Wish You Weren’t There

Q: How does tourism then help ordinary Burmese people?

A: There are two main areas here. One is the obvious one of earning some income, because the money that is spent goes every way, up and down: street vendors, coffee shops, drivers, souvenir shops, handicraft, tour guides. All these people are earning income from tourism. I know a lot of people who work in tourism and they all say their lives would be considerably impoverished without tourism. I’ve yet to meet a single person in Burma who is opposed to tourism. Every single person I’ve talked to, and I’ve talked to hundreds and hundreds of people—I’ve never heard a single person oppose tourism. The other major area is contact with the outside world. Burmese tell me that they relish these contacts with tourists, because they feel they can talk much more freely than they otherwise can, even among their Burmese friends. They can talk about politics, the world outside. There’s a third reason—this is what I get from my friend Par Par Lay (the famous comedian, jailed for satirizing the regime). I’ve known him for a long time. He’s been to prison twice. He says that without tourism there would be more abuse. The government has to be a little more careful how widely they abuse the populace because there are witnesses. There are people with cameras, video cameras, still cameras. In the 1988 violence in Rangoon if there hadn’t been tourists around there would have been no record of it.

Q: You say every Burmese you have met in Burma opposes a tourism boycott. Yet Aung San Suu Kyi and many other opposition figures support a boycott. Isn’t there a moral reason for supporting a boycott?

A: I think we have a moral duty to agree with policies that are reasonable. I voted for Bill Clinton, I was served well by him as a president but I didn’t agree with all of his policies. I don’t think the Burmese or foreigners are morally bound to agree with every policy that the NLD (National League for Democracy) come up with. I think it should be taken on a case by case basis. Otherwise it’s not democratic, is it? It’s not much of a democracy movement if you have to follow their every leader. That’s like a dictatorship.

Q: You say you’ve been banned by the regime from entering Burma again because of what you have written about the country in Lonely Planet. How do you feel about being blacklisted?