17 years ago
I still can recall the memory from 8 August, 1988 which is 17 years back from now. I was only a primary school student. My mother asked me not to go to school on that day. We were sitting in our living room and listening radio for breaking news. Finally, state radio announced that all universities and schools were closed for unlimited time period.
We were very happy. From that time on, we had encountered the new experiences for another one or two months which we never dream before in our lives. Nationwide demonstration was broken out. Police could not enforce law and order anymore. We need to make weapon to protect ourselves from any invader. We prepared spear and knife to get ready to fight. All grown-up men formed a group to watch the surroundings. When there was a sound of hitting iron (which is an alarm like siren), we took our weapon and got ready for the battle.
Once, there was an unrest in prison, we could hear the sound of gunshot from morning until night. Now, it have already passed 17 years. But, it still remain in my memory like it was happened last year.
posted by bibilophile @ 1:26 PM
1 Comments:
The first thing I remember was the Art and Cartoon show in Turtle-back building right infront of Education Ministry complex. I was going to take High School exit exam that year. I was looking at Cartoons and saw someone posted an anti-government message on the top corner of one of the well-disguised cartoon making fun of the way government is handling national economic strategies. That was the first time I realized that some kind of movement was going on within some circles of student bodies. That was soon after Socialist government abolished 100, 50 and 25 kyat notes and devalue currency by 25 percents ( that's every 100 kyat notes you turn in, you get 75 kyats ).
The more of how stupidity of government can affect normal citizen's live or death came in when my father was laying on hospital bed dying of Cancer. My mother just sold her beloved diamond ear-ring to get money to buy my father's much needed medicine at the black-market. At 8 PM the next day, the government announced that there will no longer be legal to hold 75 kyat notes and that it was unclear they will compensate or devalue those notes. A large part of the money needed to buy medicine was in those notes due to that it's the biggest notes available at that time. We scrambled and sold whatever we could find to get the money to buy medicines.
Now, I grew up reading BSPP's propaganda and was beliver of some of the agendas and still is. I was born in Military installation and have strong ties to military and its members. But the stupidity of the government is way beyond my comprehension in the fact that it's utterly corrupt and out of control. People care more about personal favors than the goods of the majority of citizens. Abuse of power and personal gain is rampage. There are no false-check system nor the will of doing so. Even though Burmese way to Socialism was not so much bad in itself, the implementation and execution was extremely lousy.
Alright, I will post some more when I've got more time and if there is some interests in my personal experience through the years. :-).
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