Understanding Reform in Myanmar

Book excerpt: Marie Lall's book seeks to uncover and explain the recent political and economic reforms implemented in post-military Myanmar, focusing on key turning-points that ushered in the current transformation program, particularly those affecting education, NGOs and social justice. She maps the main reform priorities, explaining how they are interconnected, and what has been achieved, in the first tentative steps towards 'democratization', under the umbrella of President Thein Sein's controlled but more inclusive governance. Beyond the building site that is now Yangon, burgeoning urban car ownership and ubiquitous mobile phone use, there remains a widening gap, sharpened by inflation, between rural and urban Myanmar, at social, economic and political levels. Peasants are losing their livelihoods to development schemes that are being created to bring in foreign investment, and social justice is largely absent from the country's reform agenda. While the country has changed significantly, has the West been gulled into mistaking 'discipline-flourishing democracy' for true participatory democracy? Will the hopes of Aung San Suu Kyi coming to power in Yangon at the head of the NLD through an open and fair ballot ever be realized? These and other questions are scrutinized in this shrewd analysis of post-military Myanmar.