MissiOnLine.org Anti-regime Burmese comedians A laugh will bury them Burma, Myanmaar, Moustache Brothers Two brothers and a cousin: Voilà! the Moustache Brothers, an artist trio which performs underground. They have paid for their satire with jail but they have not lost the will of making fun talking about serious issues. We have met them.

It is pitch-dark on the 39th. In Mandaly, as it is in Yangon (not to mention smaller centres), electricity is optional: at night it comes and goes leaving wide city areas immersed in darkness. The few illuminated signs and some noisy generators make some light here and there, but neither them nor the torch I am carrying with me, fundamental for the frequent black-outs, is of great help. I am looking for street number 80/81 where the Moustache Brothers - a well known and brave actors' company that has long-since been banned by the Burmese dictatorship - live.

It is not easy to understand but in cases like these it can help to keep in mind two elements: a moustache and some basic knowledge of Bamar pronunciation. In fact, as soon as I stop to ask directions from a small group of people, a man looks at me and, smiling, says something that sounds like "Papalé?", bringing his right hand to his face, over his mouth, and miming the moustache. Yes, I answer enthusiastic to him, understanding that he is referring to Par Par Lay, Moustache Brother Number One. Not far away is the residence of the most famous and persecuted artists of Myanmar; when you enter you immediately access a room, preceded by a sink where a man is washing the dishes (I will realize later that he is Par Par Lay).
The one who immediately comes to welcome me is a slender but zippy male figure: he is Lu Maw, the Moustache Brother Number Two. I have arrived early for the show and I ask whether, before they begin, we may have a chat and if the photographer with me is allowed to take some pictures; Lu Maw is very happy about it. The place where we are is not at all big: on the left there is a wooden structure, slightly raised off the floor, that acts as a stage. On the wall behind us is a myriad of traditional marionettes as splendid as they are dusty. These are the work of the youq-the-pwe, or puppet theatre, one of the most expressive forms of Burmese art. Around the stage, there are about twenty plastic chairs ready to welcome, later on, the public.  

The opposite wall is a multicoloured collage of pictures, clippings of newspaper articles, posters, black-and-white and coloured images depicting the Moustaches with the woman that Burmese people call the Lady; that is, Aung San Suu Kyi, paladin of the Burmese people, who won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1991. The last picture in the timeline goes back to 2002, the year in which the founder and leader of the National League for Democracy, at present still under house arrest, went to visit the Moustache Brothers shortly after their release.
Yes, because Par Par Lay and Lu Zaw (actually a cousin) have paid and go on paying dearly and personally for their frank satire, as Lu Maw recalls, the only one of the three who escaped the horror of jail: aged 59, and speaking broken English (he is the only one with any English experience, and therefore serves as the only bridge with foreigners), the comedian has an incredible energy and so much will to describe, to make people from the outside know the reality that he and his dear ones have lived, emblematic of the tragedy of a Country oppressed by one of the most ruthless and harshest dictatorships of the world. “Our family has been on stage for more than 40 years – Lu Maw explains – it is a passion that has been handed down for three generations, completely dedicated to a-nyeint, a pattern of traditional theatre centred around popular musical comedy, rich in dancing, singing and farce performances; once (Moustache’s sisters and Le Maw’s wife are professional dancers, editor’s note) we used to be contacted to perform during parties, celebrations. We used to travel all around the Country and our shows lasted until morning”.
Gibes, jokes, jabs at soldiers and authority figures, denunciation of people’s life conditions that arouse hilarity in the public but not in the government. “My brother’s first arrest was in 1990 – Lu Maw recalls –he stayed in jail for six months; but it was in 1996 that the situation precipitated”. On the 4th of January 1996, the anniversary of the constitution of Independent Burma, Par Par Lay and Lu Zaw performed in Yangon during the celebrations organized by the NLD, in Aung San Suu Kyi’s home garden: “As soon as Par Par Lay started to talk, the audience immediately understood, with pleasure and surprise, that it would be an event that Burma had not seen for many years – Su Kyi herself writes in Letters from My Burma -. Par Par Lay began by saying that he would act and talk to his liking and that he was well aware that most likely such bravery would cost him his freedom…. The uproarious applause that welcomed his speech was the worthy prelude to a sparkling performance of parodies, mile-a-minute wisecracks, irresistible wordplay, wild dances and music. The audience was overwhelmed with awe for the comedians’ bravery who were finally giving voice to what the people gathered there would like to have said for many years without having the chance to do it”.  

“On the 7th of January – Lu Maw continues – the “Burmese KGB” knocks at the door and takes my brother and my cousin. The sentence: seven years of hard labour. On the 26th of March they are sent to Kyen Kran Ka labour camp, in the Kachin State, to the north, over Myitkyina. In chains, forced to chop stones, and to survive with difficulties. Many were the people they saw dying, out of fatigue, malaria, dysentery. It was the first time that two actors were sentenced to hard labour, finding themselves not among political prisoners but in the midst of assassins, thieves, drug traffickers. Then they were divided: my brother in the Myitkyina prison and Lu Zaw in the Katha prison. My sister-in-law, in those years, could only go every two months to visit him and bring him food, but she did not always get the authorization to see him”.

In July 2001 they were released thanks to Amnesty International’s campaign and to the many pleas of renowned people; but since then they have been forbidden to perform for their countrymen; they may prepare a “show” only for foreigners. In September 2007 came the third arrest: “It was precisely on the occasion of the Saffron Revolution – Lu Maws continues -. My brother supported the monks’ protest and he took part in some demonstrations; this is why he was imprisoned for five more weeks. A warning… They keep an eye on us always, we know that, but we don’t care about the government!” They hold tight unabashed. In the meantime tourists start to arrive, and the room quickly fills. Lu Maw with his English is spokesperson and star performer. He invites the audience to follow him in a short but interesting trip through the Burmese culture offering, above all, a slice of the dramatic contemporary situation without sparing blows and gibes, obviously always maintaining a comical air. It is hundreds of jokes, sketches, riots and puns that these comedians keep in their repertory and that the top authorities have trouble digesting.
 
Lu Maw, talking into a crackling microphone, starts with one of their war horses: “Par Par Lay has a toothache and he goes to Thailand to be treated; astonished, the dentist asks him why he went so far away: don’t you have any dentist in Burma? Oh, yes, definitely we have but in Myanmar we are not allowed to open our mouths!” Leaning against the stage there are many signs with names of different secret services on them; the brothers pick them up and display them while they address the audience: “Where are you from? Israel?”. Then there arrives a sign with Mossad written on it; “Italians?”. Ready with Sismi and Sisde. “Germans?” Stasi is there too. And more: “Moustache Brothers under surveillance,” “Par Par Lay arrested three times, jailbird,” with Moustache Number One miming the chains on his the wrists. Agile as a cat, Lu Maw springs up towards a video recorder and inserts a VHS tape: it is a part of the movie “About a Boy”, with Hugh Grant, set in an Amnesty call centre, in which Par Par Lay is expressly cited. 

In order to give the audience a taste of local artistic forms, the company’s women come on stage; they are skilled dancers who, accompanied by the music, perform some typical traditional numbers while Par Par Lay plays the role of various characters, doing a series of caricatures and even giving a tutorial on how to wear the longyi, the typical dress which looks like a long skirt. Again it’s Lu Maw on the stage, goading the observers: “You think you live in a wealthy Country, don’t you? Well, this is not true, Burma is rich! You don’t have opium, heroin, prostitution, HIV…Sure, drug trafficking, the government covers its eyes with one hand…and takes the money with the other one! – he jokes, miming the scene. – But there is no money for food, school, healthcare. Yes, in the past thieves were called thieves, now they’re known as government workers”! Reference is also made to international current events like when Lu Maw jokes addressing the Somali pirates: “Please, come to Burma, kidnap our generals, we will give them to you as souvenirs!”

At the end of the show, a series of t-shirts portraying Par Par Lay are displayed on the stage on sale for 5,000 kyat (5 dollars); the aim is to earn a little more and to spread the company’s image.

When even the last of the foreigners has gone away, I take advantage of the chance to stay a bit longer with Lu Maw while the others start to tidy up; on their always-smiling faces, I get a glimpse of something different; their faces betray a look of exhaustion which is not only physical nor due to their age. It’s a veil that reveals something unsaid, something inexpressible, painful. Lu Maw, with his appearance of untiring jester, asks me to let him receive a copy of the article through a foreigner. And, knowing that I’m Italian, he appeals to Dario Fo and Roberto Benigni, begging them to talk about their situation. Lu Maw – I ask him before saying goodbye – what is your dream? “That one day in Burma there will be democracy. That there will be freedom of speech, of writing, of joking. We don’t have any rifles, any arms, we only have our mouths. Tell all that, tell it”.

In autumn the new farce-vote

In Myanmar the situation of democracy is, if possible, every day more and more critical. Since the 7th of May of last year, the National League for Democracy (NLD) – which, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, sensationally won the elections in 1990, not recognised later by the military class – has been officially dissolved. The party (which for a long time had united the political opposition in the Country) does not exist anymore: his leaders have chosen in fact to boycott the next elections to protest against the “unjust and discriminatory” rules issued by the military junta to control the vote. Among them, the main (and most serious) one is that which, in facts, led to Aung San Suu Kyi’s exclusion from the electoral competition. She will have no right to vote nor to be elected because she was criminally convicted. However, some members of the old party chose to establish a new movement so that they can participate in the elections. Than Nyein, a former political prisoner and an important NLD member, announced that the new formation will be named the National Democratic Force.  Denying the presence of any contrast with Aung san Suu Kyi, he asserted that at the base of the decision made “there is the will to go on with our political activities”. But NLD spokesperson Nyan Win replied that the choice of establishing a new party is its leaders’ “personal choice”, stressing, a bit polemically, that they should have formally obeyed the unanimous decision of the National League for Democracy. 
After years of unitarian disputes, these last events thus represent a worrying signal which reveals the division within the Burmese democratic opposition. “Even before the vote – the press agency AsiaNews wrote next to a launch of the news - it is a victory for the military regime that adopts the “divide et impera” tactics to keep the power”.
The general elections called by the junta for 2010 should be held between October and November even if, at present, there is no precise date. In all likelihood, the vote will strengthen the military dictatorship’s overpower that already “reserved” for itself a fourth of the seats in the new Parliament, excluding, moreover - as has already been stated -, the main opposition representative by the electoral competition with a scandalous ad personam law (which, however, did not arouse any indignation in Italy!).
All of this, as a comment on the website MissiOnLine.org points out, has happened in the substantial indifference of the international community which did not raise decided voices of protest. Rather, many Countries went on trading with the dictatorship, not caring about the Burmese people’s sufferings.
The Burmese military regime, in the meantime, is getting ready for the electoral appointment in its own way. By the end of April, premier Thein Sein, together with twenty other members of the junta, had resigned from the army and established a new party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) which will represent the “civil” side of the dictatorship that will go on keeping the power in Myanmar.
At the beginning of May, according to official sources, 25 parties presented the request to participate in the vote; 12 of them got the ‘all clear’ from the Electoral Commission. In order to access the political arena, this time considerable financial resources were required (according to what was declared by dissident sources): a candidate had to pay a security deposit of 330,000 Euros, a party 550,000. 

 Translation from the italian language by Elena Dini