The Elephant in the Room

It was a strange evening. Perhaps due to the brown medicinal smelling
liquid, served with a small amount of soda and stirred with a tapering
wooden pole – the kind one might use to stir paint stripper. Liquid
opium "for health purposes" our host assured us, swearing that a
cousin had lost the symptoms of aids thanks to a daily dose of the
stuff. The orange cap of the medicine bottle served as tumbler and was
handed round the room as our eyes glazed and we talked punk rock.

Somewhere along the lines the talk moved to politics. Somewhere along
the lines it always moves to politics – atleast whenever one is in a
reasonably "safe" place to talk. Indeed not to talk about politics
seems a dance of avoidance around the enormous elephant in the room.
He is everywhere this elephant- lumbering his clumsy way through every
room of the country – daring us to talk about him, taunting us with
his presence – and then arresting those that do.

For to talk about him is just one step away from asking how to get rid of him.

It leaves one with a dilemma in social norms - what does one talk
about when one cannot discuss the elephant? Theatre or rice perhaps?
Cultural activities are pretty harmless no? Comedy, illness? Music or
Schools maybe? or Fashion? or Tourism?

But how can one talk about theatre without talking of those who are
now in exile for creating critical pieces of drama? Or discuss comedy
without mentioning the comedian who marched in the Uprising last year
and spent several nights in jail in punishment?

The rising price of rice worldwide is linked to the government's
forced re-allocation of rice for export – which in turn leads to a
false rise in prices here. Musical lyrics must be approved by the
Press Scrutiny Board that also determines if skirts are too short and
checks every single article prior to publication in order to cut out
anything that is too critical, or too pro the British Council or the
American Centre. Cultural activities are pushed out of the range of
"acceptable" topics pretty quickly.

When puzzling how to encourage more tourists to come visit, there is a
larger issue than PR or the right ad campaign – the reason tourists
don't come is because of the elephant. The reason HIV is so widespread
and immigrants pour across the borders is because of the elephant.
Education is so terrible and corruption so rife because barely 1% of
GDP goes to education, because between 40 and 60% is being spent on
the military – in a country that has no enemies other than its own
people. Wages are insufficient – not because of lack of money, this
is afterall, the most resource rich country in the region. The reason
for a level of poverty that matches Sub Saharan Africa is not because
of the economic sanctions that the West has created – it is because
the booming trade with China, India, Thailand and Russia does not
reach the pockets of the majority of the population.

Our elephant lives in luxury, while he crushes or threatens all those
around him. All who touch this place become infected with a case of
elephant in the room. And so too do our conversations.

We lurch crazily between the absolute superficial to topics concerning
the heavy weight of a society living under oppression – with not so
very much in-between. The number of topics free of political
connotations are squeezed to an ever shrinking few, in the far corners
of the room.

Perhaps there is also a guilty pleasure in talking politics – a risk
attached to it that adds value and enjoyment to the talking. It is
also that to talk about the elephant is to remain free (overused and
bizarre a concept as that is)– it is to rid him of some of his power –
to remind ourselves and him that we are watching and that we may be
living in the same room as him, but we distrust and despise him.


On this particular night it put my nerves on edge, lifting my spirit
only to bring them down again in a circle that is becoming familiar.
Perhaps I have too much faith in the power of discussion to bring up
answers.

In that small room, along a ragged road through threadbare jungle of
northern Yangon it really seemed that the terms of argument had been
set by the powers that be, and that the people – heroes and cowards
alike – had little to choose between. The issue of the moment is the
referendum – the first form of election for 20 years. It doesn't look
likely to be fair. People are confused whether to and how to vote. No
one trusts it.



Is it a moment at which a country of angry people can express
something. Or is just a means of legitimising a government that has
little real legitimacy? The hope wrapped up in the Referendum that I
imagined back in my hotel room in Bangkok was so different to the
hopelessness I sense now.

Suddenly, our hostess, one of the two locals present, broke into our
thoughts on the vote. It was the first time all evening that she
looked up and stared us straight in the eye, "The only hope for my
country is if we bomb them out" she said. It was more violent, more
expressive than anything she had said so far. And it made me shudder.

More and more it strikes me that perhaps the upcoming Referendum is
not the issue at all. Instead I wonder if there is something more
profound at stake – will people need to die to rid this place of the
elephant?

The elephant in here is a government that shapes our lives – we must
talk about him, because if we do not, we have accepted his presence as
normal and somehow therefore as right.