The Moon Princess: Another exercise in piecing the Burma jigsaw together

Because memoirs, as we all know, are always livelier and more fascinating than most history books, which tend to be straightforward and dull.
 
For the first thing, she remembers well despite her age (80 on 20 October 2008). Scenes described during her childhood days especially the annual Phaung Daw U festival on the Inle lake, the thrilling gambling dens with 4 animal games and 36 animal games and her life as an apprentice weaver were vivid and superb.
 
Inevitably, her account is about Burma and why and how it is languishing in “the present complicated political situation.” And for every topic, she does speak her mind.
Samples:

• “I have heard that today some hoteliers and those in the tourism industry are exploiting the ethnic Padaung. It seems totally unacceptable that one’s compatriots could be put into compounds for tourists to gape it.” (P.85)
• “Regarding the debate as to whether one should visit Burma,” she says, “my feeling is that is undoubtedly better for tourists to go and to have seen something of the country and its people, rather than not to have been there at all.”(P.277)

 
It is not any wonder she is also severe in her judgment of both the British, the Shan’s past masters, and the Burman leaders, their present masters:

Blamed by the Burman leaders of their Divide and Rule separation of Shans and other non-Burman peoples from the lowland Burmans, and “any existing animosity between the Burman and the Shan,” “The British however had a long-term plan for the amalgamation of the Shan States and the Frontier Areas, with Burma Proper. Although the British government was conscious that the ethnic nationalities were content to remain within the Dominion, it felt it had to convince them that joining with Burma Proper was in their best interest when independence came.” (P.278)
 
In its policy statement to Parliament in May 1945, the Secretary of State for Burma also declared that: “The administration of the Scheduled Areas, that is the Shan States and the tribal areas in the mountainous fringes of the country inhabited by peoples differing in language, social customs and degree of political development from the Burmans inhabiting the central areas, would for the time being be subject to a special regime under the Governor until such time as their inhabitants signify their desire for some suitable form of amalgamation of their territories with Burma proper.” (P.158)
 
Thus even though the Aung San-Atlee Agreement, signed on 27 January 1947, a week before the Panglong Conference, stipulated that inclusion of the frontier peoples depended on the “free consent” of those effected, “it is pretty clear that the British was not prepared to take no for an answer from the frontier areas,” she says quoting F.S.V. Donnison, who wrote Burma (1970).
 
Indeed, though the post-war Labor Government sent a Frontier Areas Committee of Enquiry (FACE), led by D.R.Rees-Williams, to feel out the hill peoples, as non-Burman ethnic nationalities were known in those days, “the whole issue had been prejudged under the Attlee-Aung San Agreement,” according to Hugh Tinker.
 
This was in spite of the fact that many knowledgeable Burma hands like HNC Stevenson were convinced that the country was not yet ready for independence. Burma was made up of diverse communities with different interests and with differing degrees of political development. “However, despite  being aware of the disparity between the different groups, it appears that the British did little to seriously resolve this problem,” she says. (P.42) With regards to the Aung San-Attlee Agreement and the overall discussion on the granting of independence, she remarks that “the British had only made a half-hearted attempt to accommodate the demands of the ethnic nationalities within the future framework of the Union of Burma, with no safeguards provided.” (P.238)
 
The heart of the matter was that the Attlee Government was also in a hurry to dismantle the British Empire where the sun had never set. Which paved the way for today’s  chaos. “I remember many old British Burma hands saying that ‘Burma had been given a raw deal,’” she writes.
 
She ends her memoirs with a quotation form her late younger brother Chao Tzang Yawnghwe (1939-2004), “The time has come for Burma’s leaders, both in Rangoon and jungle headquarters to re-think seriously and practically their ambitions, and prejudices. For much too long, the people of the Union of Burma have been entrapped in a politics of violence. All efforts must be undertaken to break the vicious cycle which has made the Burman(or Burmese), Shan, Mon, Karen, Karenni, Kachin, Chin and Arakanese, pitiable victims of war and violence.” (P.279)
 
All in all, a thought-provoking book. After all, nobody lives forever. So why the big fuss about nothings like becoming top dogs, and to Burmanize (or even Shanize) and subdue other peoples.