Both inside and outside of Burma, people are debating whether the country has changed since the new government was sworn in. So has Burma changed? Inarguably, in some ways it has. But the next question is whether the change is substantive and meaningful, or superficial and transient.

On Wednesday, Aung San Suu Kyi watched a football match between Burma and Laos. This in and of itself has never been seen before in Burma. But what was more shocking was that the pro-democracy leader sat sandwiched between a Burmese army colonel in uniform and Zaw Zaw, one of the richest men in Burma and a full-fledged crony of the country’s rulers, who invited her to attend the match.

Not only was this something the people of Burma had never seen before, it is something that virtually everyone would have bet would never happen, especially in 2011. After all, it was only 10 months ago that Suu Kyi was released from seven years of house arrest, and Zaw Zaw, whose Max Myanmar Group of Companies is on the US and EU sanctions lists, is said to be close to the grandson of ex-junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe, the man who imprisoned her.

Kyaw Zwa Moe is managing editor of the Irrawaddy magazine. He can be reached at [email protected].

The level of optimism was raised last week, when the new government formed the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission and charged it with promoting and safeguarding the fundamental rights of citizens in accordance with the 2008 Constitution. This was an unprecedented move, despite the fact that all of the members of the commission served under the previous military regime, which was named one of the worst human rights violators in the world.

Moreover, international diplomats are now being allowed to roam more freely in Rangoon than was possible under the old regime. This week, the US special envoy and policy coordinator to Burma, Derek Mitchell, not only met with high profile pro-democracy leaders like Suu Kyi as well as top ethnic leaders, he also visited civic organizations like the office of the Free Funeral Service Society and an HIV/Aids clinic run by Phyu Phyu Thin, a member of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD).  

Then on Thursday, another historic first occurred when Naypyidaw's government not only allowed the observance of the International Day of Democracy for the first time ever, it actually held its own ceremony. Ex-Gen Shwe Mann, the speaker of the Lower House of Parliament, and ex-Maj-Gen Khin Aung Myint, the speaker of the Upper House, each gave speeches. Khin Aung Myint, known as a hard-liner in the previous authoritarian regime, actually said, "Democracy is a practice that can protect and uplift individual integrity and fundamental rights.”

He didn’t mention, of course, that the previous day the government slapped ten more years onto the initial eight year prison sentence of Sithu Zeya, a 21-year-old video journalist secretly working for the Democratic Voice of Burma, an exiled media group, who was arrested after photographing the aftermath of the bombings that occurred at the 2010 water festival in Rangoon and charged with violating the draconian Electronics Act.

So it's still premature to say that the scenes being played out over the last several weeks are an indication of meaningful change, rather than a performance by the new government to convince the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to give Burma its chair in 2014, the West to drop its sanctions and the UN to stop pursuing a Commission of Inquiry regarding human rights violations in Burma.

But even if the government’s newly discovered openness is primarily for show, and despite the clear hypocrisy displayed by some of the ex-generals, there hasn’t been a substantive meeting between the government and Suu Kyi in nearly a decade, or press coverage of her allowed in Burmese journals during that time, and there hasn’t been an event promoting democracy or any public discussion of basic human rights by the Burmese government in the past two decades.

Speaking at an International Day of Democracy ceremony at NLD headquarters, Suu Kyi said, “I believe we have reached a point where there is an opportunity for change. But I don't want to say it has changed.”

She added: “Governments always have to change. It is not a democracy where the same people are always in power. But change must be gentle, peaceful and dignified, and it must not affect civilians or the previous government. The new government should not be granted privileges. Everyone must enjoy equality.”

Her tone was conciliatory, but at the same time more positive than her supporters have ever heard. It seems that her recent activities, from meeting with Burma’s president to attending a football match with a government business crony, have been designed in part to end the vicious circle of rapprochement and repression that the government and pro-democracy groups have been ensnared in over the past two decades. 

Suu Kyi may feel that ending that vicious circle is the necessary starting point for what she calls “radical or value change.” But based on past experience, she certainly won’t forget that she is dealing with the same men who in the past have never kept their promises to her, who put her under house arrest for more than 15 of the last 21 years and who ordered vicious attacks both on her supporters at Depayin in 2003 and on unarmed protesters during the Saffron Revolution in 2007—not to mention the scores of other human rights violations that have taken place in Burma since 1988.

In addition, she is well aware that although the current government has arranged meetings and formed committees, there have been no concrete actions such as the commencement of genuine peace talks with the ethnic armed groups or the freeing of Burma’s 2,000 political prisoners.

Hence, Suu Kyi’s optimistic but cautionary statement that there is now the opportunity for change in Burma, but from a substantive standpoint, things have not yet changed. There does, however, seem to be enough political will to make real changes in less politically volatile areas such as economics and education, if not yet with respect to political freedom.

This may be another necessary first step, and if changes in these areas are initiated and combined with the newly granted freedoms to at least discuss democracy and human rights, that vicious circle may actually be broken. If this happens, substantive dialogue about national reconciliation, constitutional reform and human rights may be possible. And if that happens, Burma will be on the verge of real change.