In an address to military personnel and dignitaries, Senior General Than Shwe linked today's Burmese armed forces with the battles of Burma's dead kings in a war against imperialism and regressive policies.
Speaking yesterday on the occasion of the 63rd anniversary of Armed Forces Day, Burma's Head of State delivered a national address harkening back to a golden era of monarchial reign interrupted by an "unbearable situation of over a hundred long years."
"Blind to progress of other nations, lack of defensive alertness resulted in losing of independence and sovereignty," Than Shwe told those in attendance at Naypyitaw's parade ground.
The Tatmadaw, the Burmese army, is alluded to as dutifully picking up the pieces left from the 19th century and heroically finishing the work of Burma's kings in the 21st.
Yet Britain overthrew the last Burmese king in 1885 and ceded independence to modern Burma in 1947, a period of only 62 years. How then to account for Than Shwe's over one-hundred years of "unbearable" conditions?
The Senior General defines 1866 as the year when Burma's path to modernization was felled, spelling an end to Burma's honorable regency and opening the door to colonialism. In that year the modernizing, reforming vision of Prince Kanaung, who was the heir apparent to the throne of then King Mindon, was killed by jealous, regressive rivals.
However, in his diatribe, Than Shwe also referenced the necessity for the army assuming power and responsibility in the country in 1988: "Because of the violent disturbances of 1988 the Tatmadaw, to protect the life, property and security of the people and to preserve and protect the sovereignty and independence of the nation, had to take over all the responsibilities of the country."
Of course the armed forces assumed absolute political power fully 26 years earlier in 1962.
Was Burma's top brass then attempting to further distance the present regime from that of General Ne Win and his Burma Socialist Programme Party, which maintained a firm grip on power from 1962 till the late 1980s?
Than Shwe also, interestingly, specifically spoke of the insulting obligation on Burmese citizens to refer to their colonial administrators as thakins, or masters. Yet in the 1930s there arose the thakin movement, which saw the Burmese population endowing worthy Burmese leaders with the same title, in a dual indication of objection to British policies and respect for their own leaders. Burmese thakins came to include future politicians and military men such as U Nu, Aung San and Burma's would be dictator Ne Win.
The only solution to the puzzle of "over a hundred long years" must be that the current regime views itself as the continuation of the modernizing, progressive influences of Burma's doomed royal court, which are said to have come to an end in 1866 and were only revitalized with the actions of the army and state policy after 1988. This would then account for over 120 years of regressive polices.
Fittingly, the speech took place under the watchful gaze of a monument to three former Burmese kings in the new capital of Naypyitaw, meaning "Royal City." And the legacies of these three kings, held in high esteem by the military, serve to further argue for the perceived legitimacy of monarchial-military rule dating back a thousand years.
The three kings depicted are Anawrahta, an 11th century ruler credited with first unifying Burma, Bayinnaung, a 16th century monarch who arguably stretched Burmese rule to its outermost limits, and Alaungpaya, who in the 18th century is credited with christening Burma's port city of Dagon with its new moniker of Yangon.
