ကိုယ္ေတြ ့ ဇူလိုင္ (၇)မွတ္တမ္း

The Significance of 7th July Incident
Jul 6th, 2008

_ by Prof Kanbawza Win

“Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay, Gone are my friends from the Rangoon University (substituting cotton fields away)” is the song I used to hum, whenever I recollect the unforgettable 7th July, a stigma of my life. It seems to me that 7th July has many sad memories in different countries e.g. in UK it was the London bombings where a series of coordinated terrorist bomb blasts hit London’s public transport system during the morning rush hour killing 52 commuters and injuring 700 and causing severe day-long disruption of the city’s transport and mobile telecommunications infrastructure countrywide. In US it marked the first time that electric chair replaced the hangman knot (1890) and in Africa Robert Mugabe became the President of Zimbabwe (1985). But in Rangoon way back in 1962, it marked the start of the first long epic struggle by the students of Burma. The conspicuous and the salient aspect was that it was an unarmed and peaceful young Burmese university student against tyranny and dictatorship that is still continuing on today.

I was just a fresher at Taungoo Hall when on July 7th 1962, the army fired point blank into the student’s crowd killing hundreds of students. Being a UTC (University Training Corps) I ducked which saved my life but many of my friends were not so lucky. I can clearly remember of how the elder brother ran to help his younger brother only to be shot and the two brothers died arm in arm. The student sitting with his lover at a café inside the Union rushed off holding her hand tightly discovered later that he was only holding her hand and not the body as she had been ripped apart by the bullets. Sai Yeleik of Taunggyi was shot in the groin and up to the time of his death in Singapore could not bear any children. Such were some of the tragic scenes. For the first time in the entire history of modern Burma, the Burmese army has showed its true color.

It seems that the friendly masks which the Burmese Army wear all the time as the savior of the country having fought the Colonial British under the leadership of thirty comrades, then turn against the Fascist Japanese to gain independence was just a big joke and an outright lie when all the time they were just power maniacs. Their bluff logy until 1962 seems to be true, as they could marshal the people into believing as if were the Bible truth. In fact I remember reading the Rangoon independent English Newspapers ‘The Nation” with U Law Yone as the Chief Editor and the “The Guardian Daily” of how the military coup of March 2nd was the happiest day of their lives, even though Sao Mye Mye Thaike (the brother of Sao Harn and Chao Tzang) the young son of President Sao Shwe Thaike, was killed instantly during the coup. To be candid the Caretaker regime of 1959 has done a good work, if compared to the feuding AFPFL (Clean and Stable). Up to that day the Burmese army could successfully wear that friendly mask. But the mask was taken off with the 7th July Incident.

Since then the students and the solders were eternal sworn enemies and it will go on forever until the military dictatorship was overthrown. The people of Burma had now began to see the other side of the coin, that the origin of the Burmese army was made up of riff raff ragamuffins barely better than the dacoits, that sow the seeds of the Karen insurrection followed by other ethnic groups, so much so that there is not a single ethnic group that is not fighting the Burmese army today. It was the army that wrecked the Panglong Spirit so much so that it is now trying to erase the memory of its founder Bogyoke Aung San and placing his only daughter under custody for a dozen years. Instead it has embarked upon the Burmanization policy with its ethnic cleansing, religious persecution, and using rape as a weapon, indiscriminate killing and so on

The 7th July incident ordered by its army Chief General Ne Win and implemented by Butcher Sein Lwin (the people of Burma are quite positive that both of them are not resting in peace in the next life) have shown the way to the next generations of the men in uniform, which in Burmese call Bong Be Wute Asoeya literally translated as the government that wear pants and not the traditional Burmese longyi (sarong), the art of maintaining power through the muzzles of the gun, taking a leaf out of Mao Hse Dong’s theory. In fact today, the mentality of the Burmese army are worst than animals. The animal will not kill its young ones and protect them whereas the Burmese army has done the opposite several times in half a century. The 7th July Incident of 1962 is the first of a series of killings which is continuing up to this day.

The Burmese army personals thought that this 7th July Incident would teach a lesson to the students and would quietly died down and forgotten but it has a reverse effect. In fact the army had poke at the wasp nest and all the wasps with their stings ready are now swarming all over the country until today. The uneducated Burmese army has underestimated the student’s banner of the fighting peacock “for even though its head is bloody, yet it is unbowed”. Since then the cudgel of the students has passed on generations after generations and it will go on and on until the Burmese army is beaten.

Obviously the Burmese army continued to commit crime after crime until it could not bear to hear the word democracy and students, so much so that they are now going to sell the Rangoon University to a Singaporean firm just to erase the memory of the 7th July Incident and of course the other factor is the regime bankruptcy. This is a typical thinking of the Burmese Generals; they construe that by destroying a monument such as the Student’s Union building or the Haw (palace) of Kengtung Saopha they would be in a position to erase a race or the sentiments of certain group. Being a lot uncivilized they could not comprehend that love and sincerity alone can won the hearts and minds of the people.

The Burmese army did not have cultures. Their culture is raping the ethnic girls, killing the pro democracy students and rampaging the country. They have leaders, usually tyrants. They have armies, usually large and menacing. They have propaganda, usually dull and artless. Enemies are not civilized enough to have culture. Culture humanizes, and humanity is the last thing you want in an enemy.

Most of the students starting from 7th July 1962 and onwards have become internet warriors where they promulgate their esoteric cogitations and articulate their superficial sentimentalities, psychological or philosophical observations with or without or taxonomical bombast. From our perspective it is also high time to think that whether the guns of the Burmese army should be met by statements for most of the soldiers are illiterate and cannot read any statement not to mention the internet. Even as I write this article, “I hear the gentle voice calling Old Students”. The epic struggle will go one for as long as democracy is not achieved men may come and men may go but the struggle will go on forever.
http://burmadigest.info/2008/07/06/the-significance-of-7th-july-incident-2/ မွတင္ျပပါသည္။