Episode #151: The Revolution will not be Incarcerated
“I'm a prison researcher,” Tomas Martin explains. “I've done research on prisons from a social science perspective for quite some years. I actually started 23 years ago, by accident! I was young Masters student, and I was interested in studying situations where people were under pressure and try trying to cope.”
As it happened, Martin was in India at the time, and heard about ten-day vipassana meditation courses in the tradition of S.N. Goenka being conducted in Tihar Jail outside of New Delhi (which would become the subject of a documentary, Doing Time, Doing Vipassanā.) “Since then, I've been very interested in better understanding prisons, prison life, and the people who live and work in prisons, because the prison is a very influential institution in our societies.”
Martin works with DIGNITY, the Danish Institute Against Torture, whose two-pronged objectives are preventing the abuse of prisoners, and promoting rehabilitation. “The research I do is from a social science perspective, trying to understand the underlying dynamics of violence,” he says. “Prisons are well-known as an institution where a lot of violence actually takes place. So why is that? And how can it be addressed? That is some of the research that I've engaged in, and for the last five years, a lot of my attention have been on prisons in Myanmar.”
Martin has been studying “how imprisonment has been conducted in Myanmar, and what consequences it has for people, and for the relationship between the State and its citizens.” His research has focused on the role meditation in particular (which relates to the recent podcast discussion with his colleague, Liv Gaborit), as well as on how the COVID pandemic impacted the country’s incarcerated population.
While Martin acknowledges that most prison experiences unfortunately involve some degree of violence, he feels that studies are often too fixated on this perspective to account for the other compelling factors of prison life. “It's also a place where people are just living and getting by, day in and day out; sleeping, working, eating. So a lot of our research has also been to try to insist on understanding everyday life in prisons and try to get a fuller and better picture of what it actually means to be in a prison.” Martin’s view is informed by his belief that prison should not be seen as separate from daily life in society, but rather as a component of it. He says, “We need to understand that some of the dynamics that we see in society are also very prominent in the prison, but often in amplified or accelerated forms.”
One of the more unique areas of study has been Martin’s focus on prison air. “If you go into to a prison, you really feel the smell there, and you also feel a lot of resonance,” he explains, “You start talking to people who are in prisons about the air, and about their urge for clean air, the way they try to protect themselves against foul air, and how they feel dehumanized by bad hygiene, and also how they really struggle to get comfortable, bodily temperatures, and how all that is an integral and also sometimes quite an important part of the prison experience.” With his deeper understanding about the importance of prison air, Martin has pushed for new prison designs that encourage better ventilation, to improve the overall quality of life for prisoners.
Another issue that Martin has studied is the importance of family visits. Connecting prisoners with loved ones offers them access to valued resources, such as books and food, etc., while providing them with a support network for when they are eventually released. And if prisoners find themselves being extorted or abused, close family members can often be called in to try to resolve the issue. He concludes, “So this thing about the relationship with the between the prison and society—theoretically conceptually, politically, but also practically—is crucial!”
On the subject of human rights within Burmese prisons, Martin points out the tragic truth that torture has long been used by the military regime to punish political dissidents. After they go through unfair trials, Martin explains how they are then have limited contact with family and their access to food and medicine is restricted, while at the same time, the prison’s criminal element is empowered. In addition, they are often either placed in extremely overcrowded conditions or kept in solitary confinement, two extremes that are equally detrimental to mental and physical health.
Yet while political prisoners are often singled out for the harsher forms of abuse, Martin points out some also benefits from their advocacy, such as having a stronger voice and more camaraderie with other political prisoners. Even so, he concludes, “[However, a]t the end of the day, the prison grinds into everybody, and the violence that you experience, both the explicit and the more subtle one sort, it sticks in the body and the mind.”
Martin’s research has not been limited to prisoners. He has expanded it to focus on staff as well. After all, he explains, many guards have spent more time behind bars than the prisoners, themselves, and offer a complementary perspective. “Their work is stigmatized,” he notes. “Often, they are subjected to harsh discipline by their superiors, they live in the barracks of the prison closed off from society. But of course, they also go home every day, they get paid, and they are with their family.” Martin describes a complex relationship between the two, as the prison often functions as a kind of marketplace, with the guards playing a pivotal role in the delivery of goods and services. Yet complicating an already fraught and challenging social dynamic is that the prison staff is able to mete out beatings when and how it chooses, so the threat of violence always hangs in the air.
Following the coup, Martin has had less of a finger on the pulse of Burmese prison life than during the transition years. He notes how the pre-coup prison population was estimated at around 100,000, but that there are likely far more being incarcerated now. Sadly, he’s also been hearing that torture has become even more widespread, with this inhumane abuse now being experienced by a new generation of Burmese youth for the first time.
Martin has observed a paradoxical relationship between the revolution and the regime’s attempts at oppression. “Prison is considered on the one hand both an incinerator and an incubator of the revolution,” he explains. “So on the one hand, the prison is where revolutionary actors and protests are being quelled. People are being locked up and even killed, to destroy the revolution. But the prison is also a place where there is opportunity to collect revolutionary actors and to produce revolutionary action and spirit!” He adds how past prisoners have referred to life behind bars as going to the “’Big School,’ where there has been a quickening of revolutionary spirit and education between political prisoners.”
Since the coup, political prisoners have also attempted uprisings and hunger strikes, which have resulted in cold blooded killings, although there are few details of these movements to date. “The authorities will say there is a riot, whereas revolutionary actors would call it a protest,” he notes.
For now, Martin hopes that some sort of prison documentation can continue even during these very dark days, as he fears that the human rights abuses are more acute than ever. He also pushes for outside advocacy, which can force the regime’s hand to allow access to family members, which is so crucial for a prisoner’s health and even very survival. He also hopes a more formal intervention can ensure that prisoners receive adequate food, water, and medicine. “In the long term, let’s not forget about the prison once as we hope the revolution succeeds!” he adds. “And that there is an insistence on changing prison life in Myanmar. The revolution should also be directed to improving the prison in a very deep and fundamental way.”