Introspection, identity and national reconciliation

Saturday, 10 April 2010 12:35 Joseph Ball

(Mizzima) - In the summer of 2001 a team of missionaries was taken prisoner in Kabul for allegedly proselytizing Christianity, a crime in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. I was rather intrigued to see how the crisis would be resolved, supporters of the missionaries flaunting the rights violations of their captors, while according to Taliban jurisprudence a crime was indeed committed.
Alas, my curiosity was to go wanting. On a clear autumn day in New York the world watched as two towers thundered to the ground. Subsequently, the Taliban abandoned Kabul in an overnight withdrawal eerily similar to that of Ahmad Shah Massoud five years previously. The missionaries were simply left behind to await their de facto liberators, realpolitik crudely interfering with the global rights debate.

In the face of the National League for Democracy’s recent decision not to register with the Election Commission - a verdict that was left in no doubt once the organization’s supreme leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, voiced her opinion on the matter a week before the ostensible convening of a Central Committee debate to discuss the issue - the party is evidently prepared to further spike the number of members locked behind bars, rallying to the call of rights in the face of perceived unjust domestic law.

As with trials carried out in courts throughout Burma dealing with political activists, the Taliban trial of the missionaries was decried as a “sham” - a court with no recognized authority offering up a predetermined verdict based not on “normative” modern law but instead on some outdated and discredited interpretation of religious ideals.

Right versus wrong. Just versus unjust. Good versus evil.

But is it so simple?

The venerable Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh asks, ‘Can we look at each other and recognize ourselves in each other?’ His poem Call Me By My True Names reads in part:

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate,
and I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

As popularly carried in the media, the dominant position of opponents of the Burmese election cannot be said to be respectful at all, the military as an institution being popularly demonized. Yet, there were even recent degrading words and threats directed against fellow NLD members who might not hold to the same policy opinions regarding party registration.

And of course the same holds true for the armed forces, the posturing of the military, unresponsive to the pleas of the people, only exacerbating a destructive mentality of fear and loathing concerning their civilian counterparts.

Respect and understanding, for all parties to the conflict, should not be confused with agreement. But respect and understanding - internal as well as external - do allow for a potential avenue of dialogue to decide matters and reach, when necessary, alternative strategies or negotiated settlements.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to my people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

Arguably the most sensitive issue in Burma’s present crisis is that of political prisoners. Tin Oo has physically been both the wielder of power and the prisoner of conscience…but for most, the recognition of duality is far more nuanced and intimate.
How will Burma’s future kings, autocratic or democratic, confront those who once stood or stand in political opposition? This question is one of the most important for any future leaders of the country to answer.

Returning briefly to the Kabul missionaries, one is left to wonder if their own plight may not have been mitigated if they saw themselves in their Taliban hosts, instead of resorting to the reflex argument of justice and injustice, us versus them. And of course, the same argument holds for the Taliban as well, who needed to see in themselves the commitment and beliefs of the Christian missionaries. A more tactful recognition of both Taliban legal code and the aid efforts of the accused could have prevented or at least subdued the ensuing standoff, while possibly even allowing the humanitarian workers to continue their work in assisting the country’s impoverished population.

Without mutual respect for the diverse views of taking Burma into the 21st century (let alone concerning electoral laws), within party/junta politics and between the junta and civilian organizations, any talk of political reform is superfluous barring a sudden change in leadership. But of even greater importance, without recognition of the multiple identities each person carries within himself or herself, national reconciliation will endure as a practical impossibility, remaining but a propaganda ploy to be parlayed when convenient by all contestants to the fight.

‘Can we look at each other and recognize ourselves in each other?’ The reply in the case of most protagonists to the Burmese crisis today cannot be said to be anything other than a resounding ‘No.’ And until this answer changes, national reconciliation - regardless of the system of governance or language of any constitution - will remain on hold, the country lurching precariously from one crisis to the next while the vast majority of its people struggle to eke out a meager existence.