Index on Censorship’s Mike Harris joins Ghida Fakhry and guests on Al Jazeera’s Inside Story, to discuss whether a giving a peace prize to Burma’s president Thein Sein rewards the killings of Rohingya Muslims.
Thangyat is a traditional form of entertainment performed for Burma’s New Year Thingyan Water Festival (taking place this week), made up of chanted satirical sketches with dance and percussion. The performances highlight all the things that went wrong in the past year, in the hope of avoiding repeating the same mistakes in the year to come. Thangyat was banned by the military government after the uprising in 1988 and was kept alive in exile before being allowed back last year.
Thangyat troupes, which can be up to 70 people strong, compete for cash prizes in heats leading up to the festival. The finalists perform on the main stage and the winner is announced on New Year’s Day. This year Sky Net, a new independent TV company, has sponsored the Thangyat competition and will broadcast it nationwide.
— The first day of this year’s Thingyan Water Festival and Myanmar new year – Thet Htoo / Demotix
Sky Net required all participating teams to submit their scripts or videos of their work so they could vet the material. Index met members of one troupe that had been banned from taking part.
The performers we met from the banned troupe believed Sky Net was more sensitive to political satire than the government, and were shocked and angry at being excluded. They thought that they had been banned for the generally political nature of their performance, rather than because they ventured into particular no-go zones. The troupe is going ahead with their performance anyway but their shows will not be broadcast; they are making their own documentary instead.
In Mandalay pre-censorship remains in the hands of city authorities and when I was there earlier in the week the first ever all-woman Thangyat ensemble was waiting to hear back from the censors. The women are teachers and students from a college in the city who have formed a group to preserve Burmese traditions — in particular traditional dress for women.
I was lucky enough to see an early rehearsal of this group, which took place in a monastery in a strange wilderness district of the city where huge, gated mansions mainly built for the Chinese buyers, are springing up around the monastery compound. The women, accompanied for the rehearsal by two percussionists, were working in an ornate communal building without walls and very young monks crowded in to hear the women rehearse.
Their performance is a passionate litany of biting satire that highlights the threats to Burmese culture, traditional life-style, and environment from business interests, with Chinese influence particularly targeted. The contentious Letpadaung Copper Mine, deforestation and the suspended Myetsone damn project were all targets. I heard that they are determined to perform their show as it is, whatever the censors say.
That Thangyat will be part of the celebrations again after 25 years is a sign of the times — and reveals the opening up of space for freedom of expression in Burma. But the fact that the comeback is being so closely scrutinised by both political and corporate interests illustrates the power of Thangyat to hit where it hurts.
As government pre-censorship is to some extent loosening its grip on arts and entertainment in Burma, as it appears to be, it is interesting to see corporate censorship stepping comfortably into its shoes. And as corporate censorship is a global phenomenon, it is something that artists all over the world, not just here in Burma, are increasingly concerned about.
Thangyat is a traditional form of entertainment performed for Burma’s New Year Thingyan Water Festival (taking place this week), made up of chanted satirical sketches with dance and percussion. The performances highlight all the things that went wrong in the past year, in the hope of avoiding repeating the same mistakes in the year to come. Thangyat was banned by the military government after the uprising in 1988 and was kept alive in exile before being allowed back last year.
Thangyat troupes, which can be up to 70 people strong, compete for cash prizes in heats leading up to the festival. The finalists perform on the main stage and the winner is announced on New Year’s Day. This year Sky Net, a new independent TV company, has sponsored the Thangyat competition and will broadcast it nationwide.
— The first day of this year’s Thingyan Water Festival and Myanmar new year – Thet Htoo / Demotix
Sky Net required all participating teams to submit their scripts or videos of their work so they could vet the material. Index met members of one troupe that had been banned from taking part.
The performers we met from the banned troupe believed Sky Net was more sensitive to political satire than the government, and were shocked and angry at being excluded. They thought that they had been banned for the generally political nature of their performance, rather than because they ventured into particular no-go zones. The troupe is going ahead with their performance anyway but their shows will not be broadcast; they are making their own documentary instead.
In Mandalay pre-censorship remains in the hands of city authorities and when I was there earlier in the week the first ever all-woman Thangyat ensemble was waiting to hear back from the censors. The women are teachers and students from a college in the city who have formed a group to preserve Burmese traditions — in particular traditional dress for women.
I was lucky enough to see an early rehearsal of this group, which took place in a monastery in a strange wilderness district of the city where huge, gated mansions mainly built for the Chinese buyers, are springing up around the monastery compound. The women, accompanied for the rehearsal by two percussionists, were working in an ornate communal building without walls and very young monks crowded in to hear the women rehearse.
Their performance is a passionate litany of biting satire that highlights the threats to Burmese culture, traditional life-style, and environment from business interests, with Chinese influence particularly targeted. The contentious Letpadaung Copper Mine, deforestation and the suspended Myetsone damn project were all targets. I heard that they are determined to perform their show as it is, whatever the censors say.
That Thangyat will be part of the celebrations again after 25 years is a sign of the times — and reveals the opening up of space for freedom of expression in Burma. But the fact that the comeback is being so closely scrutinised by both political and corporate interests illustrates the power of Thangyat to hit where it hurts.
As government pre-censorship is to some extent loosening its grip on arts and entertainment in Burma, as it appears to be, it is interesting to see corporate censorship stepping comfortably into its shoes. And as corporate censorship is a global phenomenon, it is something that artists all over the world, not just here in Burma, are increasingly concerned about.
Artists came together with political leaders, journalists, academics and lawyers for two days of presentations and discussion on Art of Transition Symposium in Rangoon on 30-31 March.
The programme was another in the series of firsts as the space for expression in Burma opens up.
Of course, this freedom is still a work in progress. The conference had a visit from an official who asked politely how things were going, and Index was told there were a couple of undercover government agents present, who kept an eye on who was saying what.
Some of the most respected artists in the country spoke, including film-maker Min Thin Ko Ko Kyi — who produced the Art of Freedom Film Festival last year with Zarganar and Aung San Suu Kyi — poet Zeyar Lin, who represented Myanmar in Poetry Parnassus as part of the Cultural Olympiad in London, and performance artists Moe Satt, Ma Ei and Aye Ko.
Zarganar, comedian, film-maker and partner of the symposium gave the opening and closing speeches; U Win Tin, patron of the National League for Democracy, and Min Ko Naing, a leading voice in the Generation 88 group, gave the key note speeches on the first and second days respectively.
One of the key questions the symposium asked was how the reforms had affected artists who had developed a nuanced and subtle vocabulary to circumvent censorship. For some it is difficult to find their bearings; several poets admitted it would take time, maybe two years, to make work under such different conditions.
One speaker claimed that poets were being criticised for sounding more like journalists than poets, that the subtlety of their voice had been lost. Another said that he did not want to publish his poems that had been banned in the past because they would no longer be of the moment. Another artist, who had created hundreds of artworks in prison, said that he felt his most free when he was behind bars.
Some of the younger artists Index spoke to felt very differently about the influence of new reforms. They welcomed the openness, the free exchange of ideas, particularly online.
A young performance artist said that her art form was now considered “sexy” and she had plenty of invitations to perform so opening up her work to new audiences. An established poet said that poets have to be more accountable now for what they write. Previously, when all work had to be passed by the censors, the decision about what was published was completely out of the writer’s hands.
As the first symposium of its kind in the country it was necessarily experimental and as much as anything about finding a Burmese way to have a conversation about artistic freedom in public.
Index is producing a short documentary which will be translated into English. An English language podcast is also in production.
Julia Farrington is head of arts at Index on Censorship