The Brave and the Faithful
By Caroline Park
Buddhist
country Myanmar,
the land of gold-gilded stupas glittering in the sun where devout
believers
pray within the hazy smoke of the freshly lit incense sticks. Visiting the numerous pagodas in Yangon, I was able to witness firsthand, the
devotion the
Burmese people had for their religion. Having
learned that 90% of the Burmese are Buddhist and
Christians
constitute a minor sliver of 6%, Burma was the last place I
ever
expected to encounter Christians. But
somehow during my short stay in Burma,
I ran into a small group of Burmese Christians who formed a strong
community
against their oppressive government.
In the town
of Dalla, my friends and I wandered the
little
town streets and ended up in the courtyard of a little church named Tamil Methodist Church. A man came out of the church building and
approached us introducing himself as Alex. Unable
to contain my curiosity, I asked him about the
church. How did a Methodist Tamil church
end up here
in a remote corner of a Buddhist country? He
smiled and answered that he was a third generation
Tamil Indian from
the city of Chennai. His grandfather, along with many other
Indians, had followed the British Army as farmers and laborers to Myanmar. Still another question baffled me. How did his ancestors from India
become Christians? Alex smiled again and
told me about a man
named Adonriam Judson, a Baptist missionary from the United States who came to Burma in the
early 19th century.
Alex’s
ancestors, the Tamil Indians, converted from Hinduism to Christianity
in Burma
and laid the foundation for the very church we had stumbled upon. Although there was persecution by the
government, Burmese Christians shared their faith through door to door
evangelism. Printing the Bible was
illegal in Burma so
the
Burmese Bible was printed in Thailand
and the U.S.
and was smuggled in to the country. Religious
get-togethers in homes were strictly forbidden
and only
registered churches were allowed to hold services.
However, getting a church permit was no easy
task in Myanmar’s
corrupt bureaucracy.
The
conversation was slowly shifting from religion to politics and I felt a
little
nervous but Alex did not seem the least uneasy. He
began to openly criticize the government’s corruption
and told us
since an average official’s monthly salary was about three to four
American
dollars, they derived wealth by wringing out money here and there from
the
citizens. The Methodist Tamil
Church had
to dish out
$200 in order to register as an official church. He
also told us that even though he is a
third generation Indian and is an ICC ID card holder (which I presume
means
he’s legally a Burmese citizen), he faces discrimination and is not
allowed to
work a government job, even as a teacher. He
asserted aloud that the government is untrustworthy and
undependable.
I asked him
if he wasn’t afraid that somebody would hear him. He
told me that if somebody had heard him and
reported him to the police, he could be taken away that very night. But he wanted us to hear what he had to say
about the truth. The truth has to get
out, he declared. And as we were
foreigners, it was the best way to get the truth about the government
known to
the outside world. In her
essay
about the fear and oppression of the
Burmese “Darker than Midnight,” Monique Skidmore’s comment that the
“Burmese
people
strive not to express fear […] suppressing or denying fear is the most
common
survival strategy” seemed to ring true in Alex. I wasn’t
sure if he was suppressing fear but
he definitely was defying the hold of fear that the government was
trying to
project upon its people.
I didn’t
say it out loud but inside I applauded this brave individual. Alex was the closest person I came across in Burma
who openly declared the tyranny of their government. He
wasn’t afraid to say what he believed
in. Burma’s freedom will need
more
people like him.
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