A lot of freshmen begin to feel homesick by this point of the year, but Pyi Thein Khine (COL ’11) feels a little more out of touch with his family than most.
Khine, who prefers to be called Bobo, lived in Yangon, Myanmar before his arrival at Georgetown in August, which was his first trip to the United States. Due to political turmoil and violence in his home country, Khine had been out of touch with his family, which still resides in Yangon, for over a week earlier this month, and was only recently able to communicate with them via telephone.
“We can’t talk about politics on the phone because any international call is listened to by the government,” Khine said. He said the government reads e-mails sent to, from and within Myanmar.
“It’s very difficult to leave,” he said of moving away from his family.
Major demonstrations arose across Myanmar last month, as protestors have rallied against the military junta and a recent rise in fuel prices; thousands of Buddhist monks took part in the demonstrations, and some have been imprisoned or killed. The events have reverberated across the globe and have particularly touched several members of the university community, including Khine, with ties to Myanmar.
Khine said his family was somewhat involved in last month’s protests. “My mom’s been at protests before the crackdown,” Khine said, but he added that he told his family to stop because he was concerned about the repercussions of their activism.
Khine compared Burmese society to that in George Orwell’s “1984.” “Everything is restricted in Burma,” he said. “Everything that the government prints is censored.”
While it was difficult for Khine to leave his family to come to Georgetown, he said he has accepted his situation. “In Burma, everyone makes a lot of sacrifices,” he said.
After reflecting on the protests and the political situation in his country, Khine decided to become a novice Buddhist monk — he was ordained last Thursday at a monastery in Silver Spring, Md., and will live as a monk for 10 days.
As a monk, Khine has agreed to follow 10 rules, which forbid him from consuming alcohol, eating after midday, dancing, singing, listening to music, using cosmetics, working at a paying job and enjoying “higher luxuries and comfortable things.”
“I feel that all the people are suffering in my country, and I am just standing by,” Khine said. “And I have the desire to become a monk to support what they’re doing, and I want to find peace within myself.”
Khine was raised as a Buddhist, part of the Theravada sect, the majority sect in Myanmar, but he said he was not very devout growing up. “As I grow older, I feel that it is part of me and I start to appreciate it more [and] learn more about it,” he said.
He also shaved his head and wears a saffron robe that has been torn and stitched back together as a symbolic sign of discomfort.
“Buddhism is all about getting rid of attachments because we believe in the afterlife,” Khine said. He said it is difficult to live in a city as a monk, even in Myanmar, because “once you decide to follow all the rules set by Buddhism, [you] have to go away from civilization.”
Khine said he does not plan on returning to Myanmar during his four years in college.
“I might go back if I get the chance, but it’s hard to get back out,” he said.
Former Rebel Comes to the Hilltop
Min Zaw Oo (GRD ’08) came to the United States from Yangon in the early 1990s after being exiled from Myanmar for his involvement in guerilla campaigns against the military government over a four-year period.
In Myanmar, Oo was active in the massive uprising that took place in August 1988, when he was a member of All Burma Students Democratic Front. He came to D.C. to be more active in policy-making in Myanmar, where his family still resides.
“Mass protest and mass uprising come when there are windows of opportunities,” Oo said, referring to the recent protests in Myanmar.
In the wake of a failed attempt to pass a United Nations Security Council resolution on the Burmese political situation last year, Oo said the people have realized that “the only way to resolve the Burma crisis is through mass uprising.”
A resolution calling on Myanmar’s government to cease military attacks against civilians and make progress toward democracy was vetoed by Russia and China in January.
Oo said that he hopes to effect change in his country from Georgetown. “[I am] no longer an activist, but my involvement in Burma is mostly policy and analysis,” he said.
Oo said that he plans to continue his work for non-governmental organizations and advocacy groups in the United States for Myanmar throughout his life as he moves on to a possible career working with governmental policymaking and analysis.
A Couple of Activists
Dominic Nardi (SFS ’05, LAW ’09) and his Burmese wife, Lin Aung (GRD ’06) have used their educational backgrounds to attempt to effect change in Myanmar.
At Georgetown, Nardi became involved with anti-junta protests, and since then has researched and written about Burmese politics and history. He has also been to Myanmar several times and has been “helping students with protests and education sessions” on campus.
Aung has also been active in writing articles on Burmese politics and working with David Steinberg, an Asian studies professor at Georgetown, since she left Myanmar in 2000. “I have not able to return because my name was put on the blacklist due to my political activities particularly the book that I co-authored and BBC/VOA radio interviews,” she said.
It is this activism that has kept Aung away from Myanmar and her family because of fear of a backlash from the Burmese government.
Currently Aung works with the International Youth Foundation, managing youth education and employment projects in Mindanao, Philippines and Indonesia.
There is “a limited amount we can do,” Aung said.
Nardi said he hopes to pursue a career in international law and has begun “to provide some informal legal advice” to NGOs about policies in Myanmar. He has published articles under a pseudonym in order to be able to return to Myanmar and to protect his in-laws who still live in the country.
According to Nardi, the current situation is troubling. “People there are still angry about the crackdown,” especially the brutality toward monks, Nardi said. He expressed some optimism toward American financial sanctions against members of the government, but said the international community has not yet had any major impact on the situation.
Leading the Movement on Campus
Emma Aung (SFS ’10) has become the de facto leader for the campus movement for Burmese reform.
Born in Yangon during the 1988 coup attempt, Aung lived there only one month before moving with her family to India and subsequently to the United States. Most of her extended family, however, still lives in Myanmar.
Aung and her family return to Myanmar often; they most recently visited last winter. “We’re going to try to go back next winter,” Aung said, adding that it may be difficult because there is a ban on tourist visas. Her family in the U.S. and Myanmar have been in touch over the phone, but “[the phone lines] are just all tapped so you can’t say anything.”
The crisis in Myanmar has been difficult for Aug to accept. “In the beginning, I was amazed this was happening,” Aung said. “Once the monks started going out, I was really hopeful and thought the military wouldn’t dare do anything to the monks.” But she said that when she realized the scale of the turmoil, “I was just wanting to cry a lot of the time.”
Recently Aung has turned her frustration into activism. She helped organize a candlelight vigil in Red Square Wednesday night and plans to participate in a protest march from the Myanmar Embassy to the White House on Saturday. She also plans to show a film about the 1988 protests in early November.
“Hopefully something will come out of it,” Aung said. “Before people would ignore politics and pretend everything’s fine, [but now] the government will have to live up to what they’ve done.”