by Emma Larkin
Burma.
It is now known as Myanmar, but calling it Burma seems to fit better for this walk through both the history and the present of the country. It was a place that I knew nothing about, but by the end I found myself both enchanted and haunted by what I had learned. I found myself wanting to know more.
Sadly, most of what we know about Burma stems from reports of the brutal repression of the people by the military dictatorship. As a result, as I opened this book, I was already comparing it to Nothing to Envy, the story of life in North Korea I had read not so long ago. But by the very first page I knew things were very, very different. "Everywhere you go you see someone reading." wrote Larkin. Books and literature are treasured in Burma, and though many are banned by the government, mildewed and ant chewed copies can still be found with some effort. Many of the greatest names in Western Literature are well known in certain Burmese circles and are discussed at tea houses.
It is appropriate then that Larkin is taking a literary journey through Burma, following in the footsteps of George Orwell whose mother was born in Burma and who served there as an officer in the British Imperial Police. She travels through the country looking for signs of Burma's colonial past and speaking with a few who remember it. Along the way she is followed, eavesdropped on, forced to report in to the police and then forced to leave places early. She must hide her notebooks, refrain from asking questions or visiting people more than once. She cannot use the names of the people she spoke with in the book nor is she able to use her real name on the cover for fear of never being able to enter the country again. It is George Orwell's Big Brother come to life and therein lies the story.
As demonstrated by Larkin, there is an awareness in Burma of the profound lack of freedom. There is a dissident movement and there are small rebellions in the everyday life of the people. I thought back to Nothing to Envy and North Korea where the pervasiveness of the government entered every facet of daily life and the populace seemed to be truly unaware of the possibility of choice--or at least in extreme denial about it. I found myself turning this difference over and over in my head wondering if books and literature were part of the difference. Their presence and status in Burma mean that many escape beyond their borders into the world of possibilities each and every day with the simple turn of a page.
Probably it is much more complicated than that. Still, we can all hope that those possibilities will become reality for the people of Burma someday soon.
