British colonialism was a positive force in Burma, according to one account

Myint Shwe

THE MAKING OF MODERN BURMA : By Thant Myint-U Cambridge University Press, 2001 : 284 pp. US$23.63

History writing is always troublesome since it is involves judging and interpreting a bygone era using present-day yardsticks. It may be doubly troublesome when it involves the study of former colonies by writers who come from the colonising culture.

In today's post-colonial era, Burmese history continues to be written by both natives of the country and, more occasionally, by outside scholars who are mainly from the West. Among Burmese writers, the country's ``rise and fall'' as a nation tends to be an over-riding concern.

Western historians on the other hand tend to focus on themes of tradition and modernity. Burma's pre-colonial, monarchical era is largely judged as ``traditional''. The colonial era is seen as the time when Burma was introduced to modernity, although sometimes it is acknowledged that there were efforts _ too little, too late _ during the Konbaung era by King Mindon and his brother, Prince Kanaung.

Burma today is seen as a place in which the old and indigenous has failed to reckon with and adapt to the new, foreign and superior. Its failure in this regard has resulted in the near-elimination of the former, according to the sort of academic Darwinism of Thant Myint-U's The Making of Modern Burma.

The word ``modern'' in the book's title may mislead some. A more accurate title would have been ``The Making of Colonial Burma''. The author covers a period of half a century, from 1885, when Theebaw, Burma's last king, was dethroned and shipped to India, up to 1925, the year Theebaw's queen, Supayalat, died in Rangoon after a decade of living there anonymously.

The year 1925, which fell between two great wars, could be seen as the lowest point in Burma's lost national consciousness. It was a dozen years before the colony would have its first open revolt with an emancipatory tinge _ the Saya San Peasant Rebellion of 1938.

This book gathers information from earlier works to illustrate in undramatic but conclusive and picturesque fashion the elimination of the indigenous monarchy and the introduction of colonial administration. The twilight years of the sovereign state and the early colonial years in which Upper Burma was merged with the already annexed Lower Burma are well told.

We discover the reason for the choice of the word ``modern'' in the title _ it is the author's belief that modernisation was introduced to Burma by British colonisation.

The author argues that colonisation brought Burma a series of benefits, included its current political and geographical boundary and a much more centrally controlled bureaucratic structure, which remains with us today. The author apparently believes that World War Two was unfortunate chiefly because it interrupted Burma's road to modernisation.

This line of thinking is evident in concluding remarks at the end of the book where he says that unlike other colonised countries, Burma at independence ``faced a weak institutional legacy'' _ a vacuum which the new wartime army [he means the Japanese-trained Burma Independence Army, the BIA] was soon able to fill.''

We are invited to deduce again that British colonialism was a force for the country's ``own good'' and was, in fact, a blessing in disguise. Also that the origins of the current notorious ruling military junta can be traced back to that ``independence army''.

But evidence from elsewhere in the book suggests clearly that there was no ``institutional [that is, military] weakness'' at the time of independence, when ethnic representatives rather than Burmese filled many key positions. The first defence chief of staff of the independent Union of Burma was not a Burmese, but a Karen, who was succeeded by an Anglo-Burmese. Ne Win, the notorious Burmese dictator, was only the third in line.

One could be curious as to why the author does not engage with the fact that, today, Burman nationalists of all persuasions complain about the colonial legacy of divide and rule that was the origin of the country's persistent ethnic strife.

This is just one of the ``real costs'' of colonisation as against the author's imagined benefits.

Had Burma not been a victim of colonisation, how well would it have developed as an independent sovereign nation? The opportunity to consider this question is effectively eradicated once the reader accepts the conclusion that colonisation was a ``blessing in disguise'' and that ``all that happened should have happened''.

Thant Myint-U tells the reader that the state leaders of monarchical Burma were too incompetent to handle the challenges of the times _ never mind the fact that challenging Western imperialism was too enormous a job even for sub-continental India and imperial China _ that Burma's historical rival, Siam, was somehow able to cope with it. He goes on: ``While the final nature of Western domination by the end of the century differs considerably from state to state, in all these countries, as in Burma, the outcome was determined to a large extent by the local response to contemporary challenges.'' This implies that the Burmese were simply not as wise or flexible or smart as the Siamese.

Such cold judgements can be seen throughout the book. Lengthy attempts are made to understand the British mind but the same is not done for the Burmese.

The author reasons: ``British military intervention, when it did come in 1885, took place within the context of increasing exasperation on the part of Calcutta and London with the unwillingness or inability of the Mandalay government adequately to accommodate British commercial expansion and to keep out foreign political influence in what was perceived as a British sphere of influence.''

The sins of the Burmese included ``agreements for the French to build and manage a railway from Hanoi to Mandalay, control [of] the Burmese ruby mines, and perhaps most importantly, a jointly owned Royal Bank of Burma [with France].''

Thus, in summary, ``... the British decided on the establishment of a formal empire as a result of the inability of the Burmese state to accommodate effectively their commercial and strategic concerns.''

Again, the ultimate point being made here is that it was only the Burmese themselves who are to be blamed for British imperialism.

So what is the book's relevance for today? Without some measure of ``timeliness'' in the context of today, a title like this is a purely academic exercise.

It seems aimed at a general readership since it is more descriptive than theoretical. And, fortunately, it does offer _ whether deliberately or not _ just one lesson from history for the Burmese, but an important one.

It sheds light on Burma's persistent, thousand-year-old problem of leadership and statesmanship. There have been continous problems around how to organise successions without destabilising or even disintegrating society.

The Burmese have never been great state builders. Their monarchs were notoriously polygamous. They wielded despotic power which resulted in massacres, fratricide, even patricide. The great kingdoms built by fathers were treated as private property, left for the hordes of male offspring to spoil rather than sustain or develop. Just below the top, a parasitic feudal officialdom seldom displayed vision.

All this constituted a recipe for the country's short-lived grandeur. This sizeable geopolitical entity between India and China has risen and fallen on four major occasions _ the periods of Pagan, Taungoo, Ava (Mandalay) and Rangoon.

The third time was a total humiliation resulting in lost national sovereignty, and the present situation is a disaster amounting to a near-failure of the state. The nosedive the country took in 1988 has not yet been reversed.

The author comes from a politically respectable family in Burma; he is a grandson of the third secretary-general of the United Nations, U Thant. It will the job of posterity to evaluate Thant Myint-U's work against and along with that of other Burmese historians of modern times, including U Pho Kyar, Htin Aung, Kyaw Thet, Daw Mya Sein, Ba Shin, Than Tun, Nai Pan Hla, Daw Kyan and Ma Tin Win.uMyint Shwe is a research associate focused on Burma at the Joint Center for Asia and Pacific Studies, JCAP, York University and University of Toronto, Canada.