I Fought The Law
“As a kid, I didn't know what was happening there [in 1988]. I didn't know why those people were shouting and walking in a big crowd. I didn't understand what they were chanting. One sentence that I remember is democracy ashi yay, doy ayay, doh ayay, which means ‘we want democracy, we want democracy.’ But I didn't understand that at all. I didn't understand what democracy was. And I think I didn't ask either. But I tended to be with them, because it seemed fun for a four year old kid.
But the reality I didn't see as a kid, was really cruel. There were a lot of killings and shootings in the 1988 revolution. But I didn't remember those things. All I remember was that I grew up living under the impression that speaking about politics is a taboo. It's not allowed!
My parents taught me not to speak about politics in public, to not have interest in politics, and to stay away from police and soldiers, so that I can be safe. And I didn't question that, I just followed it. Like in the military, like in the army, I just followed orders. And I grew up like that. I never questioned.
And I was scared when I saw a policeman or soldier! I was scared of them. I was scared of their guns. I was worried. Although I did nothing wrong.
I grew up with fear.
I don't mean that all the police and soldiers are bad. There are good ones. I knew that, but I was afraid. That's the impression I had. After I got to Japan, I started to notice that police and soldiers are not the people we're supposed to be afraid of, unless we did something bad. And also in the United States. People love them. When they see them, they say, ‘Oh, thank you for your service. Thank you for protecting us.’ And when I see that, I really want our military or police or army to be like that, to be loved by the people. And I hope my wish will come true one day.”
— Yi Mon
“I was scared when I saw a policeman or soldier! I was scared of their guns. Although I did nothing wrong. I grew up with fear. ”
Recently, we released “Home Is Where The Heart Is,” the second episode in our Love Letters to Myanmar series. That episode featured interviews with three Burmese expats now living abroad, and one of them made a comment that ended up being controversial for some listeners. But before getting into that detail, it might be helpful to back up and look at some of the brief history of our podcast platform.
Last year, during the Black Lives Matter movement, we felt it was critical to examine the underlying racism and bias that exists within the mindfulness and meditation communities, and did so by creating a Dhamma & Race series to explore the issue. We felt this issue was so urgent, in fact, that we decided to vary from our usual podcast parameters, in which all interviews have some connection with Myanmar, in order to tell these stories in full. We ended up releasing four episodes, with several more that were recorded and due to be released. However, with the military coup, we have since totally transformed our podcast platform yet again, and so those remain on hold as we respond to the present crisis.
Those four Dhamma-and-race episodes explored the many ways that prejudice enters into Buddhist communities. It is the hope of any media platform, small or big, that the work they do will have some positive impact in the world, and we were pleased to hear that many conversations were spawned following these episodes; in some cases, such as within the Goenka tradition, entire committees that were formed to address these issues. However, producing these episodes was no easy feat, and no other series has engendered anywhere near as much criticism, with a handful of White meditators and even monastics aggressively insisting we were fabricating these stories only to incite controversy and “damage Dhamma.”
Fast forward to this recent episode, in which we speak to Yi Mon, a Burmese woman who has lived in Japan and the US. Yi Mon describes the experience of interacting with police officers in Myanmar with those in uniform in the other two countries, emphasizing the stark difference. The fact that American police officers, especially in the wake of recent Black killings in America, received such praise made several listeners uncomfortable. One listener became so enraged that she promised never to listen again. So a word on this.
During oral conversations, most of us are not able to express the same degree of nuance and reflection that we can in writing. Hearing American police officers described in an overall positive light, without caveats or a longer explanation, can undoubtedly feel painful to some, given the history of police violence in the United States, especially in minority communities. That said, Yi Mon was relaying her lived experience, one that she chose to tell, and we are not in the business of censorship. Beyond that, however, fixating on those words alone, out of context, is both unfair and inaccurate to Yi Mon’s wider meaning.
Yi Mon is referring to a Burmese police force that is specifically designed not to prevent crime or offer protection to citizens (aside from the military and their associated cronies), but rather to terrorize and cow the population. So corrupt and violent is the Myanmar police force that, as Yi Mon describes, from a young age she is taught how to avoid them at all costs, as one would with gang members or drug dealers. In another recent, as yet unreleased interview, one Burmese woman who had been in hiding for weeks from these very police describes arriving in America, and a uniformed custom agent asking for her passport. Being questioned by someone in uniform immediately triggered trauma and fear, but when she realized that this government agent was not an agent of terror (as those in her country now are), she literally broke down in tears at the airport, so ingrained was her fear of any authority in uniform. So even as Yi Mon has interacted with Japanese and American police forces as a minority and person of color, she expresses a degree of safety she never experienced when confronted with her own country’s police even though most police officers, like Yi Mon, are of the same Bamar ethnicity.
We stand by Yi Mon’s words, while in no way intending to minimize the reality of police brutality towards people of color in this country. Both things can be true. And there is simply no way any reasonable person can compare the organized terror campaigns conducted by what have become essentially abduction and torture operations, even death squads, disguised in police uniforms. Police bullets fly into random homes on a daily basis across Myanmar, and the capricious destruction and theft of property by police is rampant. So we acknowledge the years of oppression that minority communities have faced in America, and indeed our series last year focused on this specifically, yet to discount Yi Mon’s personal experience—which reflects the lived experiences of millions of Burmese today—would minimize the gravity of what is now happening in Myanmar. We need to bear witness to both!