wfn.org | Despite censorship, lack of books, theological education in Burma goes on

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2001-309a

Despite censorship, lack of books, theological education in Burma goes on

by James H. Thrall

     (ENS)	In a reversal eerily reminiscent of Ray Bradbury's story Fahrenheit 
451, in which fire departments exist not to put out fires but to set books on 
fire, the duty of the postal service in Burma (Myanmar) is as much to block mail 
as to deliver it.

     "We are used to being suspicious of the post office," said one Baptist man. 
Postal service is irregular, and may depend on paying bribes to the postal 
carrier, he said. "You never receive your letters and if you do, some are 
censored."

     Not only do packages shipped through the postal system often "disappear," 
but postal officials review the contents of book shipments with recipients before 
releasing them. "It can take all day," said one seminary faculty member. Of 
course anything referring to the government's brutal crackdown on pro-democracy 
demonstrators in 1988, or about the government's chief political opponent, Aung 
San Suu Kyi, is forbidden, but also "anything mentioning peace and justice they 
throw away," he said.

     "If you ship eight boxes, don't expect to get eight boxes and you have no 
right to complain," said another faculty member.

     As a result, theological books are at a premium for Burma's seminaries and 
Bible colleges, with libraries pieced together from the flotsam and jetsam of 
what happens to be available, mostly books left over from the pre-1966 days of 
the missionaries, or carried in by visitors and returning travelers, he said. 
While in recent years the Anglican seminary in Rangoon, Holy Cross Theological 
College, has been able to gather a sufficient number of books for its library to 
win accreditation from the Association for Theological Education in South East 
Asia (ATESEA), donations from overseas are often seized as contraband. 

     While these books are usually destroyed, faculty at different seminaries 
mentioned that they have at times been able to find and buy back lost books by 
carefully monitoring black market booksellers. "They know what they can sell," 
said one. "We just have to look for them."

     Observing copyright restrictions quickly becomes an impractical luxury, they 
noted. Key books that seminaries do own are often disassembled, photocopied and 
bound for distribution to students and other school libraries. "We know we have 
no right to copy," said a faculty member, "but we have no way to get originals 
and so this is the way we have to collect books in Myanmar."

     And censorship is not limited to secondary literature. A request to reprint 
the famous Judson Bible inside Myanmar was refused unless 10 particularly 
offensive words such as "justice" were deleted throughout. A subsequent effort by 
the Myanmar Bible Society to import more than 10,000 copies by truck also failed 
when the Bibles were stopped at the border.

     "I think they are concerned that Christianity contains revolutionary 
content," said one Baptist man. "I think they are right."

Getting an education

     Such difficulties have not curbed seminary enrollment. At Holy Cross, the 
student body of 56 has doubled since 1996, and tripled since the 1980s when it 
was fewer than 20. The Baptist-affiliated Myanmar Institute of Theology (MIT), 
where classes are taught in English, serves more than 500 students, when counting 
a recently instituted undergraduate program. Two other Baptist seminaries on 
"Seminary Hill" in Insein, on the northern outskirts of Rangoon--the Myanmar 
Institute of Christian Theology (MICT), where classes are taught in Burmese, and 
the Karen Baptist Theological Institute, which serves Karen students--each have 
approximately 300 students.

     The number of seminaries is also increasing, noted the Rev. Smith Nguhl Za 
Thawng, general secretary of the Myanmar Council of Churches (MCC), as the 
plethora of evangelical groups that have taken advantage of the government's 
"open market policy" to enter the country open their own Bible colleges. These 
new schools, however, tend to be "small, small, small," he said. "We do not know 
how they manage to run."

     With government restrictions severely limiting the construction of non-
Buddhist religious buildings, life at Holy Cross "is a little crowded," admitted 
the Rev. Saw Maung Doe, the principal. MIT's 500 students are squeezed into 
facilities designed for 100, though the seminary is in the process of 
constructing an additional building.

     	The popularity of theological education stems in part from the dearth of 
other opportunities for higher education in Burma, Saw Maung Doe acknowledged, 
noting that there is actually a shortage of current students at Holy Cross 
preparing for the Anglican priesthood from the dioceses of Hpa-an and Mandalay.

     After being closed for a number of years following the bloody suppression of 
pro-democracy student demonstrations in 1988, Burma's universities have re-opened 
slowly and function erratically. To avoid large concentrations of students in 
downtown Rangoon--the demonstrations first erupted at Rangoon Technical 
University not far from Seminary Hill and quickly spread to the then-prestigious 
Rangoon University--undergraduate programs have been divided by field and 
scattered to distant suburban locations. Rangoon University is "like a ghost 
town," said one faculty member. The once bustling campus is currently limited to 
graduate students and international students studying Burmese language and 
culture.

Limited access to education

     	Although touted as free, college programs actually are quite expensive 
because of transportation costs and the need to pay private tuition fees to 
individual professors. With the backlog of college-aged and older students, those 
who can afford to attend and who have passed matriculation exams must usually 
wait a year or more to enter.

     As one university student said dismissively: "Burmese education--not good 
quality, too much quantity." But even the quantity can be lacking, others noted, 
as the pressure to move students through programs has resulted in sharply 
truncated curriculums, at times providing a college degree in less than a year.

     Young people "know they need to get at least one degree, so they are 
attending useless, distant universities," said one Baptist man. "It is useless, 
useless."

     Whereas "before World War II, most of the leaders came from universities," 
the government's military leaders are widely suspected of placing a low value on 
higher education because many of them are uneducated, said another man.

      That pattern of disregard may be changing in at least one arena: the only 
university program that can claim an elite status currently is the military 
academy. "Although they ignore other universities, they [the government] upgrade 
the military university," said one Anglican, but identifying oneself as a 
Christian is an almost certain block to admission, or to advancement in the 
military should one get in.

     With the severe limitations placed on access to college for the general 
public, "the places of our most happiness and enjoyment are no more," said one 
college graduate. "But we remember."

Ministering to students

     Once an extensive and independent network of campus-based units under the 
auspices of the World Student Christian Fellowship, the Student Christian 
Movement in Burma was shut down following the 1962 coup. It has since been 
resurrected as a department of the Myanmar Council of Churches and serves about 
10,000 students.

     With government concerns about almost any organized student activity, 
however, its emphasis must be carefully focused on religious rather than 
political concerns, said Saw Shwe Lin, national secretary.

     Any large gatherings, he noted, have to be carefully orchestrated, if they 
are permitted by the government at all. "Formerly we held a national ecumenical 
camp each year," he said. "Now medical and technology students can't meet in the 
same place."

     One of the biggest challenges, said Saw Shwe Lin, is the apathy of the 
students themselves. "They are lost morally and ethically," he said. With limited 
prospects for employment following graduation and low regard for their degree 
programs, "they don't want to be studious."

     Concerned that young people have no direction, one Kachin Christian has 
helped organize a soccer team for Kachin youth.

     "The young people I encounter in the United States are very different--
outspoken, they have their own goals," he said. "The young people here suffer 
from depression. There is nowhere to go. To do anything they need authorization."

     Even organizing the church soccer league has been difficult, with church 
leaders reluctant to risk antagonizing the government. "They do not want the 
church to be involved in anything to cause disturbance for the rulers," he said. 
"To shout and play soccer--the rulers don't want it."

Filling a need

     Christian organizations and seminaries also do their best to help fill in 
the gaps left by the spotty educational offerings. Both the ecumenical Myanmar 
Council of Churches and the Anglican province (the Church of the Province of 
Myanmar) assist students with scholarship aid.

     "There are some students who are brilliant, but their parents cannot afford 
to have them attend college," said Anglican archbishop Samuel San Si Htay. The 
MCC, in particular, is supporting students pursuing "post-graduate education in 
the hope that they will become lecturers in university, because we don't have 
many Christian lecturers," he said.

     At Holy Cross, tuition and board for the students is free, said Saw Maung 
Doe, with the annual cost per student of 150,000 kyats (about $300) provided 
through a combination of donations from the students' home churches and dioceses, 
the provincial office, foreign grants and foundations.

     At MIT, a recently introduced four-year undergraduate program in religious 
studies--the Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies (B.A.R.S.)--offers a 
comprehensive curriculum that attempts to provide some of the components of a 
liberal arts education. "We saw that it was a need and we have tried to fill it," 
said Marcheta Thein, MIT's academic dean.

 [The names of some individuals interviewed for this article have been omitted 
for their protection.]

--James H. Thrall is a doctoral student in the Graduate Program in Religion at 
Duke University and former deputy director of ENS.