|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- Visit
Burma's Hinterlands - and Support the Country's
Military Regime
|
Burma is located
at the western edge of Southeast Asia. It is 1.8 times
the size of Japan, with a population of around 52
million. It is a multiracial nation of more than 40
ethnic groups. In Japan, however, little is known
about the country, apart from the longstanding confrontation
between the ruling military regime and pro-democracy
leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
In the remote regions of this poorly understood country,
women belonging to various ethnic minority groups
are forced to submit to severe - indeed, bizarre -
traditional cultural practices. The Panthay people,
for instance, engage in foot- binding, a custom introduced
from southern China. On the Thai border, women of
the Padaung race have brass rings placed around their
necks from childhood, earning them the name of the
“long-necked people” (although in fact their shoulders
have been forced down, so that their necks only look
longer). And in Chin State, near neighboring Bangladesh,
I have caught sight of women with tattooed faces.
This custom, which is completely unknown outside of
Burma, was started by parents who chose to forcibly
disfigure their daughters rather than see them abducted
by powerful Indian or Burmese clans. The practice
is said to have died out, and supposedly only women
over the age of forty can still be seen with the tattoos.
But in one Chin village that I secretly entered, I
saw a twenty-year-old girl whose face had been tattooed.
Because Burma is ruled by a military regime, the flow
of information is strictly controlled. Like Burmese
citizens, foreigners find that their freedom to move
about the country is extremely limited. However, in
the face of economic sanctions imposed upon it by
Western countries, Burma has begun to develop its
tourism industry in an effort to shore up its foreign
currency reserves.
Every place has its own unique customs. It is not
for outsiders to judge them one way or another. My
concern is that there are people who will exploit
women whose faces have been tattooed against their
will by treating them as mere objects of curiosity.
In fact, tour operators licensed by the regime are
already entering Chin State, which they are billing
as a remote, exotic destination.
Burma's military regime is despised by the vast majority
of the country’s citizens. Can we justify traveling
to such a country simply to satisfy our curiosity,
without giving a thought to the lives of local people?
|
|
|
|
|
