Colourless, uncharismatic and relatively uneducated Than Shwe rose through the ranks by simply obeying orders and showing loyalty. Indeed, his apparent lack of flair, initiative and intellect were precisely the qualities the army rewarded. He was not perceived by his superiors as a threat – and was rewarded accordingly. Far from showing courage or prowess on the battlefield, he led his troops into numerous defeats at the hands of the Communists – but that did not appear to have been a barrier to promotion.
- Extracted from Benedict Rogers, “Burma’s ruler: brutal, reclusive – and a skilled manipulator”, The Independent, 3 August 2009.
Rogers is currently writing a much more substantial study of Than Shwe, his life and times. It promises to be a very interesting read. The one word in this extract that particularly sounds an alarm for me is “simply”: right there in the first sentence.
I wonder if, in fact, there was nothing simple about Than Shwe’s capacity to obey orders and show loyalty? I am very happy to be proven wrong. Surely he was manipulating his allies and enemies from very early on…in the 1970s, the 1960s, the 1950s?
No doubt Rogers’ full biography will include details on all of this, and much, much more. If somebody could do a Paul Handley on Than Shwe then that would be very special indeed.
8 responses so far ↓
1 aiontay // Aug 7, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Can’t say that I kow much about Than Shwe personally, or any of the Burmese military guys, but while they might not be simple, they aren’t particualarly bright. They do have a criminal cunning, and a willingness to use violence that most normal people don’t have, and consequently the Burmese military is frequently underestimated. I suspect that the description of Ceauşescu in Robert Kaplan’s book “Balkan Ghosts” would apply equally well to Than Shwe.
I would also point out that once you seize control of a modern state the norms of international relations provide you all sorts of power and grudging legitimacy, no matter how bright or stupid you are. Let’s face it, nobody, not even the US, is going to support Kachin independence. or sign an oil deal with the KNU. Of course this has always been true, not just in the modern era. As a Taoist philosopher observed a couple of thousand years ago, ” A man is put to death for stealing a fish hook; a man who steals a country is made king.”
2 Hla Oo // Aug 7, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Brute, despot, recluse, greedy bastard, skillful manipulator. You can call Than Shwe, the notorious Dictator of Burma, any name but a coward who led his troops into numerous defeats at the hands of the Communists.
He commanded a light infantry division in the seventies and wiped Burmese Communist Party HQ troops off Pegu Yoma. He has now build his Nay-Pyi-Daw on that same sacred ground of thick jungle where thousands of Burmese communist were killed by his own troops.
He was the divisional commander of Delta in the eighties and his troops brutally stopped the Karens from gaining a foothold there again.
He was one of the very early graduates of OTS which selects her candidates from among the bravest and most capable Sergeants under the age of 30 from the fighting army which has been waging a brutal civil war against its own ethnic minorities and the resilient Communists.
Underestimating him would be a grave mistake for the democracy fighters of Burma.
3 Nicholas Farrelly // Aug 7, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Thanks Aiontay and Hla Oo,
I appreciate your well-informed perspectives on this intriguing set of issues and histories.
I would be particularly keen to see evidence for the assertion that while Than Shwe, and the others, “might not be simple, they aren’t particualarly bright”.
It strikes me that this is a working assumption held by most people. But is there evidence to support it? Anybody out there able to share the academic record of any senior Burmese government figure? I am fishing for something concrete that would help us to better undertand the intellectual capacity of some of these guys. We often rely on proxy measurements of their reputed “smarts” (lack of foreign language appitude, brutality, insularity, xenophobia, etc, etc) but I wonder if this is, at the end of the day, quite misleading.
Specific examples of how dim, or otherwise, the members of the SPDC are would be very instructive.
Best wishes to all,
Nich
4 Frank // Aug 7, 2009 at 11:30 pm
So don’t underestimate him on what he did in the past! Shame that does nothing to shape the future. Perhaps instead we should label him a coward for failing to face up to the future. After all, we know most of his kind will scuttle off to Singapore when the shit really hits the fan. Hardly the actions of a man who is prepared to face the future without a lot of firepower and accumulated filthy lucre to protect him
5 Martino Ray // Aug 8, 2009 at 12:49 am
I would have thought that managing a knowledge prevention and expression system would require the knowing what others are not to know. The lack of intelligence would be in clearly not accepting that everyone else is equal while they’re alive, because only when your dead is every-body- equal. Wouldn’t that be more how the perception of their blunt, belligerent, brutal, bestial-ness is bandied about for us?
Than Shwe should appear with the rest of the World’s leaders on a ‘Are you smarter than a fifth grader?’ show of some sort. He should, but he wont. He’s a somebody.
If you can’t mock someone out of reclusiveness, then what are you meant to do?
6 aiontay // Aug 8, 2009 at 11:21 am
While I will concede that Than Shwe might well be a better speller than I (an easy thing to do), I still don’t think he is particularly bright. I base that on the conditions of the country after 40+ years of military rule, and I see no evidence that might refute that assumption. I may be wrong Nicholas, but I think your underlying assumption is that Than Shwe can’t possibly be a dolt since he’s running a country. This assumes that a certain level of intelligence is needed to run a country, an assumption I believe history and experience pretty conclusively refute. Look at George W Bush and Sarah Palin, both of whom show just how far you can get with political patronage. Palin in particular had a reputation for cultivating people who could advance her career and then stabbing them in the back at the first opportunity. Such behavior doesn’t require much savvy, just a ruthless self interest.
Kaplan’s point about Ceausescu was that the Communists advanced him because they thought he could be manipulated, and consequently he ended up in a position to seize power himself. Again, nothing particularly new here since sycophants have been killing their patrons ever since (and probably well before) the Old Testament records a servant suffocating a king on his sick bed in order to seize the throne. Again, it doesn’t argue any special aptitude for governing, just a ruthless self interest. You don’t have to be anywhere near as smart as Machiavelli to be Machiavellian.
We also have concrete evidence that the military regime in general, and Than Shwe in particular, have no qualms about shooting unarmed citizens, or denying them food and other disaster aid. If you are willing to do that, then governing the population isn’t too difficult. I don’t think the folks running segregation in the American South were particularly bright, based on my dealings with some of their lineal descendents. They didn’t have to be; all that was required was to summarily deal with any “uppityness”, either real or imaginary, in the African American population. You could have all the constitutions and elections you wanted, and nothing would change as long as you also had the occasional lynching. A side benefit of this approach is that knowledge is easily controlled since universal ignorance is preferred.
I don’t think there is any need for speculation when brute force is a sufficient explanation for Than Shwe’s continued rule.
7 Martino Ray // Aug 11, 2009 at 6:14 pm
As I slandered earlier, Than Shwe is intelligent in that he is able to maintain his reclusiveness, but foolish in that he persists with maintaining it. If he doesn’t want to be known, then it is obvious that this self consciousness permeates through his tainted, pungent and fetid ‘leadership.’ This self consciousness must perpetuate a paranoia that fuels a logic that equates sustaining power with success.
Obviously no foreign intereference occured. Eighteen months is a compromise between what they would like to do and what they felt they could get away with.
Foreign being ‘alien in character’, I wonder how remote and alien it is for characters like Than Shwe to involve themselves in a “judicial process” which hands down a politicised sentence to a sixty-four year old Lady?
By knowing about him, I’m sure there will be less reason for anyone to see him as the leader. The same is true for all cowards masquerading as beacons of strength. That is why we will never know about him; because he knows it.
8 Martino Ray // Aug 11, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Sorry ladies, slandered?, more like mumbled and the incorrect use of a semi colon would see me virtually imprisoned if NM editors had the same feelings about punctuation as the Junta about justice.
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