{"id":70868,"date":"2016-03-21T12:00:25","date_gmt":"2016-03-21T12:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=70868"},"modified":"2016-03-21T04:22:29","modified_gmt":"2016-03-21T04:22:29","slug":"myanmars-new-president-might-not-be-aung-san-suu-kyi-but-he-does-represent-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/03\/myanmars-new-president-might-not-be-aung-san-suu-kyi-but-he-does-represent-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"Myanmar\u2019s New President Might Not Be Aung San Suu Kyi, but He Does Represent Progress"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"maung<\/a>For the first time in decades, the Burmese people have a civilian president. Now they must weather the clash of military and opposition proxies to come.<\/em><\/p>\n

16 Mar 2016 – <\/em>Myanmar parliament\u2019s official confirmation on Tuesday [15 Mar] that Aung San Suu Kyi\u2019s<\/a> aide \u2013 Htin Kyaw\u2013 is to be the presidential proxy<\/a> ended months of hopeful speculation. Numerous articles and newspaper editorials had, excitedly, touched on the fairytale of a Burmese Mandela moment: the country\u2019s most popular politician, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, assuming the highest office after years of relentless persecution, heroic perseverance and noble reconciliation.<\/p>\n

For those of us Burmese who know the military\u2019s institutionalised disdain towards the woman who most of the country call Ahmay<\/em>, or Mother, we knew that western media was wasting ink on a foregone conclusion. The military will never let Aung San Suu Kyi<\/a> be the head of state, nor hold the reins of state power. They did not accept her when she first emerged in 1988 and they still don\u2019t accept her leadership, 28 years later, on the verge of her 71st birthday.<\/p>\n

\"Htin<\/a>

Htin Kyaw, the newly elected president of Myanmar, with Aung San Suu Kyi.
Photograph: Aung Shine Oo\/AP<\/p><\/div>\n

The generals used to give their approval to derogatory references to her that appeared in the numerous Burmese-language publications run by the military intelligence services. Because she was married to a Briton, she used to be called Kala maya<\/em> (or wife of a white nigger), or, worse still, Kala ma<\/em> (female nigger). Against the backdrop of the Arab spring and Barack Obama\u2019s offer to decriminalise \u201crogue regimes\u201d should they cooperate with the Americans, the generals decided to change their tack in dealing with their nemesis, the darling of the west.<\/p>\n

Shrewdly, they dropped crude and crass references to Suu Kyi and instead began playing nice and smiling broadly. In exchange, they got her to open doors for them in the private sector, to rekindle military ties at Sandhurst and West Point, and secure the acceptability and legitimacy of indirect military rule under its new management of media-friendly generals. But deep down, non-cooperation with Suu Kyi and her party remains the military\u2019s default position, something the media and Myanmar<\/a> experts have overlooked.<\/p>\n

10 years ago, a young colonel from military intelligence picked me up from Rangoon airport and asked me point-blank: \u201cDo you think only Aung San Suu Kyi can bring democracy to our country?\u201d, to which I answered bluntly, \u201cNo, absolutely not. Democracy is about the people, not the leaders, much less a specific leader.\u201d Some ranking generals couldn\u2019t even bring themselves to say her name, and often resorted to calling her \u201cthat woman\u201d. That colonel now is among the top three generals in the country, and backed his former boss, ex-Lt-General Myint Swe, a hardliner, to be the military\u2019s man as vice president.<\/p>\n

In her tireless efforts to secure cooperation from the military, Suu Kyi has repeatedly expressed her appreciation, respect and \u201cgenuine\u201d affection for the Tatmadaw (feudal military), which her father founded under Japan\u2019s fascist patronage in December 1942, much to the dismay of many minorities who have borne the brunt of the organisation\u2019s ruthless policies. There has been no shortage of accusations of widespread war crimes and crimes against humanity against Christian and other minorities in eastern Myanmar and a slow but systematic genocide against the Rohingya Muslims<\/a> in western Myanmar.<\/p>\n

All her displays of love were, predictably, to no avail. A stormy road lies ahead. As her relationship with the generals has reportedly turned sour again, a game of tit-for-tat now awaits the country. For their part, the generals who retain the ultimate say in the country\u2019s affairs are digging in their heels, having put Myint Swe, a former head of military intelligence, as an uncompromising counterbalance to Suu Kyi\u2019s puppet president.<\/p>\n

Still, Htin Kyaw\u2019s assumption of the presidency is a symbolically important moment for the Burmese public, who have repeatedly expressed their desire to rid the country of their military overlords. For the first time in 53 years, 51 million Burmese people have got a genuine civilian president who is not a general or ex-general in civilian clothing, and who can be expected not to promote the military\u2019s interests.<\/p>\n

Beyond this symbolic progress, the presidential politics of proxies in the high offices of Myanmar \u2013 the military with their ex-intelligence chief and Suu Kyi with her absolutely loyal former classmate \u2013 doesn\u2019t augur well for the future of the country. But again, genuine democracy will require a renewed, hard and sustained push by all sections of the country.<\/p>\n

________________________________<\/p>\n

Dr. Maung Zarni <\/em>is a Burmese activist blogger<\/em>, Associate Fellow at the University of Malaya,<\/em> a <\/em>member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a>,<\/em> 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<\/em> a nonresident scholar with the Sleuk Rith Institute in Cambodia. <\/em>His forthcoming book on Burma will be published by Yale University Press.<\/em> He was educated in the US where he lived and worked for 17 years.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the first time in decades, the Burmese people have a civilian president. Now they must weather the clash of military and opposition proxies to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70868\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}