Myanmar Rulers Exit, Successfully

POETRY FORMAT, 16 Nov 2015

Swe Mon – TRANSCEND Media Service

zarni swe mon poetry Myanmar Rulers Exit, Successfullyzarni swe mon poetry Myanmar Rulers Exit, Successfully2

People, let me be blunt.
Un-ashamed, the usurpers seem to have stopped their election game,
Having chosen the moral high ground and leaving the landsliders to be blamed – for a country lying in ruins.
After all, they have in fact raked in everything and vacuumed anything
That is, everything which is worth anything.
So, for the Big Bosses, there are no losses to speak of.
“Let the new game begin,” they say smuggedly.

Alas, Myanmar now is our barren land.
But, but … what’s left erect in this barren land of ours?
No more forests, no real people’s assets.
All they have left us is People’s Global Debt.
Empty-handed or empty-headed,
That’s all there is left of us.

Gone are vast quantities of natural gas.
Claiming the proceeds back?
But there is no recourse yet.
All has been grabbed.
Land, land, land. …
Virtually every plot of land, mini, medium, large, mega.
Your land, my land. his land, our land, aunty’s land, Mommy’s land.
All leased, sold, grabbed ….
Forget those winding rivers and longish creeks
Commodified and privatized, they have all been the rulers’ instruments of greed.

City Parks, Virgin Plots. Fertile farms.
Let’s reclaim them, please.
There must be a recourse, at least.
Alas, they call themselves “patriots:
– the generals, the ex-generals, the cronies, presidential advisers –
They all say they are Buddhists, with Gotama on their sleeves.
Look what they have achieved:
Us, the People on the streets
We are intellectually neutered with many of us morally bankrupt
Milling about, strolling around or simply hanging out
with nothing positively spiritual in our Karmic accounts.
The rulers say, “Hey, none of this is your business. Keep your nose off my business. Eat a meal a day. Be content. And go away.”

They say to themselves, “let’s get on with our patiotic loot”
For us, We the People,
Do we actually – and finally – win through?
Tell me, Sirs! What really is left after your treasure chests?
Tell me Madam, What really is left after their Grand Theft?

Didn’t they slaugter our fellow civilians?
Why did not spare even the robed holly men? The good monks, that is.
Remember Letpadaung? Have we forgotten the white phosperous and firebombed monks?
Brother, protests are bad for the “Rule of Law”
That was what Mommy Suu told us all.
In international business, we are to trust, she said.
So, sit back, relax and just accept the generals’ ban on anti-mine-protests.

Here comes the (rulers’) Grand Strategy
Turning “democracy” on its head, that’s the generals’ war chess.
Others wage ‘war on poverty’ ‘war on drugs’
They wage “war on people”, no matter what faith, race.
“People Power” means pitting us all one another.
Media reforms mean state propaganda, deformed.
Bad Monks, Unleashed.
Fake Monks are there
To lead the Buddhist Nation to Hell.

Nothing is out of bound,
Brother, can’t you see?
On fire have our neighbors been
And towns are burned down by the shaven-heads in gown.
Alas, their killers and arsons are only duty-bound.
Power! Power! Power!
That’s the generals’ mantra.
Nothing is out of bound.
Let a thousand Rohingya drown.

Were I reborn in the next cycle of life
“Discipline Flourishing Democracy,” I would not like.
Oh, how I long, you know, how I long
for our fellow wretched
to be spared of Myanmar’s Nwa (selfish animal) Presidents
Who radio-addresss us as “Dear Esteemed Benefactors and Beloved Masses”
Before proceeding to screw our collective a-r-s-e-s.

Here is my hearty toast to you all:
You, You, You. Yes, you Myanmar’s Wretched

“In Samsara (in the coming cycle of life)
May you/we all be free
Free from these Ruling Thugs and Thieves
Trouble-givers, Looters and Hell-creators
And all the perils of being “the Generals’ Beloved People”!
___________________________________

Mr Swe Moe is a Burmese poet and commentator.

Dr. Maung Zarni is a Burmese activist blogger, Associate Fellow at the University of Malaya, a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment, founder and director of the Free Burma Coalition (1995-2004), a visiting fellow (2011-13) at the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit, London School of Economics, and a nonresident scholar with the Sleuk Rith Institute in Cambodia. His forthcoming book on Burma will be published by Yale University Press. He was educated in the US where he lived and worked for 17 years. Visit his website http://ww.maungzarni.net

Adaptive English translation by Maung Zarni.

 

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 16 Nov 2015.

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