of information—and in less time—than had been possible in 1988.
9 Similarly, activist organizations from the Philippines have worked with Burmese activists on the border, sharing stories and strategies based on their experience under the Marcos regime and martial law in general.
Circumventing the junta 25
Troester (2001) looks at the contributions of overseas civil society organizations and
NGOs such as the Washington-based Free Burma Coalition, The Burma Project (part of the
Open Society Institute, established by George Soros), The Burmanet News, the Civil Society for
Burma, and Freeburma.org. These organizations serve as sources of information that would otherwise be unavailable or inaccessible to people inside Burma; they also serve as advocacy and lobbying devices (Troester cites the Free Burma Coalition‘s claim to have forced up to forty international organizations to stop doing business with the military government). However,
Troester‘s main premise—using the Internet to ―promote peace in Burma‖—is problematic. The word ―peace‖ is awkward in this context given its frequent use as a diplomatic term to denote truce-like conditions (if not the end of hostilities) between warring factions, its ambiguity, and its easy manipulation for sinister political purposes—such as the junta‘s decision, three years before
Troester‘s article was published, to rename itself the State Peace and Development Council.
Kalathil (2002) examines how the information revolution has amplified the ideological power and cohesion of diaspora communities, highlighting the growing relevance and visibility of these groups worldwide. Choosing the examples of Burmese, Chinese, and Middle Eastern online communities as ―forces of soft power in their own right‖ (p. 352), Kalathil singles out the
Burmese networked diaspora for having combined with transnational civil society to produce
―tangible results‖ in the public sphere. The Free Burma Movement‘s decision to expand its membership and include people who had never been to the country boosted its campaigns through the use of listservs, web pages and e-mail petitions, allowing it to ―shame‖ major U.S. corporations such as PepsiCo and Apple Computer into pulling their businesses out of Burma.
The Burmese example is a lesson in pragmatism: an exiled community was able to serve its political aims by tapping into the organizational power of Western pro-democracy activists.
Circumventing the junta 26
Kalathil and Boas (2003) acknowledge the all-encompassing power of the junta to exert total control over the telecommunications sector and use of the Internet inside Burma. In Open
Networks, Closed Regimes, their chapter on Burma suggests that the SPDC wants it both ways: on one hand, the junta generals want to prevent individuals from gaining access to the Internet, in order to quell dissent; on the other, they need the Internet to be ‗free‘ enough to help the business climate. Kalathil and Boas examine how the junta has addressed the former issue by passing a decree in 1996 declaring the possession of an unregistered telephone, fax machine or modem illegal and punishable by up to fifteen years in prison, and by launching online PR counterattacks against its critics. The junta has addressed the latter issue by courting international partners (i.e.
Malaysia, Japan, and India) to assist in developing its ICT capacity and projects.
Hachigian (2002) looks at the consequences of severely restricting public use of the
Internet in one-party states. In a networked society, she argues, ―those hostile to a regime can acquire new capabilities because the Internet allows anonymous, fast, borderless, and relatively inexpensive communication....Virtual public spaces where many can communicate simultaneously can also be politically significant in a one-party state‖ (p. 42). Hachigian takes a market-oriented view of the junta‘s dilemma: by forbidding public access to websites hosted abroad, she says, the junta is shooting itself in the foot by reducing its access to global market information and capital flows. The years following this article‘s publication have not reinforced
Hachigian‘s argument, as the SPDC has remained content to abandon the West and concentrate on building its commercial relationships inside Asia, with little regard for the consequences.
Brooten (2006) examines Burma as a multi-ethnic state in the context of pursuing independent journalism in an environment of political violence. The emergence of Burmese independent media has raised the question of objectivity in reporting: should reporters in conflict
Circumventing the junta 27 situations strive to be neutral observers, or should they serve as facilitators in conflict resolution?
Brooten, in exploring this question, notes that Burmese exiled media are not ―outsiders‖ to the communities they cover but interested parties. This creates expectations for both the political opposition organizations they cover and the international donors who fund them. Brooten interviews a selection of Burmese exiled media producers to explore the implications for editorial independence and personal safety (the latter especially in conflict zones where rebel armies wield strong influence). Ultimately, these journalists recognize the impossibility of complete independence in the contexts in which they work. They also regard the U.S. ideology of objective, independent journalism as ―an ideal toward which to aspire rather than a standard against which to be judged‖ (2006, p. 370).
Chouliaraki (2008), in examining the symbolic power of transnational media, takes a close look at TV coverage of the 2007 ―Saffron Revolution‖ monk-led protests to explore systemic patterns in the visibility of suffering in satellite news. Chouliaraki defines symbolic power in this context as ―the capacity of the media to selectively combine resources of language and image in order to present distant suffering as a cause of emotion, reflection and action for
Western media audiences‖ (p. 329). In a global media age, the symbolic power of the media to represent suffering poses an ethical and political challenge: to what extent do satellite media expand the moral imagination beyond existing national or regional communities of belonging?
Chouliaraki argues that intertextual chains of imagery of the monk protests and army brutality, across different media, ―not only expanded the public visibility of the events but further contextualized them in powerful discourses of resistance against the military junta‖ (p. 340).
Finally, Ball (2008) uses first-person accounts by unnamed reporters from the Mizzima
News Agency to bear witness to both the Saffron Revolution and Cyclone Nargis. Accounts of
Circumventing the junta 28 the former reveal the moment-by-moment conditions under which reporters and photographers met with sources, exchanged information, and filed their stories and photos to be shared with a global audience. (The book includes several colour photos taken by Mizzima reporters, many of which were purchased by international news agencies and transmitted around the world.) The
Cyclone Nargis section looks at how the junta stymied efforts by international aid organizations10, as well as Burmese aid workers, to reach affected areas of the Irrawaddy Delta and help victims of the May 2008 cyclone. The book is a testament both to the bravery and resourcefulness of the Mizzima staff and to the ways in which new media have radically altered the conditions in which Burmese opposition media can operate inside the country since 1988.
METHOD
The primary research for this paper involved an ethnographic field study of Burmese exiles working in independent media, specifically in-person interviews with seven subjects living in Chiang Mai, Thailand. These interviews, conducted in January 2009, were arranged two months previously during a separate trip to Thailand and confirmed upon ethical review approval in December 2008. The subjects, who represent different ethnic groups and forms of media including a monthly magazine, websites, satellite television, and multimedia, were chosen based on their experience with independent media and their status as dissident exiles that had each left
Burma either shortly after the August 1988 student demonstrations or a few years before the
―Saffron Revolution‖ protests.
My access to these subjects and their organizations was facilitated by contacts made in
2008 through the Vancouver Burma Roundtable, an umbrella group of Canadian pro-democracy organizations. Communication was eased by my prior knowledge of and exposure to Burmese
10 For a comprehensive report on the junta’s failure to respond to Cyclone Nargis, see Suwanvanichkij (2009).
Circumventing the junta 29 issues, including interviews with displaced Shan people for a feature article in The Nation newspaper (Gawthrop, 2002), while living in Thailand from 2000 until 2003. Although I had yet to visit Burma, my personal interest in the country was further influenced by marriage to a native of Karen state whom I had met in Bangkok and whose immigration to Canada I sponsored after returning to Vancouver. My partner shuns politics, and had no involvement with this project.
However, his continuing ties to family members back home—and the fact we would never have met had he not decided to join a wave of migrant Karen workers across the border—add an emotional dimension to my interest in Burma which negates any claim to objectivity toward the country and its people.
The seven interview participants represent four independent media organizations. One subject was interviewed from each of the following: The Irrawaddy, Burma‘s best known opposition newsmagazine (Aung Zaw); Democratic Voice of Burma, a satellite television network run out of Oslo (Toe Zaw Latt); and Internews, a training agency that works to empower local media worldwide (Ronald Aung Naing). Four interviews were conducted with subjects from Burma News International (BNI), an independent ethnic media group. One interview was with an administrator of the organization (Mu Laing Thien) and the others were with journalists representing three BNI members: the Kachin News, a multimedia organization representing the
Kachin people (Nawdin Lahbai); the Shan Herald Agency for News, a web-based news source for the Shan people (Khuensai Jaiyen); and the Kantarawaddy Times, a website that covers news for the Karenni people in Kayah state (Targay Sayreh Soe). Because the work of all subjects exists on the public record, each participant was willing to have his or her real name used. Due to
Circumventing the junta 30 safety concerns, however, some subjects provided fewer details about family members for the personal biographies that were recorded before the interviews.11
The interviews followed the qualitative approach proposed by McCracken‘s four-step method of inquiry as outlined in The Long Interview (Sage, 1978). I have chosen this approach because it takes the researcher ―into the mental world of the individual, to glimpse the categories and logic by which he or she sees the world‖ (p. 9). Similarly, an active interview approach recognizes that all interviews have the potential to be ―interpretively active, implicating meaning-making practices on the part of both interviewers and respondents‖ (Holstein and
Gubrium, p. 4).
The interviews were conducted in English, lasted approximately one hour each, and featured open-ended questions that focussed on a range of issues associated with the main research question The questions were structured to avoid limiting conversations and to stimulate discussion leading to new and unanticipated questions, while still responding to a priori issues.
The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and then coded using Weft qualitative data software.
The analytical approach is consistent with contemporary narrative inquiry (Chase, 1994;
Polkinghorne, 1995), which treats oral and written narrative as a distinct form of discourse and as a way of ―organizing events and objects into a meaningful whole, and of connecting and seeing the consequences of actions and events over time‖ (Chase, in Denzin & Lincoln, p 656).
Taking the diachronic data results of the interviews, I used paradigmatic analysis of the interviews to identify common themes between them and map the results accordingly. In this
11 Of the seven interview subjects, six were male. Three were ethnic Burmans, two were Shan, one Karenni and one Kachin. All but one were born in 1967 or later. Two of the subjects identified their religious affiliation as “inactive” Catholic, one as “strong” Baptist, one as “moderate” Baptist, and one as Buddhist. Another subject did not answer the religion question while the seventh did not complete a biography chart.
Circumventing the junta 31 endeavour, I am attempting ―to configure the data elements into a story that unites and gives meaning to the data as contributors to a goal or purpose‖ (Polkinghorne, in Hatch & Wisniewski, p. 15), that being the fostering of civic culture and the promotion of democracy in Burma. Given that the interview subjects are dissident exiles, I recognize that their narratives are both enabled and constrained by their particular geographical and socio-political location. However, these locations merely influence, rather than determine, meaning-making in the narrative. Each of the seven narratives is significant because of what it tells us of the possibilities within a specific social context (Chase, p. 667). Ethical considerations were of utmost importance throughout. A project about Burma that is entirely concerned with democracy and technology issues requires heightened sensitivity. For this reason, several details that arose in the interviews which were deemed to pose potential safety risks—such as certain family information for the biographies, as mentioned above—were excluded from the study.
FINDINGS
Identity
Identity plays a key role in Burmese independent media producers’ sense of civic culture.
All seven subjects in this study acknowledged that their work as independent media producers was informed to some degree by their own ethnic identities. The interviews revealed that these identities—which divided along religious or political lines—also influenced their sense of place in the larger Burmese public.
Religious identity
For some interview subjects, religious identity was intertwined with ethnic identity, but religious identity was less important for the majority Burmans than for the ethnic minority
Circumventing the junta 32 subjects. All but one of the four subjects who belong to an ethnic minority identified their
Christian religion as an important factor in shaping their world view. Two of the three Burmans did not discuss their religious beliefs, and one Shan subject who identified as Buddhist placed more importance on ideology as a key factor in developing his civic consciousness.
For the three ethnic minority subjects who identified as Christian, religion was regarded as a unifying force at the local community level. Mu Laing Thien, the administrator of Burma
News International (BNI), was born and raised in the Shan state village of Pekkon, a township of
57 villages. Pekkon is similar to the Thai border town of Mae Hong Son, where our interview took place, but smaller. In Mu Laing‘s predominantly Roman Catholic community, the Church was the media:
ML: We got our information mostly from the priests. Because we had to modernize, the educated ones went out. Maybe somebody go to Italy, and they get more knowledge for the local people. So that‘s how we get more knowledge.....
Nawdin Lahbai, a founding editor of the Kachin News Group, was born and raised in
Putao, which is nestled among ice-capped mountains and isolated from the rest of Kachin state.
Nawdin self-identified as a devout Baptist. Much of his independent media work is devoted to promoting Kachin culture, which is predominantly Christian, within the state. Part of this means resisting the strong pull of ―Burmanization‖, or the aggressive cultural hegemony of the Burman majority, its imposition in all areas of public life, and its presence in every region of the country.12 During our interview Nawdin returned to the subject of religion several times. In
Christian regions, he said, compulsory Buddhism—an oxymoron, to be sure—is one of the more pervasive forms of Burmanization.
12 Although the SPDC continues to commit abuses against ethnic nationalities in the border areas, Brooten [2006] notes that the junta counters criticism of its Burmanization policy by promoting an apolitical form of cultural diversity that focuses on public celebrations of ethnic minority cultural performances.
Circumventing the junta 33
At one point in our conversation, Nawdin noted that independence hero Aung San had graduated from Judson College, an elite Baptist school established before Burma‘s independence that eventually merged into Rangoon University. With the Panglong Agreement in early 1947,
Aung San had promised that all religions would have a voice in the new Union of Burma. But after his assassination, said Nawdin, this egalitarian vision was betrayed by a kind of cultural, if not ethnic, cleansing: from the moment Burma‘s first prime minister, U Nu, declared Buddhism the official state religion, a process of Burmanization took root. Nawdin spoke of Buddhist temples being built in predominantly Christian communities, of the Kachin language being taught in local schools up to Grade Four until Ne Win removed it from the curriculum following the coup, and of Kachin Christians thereafter being forced to take Burmese Buddhist studies:
General Ne Win and Than Shwe, the Burmese politicians, they have written the wrong history. And in 2006, you know the Visit Myanmar Year, 2006, the same year they started the national convention.....They abolish a lot of the true Burma history, they also arrested some historians, they know about the truth and they arrest them and put in jail.....Ne Win also, when he start to revise the constitution in 1974, he tried to cancel the street names in Kachin state. This is the Burmanization. So we ethnics and Kachins, and Christians, view is that the first prime minister, U Nu, Ne Win and Than Shwe and Khin Nyunt are the same, you know? What they are doing is just the same. Burmanization and religion, you know? The same......
Targay Sayreh Soe, assistant editor of the Kantarawaddy Times, grew up in Tanakoi, a small village controlled by the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP). During our interview, Targay—who identified as a moderate Baptist—expressed discomfort with the silence of Christian leaders during the Buddhist monk-led ―Saffron Revolution‖ of September, 2007.
Although individual Baptists, Catholics, and Christians of other denominations had joined the demonstrations, church leaders had missed an opportunity to influence the public sphere by speaking out against Tatmadaw injustice, he said:
Circumventing the junta 34
In Karenni state, at the Saffron Revolution they didn‘t do much. People support the monks, but they are afraid very much. And I talked to many residents in the town, ‗Why are Karenni so quiet when there are monks are demonstrating? Why do they do nothing?‘ They said we need a leader. Like an educated--
DG: Like an Aung San Suu Kyi?
TS: Yes, yes, at that time we have a church leader who can be like the monks, and teach. And then I ask them, why don‘t they do, because this is in your hands. They are afraid.
Targay himself was also subject to fear. He was afraid of causing divisions in the community by questioning other religions for their lack of involvement in the protests:
We report about the monks, but we were afraid to ask their opinion, ‗How do you think of the other religious leaders?‘ I was afraid to ask because this was not the time, or I am not really professional if I am making a problem. But truly, I want to ask the other religions like the Catholics, ‗Why you didn‘t join?‘ but I‘m afraid to because am I making a problem for the community? It‘s hard.
While other interview subjects agreed that all religions—not just Buddhism—have a role to play in effecting social change in Burma, religion itself was no more important to their own sense of identity and civic engagement than their ideological or political beliefs.13
Political identity
Most interview subjects had close relatives who were directly involved with politics, either as parliamentarians or as members of ethnic rebel armies. Politics and ideology were thus highly influential during their upbringing and in developing their sense of civic culture. Mu
Laing‘s father was an elected member of parliament for the democratic opposition. Following the
1990 election, when the junta refused to hand over power but instead arrested the winning candidates, he fled Shan state to a Karen-controlled area on the Thai-Burma border. As a 12-
13 This distinguishes these independent media producers not only as activists but as “journalists able to articulate the politics and culture of a multi-ethnic Burma” (David Black, personal communication, June 30, 2009).
Circumventing the junta 35 year-old, Mu Laing depended on radio reports of his political activity to confirm her father‘s whereabouts. Targay‘s father was a member of the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), a rebel group fighting the SLORC. Constantly on the run, he moved the family to the rebel area when Targay was five years old. Once, after crossing the border into Thailand, the family returned to Tanakoi to find their farm repossessed and their house burned to the ground.
The oldest subject for this study, 60-year-old Khuensai Jaiyen, director of the Shan
Herald Agency for News (SHAN), was born four months after independence in 1948. At about the same time, his father joined the First Shan Rifles and was forced to flee northern Shan state.
Khuensai, sent to live with his grandparents, grew up in a house with ten people. During our interview, he recalled how family conversations revolved around politics and how ideology became a major part of his identity:
KS: Actually my uncle, my paternal uncle, he was a politician. My eldest brother, the cousin—we always call him ‗brother‘—he was a very politically active student at school, and everything, university, too. It was from them that we learned a lot.
DG: Word of mouth.
KS: And then we had the radio. If you live with them, you cannot avoid the radio. Listening to the news, and also the newspapers that they read, the books that they read. It started with them. And later, when we came down to Taunggyi in 1962, we started to read a lot from a guy called Htoon Myint of Taunggyi. He taught us, he didn‘t participate. He was the secretary general of the Shan People‘s Freedom League, a Shan political party. He wrote a lot of political pamphlets. He died in 1997. It was through him that we became really politicized.
For all three Burman subjects in this study, the political identity that informs their sense of civic culture is rooted in their experience as members of the ―8.8.88 Generation‖ of pro-democracy students.
Circumventing the junta 36
Ronald Aung Naing, of the media training agency Internews, was a medical student in
Mandalay—following the footsteps of his parents, who were both doctors—when countrywide demonstrations broke out against the military regime. He joined the protests and helped form a student organization after the short-lived coup in September, 1988. When military intelligence officers discovered his network and arrested some of Aung Naing‘s contacts in 1993, he was forced to leave Burma. His parents were soon interrogated by police and passed over for promotions in favour of less qualified candidates.
Aung Zaw, editor of The Irrawaddy, was a botany student when the democracy uprising began in the spring of 1988. He was arrested on the Rangoon University campus and detained for a week at Insein prison, where he was interrogated and tortured. A few months later, he fled the country at age 20 to avoid arrest. Toe Zaw Latt, now Thailand bureau chief for the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), also fled the country, at 19, to avoid arrest.
Religious and political identity play an important role in determining how exiled
Burmese independent media producers see the world. Their sense of civic culture, developed through first-hand experiences of ethnic, geographical, economic, and socio-political realities inside Burma, informs the work they do as independent media producers from the outside: they see events in various parts of the country—and diverse forms of opposition to the junta— as interconnected. A strong religious or political identity does not negate the principles of editorial independence for these participants. It does, however, put them at odds with the
Western notion of objectivity in media. Nonetheless, such identity has helped these Burmese exiles build bridges across cultures and restore the Burmese public‘s faith in the possibilities of media. This more engaged form of citizenship provides lessons for the Western journalist.
Circumventing the junta 37
Isolation
The work of independent media producers counters cultural isolation in Burma by
building bridges across ethnic, regional, and international divides.
The huge number of ethnic nationalities within Burma and the vast distances in geography and language between them contribute to a sense of isolation for many of these groups.14 The lack of communication between them gives the junta an advantage: one consequence of nearly five decades of authoritarian rule and closed society is that Burma‘s rich and storied ethnic minorities know very little about each other. Although such ethnic isolation is not unusual among Burma‘s regional neighbours, the lack of a national, federal media infrastructure in Burma has been an advantage for the junta: it has meant that ethnic nationalities are less likely to mount any kind of coordinated action against the SPDC. One of independent media‘s main functions has been to bridge some of those gaps.
The effects of isolation
In Nawdin‘s Kachin hometown of Putao, air travel is the only form of transport in and out of town. There were no newspapers in Putao when Nawdin was growing up, except for a single government-run paper during the earlier Ne Win period. Radio was always available, but it was the BBC Burmese station: most of the news dealt with overseas content. So Nawdin grew up with the sense that Kachin culture was completely ―invisible‖ on the Burmese mediascape. (―For Kachin, it‘s a very strange world, the Burmese people. We are living in the mountains and independent, we rule our land and history.‖)
14 Scholarship on Burma is in general agreement that there are about 100 different ethnic dialects spoken in the country. According to Gravers (2007), the SLORC attempted to undermine the political power of the seven non- Burman ethnic minorities—and thus maintain its own centralized control—by classifying the “135 races of Myanmar” as the basis for state-promoted nationalism and “cultural Myanmarization”.
Circumventing the junta 38
Aung Naing said that such geographic isolation tends to produce a high degree of provincialism in local media:
AN: Because of the isolation, the difficult communication and the media control, the ethnic people don‘t know each other—what is their culture, what is their history, and they use the different languages. So most of the ethnic media organizations, they want to inform their own people in their own language. Other ethnic groups cannot understand what they are producing and what they are telling the people.
Another problem Aung Naing identified as resulting from isolation is parochial thinking. With ethnic media organizations launched mainly from resistance communities along the border, he said, most of the young journalists entering the field lack perspective:
They‘ve grown up on the border, grown up in the refugee camps—they never see planes, they never see trains. So most of these young people don‘t know the outside world. So their thinking and their ideas are sometimes quite narrow.
Mu Laing saw the effects of such sheltered existence among the ranks of various ethnic rebel armies along the border. For young rebel soldiers who grew up with little or no education or exposure to the outside world, the power of the gun led some to behave toward villagers with a degree of cruelty that made them no better than the Burmese military. Mu Laing, before getting involved with media, briefly considered working as a human rights trainer in this population:
MT: At that time I wasn‘t really keen on media yet. I was more keen on working with the ceasefire groups15. And then maybe train them on human rights or something. I felt that we can‘t replace SPDC soldiers, the government soldiers, obviously. But for the exiles maybe at least have some relationship. And if we can train them on human rights maybe then they are more aware. They are the second ones who have the problem, after the government soldiers. So I just thought maybe it would be good if they are aware.
15 By “ceasefire groups” and “exiles”, Mu Laing is referring here to ethnic rebel armies that have signed a truce with the Tatmadaw.
Circumventing the junta 39
Cultural isolation affects not only the ethnic minorities. Majority Burmans are affected as well: their ignorance of ethnic minority culture has inhibited meaningful dialogue between all
Burmese peoples about the future of the country. Aung Naing suggested that, because Burmans were never taught the history of the country‘s ethnic areas (―When they learned the map of
Burma, they didn‘t understand...that these ethnic groups had their own kingdoms in the past, and they had their own people ruling their countries‖), their perception of Burma‘s nationhood is vastly different from that of the ethnic nationalities:
AN: The Burmese people feel there is only one country, but the ethnic people feel that there are many countries joined together, so this is the main political problem.
DG: The federation of states....
AN: Federation of states. The Burmans usually don‘t think like this, and they didn‘t learn in their education in the schools, they only learned the Burman history—how big the Burmese empire was. But they didn‘t know the ethnic history.
Another consequence of cultural isolation in Burma is that ―democracy‖ and ―ethnicity‖ are often discussed as separate issues even though they are not mutually exclusive. This can lead to misunderstandings between Burmans and ethnic nationalities, as well between Burmans and
Western researchers—as I discovered during the interview with Aung Zaw. At one point, I was about to ask for his response to an ethnic media argument that Burman opposition media focus on democracy at the expense of complex ethnic issues. Aung Zaw interrupted me, raising his voice enough for newsroom staff at The Irrawaddy to stop what they were doing and look into his glass-paneled corner office, where our interview was taking place:
DG: One thing that‘s emerged from my interviews is the whole theme about the ethnic media, and the ethnic groups in general, and their place in the whole question of the future of the country, and the idea that the Burman majority, including the Burman
Circumventing the junta 40
opposition media, that their issues and their priorities are all about democracy proper—but without creating the whole question about what happens next—
AZ: What should I say? What should I say? You know, you shouldn‘t talk to me about this because in this office, there‘s a Karen, and one used to be a soldier of Shan state army.....You shouldn‘t ask these questions to me, you should ask to others. Because I don‘t know about--
DG: I‘m not--
AZ: That‘s very divisive. We work with as many ethnic groups and people as possible. They work here, they bridge any kind of misunderstanding, so that we‘ve got to understand. But we also don‘t take them as a token. I hate it, I don‘t do it. I don‘t become a journalist because I‘m a Burman. Okay? That‘s very unfair. I don‘t set up this office not because I‘m Burman. I could raise the funding not because I‘m Burman. I work hard. You can quote me, whenever I say anything. I think this is wrong, this is very divisive.....You have to mention ethnic people, and ethnic issues, what they have done and what they need.16
Later in the interview, Aung Zaw acknowledged ignorance among the Burman majority about ethnic minority issues. Thus The Irrawaddy‘s monthly meetings, he said, feature lively discussions about what areas in the country need better coverage (―It‘s important to cover not only Burman stories, we cover stories about the Karen, stories about the Shan….‖). Our encounter, however, revealed just how sensitive an issue ethnic isolation has become.
Countering isolation
Independent media have mitigated the effects of cultural isolation within Burma in various ways. One example is a survey on the constitutional referendum conducted by the BNI.17
16 On reflection, it appeared that Aung Zaw may have taken my reference to “Burman opposition media” to be a direct criticism of The Irrawaddy rather than a general inquiry about how all Burman opposition media—which would also include the Democratic Voice of Burma, several overseas websites, and the news services of political parties and the government in exile—address this frequently expressed grievance from ethnic nationalities. 17 The referendum on Burma’s new constitution, scheduled for May 10, 2008, was finally postponed until May 25 after widespread condemnation of the junta for not cancelling it altogether due to the cyclone. The referendum was seen by many as a bid by the junta to present a veneer of legitimacy. However, the ballots contained only a
Circumventing the junta 41
The survey, the results of which were published three days before the scheduled referendum and five days after Cyclone Nargis hit the Burmese coastline, is the most comprehensive and statistically representative opinion poll conducted on the referendum. Its purpose was to gauge awareness of the referendum among ordinary voters and compile a snapshot of Burmese people‘s voting preferences in light of serious concerns about intimidation and pressure by the SPDC to endorse the junta‘s draft constitution, which many feared was designed to further entrench military rule rather than move toward democracy.18
The BNI survey countered isolation by producing a pan-Burmese snapshot of opinion from all regions of the country and then presenting these results on its website. This strategy was in keeping with the BNI‘s self-described mandate to be a network of independent media organizations whose reporting ―represents Burma as a nation of diverse peoples.‖ Khuensai
Jaiyen once described the BNI as being ―like a mini-federal state‖19 because it brought so many ethnic groups together under one umbrella. Mu Laing, the BNI‘s administrator, told me that this unique position allowed the BNI, with its referendum survey, to bridge gaps between ethnic groups in a way no other media can:
MT: I think a report like that only BNI could do. Because even Irrawaddy cannot do. They can interview people in Rangoon, Mandalay, and then maybe in different states only in the capital city. But BNI members are based in every location of Burma. And they have this special knowledge in this area. The Kachin, they know about Kachin, and Kantarawaddy they know Kayah, so when we have big reports, the Kachin only interview Kachin people in Kachin state. And then the Karenni interview these ones, and after we can write
single box with which to endorse the SPDC’s self-serving roadmap for change. To no one’s surprise, the referendum passed. 18 BNI members collected 2,049 responses from seven states and six divisions in Burma. Among the findings, the survey results showed that 83 per cent of respondents planned to vote. Tellingly, although 69 per cent said they did not know what was in the new constitution, 66.4 per cent said they would vote against it while 23 per cent said their vote was undecided. 19Mu Laing Thien, personal communication, November 2008.
Circumventing the junta 42
everything to become Burma report. Even if you find other groups, they cannot do this. This is BNI special.
The BNI and its member media organizations also counter isolation with the reach of their website and print publications. Mu Laing could not provide statistics but said that BNI‘s website and those of its members are accessed by people within Burma20. She did have figures for newspaper distribution in the ethno- and mediascapes of refugee camps and border towns:
MT: So for the rural area, maybe for this organization [Kantarawaddy Times] for the Mae Hong Son organization, they print maybe let‘s say 3,000 [copies] and they leave 600 in the Burmese refugee camp—it‘s a big camp, 16,000, 19,000—so they left about 600. And there‘s another refugee camp nearby so maybe 300, and then they distribute—because there are different offices around here so one in each organization—and then in Chiang Mai there will be some Burmese organizations so over there a few, and then they will send some to inside [Burma], and then the other way to Mae Sot border, and then for other people in Burma, they send PDFs. The same thing, but--
DG: They penetrate inside Burma?
MT: They do, they do. But the accent is only the rural area, the border area. So, if they‘re lucky, the paper might even go to the capital city of the state that we send to. But mostly it is not likely, but that‘s how we get the PDFs. So people can get what they‘re reading and just delete it, so it will be safer for them. [Distributing hard copies to villages inside Burma] takes much longer and is more dangerous.21
The distribution of independent news sources inside Burma, however limited, reduces the sense of isolation for Burmese citizens who are subjected to the numbing daily media diet of government television, radio and The New Light of Myanmar, the official state newspaper.
The presence of independent media alternatives inside Burma confirms the existence of life not lived as ―fixed and determined fate‖ (Giddens) but through the prism of ―possible lives‖
20 For most Burmese, that access comes through urban Internet shops. Ninety-five per cent of the population has no access to the Internet, and unauthorized possession of a computer modem is subject to up to seven years in prison. But web surfers at urban Internet shops can use proxy servers to penetrate the junta’s firewalls and visit prohibited websites such as BNI’s. The police do not want to put shop owners out of business, I was told by several of my interview subjects, so they no longer enforce the “every five minutes” monitoring rule. 21 Security and confidentiality concerns prevent me from divulging more technical specifics on how opposition newspapers are distributed inside Burma.
Circumventing the junta 43
(Appadurai). Independent satellite television fulfills this purpose in dramatic ways, as DVB‘s coverage of the Saffron Revolution and Cyclone Nargis demonstrated. DVB produces a one- hour news program that can be seen on Burmese television sets twenty-four hours a day.
During the monk-led protests in September 2007, Toe Zaw Latt recalled during our interview, the DVB office received an excited phone call from a Rangoon hotel guest: ―We are watching your TV program from the lobby.‖
Toe Zaw counted the emergence of satellite television, along with Internet blogs, as the most significant evidence of the evolving media landscape in Burma since the student protests of 1988. In DVB‘s case, he said, the biggest difference affecting the power of independent media has been ownership of imagery. In 1988, most footage of the student protests was owned by Japanese media. Toe Zaw said that these outlets refused opposition requests to release footage taken during the military crackdown, out of fear of offending
SLORC generals. By 2007, however, the DVB no longer had to rely on foreign media for footage of events in its own country. Instead, the foreign media was approaching DVB for footage:
TZ: Before the Saffron [Revolution]…..for the international media—CNN, BBC, the bigger media—the Burmese media or expert media, if they want to interview, we arrange interview. We were never regarded as a key source of information. But then, the Saffron Revolution, we were able to get our footage, we were flagged by 80 per cent [of images] by international media. Everyone used it—Reuters and AP.
DG: You own 80 per cent of all images associated with the Saffron Revolution?
TZ: It‘s our own. That‘s another way the media landscape changed. In the past we tried to promote, we tried to get them footage about Burma, but interest was very low. But after Saffron Revolution, they report everything we had. This was a different situation, the way the landscape changed compared to 1988....In 2008 there were a lot of international correspondents inside Burma, because of the referendum. But once the whole communications was shut down they‘ve got no idea how to send out information. Again,
Circumventing the junta 44
the images on CNN were our images. Two people working in the heavy rain in Rangoon, that‘s our image. The international correspondents went in to cover the referendum, and Nargis hit one week before the referendum. They were all there.
It was the DVB‘s good fortune that international correspondents happened to be in
Burma to cover the referendum when Cyclone Nargis broke out. But the good fortune was mutual: in the cases of both Cyclone Nargis and the Saffron Revolution, it was DVB reporters and camera operators on the ground who helped bolster the symbolic power of transnational media (Chouliaraki) to bring the images of suffering home to international television viewers.
This convergence of resources greatly reduced, however temporarily, Burma‘s isolation from the rest of the world.22 Within Burma, the work of DVB and other independent media producers has countered isolation by building bridges across ethnic, regional, and international divides. Much of this success can be attributed to independent media‘s policy of editorial independence.
Independence
The editorial independence of Burmese independent media reduces political fear while enhancing the public sphere in Burma.
All subjects interviewed for this study spoke of the challenges of maintaining their editorial independence in the face of external pressures. These pressures are by no means limited to SPDC bullying; they also come from the donor organizations that fund independent media23,
22 DVB’s pivotal role in covering the Saffron Revolution is captured in the 2008 docudrama “Burma VJ”, by Anders Ostergaard. 23 Even The Irrawaddy is not immune to financial pressure from international donors. During a panel discussion on Burma at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Bangkok in 2002, editor Aung Zaw was accused by a high-ranking U.S. official of supporting the September 11, 2001 attacks against America. The assembled guests—and Aung Zaw himself, who sat on the panel—were reminded that The Irrawaddy was “highly supported” by the U.S. government (through the National Endowment for Democracy, a Congress-funded organization that supports several projects promoting democracy, human rights, and media development in Burma), and that articles such as Zaw’s critique of
Circumventing the junta 45 from rebel army leaders or democratic opposition representatives who presume the allegiance of all non-junta media, and from neighbouring countries that are trying to forge closer trade relations with Burma in the guise of ―constructive engagement‖ but are wary of confrontational coverage (Zaw, 2006). Despite these pressures, and the climate of intimidation and fear produced by junta officials and opposition leaders alike, all seven subjects said their organizations have maintained their editorial independence to this day. In doing so, they have achieved two important goals for promoting healthy civic cultures inside Burma: they have reduced political fear among the general public and dissidents alike, and they have enhanced the public sphere by expanding the boundaries of news coverage typical of pre-Saffron Revolution Burma.
External pressures – the opposition
Apart from the SPDC and its military predecessors, whose external pressures on independent media have been documented elsewhere in this paper, the parties that have used fear and intimidation the most in order to influence news coverage of Burma have been members of the opposition movement, including rebel armies. Opposition groups often assume that exiled media are editorially partisan in their favour and that reporters will toe the party line. Thus, editors and reporters who retain close ties with such organizations face enormous pressure to compromise their editorial integrity and avoid publishing or broadcasting critical commentary about those groups.24 Journalists who fail to comply are often threatened, says Aung Zaw:
We recently had a piece, a special report looking back at 2008. We mentioned that if you are closer to the border area....you got problems with all these big guys, because there‘s too much pressure. I know that BBC [Burma] reporters are there, or DVB reporters who are based in Mae Sot. To many from these military armies, they‘re old friends who are
the Bush administration did “not go unnoticed in Washington” (Zaw, 2006). Such pressure from donor states reinforces the notion that autonomy is a relative concept and that non-state actors are never completely free of state interference or control (Piper & Uhlin). 24 According to a few activists I spoke with, even the DVB in the early days of Burmese independent media was subject to this kind of pressure from the National League for Democracy in exile.
Circumventing the junta 46
political opposition. They put them under pressure and if they put something about corruption or killings or landmines, there will be big problems. You never know, people will disappear.
Two ethnic media representatives from the BNI told me how they first became disillusioned with the dominant ethnic rebel armies of their region and then fell out of favour with them after publishing critical articles. Nawdin, of the Kachin News Group (KNG), said he used to be an earnest apparatchik of Kachin state‘s largest opposition group, the Kachin
Independence Organization (KIO)—until he found that the KIO‘s support of democracy ended at the front door:
NL: When I was the first schoolteacher in the KIO, I learned the KIO politics and everything. I am thinking we need more knowledge for the Kachin democracy movement.....But when I‘m working there you know I also sometimes visit the KIO headquarters.....In KIO headquarters, ―There is no democracy in Myanmar‖, they are talking about democracy. Actually, there is no democracy in the KIO.
Not long after he and a few colleagues set up the KNG in Laiza, a town in the Kachin- controlled area of the Burmese border with China, a power struggle occurred within the KIO.
When the KNG reported it in their online news service, the report angered KIO leaders so much that Nawdin and his colleagues were forced to flee Laiza for their lives and set up new offices in India (Brooten, 2006). Nawdin told me about the incident:
Actually, we want democracy in the Kachin community, and in the organization. That‘s why we tried to cover it, you know? Because a lot of people think it‘s a trick, to write about and criticize the KIO. But we tried to. But one result was that we cannot have headquarters at the China border, so that‘s why we moved our headquarters to India. Some place to hiding, you know?
Targay, of the Kantarawaddy Times, recalled how as a teenager he followed in his father‘s footsteps by going to work for the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP). But
Targay, unlike his father, was a budding journalist:
Circumventing the junta 47
TS: When I was studying in high school, I am interested in politics, but when I go to work in the KNPP, it was interesting, one thing was information. Like many information I used to write for the KNPP, with the help of the KNPP secretary. She guided me to write like information, kind of a propaganda, KNPP propaganda. So I think interesting to write the story. But this was not good, not good if I just…
DG: If it was just representing one side?
TS: Just one side. It would be better if I meet another independent. So I talked with the other guys here, like Phedu25, and we thought we make a news group, another news group, like independent.
Relations with the KNPP remained friendly until Targay and his colleagues published a story about KNPP landmines:
We often report about the conflict between the KNPP and the ceasefire groups. When we report we are not their advisor. We really want to report independently. Our staff was called by the KNPP after we have reported on landmine of KNPP. They don‘t want to see that kind of story reported. Because the war, the international, they are against. They don‘t want the landmine story.
Of course, Targay added, the KNPP is operating with a double standard: ―We can freely report the SPDC landmines, because we are not under the SPDC.‖
The Burmese independent media producers I spoke with said they mitigate the effects of such external pressure by asserting their editorial independence at all times. As part of its policy against political bias, The Irrawaddy forbids staff from belonging to any Burmese opposition group, and the magazine balances articles critical of the junta with negative stories about exiled pro-democracy groups and armed independent movements (Cochrane, 2006).
BNI requires formal independence from any opposition organization as a requirement for membership.26 And both the DVB and Internews train journalists to ensure that their stories
25 Phedu, the editor of Kantarawaddy Times, is the partner of Mu Laing Thien. 26 Mu Laing told me that the BNI did not yet have a member organization from Karen state, but it was meeting with one organization to assess its eligibility as an independent media source—the chief criteria being that it was not formally connected with the Karen National Union.
Circumventing the junta 48 cover both sides of a controversial issue and do not shrink from revealing scandals involving the junta or the political opposition. This approach has had the effect of reducing political fear while enhancing the public sphere.
Credibility reduces fear
The credibility that results from editorial independence becomes a form of moral authority from which Burmese exiled media can position themselves within the public sphere inside Burma. Four of my subjects gave examples of how their media outlet has used this power.
For Toe Zaw Latt, critical coverage by the DVB can force junta authorities into action where the same coverage by a lesser-known, or opposition-biased media, might not:
One time, a dam nearly broke and the government didn‘t do anything. We [DVB] reported it and the next day there were immediate inquiries about that. Sometimes there is immediate action, because of media, the next day they follow up. They‘re really scared of independent media.....
Mu Laing told me that Narinjara, a BNI member news services that covers Arakan state, once uncovered a scandal involving a military officer‘s mistress. When the officer found out that reporters were investigating him, he tried to have the story suppressed. But Narinjara ran the story anyway, and he was demoted:
MT: Narinjara is very well known in the community in Arakan state. When they see Narinjara they know. Even though it‘s illegal in Burma, they are very known, like the reporters. They find that people are willing to talk. Maybe they do have some credibility in their community. So when you ring them, ―this is the Narinjara Group‖, and people know....Among the locals, it‘s popular. So they have more power. They are regarded as the BBC. The BBC is quite well regarded in Burma community.
The same is true in Kachin state with respect to the KNG. Even KIO leaders who once threatened Nawdin and his colleagues for exposing a power struggle within their organization rely on the KNG for important information:
Circumventing the junta 49
NL: What‘s happening with the Kachin people, the KIO, they don‘t know what‘s happening in their organization. If they want to know they have to check our website. So that‘s why I think the media work is so important. The current situation in Burma, so many ethnic groups and everything....Because of you know the Number Two....He contact me, and ‗Your website, your reviews are good, you have a lot of good news.‘
Aung Zaw has used his own and The Irrawaddy‘s credibility to establish contacts with retired junta generals and even a few anonymous, high-level sources within the current SPDC leadership. Reportage of his conversations with 80-year-old Tun Tin, a general in 1988-89 who served briefly as prime minister, and his phone calls to an anonymous senior military officer who works closely with SPDC chair Than Shwe, serve to demystify the junta, to humanize the military leaders as complex individuals who defy stereotype. Aung Zaw says he comes away from these conversations convinced that the junta will never give up power. But he also finds a disturbing degree of earnest patriotism in their sense of civic duty. The Than
Shwe associate, for example, is a deluded moderate who believes in the Tatmadaw because he is convinced that only the army can save Burma from complete disintegration:
We talked for almost one hour. I know he wasn‘t going to change. He‘s the one who thinks to help the Kayah, Shan, Karenni, and.....he taught how to play golf to a Shan.....These guys are nuts, but these guys think they are helping to save our country. And I really want to understand, ‗Why are you guys doing this?‘, and he seems to believe that he‘s doing something good for us. It‘s very hard to change.....
However limited in political value these conversations might be, the credibility that grants Aung Zaw access to senior or retired junta officials allows him to provide more nuanced, complex portraits of military leaders that offer valuable insight into the Tatmadaw mindset. Such demystifying reportage reduces the distance between the powerful and the powerless, which in turn reduces fear both for reporter and audience. If junta authorities—or, for that matter, the KIO and other ethnic rebel armies—know that they are being held
Circumventing the junta 50 accountable for their actions, they have less room to abuse their power. Public knowledge of this fact reduces fear in the body politic.
Enhancing the public sphere
A stated position of editorial independence by independent media producers can enhance the public sphere in a country like Burma. Being obliged to no authority or organization liberates independent media to serve the public good in any manner they see fit.
In Burma, independent media have enhanced the public sphere by bearing witness to cataclysmic events—even saving lives in the process—and by increasing political literacy.
During the Saffron Revolution, and in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, organizations such as DVB and BNI members such as the Mizzima news agency had reporters and photographers on the ground inside Burma, ready to transmit messages to the outside world at a moment‘s notice. No such independent media or new media infrastructure was available during the student demonstrations in 1988. During the monk protests, Toe Zaw told me, DVB had 24-hour radio inside Burma. Several reporters who had been on leave returned to work and boosted the coverage. In the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, DVB satellite images of the carnage were sent around the world. Before long, the donations came pouring in:
TZ: Once we were able to put the images out, a lot of private donors—Burmese took risks, to give donations. We saved a lot of lives—actually that‘s government job. We repeated what‘s true, what was going on. At that point the government said it‘s around 20,000 [deaths from the cyclone]. From that point we said ―It‘s around 100,00027. These are the witnesses, this is how bad it is. Then slowly the government admits. And people become aware. Even overseas Burmese sent a lot of donations. We saved a lot of lives, we feel very happy about it. We do our job.
27 The final toll of Cyclone Nargis was estimated at nearly 150,000 dead or missing and 2.5 million homeless and in desperate need of care (Charney, 2009).
Circumventing the junta 51
Since the Saffron Revolution, my interview subjects agreed, political literacy has increased among the younger generation inside Burma. Despite an apparent rise in materialism among urban Burmese youth, Aung Naing notes that more young people are becoming politically savvy as a result of independent media‘s work:
RAN: My sense before 2007, the younger generation is not aware of information. Most of them are in an entertainment world because of globalization and information technology. There‘s a lot of entertainment trends in Burma. But there was an uprising in 2007 led by monks and students that made young people aware of information. So they understand government control, and they understand the issues and the role of outside media….What happened in 2007 was that the monks and students movements happening inside. And people saw that and they could not get any information about this from the media inside. Only the things they could get from the outside media, like mainly radio and one TV station run by Democratic Voice of Burma. So they understand that the only accurate information is coming from outside.
Political literacy, in a healthy public sphere, is characterized by a higher degree of scepticism about official news sources. Mu Laing noted that the accuracy of information coming from DVB and Mizzima during the Saffron Revolution and after Cyclone Nargis only reinforced public cynicism about state-run television news. The SPDC‘s TV coverage of the cyclone aftermath was a failed public relations exercise that some witnesses regarded as criminal negligence; enough alternative sources were available to confirm that the army‘s response to the crisis was woefully inadequate—a fact that could not be whitewashed with staged photo ops of uniformed army officials handing out bags of rice. Given the alternative news sources they‘re getting through independent media, the Burmese people—already hyper-aware of the junta‘s media tactics after 47 years of ―spin‖—cannot be fooled so easily:
MT: If you can make a difference, like BBC, then people are interested, but the news inside Burma is, like, we all know this is going to be the same person who will appear on the TV, the same generals, with the same messages. Even when I was in Burma, we were going to watch TV from eight until the time when they have the news, then we would
Circumventing the junta 52
switch it off and do other things, and then after that we would come back. Here [in Thailand], you wait for the news to come, you want to know the news. But over there you‘d never wait for the news to come....Unless, maybe on this special day, like maybe this minister or some kind of general will come to our school and then we are dressed up for the front line and then maybe I am wondering if I‘m on the TV today. So that‘s why you might check up!....When we checked out the news, we checked the dead people and who got married, and who got crime or something.
Since 2007, the Burmese people have been exposed to the possibilities of independent media like never before. Editorial independence has allowed Burmese exiled media to contribute to the public record in a way that reduces fear and enhances the public sphere. By expanding the boundaries of news coverage beyond what was possible before the Saffron
Revolution, they have helped to increase political literacy especially among the younger generation.
CONCLUSIONS
The purpose of this thesis was to look at ways in which Burmese exiles use independent media to foster civic culture and promote democracy. In terms of examining the public sphere in
Burma, the interviews revealed that independent media‘s ability to shape public opinion has increased sharply since the events of 2007-2008. The Saffron Revolution and Cyclone Nargis were cataclysmic events that gave independent media an opportunity to demonstrate the quantum leap in new media capacity that dissident exiles have been able to employ since 1988. In terms of their place in the Burmese mediascape, these events proved that exiled independent media have developed the credibility to challenge the illegitimacy of the SPDC regime. However, the most important role these media play in fostering civic culture and promoting democracy inside
Burma is countering the effects of Burmanization.
Throughout the Chiang Mai interviews, the concept of Burmanization was mentioned repeatedly. Research into Burmese history shows that the meaning of this term has changed
Circumventing the junta 53 significantly since the late colonial period. During the 1920s, as the home rule movement picked up steam, ―Burmanization‖ had mostly positive connotations in a political climate where colonialism was on the wane and indigenous self-rule the top priority for Burmese politicians
(Charney). However, this concept of Burmanization assumed a singular Burmese identity for all peoples within the borders of the former kingdom. Once independence was achieved, the word began to have negative connotations when it became apparent that the ethnic majority Burmans had control of the central government and were intent on making Buddhism the national religion.
After 1962, ―Burmanization‖ was an entirely negative term: its meaning had expanded to include geographical containment, strategic hamleting, and the subjugation of local languages and culture by the dominant Burman majority.
Independent media, and their use by Burmese exiles, build resistance to Burmanization in a number of ways. As a form of network society that is not space-bound, Burmese independent media can reach and unite the various ethnoscapes, mediascapes and ideoscapes of Thai cities such as Chiang Mai, Burmese refugee camps, and several Thai-Burma communities straddling the border—each of which has different ethnic populations. Independent media also use their soft power of ―attractiveness, legitimacy and credibility‖ to shape the opinions of the Burmese public: when the DVB was able to transmit images of a brutal military crackdown on the monk protests—and then, a few months later, show horrific images of the cyclone devastation—the satellite network countered the junta‘s version of events, thus diminishing its credibility. It also weakened official Burmanization efforts by emboldening ethnic minority peoples to defy the junta by travelling to forbidden areas in the Irrawaddy Delta to help people in distress.
The findings confirm Brooten‘s research, which found that independent media producers are neither neutral observers nor facilitators in conflict management. My own research found
Circumventing the junta 54 that, as interested parties in the communities they cover, Burmese exiled independent media producers cannot escape their ethnic identity or its religious or political forms. The distinctly local experiences described by the interview participants speak to Burma‘s vast geography as well as its rich cultural diversity. The politics of Burmanization have contributed to a sense of isolation between Burma‘s ethnic nationalities—thus diminishing, among other things, the civic culture of ecumenism.28 But independent media counter this kind of isolation by exposing more
Burmans to ethnic cultural and political issues and exposing ethnic minorities to each other—in the border areas, at the very least.
Burmese exiled independent media also counter the effects of Burmanization by pointing to the need to discuss ―democracy‖ and ―ethnicity‖ as related issues. Burmans need to understand that the country will never have a functioning democracy without addressing the concerns of its ethnic nationalities or coming to some agreement with them; ethnic nationalities need to understand that they cannot discuss democracy for Burma without also addressing the lack of democracy in their own leadership structures. Burmese exiled independent media have facilitated this understanding.
Editorial independence is a worthy goal for any country‘s media, but in Burma this policy has allowed exiled independent media producers to reduce fear and enhance the public sphere of their native land. The referendum survey conducted by BNI is a textbook example of network society in pursuit of these goals. The survey privileged the opinions of no one group over another, and all regions shared equal importance. The entire country ―spoke to each other‖ through the survey and thus enhanced the public sphere. Similarly, DVB‘s ownership of 80 per cent of the images associated with the Saffron Revolution brought the realities of the protests
28 This may be one reason for the Christian leadership’s apparent silence during the Buddhist monk-led Saffron Revolution.
Circumventing the junta 55 home for audiences everywhere: this helped build bridges across ethnic, regional and international boundaries. If credibility leads to moral authority, Burmese exiled independent media stand in stark contrast to the thoroughly discredited information services of the junta.
Although the SPDC claims indifference to the Western world view, the junta continues to monitor everything that is said about Burma in the international press. With independent media feeding international news services with their coverage of the protests and the cyclone aftermath, the Tatmadaw found it more difficult to suppress—or bend—the facts.29
By enhancing the public sphere and increasing political literacy in Burma, independent media have reduced the negative effects of Burmanization. Bearing witness to events such as the
Saffron Revolution and Cyclone Nargis—and having the footage broadcast throughout Burma— unites people throughout the land, regardless of which state they‘re from. When young, urban
Burmese decide that the only reliable source of news comes from the outside, and they question the official sources of the junta, they begin to move from provincialism and parochial thinking into a more Habermasian notion of citizenship.
Political change, in the sense of true democracy, will never come to Burma unless the country‘s ethnic nationalities have a place at the Union table—and this will not occur until the hegemonic influence of Burmanization finally disappears. Burmese exiled independent media producers have played a small but crucial part in pointing the way forward.
29 As this thesis was being completed, the junta was imposing a media blanket over its trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, who in May 2009 was moved from house arrest to Insein Prison after being charged with violating the terms of her house arrest. Suu Kyi, imprisoned after an American missionary swam across Inya Lake to her home on University Avenue in Rangoon, was subject to a prison sentence of up to five years for allegedly harbouring a foreign intruder.
Circumventing the junta 56
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