| In the 1990s, Burmese writers, journalists and poets negotiated ways to remain true to their professions living under a military regime that has sought to impose total control over public language. Their ability to do so was facilitated by broadly shared understandings ("open secrets") in Burmese society, that are also often manifest in the omens and signs and rumors that figure prominently in public discourse. Signs and omens are inherently ambiguous, with hidden meanings that will only become clear at some unspecified future date. Prominent attention is given to those signs that are understood as indicating yadaya, a kind of secular magic that is widely believed to be deployed by those who hold power as a substitute for legitimacy. Omens and signs of yadaya were associated, for example, with the regime's erection in 1999 of a new crown on the great Shwedagon, the famous Rangoon (Yangon) pagoda that has long been a focus of Burmese identity; with the consequence that the spectacular event, on the one hand a moment for the production of the regime's authority, was also a moment for its contestation. In sum, I present the uniqueness of Burma, not as a place where the open contestation of the power of the military junta occasionally and unsuccessfully takes place, as is often the presentation in most Western writing about the country, but also as a place where Burmese people, and notably Burmese writers, find ways to pursue their everyday lives. I show how the exercise of power by the military makes possible discursive spaces where such power is rendered deeply problematic, creating possibilities for the production of meaning that the state cannot control. |
