THE RIVER OF LOST FOOTSTEPS: Histories of Burma by Thant Myint-U

Faber £20

When a pair of twins called Luther and Johnny emerged as child-rebel leaders in Burma at the end of the 1990s, they captured the imagination of the world’s press. Reams were printed about these diminutive, messianic figures, worshipped by their followers for performing purported miracles such as walking unscathed through mine-fields. It didn’t hurt that their chief adviser was a “shadowy dwarf” known as Mr David.

Sadly, it took this sensational Kalashnikov Kids yarn to draw attention to Burma’s civil war. Otherwise, the longest-running conflict in the world and the key to understanding the country and its tragic past remain virtually unreported. Western politicians, the media and crusading pop stars prefer to focus on the more two-dimensional duel between Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the Nobel Peace prize, and the junta. “Burma is now of celebrity and political interest . . . with dedicated albums by U2 and REM,” writes Thant Myint-U. “A country the size and population of the German Empire on the eve of the first world war is viewed through a single-dimensional lens.”

The River of Lost Footsteps is Myint-U’s antidote. It is hard to imagine a more thought-provoking or eloquently written elucidation of Burma’s afflictions and their causes — nor one more heartfelt. The author is the grandson of U Thant, the former UN secretary-general. Raised and educated in New York, he has travelled extensively in Burma, spending time with rebels, training as a novice monk and propping up the occasional bar with an army captain. He is no friend of Rangoon’s brutal generals and knows Suu Kyi personally. But he brings a refreshingly balanced perspective to his narrative, arguing convincingly that Burma can only be helped once it is properly understood. The question he believes policy-makers should be asking is not how to engineer a quick fix, but “how did the country reach such a state?”

The answer lies in the country’s rich history, a heady tale of empires and ancient cities that became the envy of the world. Although turbulent at times, Burmese society imbibed outside people and ideas while sustaining its traditions. All that changed in 1885 when Randoph Churchill, secretary of state for India, engineered an invasion of Burma. Ostensibly, his campaign was about removing the “despotic king”; in reality, it was to boost his party’s election prospects. On November 13, 8,000 British troops armed with machine guns captured Mandalay. The last Burmese monarch was forced to leave his palace on a bullock cart. A couple of days later, his royal white elephant died, and, to the shock of the population, the British dumped the body of this highly symbolic animal in the street. “The new Burma, British Burma, would be adrift, suddenly pushed into the modern world without an anchor to the past . . . [and] sustained by a more sour nationalist sentiment,” writes Myint-U.

In those preindependence years, Burmese society was changed almost beyond recognition. The Kachin, for example, were converted to Christianity, identified as a “martial race” and recruited into the new army. The old aristocracy faded, the traditional Buddhist education system crumbled and millions of Indians poured into the cities. To add to Burma’s woes, it was occupied in 1942 by the Japanese. “The Burmese had nothing to do with the war, but it destroyed their country,” says Myint-U. The new invaders were aided and abetted by Burmese antiBritish freedom fighters, who underwent rigorous training in Japan. This independence army would later be incorporated into the country’s armed forces and fashion its autocratic nature. As the author notes, “They had learnt from the Japanese a system of harsh punishments and strict loyalty to their superiors . . . and always to place the army above all else.”

He stresses that when Burma gained independence in 1948 it was already wracked by civil war, and the fledgling democratic process stood little chance of success. Since then, approximately one million have died, and a million more have been displaced in insurgencies. Decades of instability have sustained a junta that Myint-U maintains is stronger than ever. Funded by billions in opium, oil and natural-gas profits it remains a paranoid, isolated and utterly ruthless entity that controls every level of Burmese society. “By the 1990s,” he writes, “the military was the state. Army officers did everything. Normal government had withered away.”

He believes that further isolation will fuel the generals’ xenophobia and prolong their rule for at least another “40 years”. Sanctions and a policy of disengagement by the international community, he cautions, will continue to prove counter-productive. “There are no easy options,” he writes. “[But] if Burma were less isolated, if there were more trade, more engagement . . . then perhaps the conditions for political change would emerge over the next decade or two.”

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