A Fresh Look at Myanmar after 17 Years

The World’s Mary Kay Magistad is in Myanmar and she speaks with anchor Lisa Mullins about the changes she’s seeing there.

For one thing, you can buy Aung San Suu Kyi t-shirts at the airport.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Lisa Mullins: The government of Myanmar used to be one of the world’s most repressive regimes. Authorities kept the country, known as Burma, isolated for decades. That started to change last year though. Myanmar’s government began to show signs of political reform and a desire for international acceptance. It released some high profile political prisoners and it started to open up the economy. Now parliamentary elections are scheduled for April. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad is back in Burma for the first time in seventeen years. She says a lot has changed.

Mary Kay Magistad: My biggest first impression was that when I last saw Rangoon, it looked like it was stuck in 1962, which is when the military took over and basically held power for most of the time since. Now it feels like a developing modern city that’s very dynamic and has a lot of energy. There are a lot of new buildings, um, there are traffic jams on the street. There didn’t used to be all that many cars, and the ones that were there were from the fifties and sixties. The city has taken major steps and also people who I have talked to on the streets, were saying that they are optimistic, if cautiously so at this point, about the changes that are going on in their country.

Mullins: You know it’s interesting that people would speak that freely to you. I’m imagining that in the past that that may not have happened.

Magistad: Well in the past, when I came into Burma several times in the early nineteen-nineties, people would look behind them to see who was watching and I know on a couple of occasions that people got visited after they were seen talking to a western journalist and asked, “What did you talk about?” Um, this time people were feeling fairly free to chat, but several people said they didn’t want to be recorded and specifically said, look, you know I think that things are getting better, but I still don’t really want my name out there because it’s still kind of sensitive.

Mullins: Perhaps one of the reasons that some people feel more optimistic is because of the status now of Aung San Suu Kyi, this is the long time foe of the government opposition leader who tried to bring democracy to Burma. She had been under house arrest since 1989, detained, but was finally released in 2010. Now how influential and how present a figure is she in Burma today.

Magistad: Well extremely influential. She’s become this iconic figure in Burma. She was even back in 1988 because her father, Aung San, ah, who was assassinated young, was kind of like the George Washington of Burma, their independence hero. And here is his daughter who steps up and says ‘I’m going to dedicate my life to this cause in Burma’, and she has. So now that she is out and is campaigning, the crowds just love seeing her and love what that represents, what that symbolizes in terms of a hope that Burma can move more finally in this direction of being a democratic, open, free country.

Mullins: Well there are two events happening over the weekend that I guess are a reflection of that sentiment. One is Aung San Suu Kyi, who is going to be speaking over the weekend. You are going to be there. And then there is another interesting and rather colorful event happening as well. Tell us about it.

Magistad: Right! Well, this weekend, this is the anniversary of the enlightenment of Buddha, the 2600th anniversary. So at the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon, which is a very important pagoda, a Buddhist pagoda, tomorrow morning 2,600 monks will be coming to mark the event, um and chant and pray, and celebrate the life of Buddha. In the past when this festival was held, when it wasn’t such an important year, there had been interference from the military government, and so there’s also particular pleasure this year in the fact that people can openly celebrate the festival.

Mullins: All right, speaking to us from Burma, also known as Myanmar, The World’s Mary Kay Magistad. Thank you.

Magistad: Thank you.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.