Mon Culture: Dying or Reviving?

Mon Culture: Dying or Reviving?: "These days, teaching in Mon occurs only in monasteries across lower Burma and a few hundred Mon National Schools in areas under the control of the New Mon State Party (NMSP). 'The language policy applied by successive military regimes has been to Burmanize at the expense of the language and culture of indigenous nationalities,' explains Dr Thein Lwin, a Burmese education scholar. He says that the Mon are but one of many ethnic groups fighting for language rights along with political autonomy. In June 1995, the NMSP signed a ceasefire agreement with the Burmese military junta. Under the agreement, the party was permitted to operate Mon-language 'National Schools.' But many critics say the ceasefire failed to guarantee the cultural rights Mon people had expected. 'I’m afraid that the Mon people went chasing after rainbows,' says Guillon, when asked about the language concessions Mon people demanded. U Palita agrees that the ceasefire was unjust. 'There are no advantages for us,' he said. A crackdown in November 1998 illustrates the ongoing repression of Mon rights. According to reports, military authorities banned Mon classes in 18 schools in Kawareik Township, Karen State. Around 50 teachers were fired, affecting more than 3,000 students. Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi spoke about the restrictions on language rights for the Mon in an address to the UN Commission on Human Rights in April 2000. 'Since this military regime came to power, the teaching of Mon language in schools has been prohibited. Now if that is not an infringement of the cultural rights of an ethnic people, what is?' Suu Kyi said. 'Language is important,' she added. Thein Lwin, who conducted field research into Mon language rights, says that the future of the Mon language doesn’t look good. 'It will be difficult for Mon language and literature to survive without official recognition by the government,' he said. A prominent Mon historian, Dr Nai Pan Hla, agrees. 'I think Mon will be a dead language within 40 years,' he says. Now in his 70s and living in Rangoon, Nai Pan Hla remains one of the best informed sources on Mon identity. But Ashley South reads the situation differently. A specialist on ethnic politics and author of Mon Nationalism and Civil War in Burma, South acknowledges serious constraints and setbacks, but insists that there has been some real success in Mon education initiatives since the ceasefire. 'Most of what is published and said about language and education rights in Mon areas focuses on the ‘bad news’ only,' South says. According to South, the NMSP ran 187 Mon National Schools and 186 mixed schools in buildings shared with state-run schools during the 2002-03 school year. The Mon National Schools taught more than 50,000 students, with around 70 percent of the students coming from government-controlled areas that had no access to Mon language education before the ceasefire. Summer vacation courses also started after the ceasefire. With support from local and international donors, more than 55,000 school students have attended courses in Mon language, culture and history in townships across lower Burma this year. Seventy percent of the students were girls. 'Regarding Mon education since the ceasefire, I’d say that it’s a case of three steps forward, and one step back,' South explains. Not everyone is so upbeat. Descriptions from local Mon people highlight the scale of the regime’s institutionalized assimilation. Sources say that when the military forces Mon youth to join the junta’s civilian wing, the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), they must list their ethnicity as Burman. 'If you give up your identity, you will be rewarded with a Burmese outfit,' says a villager from Ye Township in Mon State. At schools and in Burman villages, children with Mon names are open to ridicule, pressuring Mon parents to give their children Burmese names. Continuous migration and dislocation threaten the survival of the Mon language. 'Seventy percent of Mon people under the age of 40 do not live in Mon villages,' say U Than, an ethnic Mon reporter for the BBC Burmese Service who is based in Sangkhlaburi, western Thailand. 'Young Mons have to migrate to escape harsh economic and human rights conditions in their homeland.' With Mon people on the move, their language proves less useful. Many young Mon, particularly those living abroad, realize that being able to speak and write well in Burmese, Thai or English is more advantageous once they leave home. But even in Mon areas inside Burma the language is losing ground. Nai Kasauh Mon estimates that only 20 percent of the Mon vocabulary is used in conversation by people in Mon State. Words and phrases borrowed from Burmese and Thai are increasingly common. 'In villages, Mon people will refer to ‘the economic situation’ using Burmese words, because they don’t understand the Mon expression,' U Than explains.

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