"Burma could be the new hope."
It is really something to read these words in 2022. This interview with Alan Clements took place three years ago, conducted in person in Yangon, long before the disastrous military coup and even before the pandemic, so it was quite a different era when he was speaking and reflecting. Alan is one of the few foreigners who interacted at the highest levels of two parallel structures within Burmese societies, making friends equally with those in the democratic movement as well as some of the greatest monks and nuns leading the emerging mindfulness movement. Even when the country enjoyed greater stability than present times, Alan was prescient about the precarious place of democracy even then. Yet he still expressed a resounding confidence that not only would the will of the people ultimately prevail, but that it would also stand as a powerful symbol to the rest of the world.
“These people have given me four and a half decades of incredible experience, incredible dāna, and an opportunity to study my own mind, and techniques, and practices, and relationships, on how to be a better person.”
“Political parties, religions, there is a shared language here. They want peace. They have known suffering. I would dare say that even some of the core leaders, oppositional leaders, those who have maybe ordered or carried out oppression, probably in the core of their being, there is pressure to emerge into a cetana, into a kusala state of consciousness, a good state of mind, where we might see reconciliation taking place that transforms the society.
Where in the world have we seen the convulsion of active democracy, active non-violence with the forces of darkness and violence, in one small nation?
I’m not just fond of the Burmese or Burma. This is a collection of ethnicities, languages, and religions converging on this ambient planet of ours. Here possibly in the throes of radical environmental apocalypse, there could be hope amongst our species, where the power of peaceful revolution actually bears fruit.
Burma could be the new hope. I really do believe in that. I’m investing in that, and I don’t care whether I lose. These people have given me four and a half decades of incredible experience, incredible dāna, and an opportunity to study my own mind, and techniques, and practices, and relationships, on how to be a better person.
Giving back as much as I can to support, not just the democracy movement, but something larger than that, the freedom movement, where enemies and activists are sitting hand-in-hand and heart-to-heart, difficult as it is, and they are saying, ‘There’s a higher way.’ And it may be slow, and it may not be in my lifetime, but non-violence is the best way to heal and to secure the future prosperity, peace, and freedom of our people, all people.”