The writer, a University of Northern Iowa faculty member, recently returned from Myanmar, where he works with Buddhist monastery schools.
The once proud, now desperate nation of Burma, also called Myanmar, has experienced 50 years of steady decline under an incompetent, brutal military regime. As one exasperated Mandalay innkeeper lamented: "Fifty years ago we were the richest nation in Southeast Asia and Singapore was a village."
Today, nearly 54 million Burmese live at a subsistence level and receive a hopelessly inadequate education. Like the rest of the country, its public school system is in complete collapse. With the growing number of Burmese refugees arriving in the Midwest, what happens there, matters here.
In 1990, in free and fair elections, Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) won in a landslide. Rather than transfer power, the government imprisoned her and many of her followers. Suu Kyi served under house arrest for most of the next 20 years. In 2007, following steep increases in food prices, the ruling regime responded to peaceful protests of Buddhist monks by killing, wounding and arresting hundreds.
Yet, now there is a glimmer of hope. Just returned from Burma, I remain startled by the changes I witnessed. Suspicion, threats and close government monitoring marked my first two trips. This October, a smiling official waved me through with a crisp English greeting, "Welcome to Myanmar."
After successful projects in Central Europe, my wife, Jeannie Steele, and I arrived in Burma in 1998 to determine whether implementing basic education reforms would be possible. The collapsing education infrastructure made reform critical if Burma were to return to a functioning representative government. We learned, however, that the many brave people eager to improve education would be imperiled if such efforts went forward.
As a result, we focused on Burmese refugee camps in Thailand where 200,000 Burmese refugees reside. Working with Dr. Thein Lwin, a founding member of the NLD, we began providing professional development for camp teachers.
Inside Burma, Buddhist monastery schools began increasing enrollment to fill the void. In 2000, monastery teachers began quietly enrolling in our program. To protect them from repercussions, our workshops were held in remote areas of Thailand.
Then in 2009, the head of the Phaung Daw Oo school and other leading monks decided to expand our teacher development program to 1,700 monastery schools inside Burma. Since 2009, 4,000 teachers have participated. At an October conference in Mandalay, leaders representing monastery schools from across Burma met to plan further expansion. Remarkably, participants were able to discuss openly, without fear, the prospects of involving public schools in democracy-building activities.
How real and lasting are the changes? No one knows for sure. One possibility is that Burma wants to chair the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2014, which would give legitimacy to the newly elected, though generally discredited, pseudo-civilian government. Another possibility is that the sham 2011 election brought to power a split government with some genuinely reform-minded individuals.
Finally, the Arab Spring may be raising alarms among the ruling elite. But these all suggest that any reforms may be short-lived.
The general sense among reformers is that there is much to do. Aung San Suu Kyi is free and will run for parliament. There is greater freedom of movement. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in December became the first high-level U.S. official to visit Burma in 50 years.
As of last week, 800 political prisoners had been released, and on Jan. 13, Clinton announced restoration of diplomatic ties. The prevailing view among activists is to act now so — should the government retreat from reform — the cat will be out of the bag and impossible to put back. It is inspired and just might work.
Burma faces an uncertain future; its multi-ethnic amalgam of peoples, faiths and languages are divided by a half century of conflict. Small numbers are now emigrating to the United States.
Re-establishment of an education system inside Burma that is committed to developing a knowledgeable and thoughtful citizenry can provide the basis for a functioning democratic social order, along with the leaders able to sustain it and end Burma's 50-year nightmare.
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