Aung Naing Oo
Mizzima News (www.mizzima.com)

November 15, 2003:

In May 1999, the Albert Einstein Institution based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, invited me to a small gathering of nonviolent theorists, practitioners and supporters in Jacksonville, Florida. Most of the participants were from the United States but there were a few of us from overseas, including one former dissident from South Africa and an activist from England. The then Chilean ambassador to the United Nations also participated in the discussions.

For three days, we shared experiences, exchanged ideas and delved into the past successes and failures of nonviolence movements the world over, including the fragile political movement in Burma. The discussions shed light on how authoritarianism functions and under what circumstances nonviolent methods work. In the end, however, most of all I came away with a
story on unity that the Chilean ambassador shared with us. What follows is the gist of his story.

Before he became ambassador to the UN, this man was one of a group of Chilean intellectuals who were opposed to the country’s military despot Augusto Pinoche. He and his colleagues had worked hard to topple the ruthless dictator, but success still eluded them. One day, the group invited a well-known professor from a university in Santiago to join them in a discussion. The idea was to seek advice from him on how to remove Pinoche from power.

The professor turned up at the gathering. The Chilean dissidents asked him what they should do to get rid of Pinoche. The professor replied, “That should be easy. In fact, there are two simple ways to oust Pinoche.” The ambassador and his friends were not swayed by the professor’s apparent downgrading of the obviously difficult task of toppling a dictator. He
made it sound like buying aspirin over the counter. But they went on to quiz the professor as to what these two supposedly “easy” methods were.

The professor replied matter-of-factly, “The first one is the regular method and the second is the miracle.” Being intellectuals and pragmatists, the dissidents became even more unimpressed with the professor, who they felt was treating an important issue lightly. The professor continued, “The regular way is that the Lord God Almighty comes down to Chile tomorrow and tells Pinoche ‘You’ve done enough damage to Chile. Enough is enough. It’s
time for you to go.' We all know that Pinoche is brutal and very powerful but he cannot possibly go against the will of God. He will have to give up power.”

The ambassador and his friends were dismayed. They had expected some smart and down-to-earth advice from the professor. They were getting none. So they told the professor that they had no time for baloney. If the regular way to kick a dictator out was this nonsense, his advice on the “miracle method” would be garbage. They did not even want to know. The professor sensed the disappointment in the gathering. So he asked the non-believers if they wanted to know what the miracle was.

The professor did not wait for an answer, and said, “The miracle is that you forge unity among all of you, all the different opposition groups fighting for freedom here in Chile. Can you do that? If you can bring about unity among yourselves, you can take down Pinoche. But will this miracle happen?” Obviously, the professor’s remark shut up everyone at the gathering.

This story starkly reminds we Burmese opposition groups that unity among all of us - otherwise known as the miracle - is unlikely to be achieved. It is the Holy Grail that we all have pursued. And we have repeatedly called for unity among all disunited oppositionists. But disunity was and has been what we have encountered all along the way. Of course, the long period of authoritarian rule is the primary factor that prevents all of us from uniting. However, it could also be the locus for unity among all disunited groups. And the lack of unity within the political movement is undeniably its weakest point and the crux of the struggle for freedom in Burma.

Now put yourself in General Khin Nyunt’s shoes. What would you do? Your goal is to retain all probable powers in the Burmese political arena for the military institution. In this way, you can redeem yourself a big role in governance. But you can achieve your goal only if you can divide and conquer us. So you keep all dissidents disunited. You also impose all kinds of restrictions on us. This will serve you well even if there are negotiations in the future.

The opposition is divided simply because we tend to seek individual solutions rather than collective ones. There is no denying that ceasefires bring temporary respite from loss of life and destruction of property. But it is also no secret that ceasefire - more precisely individual truces - has broken up a fragile unity that had existed for a long time. This is politics and one often cannot avoid making such ventures. But why did it happen? We do not lack commonalities. We have suffered equally, no one group or individual more than any other. We have similar aspirations for Burma. What, then, is keeping us from being united? We will have to do some soul searching.

No one can guarantee that this natural phenomenon will not occur again if and when there are negotiations in the future. But if we are to look for a solution that will last - although we cannot attain the best one under the circumstances - we should start thinking seriously about finding a solution that can work. However, a viable solution is not possible without viable
unity. And we all know that the Burmese regime’s version of unity is untenable as it excludes most national stakeholders from the political arena. Can we set aside our differences? Can we start treating unity as functional rather than abstract, monolithic and the end to the means?

If we cannot, ask the Chilean ambassador.

The author, Aung Naing Oo, is a research associate with
Washington-based the
Burma Fund.