The Winds of Change
Yangon, Myanmar, November 14th, 2015.
Salaroche


Well, lo and behold, Myanmar’s decades-long military dictatorship finally seems to be coming to an end. After all those years of political struggle, Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD party has gained majority status in Parliament and the military seem ready to acquiesce to the will of the people.

The Lady’s perseverance is finally bearing fruit. Her power has been wielded softly over the past fifteen years, but her determination has been relentless in her efforts to bring about change for the better in her country.

“Mother Suu” is the legitimate scion of her late father, Aung San, who holds an elevated position in the national pantheon. He was a key negotiator at the moment of the country’s independence from the British Empire in 1947 and, oddly so, was the founder of the country’s military as well. He was assassinated by an opposing military group the same year. There is a national holiday commemorating his death every July 19th.

Many Myanmar people voted for the NLD only because of their love for Suu Kyi’s father, but a good majority of them voted specifically for her because they love her and trust she is by and large the best chance their country stands for a better future.

But the situation is not all rosy yet. There is still a long way to go before the country rids itself of the entrenched burdens imposed on them by decades of military dictatorship. No problem though, for, as they say, the road to Rome was not built in one day and although the cards are still stacked in favor of the military, the present national political mood is redolent of meaningful imminent change and the people’s hopes and spirits ready them to embrace those changes.

Constitutional amendments are in the offing and, according to the way the winds are blowing, they are necessary and inevitable too. No way can Myanmar sail forward into the 21st century with the military riding freely on the people’s back, like leeches sucking on the country’s livelihood, arbitrarily appropriating 25% of parliamentary seats and setting the ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Defense, the National Police, and the Border Authority off-limits to civilian control. All that has to change.

Thus far, however, President Thein Sein and the Military commanders have to be applauded for their unwillingness to repeat the events of 1990 when the legitimate victory of the opposition party at the polls was arbitrarily annulled by the military and all the opposition leaders jailed or disposed of, including Aung San Suu Kyi, who had already been under house arrest before the elections and remained so for over 10 years in total.

Myanmar people are kind and generous and it is perhaps for that reason that a band of armed troglodyte compatriots have managed to brutally subjugate them for so long. But as Suu Kyi’s example has shown us all, kindness is not to be confounded with weakness, so that the light of reason aided by the power of perseverance always stands to win in the end.

May the good omens that Myanmar’s present situation bring be clear harbingers of the best possible social, economic, and political future for the country.