South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, right, and Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi speaks during a press briefing after the Nobel laureates’ meeting at her residence in Yangon, Myanmar, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013. (AP)
The US’ business overtures to Myanmar have been intensifying in recent times and it is all too evident that Washington means to broad-base its economic ties with this resource-rich South East Asian state which is currently opting for a measure of political and economic liberalization. Following an historic visit to Myanmar in November last year by US President Barrack Obama, we are given to understand that top US State Department officials are in consultation with Myanmar’s business leaders at present in Yangon, signaling, among other things, that international isolation will no more be
Myanmar’s lot.
If there ever was a ‘Sleeping Giant’ in Asia, it was Myanmar or Burma, as it was formerly known. The appellation could be applied to Myanmar not merely on account of its vast economic and human resource base but also in consideration of the leadership role it could play in the politics of the world’s South, as the developing regions of the globe were at one time referred to. Many in the West or for that matter even in the Third World, may, perhaps, not be aware that Myanmar played a key role in the fifties of the last century in mustering Asian solidarity in the face of the disadvantageous position the developing countries occupied in the global political and economic order which came into being at the end of the Second World War.
Myanmar played a key role in convening the historic Bandung Conference of Asian and African countries, held in Indonesia in 1955, which spoke out loud and clear for a significant role for the developing countries in the affairs of the world and which proved the curtain raiser for the Non-aligned Movement which got off the ground in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1961. It needs to be also recollected that Myanmar was in the forefront of the anti-colonial movement of the last century and proved an effective champion of decolonization. Aung San, the father of Myanmarese ‘democratic icon’ Aung San Suu Kyi, was in the forefront of Myanmar’s independence struggle in the early decades of the 20th century.
Accordingly, Myanmar possesses the potential to be a leader in world affairs or could be described as a ‘giant’ which could yet rise to a considerable height, in terms of economic and political capability. Perhaps, its long decades under authoritarian and military regimes drained it of its inner vitality and deprived it of the opportunity of being a foremost Asian economic power. The door now seems to be opening for a regaining by Myanmar of the economic and political stature which had been lying dormant within it.
However, while opening-up to the West in the economic sphere, it and other Asian countries which are giving economic and political liberalization a try, would do well to be mindful of a tendency on the part of the West to lopsidedly emphasize market-led growth and the inducements to business development that go with it, at the expense of democratic development, correctly understood. This note of caution needs to be raised on account of the spectre of sectarian violence and other signs of political maldevelopment which are haunting those states which have witnessed Western political and military intervention over the years in particular. It may seem that economic penetration of the developing world preoccupies the West to the exclusion of the central concerns in democratic development, which tendency could prove fatal from the point of view of the developing countries.
There is the case of Iraq, for instance, which is witnessing an upsurge in sectarian violence. While it is true that the US military withdrawal from Iraq has been almost completed, the question could be raised whether the US has helped in a substantial way to bring into being in Iraq democratic institutions which would help in the management of sectarian strife and other political irregularities which stifle democratic development. While the US would be extra keen to ensure the forging and flourishing of economic ties with Iraq, identical zeal may not be shown in the establishment in Iraq of institutions and practices which could usher in equal empowerment of the Iraqi people, which is what democratic development is essentially all about.
The same considerations are applicable to Afghanistan, where NATO is helping to fight the Taliban and the Al-qaeda but where a Western troop withdrawal is also round the corner. While the US troop withdrawal may come to pass, there is no certainty whether the institutions central to democratic development would be helped by the West to flourish in Afghanistan. In the absence of the latter, one could only have intensified intra-state violence and strife on the lines of Iraq.
These possibilities draw attention to the need on the part of the developing world to undertake the rehabilitation of democracy in their countries in an absolutely independent fashion, with a clear perception of what democratic development fully implies. While economic interaction with the West is in order, there could be no reliance on the West for any substantial backing in the all-important undertaking of ushering democratic development and its institutions, mainly because the West usually does not clearly comprehend the essential needs of the developing world in the political and economic spheres. This paramount undertaking the developing countries would do well take entirely on themselves.
These considerations are likely to weigh heavily with Myanmar too as it traverses a ground-breaking path in national development. Perhaps, it could take a leaf from its exemplary past and help the Third World in the undertaking of ushering independent national development with an eye to the total welfare of the peoples of the developing world. Economic liberalization with a focus on public welfare is in order, but political liberalization too should be fine-tuned to meet human needs.
