The problem is that engagement with Burma has been tried many times before, and always without success. Nor is it the first time the regime has promised to free Suu Kyi, or that Suu Kyi has expressed her willingness to meet the generals. The patterns are all too familiar, the accommodating noises from the generals eerily similar to those uttered before.

- Extracted from Graham Reilly, “Burma engagement offers false hope”, The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 November 2009.

In the 1990s, China reportedly established a signals intelligence base on Great Coco Island, though it was never confirmed. And now, Burma’s tourism authorities intend to open the islands up to foreign and domestic tour groups with the first ferry of tourists due to sail on Friday…A return ticket price for the first tour has been quoted at 25,000 kyat (US $25) although the price is expected to be much higher for foreign tourists. Travel agencies in Rangoon expect the tours to be popular though little is known about any facilities on the islands.

- Extracted from Wai Moe, “Coco Islands to Open for Tourism”, The Irrawaddy, 19 November 2009. Thanks to a long-time New Mandala reader for pointing out this tourism opportunity.

The video was taken by Anne Murat, who is co-filmmaker on the the documentary Rangoon Cocoon.

Thanks to a regular reader for the tip.

Last month, it continued with the arrest of more journalists. It seems the arrests were not directly related to their line of work — they were members of a civil society group that allegedly received funds from abroad — but being a reporter or editor in Myanmar certainly puts one’s head above the parapet.

While several journalists were among 7114 prisoners released in a recent amnesty, it is thought many more are still behind bars. This fact, combined with the strict censorship regime the government has put in place to oversee local media, contributed to Myanmar placing fifth-last in a recent Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, above only Iran, Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea.

For foreign-based media groups, reporting from Myanmar is “at the best of times very difficult, at the worst impossible”, the BBC’s Burma desk editor, Soe Win Than, said at a debate on Myanmar’s future conducted at the launch of the 2010 Orwell Prize on October 29.

Repression of media has created an “atmosphere of fear” that makes it difficult for journalists to talk to people “even over non-controversial subjects”, he said.

While all this is true, it is incorrect to automatically dismiss local private media as being without value. I think many outsiders would be surprised at both the number and variety of journals available locally. At the end of 2008 there were almost 200 licensed journals, which generally publish weekly or fortnightly, and another 200 or so magazines that publish monthly. The number of these regularly publishing, however, would be somewhere between a quarter and one half of those figures.

Local publications cover a wide range of topics, from general news, foreign affairs and business to sport, fashion and celebrities.

Thant Myint-U made a similar point recently at a US committee hearing when he said  Myanmar has an “increasingly vibrant civil society” and “heavily-censored but largely privately-owned media”. These are both symptoms of the Myanmar people’s “obvious desire for greater freedom and government accountability”, he concluded.

Naturally, local journals are going to struggle to hold the military government to account with the present censorship system. However, there seems to be an ever-widening scope for debate, at least on certain issues. This has prompted some publications, including the The Voice Weekly, to begin running editorials — as far as I know, this is the first time this has been seriously attempted.

This drew the ire of The Irrawaddy, which said anti-government groups in the country were “enraged” by journals commenting favourably on the 2010 general election and the visit of US senator Jim Webb.

“In military-ruled Burma it is common that editors and publishers, if they are not outright apologists of the regime, compromise and toe the official line so their publications can survive,” The Irrawaddy’s chief, Aung Zaw, wrote in an editorial, pointing out that despite an apparent relaxation of censorship recently, few journals or editors “dared to question the election and publish critical analysis of the political process” in Myanmar.

But there is more to the local press than meets the eye. Aware of the limits of operating in a censored media environment, journals are clever enough to see the futility of outright criticism of the government, something best left to those outside the country. Publishers that disobey censorship pretty quickly have their journal shut down. Most are required to print a one-page government editorial in each edition but, outside that, it’s unusual to hear of journals being forced to publish propaganda.

More often, the censors compromise rather than demand. For example, journals were told last week they could only publish photos of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi if they also printed a Myanmar News Agency photo of Kurt Campbell shaking hands with Prime Minister Thein Sein.

There are opportunities to publish sensitive material. Corruption permeates everyday life here in Myanmar, and the censorship board is no exception. As a general rule, the more you give, the more you get. While this is ethically debatable, the same could be said of foreign-based media who, almost as a matter of course, refuse to name sources or (for obvious reasons) identify reporters operating in the country.

In short, what is accepted elsewhere does not necessarily apply in a place like Myanmar. While censorship is a major handicap that would not normally be tolerated, it has to be weighed up against the alternative — in this case, subjecting Myanmar readers to a media diet of only New Light of Myanmar, Kyemon and Myanma Ahlin (something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy).

And, occasionally, you see something really surprising, like this expansive interview with the US charge d’affaires to Myanmar, Mr Larry Dinger. Most likely it was permitted to send a statement to visiting US envoys last week, and was widely quoted in international media.

There is another aspect of the local media industry that many critics ignore and should be taken into account. I would say, at a conservative estimate, local journals and magazines directly employ in excess of 10,000 people. The same number again would be employed indirectly in the printing, advertising and marketing aspects of the business. Many reporters have the opportunity to attend training courses abroad, and through the cultural arms of the US and British embassies in Yangon.

“I call that capacity building, and there are a large group of publishers, editors and journalists in Myanmar who have similar views to myself. We see light at the end of the tunnel,” the controversial publisher of The Myanmar Times, Ross Dunkley, said in a recent profile published in the Bangkok Post.

The media sector is also one of the few growth industries in Myanmar. One local market research company estimated about US$17 million was spent on advertising nationally in 2006. Given the significant increase in new journals since then, advertising could perhaps be double that figure now and it is not unusual for large privately owned companies to have marketing and advertising budgets of several million US dollars.

However, one recent government decision could hurt the industry more than the much-publicised censorship regime.

From January 1, 2010 all alcohol and cigarette advertising will be banned from local media. For several months, the Ministry of Information’s Press Scrutiny division has been refusing to approve new alcohol advertisements, only allowing those that were approved for the ban was announced.

In spite of the fact sports journals will be most affected, this decision — ostensibly made for health reasons — appears to be politically motivated, designed to put the squeeze (economically) on journals ahead of next year’s proposed general election.

Many of the well-known news journals are published by media companies that also have profitable sports journals in their stable. The announcement came not from the Ministry of Health or Ministry of Information but from the Ministry of Defense.

Those in the industry will be watching to see how strictly this ban is enforced. Ironically, a well-directed bottle of Black Label could just be enough to get that lucrative whiskey advertisement published.

The show goes on. The military has a clear vision of what kind of state Burma should be—and that is not a democracy. It is sometimes argued that the hopes for a more pluralistic society rest on the next generation army officers. Aware of this danger, officers have been given unprecedented privileges and business opportunities in order to retain their loyalty to the regime. There are no Young Turks lurking in the wings.

- Extracted from Bertil Lintner, “Reaching Out to Burma”, The Wall Street Journal, 3 November 2009.

Mathieson makes a number of very fair points about Australia’s “well-rounded” policy on Burma and offers some useful suggestions on “diplomacy, humanitarian assistance and sanctions”.  He also takes aim at the recent pro-sanctions lobbying of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Burma Campaign Australia.  Regular New Mandala readers will recall that I have also questioned their intevention in the Burma sanctions debate (here, here and here).  Mathieson introduces a handy turn of phrase when he reflects that the current campaign for tougher sanctions “hark[s] back to the consumer boycotts of the 1990s”.

As far as I know, the few serious reflections on that era of sanctions suggest that, by almost any measure, they were profoundly ineffective.  If the pro-boycott/pro-sanctions advocates are hoping to win this debate I think they will need to do a better job of persuading us that there is more than “limited, Western, symbolic” value in their arguments.

Standing up for human rights in Burma is, without any doubt, a big and important job.  But the experience of decades suggests that finding good levers for improving the lives of ordinary people in Burma is the really hard part.  Earlier efforts to beef up sanctions have only left us puzzling at their limited impact, and the ongoing stalemate they have left behind.

The Asean summit will be the first occasion the Burmese junta’s Prime Minister, Thein Sein, can meet exile Burmese CSOs [Civil Society Organizations]. Thein Sein will meet with nine other Asean leaders on October 23.

Thein Sein threatened to boycott the last Asean meeting if Thailand proposed Burmese exile groups have a representative at the Asean summit in February.

- Extracted from Lawi Weng, “Exile Groups to be Present at Asean Meet”, The Irrawaddy, 20 October 2009.  Thanks to Dave for pointing out this intriguing article.

Gay people in Burma are resisting homophobia and marginalisation through the creative use of new communication codes. In doing so, they are making a significant contribution to linguistic diversity in Burma and raising the visibility of their community in important ways.

‘It is important to publicise these codes created by gay people to show that we are creative and have a special ability to make new terms quickly, that are actively used in speech’ said Aung Myo Min, the founder of the Committee for Lesbigay Rights in Burma.

In this article, the term ‘gay’ is used because it is a popular self-identifier in urban, web-accessible areas, as is the term ‘homo’, both loan words from English. The term denotes some men who have sex with men, who can be varying degrees of feminine or masculine.

There are two broad categories of communication codes used among gay Burmese people. The first translates as ‘hidden language’, designed to disguise meaning from the straight world. It is only used when gay people talk amongst themselves.

The second category translates as ‘slang’, which is more open and has been adopted by parts of straight Burma, even being used by some celebrities. Gay slang is subverting contemporary Burmese in subtle ways and demonstrates the growing visibility of gay Burmese, despite ongoing homophobia. Examples of vocabulary in this article fall into this category.

Burmese gay communication codes are participatory. It involves giving new meaning to old words, and also changing basic words like ‘to eat’ so they are unrecognisable by those outside the community.   

The language plays a key role in creating a sense of community amongst gay Burmese men, who are marginalised in Burmese society. The language is therefore important as a way of building a proud and defiant community.

The ‘hidden language’ has various practical uses. It allows people to gossip in public without repercussions, which is important for creating a sense of in-group solidarity. It also works as a defence against homophobia, which is common in Burma and comes in the form of physical violence, verbal abuse and other forms of social stigma.

Homosexuality has ambiguous legal status in the country. Under Section 377 of the colonial-era Penal Code of 1882-88, which is part of the inheritance of British colonial rule, ‘carnal intercourse against nature’ is punishable with imprisonment of up to ten years. While this law is not usually enforced, it renders gay men all the more vulnerable to police harassment.

Pagan yauk bu la? (Have you been to Pagan?) England la? (England?) In gay slang, geographical terms are also subverted. ‘Having been to Pagan’ means ‘being gay’, deriving from a bridge in Yangon that doubles as a popular gay hang out. ‘Being England’ means ‘going first’ as the receptive partner in gay male sexual intercourse.

The history of gay Burmese slang is uncertain but it is at least as old as when cake was introduced to the country. This is known because ‘cake’, used as an adjective, is the word for large-sized male genitals, introduced into gay slang when cake was a new popular phenomenon in the country.

Terminology for gay-identifying men has been a problem in Burmese and remains an ongoing debate. A chauk and gandu, the most common words for gay men in conventional Burmese, are derogatory but are still used by some gay men in remote places. A chauk literally means ‘dry’, but the reason for adopting it is unclear. One common explanation is that it is used to suggest that gay men do not have semen, that it is dry. People use the term as an insult. Aung Myo Min coined the phrase layn thu chit thu, which translates as ‘those who love the same gender’. Others simply use the identifying term mummy.

Demand for new words and terminology adopted reflects the changing culture of the gay community, as well as cultural shifts in Burma generally. One recent introduction to the language is the term cake moe poe thin tan (baking training), which means group sex. As group sex is new to Burmese gay culture, a term for it has only recently been needed.

Some words given new meaning derive from moments in popular culture. If someone says they love to read Shwe Thwe Magazine, previously popular amongst children, it means they like teenage boys. If someone says they read Tayza Magazine, previously popular amongst young adults, it means they like men from that older age group. Both of these magazines are beyond their heyday, but their linguistic meaning continues, as these words entered the language when the magazines were at their popular peak and young gay people honour this history.

One practice under contention is that a senior gay person sets the protocol for codes to be used in a conversation. When a younger gay person speaks to an older person, they have to follow the same codes as used by their senior. Introducing new codes in a particular conversation is seen as a sign of disrespect. Seniority comes from age and is enhanced by signs of status, such as wealth, popularity and networks.

This practice is now being questioned, largely with the help of online social networking technology. In one popular gay Burmese web forum, there has been lively debate, with users arguing that the language should be democratised so younger men can speak as equals with their seniors.

According to Yuri Geller, the initiator of the social networking site, this debate is important for the community. “People really want to practice this language in a democratic way and there are many people who want to get rid of these hierarchies. I think respecting elders is something that comes from Burmese culture, which is good to maintain, but it doesn’t mean that we need to practice this with our slang”.

As Burma’s gay communities continue to grow and better network, gay Burmese cultures and identities will no doubt keep evolving. Hidden language and slang will likely remain a key part of this process.