8.8.08

In this summer’s Batman movie, we glimpsed a bit of Alfred’s back-story.  He tells Batman the story of when he was in the imperial service during the British colonization of Burma.  His government had been bribing local leaders with absurdly-sized gems, which kept getting stolen by a rogue thief in the forest, who had been simply throwing them away.  Because Alfred could think of no conceivable reason why any Burmese would want to resist the British regime, he must have been thieving simply to “watch the world burn.”  Later, the crime fighting duo return to the topic:

Batman: That thief in the forest in Burma, did you ever catch him?
Alfred: Yes
Batman: How?
Alfred: By burning down the forest.

And Burma (now officially Myanmar) is still burning.

I am sending you this email to remind you that twenty years ago today was Burma’s best chance at freedom.   On August 8th 1988, students, monks, and Burmese citizens took to the streets to rally around Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of Aung San, who won Burma’s independence from the British.

I am sending this email because I am largely ignorant of the political realities at issue here, and I think most of us are.   I really don’t know what I’m talking about, I just feel that we ought to be talking about it today. Seriously, Batman’s pretty much the extent of what I’ve got, here.

The protests of 8-8-88 were brutally suppressed by the junta.  Soldiers indiscriminately killed citizens on the streets of Rangoon and other cities around the country. According to the SLORC (the junta of Myanmar, renamed the SPDC in 1997), five people were killed.  Words fail me here, so click: 1  | 2 .  Independent estimates put the number of killed at 3,000.

The massacres of 8-8-88 have been repeated and amplified since.  Hopefully we have not forgotten the Saffron Revolution last September—reports of casualties have been effectively repressed, but the number is certainly radically more than we heard about in America; The Daily Mail reported that thousands of bodies were dumped in the jungle.  That was one of the most inspiring events I can remember–the sight (both in pictures and in my imagination) of a sea of saffron clad monks walking barefoot out of their monestaries into certain violence in order to go visit Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest and demand change for their country will stay with me forever.

And Cyclone Nargis.  The SPDC’s insistance that the Burmese people not receive aid must be considered an attempt at massacre.  But the Burmese people proved to be stronger than the SPDC thought they were; through community support and neighborly assistance, and the bravery and concern of the monks, a humanitarian disaster was averted.  It has been bad for the people of the Irrawaddy delta, but not nearly as bad as international aid organizations had feared.

Today, on the twentieth anniversary of 8-8-88, the Chinese light the Olympic torch, the fruit of a tremendous feat of international propaganda.  History may well look back on today as the beginning of China’s worldwide reign.  This Olympics may be for China what Hitler hoped the Berlin Olympics would be for The Third Reich.

Burma is not China; in fact, the two claim to have no relations.  But just as the red dragon is at the root of tragedies worldwide (Darfur, Tibet, Somalia, Xinjiang), so is it the root of the oppression in Burma.  Ever since the uprising of 88, the SLORC has received almost all of its weapons and funding from China.  China is Burma’s only significant trade partner.

I don’t really feel the need to rattle off the reasons for China’s growing power.  At base, China controls the largest single flow of the world’s capital.  They beat America at its own game.  Capitalism worldwide (and especially in America) is absolutely reliant upon China, much more than any other single power.

But the reason for this email is that I feel that not enough attention is paid in this country to China’s moral and ideological stance, perhaps because their cynical amorality makes it difficult to pin down what it actually is.

Of course, China is still nominally a communist nation. My parents’ generation celebrated the fall of communism as it celebrated the fall of the Soviet Union.  Yet here we are.

Much has been made of China’s move towards capitalism.  But China’s government remains in absolute control of the economy. Their economic might does not come from individual entrepreneurs, but rather their ability to organize huge masses of people into astoundingly productive units.  The potent marriage of authority and capital. Everywhere in capitalism the government and the largest businesses are in league, but in China they are almost indistinguishable. The ruling class has profited immensely from subverting Maoist philosophy into a slave ideology of the amassed workers.

China’s actions on the international stage are reminiscent of the early days of the American empire.  I am reminded of the Monroe Doctrine and the “sphere of influence” we fought for in South and Central America. Just as the CIA trains and arms dictatorships across the Americas, so has China learned to arm Sudan and Burma.  I cynically believe that this is just as much the reason America finds it impossible to stand up to China in any capacity.  Our leaders see too much of themselves in China.  Of course there is a deep economic dependency between our countries, but it is buttressed by a twisted ideological affinity that reveals the Cold War for the farce that it was.  Capitalism and Communism might be antithetical in their pure forms, but what we have is not capitalism and what they have is not communism.  We have a command economy that is designed for and by corporations powerful enough to replace state actors—America uses the idea of capitalism as a slave morality to keep the workers working for that entrepreneurial dream.  China has turned its state into a corporation, and uses communism as a unique brand of slave morality that keeps the masses working for the Motherland.  America warehouses its undesirable populations in an endless prison state.  China cuts out the pretense and harvests their organs.  It was only natural that Nixon should be the president to open relations between the two countries.

I’m not nearly well enough informed to be able to predict what will happen as China grows.  It just seems to me that as the American Empire is falling, the Chinese Empire is rising, and it will be a brutal reign.

I would love to be writing some sort of call to action at this point.  But we’re talking about massive flows of capital and power way beyond the reach of any one or group of humans.  We need China, not only for our cheap plastic crap, but also to bankroll our economy of debt.  Obama will need China just as much as Bush does.  And thank god of it, because a mutual dependency of avarice is much better than a world war—I genuinely mean that—even if some Black and Brown people have to die or live under tyranny for it.  As Americans, on this historic day, all we can do is be aware of what we are watching when we watch that torch erupt into flame in Beijing.  I could ask you not to watch it, to boycott the Olympics (I have pledged to do so), but I’ll leave that up to you.  The Olympics are some good entertainment, and no-one in Beijing or Washington or in the headquarters of Coca-Cola, McDonalds, and the other sponsors, will care what you decide.

One side note that I feel like adding: the phrase “The Rise of China and India” has become almost a cliché in America.  When we are discussing the world economy, we seem quick to associate China with India.  They are enemies: it was not long ago (in the mid eighties) that China last tried to invade India.  India is painfully aware that the annexation of Tibet puts China right next door to them. India is the world’s largest functioning democracy—although its government is far from perfect, India is generally a free and diverse society.  Entrepreneurs fuel India’s economic growth.  China’s growth is driven by the government’s firm control.  As we seek awareness about our world, we ought to remember these differences.

Anyway, I don’t want this to be a one-way diatribe.  I’m no authority on this.  In fact, this email was partly just a way of educating myself, and I’m asking you to be part of that education.  If you’re reading this, it’s because I know and respect you.  So I want to hear back from you, hear your opinion on this whole situation.