Burmese Hear an Echo of Their Own Hopes in Obama

By AUNG ZAW

“The mood in the city is enough to make you weep,” a friend of mine in Washington, DC, told me just before President Barack Obama’s inauguration.

Obama fever is not confined to the US capital, but has also spread to every corner of the world. In Burma, too, many people watched and listened to Obama’s inauguration speech.

A long-time friend and fellow journalist inside Burma told me that her mother, who is now in her 80s, watched Obama’s live televised speech at midnight. “I asked her to go to bed, but she wouldn’t,” my friend said.

She added that although her mother was not especially impressed with the new president during the election campaign, “she is now addicted to watching Obama.”

A monk in Rangoon stayed up until 3 a.m. to watch coverage of the inauguration. He was clearly moved and impressed to see the White House occupied by the first black president.

I am sure the Burmese generals who terrorize the whole nation watched the inauguration, too. I doubt, however, that they were inspired to copy America’s example of peaceful regime change.

The irony is that they may be relieved to see the departure of George W Bush and his wife, Laura, who were staunch supporters of the democracy movement in Burma. But the dictator Than Shwe should also realize that Burma’s strained relationship with America will not improve until his regime frees over 2,000 political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, and embarks on meaningful political reforms.

Most Burmese dissidents, both inside the country and in exile, are confident that the new administration will continue America’s longstanding support for their cause. More importantly, perhaps, they hope that Burmese who welcomed Bush’s strong stand on Burma will no longer be dismissed as “extremists” by critics of the former president’s foreign policy.

Listening to Obama’s speech, many Burmese could not help but believe that some of his words were spoken directly to them—or rather, to their rulers:

“To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist,” the new president said to the world’s dictators.

At other times, Obama was speaking to the citizens of his own country, but his words resonated in a way that people around the world could readily relate to:

“Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America—they will be met.”

For Burmese, Obama’s sobering message contains echoes of some of Aung San Suu Kyi’s speeches, which have inspired a generation of her compatriots to continue their struggle against crushing odds. Unlike Obama, however, Suu Kyi’s willingness to speak the plain truth has not put her in the nation’s highest office, but under endless house arrest.

An editorial in The New York Times pointed to something that people everywhere seek from their leaders, saying that “In his Inaugural Address, President Obama gave them the clarity and the respect for which all Americans have hungered.”

The Burmese people also hunger for clarity and respect, and could probably bear their hardships far more easily if they knew their rulers were capable of speaking to them as anything other than slaves.

Sadly, however, they can’t even hope to hear the voices of their own chosen leaders, and must listen instead to the words of a man on the other side of the planet to find any inspiration to continue their struggle.