Myanmar thoughts

The sad recent history of Myanmar, including colonial rule from London, a Japanese invasion, assassination of a wise and visionary leader and fifty years of oppressive  military rule, seems to have done little to destroy the curiosity, energy and friendliness of its 50 million people.

It is a very large country (biggest in South East Asia) with an ethnically diverse population. While the vast majority of citizens are Buddhist, a much smaller majority are ethnically Burmese. Many of its most pressing political issues seem to continue to stem from an inability to come to terms with this diversity. While the much loved Aung San Suu Kyi in theory embraces multicultural diversity and proposes a second Panglong Conference to delineate a shared future, her words are not clear on the place of the Rohingya, or even the Kachin,  in that future.Should democracy triumph, and this seems very uncertain, this is a country that should soar in every sphere. The success of some of its neighbours will seem like stepping stones to a bright future. If only a new national vision could emerge that gave paramount importance to the environment and strove to reform public health and education above all else, what would stop them? There are tentative signs of what could emerge. While garbage is strewn everywhere and plastics are ubiquitous, here is a glimpse of the end of clean up day in downtown Mandalay, all bins picked over carefully, and everything sorted to go back into the production chain.