By Banya Hongsar, Canberra, Australia : The shameful Burmese election is over. The nation’s dream to elect a civilian government has diminished. Armed fighting between government troops and ethnic militias began on the Thai-Burma border this week and Burma is looking again at a bleak future.
The newly elected representatives are mostly military affiliated candidates who resigned from the previous government to run in the November 7th election. The battle for civil and political rights has begun again, but this time for a new Burmese generation. I will make a case that a civil rights force is the best way to change the governance of Burma. A civil rights force, along with journalists, must mobilize as one entity gathering public support for a local and national campaign to force the government to respect the rule of law, social and cultural rights, and political debate among the citizens of Burma.
Burma is moving toward a democracy with its own model and constitution. A democratic campaign can not be achieved unless civil rights forces are participating in the front line. Burmese civil rights forces must come together for this campaign once again for a second [after 1990] liberation from the military rules.
Citizens of the United States and countries in Europe have fought for their civil rights in their respective countries and won. It is time for the citizens of Burma to form a strong civil rights force in the country to engender constitutional change. In fact, getting together for a cause is not a new idea in Burmese history, but citizens must refresh their memories. In the 1940s, General Aung San, the father of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, began his political career as a student activist within a network of civil rights groups in his early days at college. He built a network with his college peers to protest against the British education system in Burma.
The government of Myanmar (Burma) has to review its laws that prohibit the civil rights activists from seeking social justices. Many Burmese laws ban writers, Buddhist monk, journalists, and community leader who have no interest in political power but seek social justice and fairness within the community. Western nations like the USA and Australia have advanced because their citizens have the right to protest when they believe that the government’s actions are unjustified.
Racial conflict will confront Burma unless the citizens share common values and respect our common identity as citizens of Burma. Our common values of cultural identity, language and society must be guaranteed by the law. Australia, where I live now, a land of natives and over 100 ethnicities from all over the world, has transformed itself into an advanced country, not only in social and cultural terms, but also with a political institution. A Burmese civil rights force needs to work from the bottom up, including all races and religions if the nation is to be in peace and harmony.
Burma will always be a multi-ethnic country. It is fruitless to ban those ethnic minorities from participating in the country, especially disallowing over one million mainly ethnic minorities from voting in the election on November 7. The Burman majority and non-Burman minority have lived in the country for thousands of years entailing many conflicts. The conflict will never end unless our leaders have a common vision on the nation and people.
We don’t even have to look as far as the Western countries for a model. We can look right next door. India is the largest democracy in the world. India has been dubbed the ‘greatest democracy’ in Asia and it is emerging to be greater power throughout the world. We will create obstacles to our countries success if we have no rights to express our opinion, rights to association and rights to participate in national politics. At the least, we need rights to form civil rights groups where we can raise concerns on our health, education and employment issues that impact our daily lives.
