Book Review: The Borderline of Melancholy

Appo's "Border of Melancholy" can be regarded as a tribute to Levi Strauss' "Tropical Melancholy", which has a similar effect. Both are based on travel, but Levi-Strauss summarizes the myths and totem symbols from various places and deduces a structural context of human thinking.

Why do we think so.

Livi-Strauss proposed that in order to understand the common intercommunication thinking of a nation, one must understand the structure behind things. Since ancient times, the cultural structure of human society has been determined by an objective deep structure. A person is just a character, and the structure operates behind it. It seems that when a person steps on a skateboard, it is not the person who is moving, but the roller at the bottom of the skateboard. People are moving.

The social culture and thinking mode of human beings are different everywhere, because each place has its own set of rollers. However, even with different rollers, it seems that humans are driven by the same set of roller physics.

Different ethnic groups have different structural factors and therefore different ideas.

Apo uses this as the cornerstone to guide readers to dig into the bottom layer of human thinking with a light touch of what he has seen and heard from his travels in Southeast Asia. She has traveled to Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc., and succinctly outlines the current identity issues and local conflicts under different borders.

Reading her journey and discussion, it is not difficult to find that although the local history is different, the thinking structure behind the nation is all evolved by a human formula, such as a patriarchal society, patriarchal style, different family backgrounds, but the same. The drama keeps going.

Why do we understand the other so much? Why are they so?

There are many borders in Southeast Asia, and it is difficult to describe them all. This article intends to take Myanmar as the backbone, and from this place draws out the structure of human thinking.

Everything starts with borders. Taiwan is surrounded by seas, and the sea is the border. However, many countries in the world are divided by borders. For example, Myanmar and Thailand are separated by mountains and rivers. The Meihe River connects Thailand and Myanmar. separated into two sides.

The Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge spans the Mae River and connects Mae Sot in Thailand with Myawaddy in Myanmar. When you step on the border of Thailand with your left foot, you can step on the land of Myanmar with your right foot. The two countries are just a step away, facing each other across the river.

Due to the proximity of Mae Sot to Burma, Burmese people, who could not bear the oppression and hardship of the dictatorial government, would cross the border and work on the Thai border to survive. There are at least hundreds of thousands of Burmese refugees in Mae Sot, Thailand. It's hard to tell who is Thai, Burmese, and Karen people in Myanmar.

The first impression of Myanmar is Aung San Suu Kyi, a former human rights fighter who is now a genocide apologist. The second is civil war.

The most recent one was in February 2021, when a military coup occurred in Myanmar. In April of the same year, the people resisted the military regime of Myanmar in various forms and expressed support for the ethnic anti-junta armed forces.

In the early days of the conflict, the international community focused on Myanmar, especially when the Myanmar Human Rights Monitor revealed on Twitter that China had sent a large number of weapons, apparently not interfering in the situation in Myanmar, but behind the support of the Myanmar military government. The beacon fire has been in the sky for more than half a year, and even if the casualties are scattered, the affairs of Myanmar are gradually no longer in the international view.

On December 27, when the international community was still immersed in the aftermath of Christmas, the Myanmar military launched an air strike on the Myanmar Karen militia, causing thousands of people to flee outside Thailand. In order to avoid the armed conflict, the Lun people fled, and dozens of people were burned alive.

The fate of Myanmar is that brothers cannibalize each other. Myanmar, with a population of 60 million, has 135 ethnic minorities. Disagreements, contradictions, differences and confrontations between ethnic groups are all due to the long-term suppression by the military government, which has greatly affected the minority ethnic groups.

In addition to the Karen people, the more well-known ethnic minorities in Myanmar are the Rohingya. This ethnic group is the one who brought Aung San Suu Kyi to the international court and fell from the altar of human rights leaders overnight to the crime of murderers. However, the fate of the Rohingya is a replica of other ethnic minorities in Myanmar.

In August 2017, the military launched a comprehensive crackdown on the Rohingya community, because Rohingya armed groups, unable to bear the long-term racial discrimination, attacked the Myanmar army with homemade weapons, triggering military retaliation.

In order to escape the civil war, 600,000 people risked their lives to cross the Myanmar border, and a large number of Rohingya fled, accused the Myanmar army of indiscriminately firing, raping women, looting property, and burning houses.

At that time, the covers of major international media featured Rohingya boys floating in water and Rohingya women crying. The United Nations says the Rohingya are one of the most persecuted ethnic groups in the world.

It is born from the same root, so why is it too urgent to fry each other. Obviously brothers, why do Burmese hate Rohingya so much?

Because most Burmese people have never heard of the name Rohingya, they call the Rohingya Gala, and the term Gala does not only refer to the Rohingya, all Muslims are called Gala, Even Hindus.

Gala is a derogatory term, which means "people who have come across the sea", so the Burmese people have never regarded the Rohingya as brothers in social understanding, but regarded them as "foreigners". There is also a prejudice against "outsiders" everywhere, believing that they are all here to plunder resources.

Burma has always been poor. There have always been many monks and little porridge, and there are "foreigners" who have been living in Burma to fight for food. Thus began the exclusion of the Burmese. The reason for the exclusion is that the Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations, but they do not speak Burmese and do not have Burmese names. Therefore, the 135 weak ethnic groups in Myanmar are like a big family. The Burmese people are the absolute core. They are born to the original spouse, and the children born with the father's surname, the second wife, and the third wife are not only unworthy of the father's surname, but are destined to be discriminated against when they are born. They are others, just parasitic.

Are ethnic minorities such as the Rohingya actually Burmese, or other?

The Rohingya have been living in Myanmar as early as the 7th century AD, mainly concentrated in a Muslim ethnic group in the Arakan region of Rakhine state in Myanmar. In 1886, under imperial colonialism, the British completely colonized Burma, which was called British Burma at that time. In principle, the barbarians were used to control the barbarians, that is, the long-term policy was tilted and empowered to the ethnic minorities, so as to restrain the large number of Burmese.

As a result of policies that treat ethnic minorities well, a large number of Hindus and Muslims have come to Myanmar, some planting rice for export to Britain, and some developing timber, oil, and tin mines. Traffic and education in Burma were greatly improved, and the British developed waterways to make steamboats passable.

A lot of progress is actually only paving the way for Britain. For example, the smooth waterway is actually convenient for Britain to suppress resistance and manage it. The massive influx of Indian immigrants led to cheap labor in Burma, increased export trade, and brought wealth to Britain. The British gradually introduced Indian capitalists, such as the Chettiar of South India.

It is said that the colonial government passed the Land Act, which allowed farmers who originally planted rice to become landlords as long as they paid the land rent to the landlord for 12 consecutive years, and could mortgage their “future-owned” land rights for loans. Situation like home loan concept. When the payment period expires, the house belongs to you. If the payment is cut off, the bank can take back the house.

At that time, the Chattians obtained the hot money from the British Standard Chartered Bank and lent money everywhere in Myanmar. In 1930, the global financial crisis, there was no export market for rice, the farmers went bankrupt, and the land supply was cut off. In a short period of time, 30% of Burma's land rights fell into the hands of the Chadi.

Shopping malls are like battlefields, and they are willing to gamble and admit defeat, but this defeat has caused a huge impact on society. Burmese people feel panic and feel that they are ruled by India. As a result, the Burmese began to have strong xenophobia and hatred of Indians.

In 1930, anti-Indian riots broke out in Myanmar. Because British education affected Myanmar Buddhism, even monks resisted. Myanmar Buddhism became the thrust of Myanmar nationalism and anti-colonialism. The Burmese began to reflect on themselves and fought back against colonialism.

The Saya San Rebellion in history was an important "anti-colonial movement". One of the demands of the uprising was to expel all Indians and Muslims in Myanmar.

After the British colonial government suppressed the uprising, it inspired a larger-scale Burmese nationalism, initiated by Aung San, the father of Aung San Suu Hime, and many Burmese university students. During World War II, Myanmar was influenced by the works of Nazism published by Adolf Hitler, and Nazi racial theory consolidated Myanmar's exclusionary thinking. Alien races at home are seen as symbols of national decline. They further regard the Bamar people who believe in Buddhism as a higher race, and other religions such as Islam or Hinduism are also inferior.

After the outbreak of World War II in 1942, Japanese forces entered Burma in a big way. At that time, the leader of Burma, General Aung San, with the support of Japan, declared "Myanmar independence" and assisted the Japanese army in attacking the British colonial government.

For the next two years, the Burmese government maintained a brief "appearance of independence" under the indirect control of Japan. During these two years, the British colonial interests were damaged, and a large number of merchants and even the wealth of the Chadians were raided and confiscated. The British repeated their old tricks and supported the ethnic minorities in Myanmar, including the Karen and Rohingya, with the method of ants cuddling dead elephants, arming them, mobilizing the local military and civilians, and jointly fighting against the central government of Myanmar, and promised to allow They established independent states after the war or established "free states" with full autonomy.

After the British-affiliated Allies fought back the Japanese in Southeast Asia, General Aung San of Burma, who was originally pro-Japanese, turned to support the Anglo-American coalition in 1944. This also led to the fact that in 1948 after the war, the British Parliament officially recognized the independence of Burma. That is to say, the British abandoned many soldiers of Burmese ethnic minorities and crossed the bridge. The nation was established within the borders of Myanmar.

Therefore, Apo brings out a kind of thinking in the book, that is, history moves the border. The situation is not only in Myanmar, but also in other places. Many ethnic minorities do not belong there. The annexation of power changes their identities. Injustice and injustice make local differences even more antagonistic.

Burma has inherited a colonial legacy - the idea of exclusion, a generational civil war, rooted in exclusion from others, the bane of British colonialism. The Burmese were conquered by the British and lost their land to the Indian Chadi people. The British fought against the Burmese army with ethnic groups, and the infighting continued.

Whether the Indian Chadi or the Burmese minority are just a pawn of the British Empire, the useful is chess, the useless is abandoned, so since ancient times, the Rohingya, Karen, etc. are historical orphans, the United Kingdom No, Myanmar does not recognize it, has no country, no identity, no home.

Even though these ethnic leaders have never given up their own nation's dream of independence, in 2014, the Obama administration's preference and trust in Aung San Suu Kyi at the time lifted the economic sanctions on Myanmar, giving the military government more resources to suppress other ethnic groups. .

In 2017, the military massacred the Rohingya. Did Aung San Suu Kyi know nothing? In an interview with Japanese media in Geneva, she re-emphasized, "No matter what we do, we will act in accordance with the law. Violators will be brought to justice."

In response to the large number of refugees who fled, Aung San Suu Kyi said, "We want to talk to those who fled and those who stayed, why this happened. And I think the number of fleeing is very small, in Rakhine State Muslims, the vast majority did not flee, and more than 50 percent of Muslim villages are intact.”

Aung San Suu Hime is too aware of the exclusive genes of the Burmese people. She did not call the victimized ethnic group Rohingya, but Muslims. Because the National League for Democracy she led was dominated by Burmese people, and the development of democracy has been deformed for many years. The so-called "democracy" is dependent on Buddhist forces and the army. When Buddhist nationalism excludes all other sects and ethnic minorities, Aung San Suu Hime is unlikely to gain or lose her rights supporters, sing against the people, and only acquiesce to the slaughter in a dilemma.

To learn more about the ins and outs, I asked myself again, why did I associate Myanmar with Aung San Suu Kyi before, and why did my FB cover page include her famous quote "It is not power that corrupts but fear." Corruption, it is fear that corrupts)

In 1988, the Burmese people launched the 8888 Democracy Movement. The people staged demonstrations against the military government, but they were brutally suppressed by the military government. In her youth, Aung San Suu Kyi was influenced by Gandhi's non-violence, and she decided not to resist the junta with violence. In 1989, the military government decided to put her under house arrest, and for the next 21 years, she was placed under house arrest for up to 15 years.

The aura of this goddess of democracy is constantly poeticized, there are books and movies by Aung San Su Hime, Damien Rice wrote her song "Unplayed Piano", she is beautiful and knowledgeable. All the "impressions" became my prejudice. It turned out that I had fallen into Binary Opposition. I was attracted by these elements. I did not kill the enemy exclusively like the Burmese military government, but I excluded understanding other Burmese ethnic minorities. fate.

Po also pointed out that the boundary is blurring. For example, the pho in Vietnam, which many people think is Vietnam itself, actually originated from Cambodia. In order to improve their lives, Cambodians migrated from their hometowns and introduced food culture. Where is the border of Vietnamese pho has been chaotic, as if the important thing is people, the footprints of human beings.

A 19th-century border story full of colonial footprints, Britain, France, and the Netherlands were all major Asian colonial powers, colonizing Asia's Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and Southeast Asia. Now that imperial colonialism has declined, China’s economic hegemony has ushered in, and places like Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Myanmar have also felt the “power” of the Chinese language, as well as China’s heavy investment in different places.

Speaking of Myanmar, the military government will suppress Myanmar's pro-democracy rebels in 2021. In the same year, China will provide 6 million US dollars to finance 21 development projects in Myanmar. This means that China has resumed cooperation with Myanmar, recognizing the military junta as the "government" when the West condemned and sanctioned the junta. In addition, vaccines were sent to Myanmar to support the fight against the epidemic.

China is a major investor in Myanmar, with plans for strategic infrastructure, including energy pipelines and ports that provide Beijing with a key route to the Indian Ocean. China also provides political and military support to various ethnic armed groups along the China-Myanmar border. China's policy towards Myanmar has embraced the post-coup era. Aung San Suu Kyi is in the past tense, and whether it will be revived is unknown. Beijing has begun to deploy diversified strategies to bring together new and old political forces in Myanmar.

Today's China's development is like another kind of imperial colonization. Power does not need to be able to control the overall situation and profit from it.

The drama is the same, the old bottle of wine is new, and the characters are re-interpreted from different places. Therefore, when power is to be exclusive, nationality, language, and religion are still the script to clean up the enemy.

When these three elements are combined into a social vision, it means that "who really belongs here" is lifted up, while "who doesn't belong here" is downgraded or even ostracized.

Boundaries are born from the heart, but in fact there is no boundary between human beings. Because when human beings look at each other for generations, we look from a distance and find that the other is so similar to ourselves. The contradictions of the Burmese civil war are not limited to Burma, not limited to Southeast Asia, but also Belarus, Afghanistan, Palestine, and many border areas. When I kill them, I see myself.

Livi-Strauss proposed to understand the structure behind things. When we fully understand the physics of the roller, it is what drives people to move on the skateboard. We will understand that anyone standing on the skateboard will be moved, even if anyone is in that situation, will be affected. How can I reduce my own prejudice of replicating humans?

I like the last paragraph in the book:

"Try to get yourself across borders, across historical and psychological boundaries, and meet other countries, other ethnic groups, other people you thought were different, and you'll soon discover that they're us, we'll be them, and then , we will be us." Appo