On the brink of democracy?

It can never really be bad news to hear that a pro-democratic iconic leader has been released from prison, unless, oddly, you support tyranny or hold specific grudges against the person concerned. The military Junta, which has been ruling Myanmar since 1988 under a one-party authoritarian leadership, has recently held what they claimed to be ‘democratic and fair’ elections.

Of course no-one doubted for a second that this was a farce. Reasons have been put forward to explain why they suddenly decided to hold elections, when they managed to get around that democratic ‘detail’ for more than 30 years.

The main argument is that they wanted to show the international community that there were signs of improvement, and, through local elections, ‘steam off’ the tensions with the opposition.

A couple of days after the elections (in which the party representing the military Junta gathered about 90 percent of the people’s votes – that is very impressive!), they released the ‘long overdue’ – as President Obama puts it – pro-democracy 1991 Nobel Prize political leader, from her ‘house-prison’ after 15 cumulated years of detention. This release could be seen as something planned along with the elections. The Junta probably thought of a strategy on two levels: the national and international scale.

Myanmar is a buffer state between India and China’s spheres of influence.

It has thus been wooed by both continental giants – especially China, which has provided the junta with $1.2 billion worth of conventional military power (mostly in the 1990s) – and has met little international critique, not because of the ‘acceptability of the regime’, but simply because its strong ally, China, has a permanent seat in the security council and would veto any damageable decisions made by the UNSC permanent members against Myanmar.

If the Junta is under China’s protection, which one could call ‘regional band-wagoning’, is it really significant for them to release Kyi? This release could be a ‘self-polishing’ strategy for Myanmar to improve its international image despite the fact that they do not really need to. The international community already knows what the regime is like, but will not do anything too harmful because of China’s presence, which is for almost every country now, a strong industrial partner which it would not be desirable to contradict.

On a national scale, this release can be interpreted as part of the same strategy. If it does improve their image on an international scale, it does so too within their own territory, but more importantly, it helps to calm tensions and avoid further civil unrest. It would be safe to say that we do not know if this release is for the better, and even safer to assume that this release does not implicate any direct improvement of the country’s situation.

However, there is still, despite the context, a slight chance that this release, if it is for the better, might be beneficial to Myanmar’s population: Aung San Suu Kyi has been quite active since being back in the modern world (she used a mobile phone and the internet for the first time!), and has not kept her mouth shut.

She has called for a ‘peaceful revolution’, which, although handled with care, still caries a strong symbolic meaning. She has also recently criticised India for dealing with the Junta, letting the press know of her disappointment.

Let’s only hope her message sparks a long awaiting revolutionary ‘escape’ and that Tocqueville’s famous quote can, yet again, be put into practice: “Evils which are patiently endured when they seem inevitable become intolerable once the idea of escape from them is suggested”.