The American author, Christina Fink has recently released a second edition of her book “Living Silence”. Fink has worked with Burmese communities for about 14 years.
In her press release she jokingly explained the book is titled as such because, “People are not allowed to open their mouths.” ‘Living Silence’ in Burma does not mean people never talk, but rather conveys a message about the circumstances of Burmese civilians’ daily lives which are under so much pressure that they are afraid of saying the wrong thing by mistake, putting them into trouble at anytime.
This fear makes people constantly censor themselves and be careful what they say and do, in order to protect their own security. As Fink explains, the people actually don’t like the military but it is too dangerous to speak out because they want their families to be safe, so that they can raise their children with in the rules.
Fink has spoken with different kinds of people such as ordinary villagers, monks, business people, NGOs workers, retired soldiers and officers.
“This is not a natural way of living. The natural way of living is that people can express themselves freely and can get a critical or a positive opinion to try to make their society a better place,” Fink explained. “But, in Burma, many people are not able to do that. They are not able to contribute fully because of the insecurity they live with under military rules.”
It is not just politicians who are frightened by the government. The military rule prohibit and affect every aspect of people’s rights in Burma, such as the way parents raise their children, the way people practice their religion and even the arts like painting and music.
Fink hopes to highlight how military affects people’s voices, how people feel and what makes people have to act a certain way to protect their family and to survive.
The military previews and checks the work of all moviemakers and painters before it can reach the public eye. The military even takes seriously the color of paintings – the regime claims red represent revolution and yellow represents Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
Fink cites one example where a child’s painting had been censored and had not been allowed to exhibit because of too many colors prohibited by military. However, She points out, some positive progress has been made towards bringing about change in Burma despite the fact that there are still a lot of negative things being done by the Burmese military authorities, especially in human rights abuses.
One positive change, according to Fink, has been the number of International NGOs that can now work in Burma. The military rule in Burma still works the same way as 9 or 10 years ago, but what more positive Is the development of more effective social work and many more health and community organizations.
Many media sources have increased, even under strict censorship, and many more Burmese students can now study abroad and attend training programs compared to before.
According to Fink it is important to distinguish between the regime and the civil services; there are many good people who are working in the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Social Welfare. Many of these people are truly dedicated to making the country a better place because they are not the ones who make the policies. They often don’t have very much money or resources, and are limited in what they can do.
“So we should not look at the whole government as a problem. Not the whole government is the problem,” emphasized Fink. “It is only the regime. People should be clear that they [civil services] are very different from the military regime.”
The book covers Burma’s colonial period to 2008. The first edition came out in 2001 and only covered events up to 1999. The second edition now has an additional chapter covering from 2002 to 2008.
