U Thaw Kaung: Librarian Star In A Pariah Galaxy
U Thaw Kaung was awarded an honorary Doctorate in 1999 by the
University of Western Sydney, Australia and his citation noted that:
“During four decades of dedicated work, U Thaw Kaung brought scholarship on
the best principles of modern librarianship to the Universities Central Library and
other libraries in Myanmar, as well as to some countries of Southeast Asia….”1
Other facts were duly noted, but nowhere were the twin miracles acknowledged: that he
prevailed over a severe asthmatic condition since childhood; and that his library
achievements came within a country so ineptly governed that it was the first to be
sanctioned by the ILO. This past decade the United States joined the European
Community and most democracies in placing sanctions against investment and trade, for
Myanmar’s human rights violations rank with Sudan, Iraq, Somalia, North Korea, and
Afghanistan. How can one reconcile this contradiction between “the best principles of
modern librarianship” and such a dismal human rights record?
In effect, one must ask, can librarianship be practiced successfully in a tyranny?
Or alternatively, is it merely chinks in the armor of the junta that permits some
constructive civil activities, such as the practice of librarianship? This essay suggests that
a nation rich in literary resources can behave miserably in many ways, yet secure its
heritage by harboring dedicated librarians, although for such champions any day may
become a survival challenge. While U Thaw Kaung’s story is a window into a world with
qualities of Fahrenheit 451 [recall Ray Bradbury’s characters who each memorized a
classic to circumvent the regime’s book-burning practices], his experience more
resembles that of Yossarian in Catch 22, Joseph Heller’s qualifiedly insane anti-hero. To
prevail in Burma one must step through a looking glass into a distinctly different culture
where professionals struggle in the shade of an authority that casts military leaders as
heroes stanching the threat of state disintegration, as well as infection from the
globalization inundating their neighbors.
Burma came to life for me in the mid-fifties as a student at Johns Hopkins SAIS,
which had opened its doors to veterans of Korea and encouraged careers in Asia. SAIS
had centers in Rangoon and Jogjakarta, so in 1957, with MA and a Fulbright grant in
hand, my wife and I flew from Washington to Burma to join the Rangoon-Hopkins
Center. We helped administer the Center, taught, studied, traveled widely, and gave birth
to a daughter before joining UC Berkeley’s doctoral program. I kept my interest alive
through return research visits and writing, and 30 years later I secured a second Fulbright
to return as Cornell’s Southeast Asia librarian. Myanmar [the official name was changed
in 1988 by fiat] had fallen under military control in 1962 in a coup led by General Ne
Win. He launched a system of Burmese socialism, a unique ideology that justified
messianic state control and remained in place until 1988, when Ne Win resigned, leaving
an imbroglio which led to his biographer, Dr. Maung Maung [Yale, J.D], taking the helm
1
“Graduation Ceremonies 1999” University of Western Sydney Hawkesbury.
as President of a civil regime. That lasted only a month before General Saw Maung
seized power. I had arrived ten months before, just prior to the democracy uprising during
a period of liberal openness, so the Minister of Education allowed me to evaluate the
Universities’ Central Library and its affiliated college libraries. UCL Librarian, U Thaw
Kaung, was asked to facilitate my research, so before visiting a dozen campuses around
Burma, I met with Thaw on a daily basis.
Our friendship was spawned by the conversation flowing across his huge teak
desk in a magisterial office where we were surrounded by piles of books still in their dust
jackets. They were gifts from foreign governments and librarians awaiting his approval
before dispatch to some distant college library; however none moved during my threemonth residence, so I asked why. Thaw’s answer helped explain how he managed to
prevail and create Burma’s post-graduate library school in 1971, to matriculate over 300
librarians in the next three decades, to create and nurture a national library association,
and to expand holdings in Myanmar’s 40 colleges and universities.2 He knew the mind of
General Ne Win and acted accordingly, especially in his relationship with the General’s
most durable wife, Daw Ni Ni Myint. He earned his library diploma from London
University, while she was educated entirely in Burma, with a history MA from Rangoon
University. While he built the university library system, she taught in outlying colleges
for two decades before being assigned to chair the Myanmar Historical Commission her
husband authorized to revise Burma’s history, which was largely written by foreign
scholars. She recruited eminent Burmese writers and faculty, allied the MHC with the
Universities’ Central Library, and helped U Thaw Kaung and the research faculty learns
the delicate survival dance that shielded them from abuses affecting more confrontational
faculty, students, and opposition leaders. Ni Ni Myint shared Thaw’s goal of keeping
faculty and staff out of prison, despite their liberal opinions, by restraining their political
expression. But they sometimes failed, I learned, as a bright junior librarian who assisted
me in 1988 took leave in 1990 to manage the opposition National League for Democracy
[NLD] headquarters during their election campaign. He was imprisoned for several years
along with most delegates elected to Parliament.
While the military authorities have not shared the liberal mindset common to
librarians, they have been passionate about conserving the country’s literary heritage.
They have built a military archive of early nationalist literature, microfilmed civil and
military records, newspapers and serials, collected publications on strategy and military
history from around the world, and trained competent archivists to ensure that Burma’s
literary heritage is preserved, an obsession stemming from their perception of shattering
invasions from Chinese, Indian and British armies over the past millennium, as well as
loss of the Shan States to Siam during Japan’s WWII rule. Since independence in 1948
threats of dismemberment have motivated the military’s repression of minorities; and
some, including a Shan faction, still fight and demand independence.
Burma’s history is in spate, flooding against its modern institutions, its national
boundaries, and against the liberal values inherent in its libraries. Authorities, both
“The Myanmar Library Association and Endeavors for its Formation”, read at the International Federation
of Library Associations [IFLA], Bangkok, 1999.
2
military and civilian, feel the blood of their ancestors spilled in defense of their country
against imperial invaders. From elementary school through the defense academy, students
read and are instructed in the grave threats their nation faces, and the heroic sacrifices
paid by generations over the past thousand years. Reincarnation is a powerful belief.
More than one senior general has had an epiphany, believing himself to be a reborn
monarch; they have revealed their passion by wearing regalia and sending greeting cards
of their throne. Burma’s complex pantheon of nats, fearsome spirits of indeterminate
origin and endless duration, has facilitated the juntas’ capacity to suppress opposition as
they propitiate the nats who keep so many enthralled with fear. The unseen worlds of
reincarnation and nat worship combine in language and literature to enforce a code of
behavior and culture that distinguish Burmese.
The principles and practices of science have slowly gained footing, tempering
these ancient forces of Burmese religion, but librarians, teachers, and professionals drawn
from this culture cannot be expected to set aside the worship instilled by families, monks
and society in general. For example, the UCL director who replaced U Thaw Kaung after
his mandatory retirement at age sixty, was drawn from the same cohort of university
graduates as he, yet she devoted a portion of every day propitiating [and fundraising for]
a monk she believes to be reincarnated and possessing powers of healing beyond any
physician or scientific method. Daw Ni Ni Myint warned me to avoid her plea for
donations; I assured her the passion was understandable for none of my family friends
who have remained close over the past half-century have escaped the force of Burmese
religion. Each has produced doctors and engineers and had scientific education equal to
most Americans, yet each family has followed their own monk whom they believe
possesses power to resist sickness, oppression, and the evils besetting their country.
This is the political context of U Thaw Kaung service. A structure of a nationwide
university library system is in place thanks to his vision, skill and tenacity; it has been
sustained by an uncertain budget as various juntas have wavered as they tried to subsume
civil organizations to their particular design. But structure is only one feature of
substance, and grave weaknesses still afflict the system. Funding, particularly hard
currency, is insufficient for the materials budget, advanced training, purchase of foreign
publications, or even construction of adequate libraries. While librarians are in place and
poised for service to their patrons, few have computers and none have an online national
bibliography, nor do many have air conditioners to protect their materials from the
humid, insect-infested environment, or adequate space for readers or shelving.
Constructive changes are underway! U Thaw Kaung, in league with Professor
Tun Aung Chaing [Harvard PhD] and Daw Ni Ni Myint, helped create Myanmar’s
National Commission for the Preservation of Traditional Manuscripts in 1994, which
served as a model for a regional Southeast Asia preservation association affiliated with
UNESCO.3 The Burmese example is particularly efficacious because the Commission’s
composition reads like a directory of key figures in the higher reaches of education,
3
See Proceedings, The International Meeting on Microform Preservation and Conservation Practices in
Southeast Asia: Assessing Current Needs and Evaluating Past Projects, Chiang Mai University, February
21-24, 2000.
culture, religion, language, defense planning and archeological research. Two years
earlier the Myanmar Library Association gained NGO status after years of delaying
tactics from suspicious ministries, and it now meets annually to discuss topics familiar to
librarians everywhere. Cornell helped facilitate their first halting steps with funds from
the Luce Foundation. I returned to Rangoon annually after my Fulbright in 1988 and
developed a small conservation project administered from Cornell under John Dean’s
direction, which enabled UCL to microfilm endangered palm leaf and folded paper
manuscripts, and train conservation technicians. Over a dozen Southeast Asian librarians
have since been trained at Cornell and toured US libraries, and the Japan and Toyota
Foundations, as well as French, German and Australian donors have subsequently created
their own preservation efforts in Burma.
But the Myanmar Library Association is very limited in its capacity to build
quality collections or train staff in computer skills, in large part because of sanctions by
the democracies, including both Clinton and Bush administrations, which have blocked
external aid. This country of 50 million people, with over 40 colleges, universities, and
institutes offering tertiary education, toddles along on a UCL budget one-hundredth the
size of California’s university library system. Many argue that the junta’s frequent
closure of arts colleges to resident undergraduates because of their political
demonstrations justifies the ban on aid. But while their closure is deplorable, few
foreigners are aware that ‘distance education’ has burgeoned as a consequence. Some
200,000 enrolled students who remain off-campus place even greater demand on the
library system, as do their professors who continue to grade exams, read term papers, and
direct theses.
Where are the champions of Burmese society and its libraries? U Thaw Kaung is
one, and the University of Western Sidney; Hawkesbury is to be applauded for
recognizing his achievements and those of his 300 compatriots. Librarians sometimes
plead during a fundraising rally: “we are what we read.” Isn’t that also true in Burma?
Our modern library system is engorged with hyperlinks and gigabytes designed to
respond to that need, consequently we now share just a rudimentary structure with
Burma’s creaky, old-fashioned libraries. While the democracies righteously condemn the
generals’ lust for power through cultivation of fear, and Burma’s narcotics merchants’
greed for riches, how does that resolve the problem of educating current and coming
generations of Burmese? They must gain the knowledge and skills to survive in a
competitive, technologically advanced, global economy. Those hostile to eco-tourism
argue that Burmese have become like primates in a zoo exhibit for tourists to gap at, an
Asian version of a US Indian reservation. U Thaw Kaung and his colleagues contend that
by working from within they are gradually dissolving history’s poisonous chauvinism as
one leaches gold from ore with arsenic, thereby transforming their authoritarian culture
into a less fearful society more accepting of global standards. They earnestly believe such
values cannot be imposed from abroad.
At IFLA’s [International Federation of Library Associations] 1999 conference, U
Thaw Kaung concluded his talk about the formation of the Myanmar Library Association
with a reading from the poem Water Hyacinth’s Way, which compares human life to that
of delicate water lilies [Beda] floating along the meandering streams of the Irrawaddy
delta.
The unsubdued and unyielding Beda fair
Still keeps on wearing the flower in her hair.4
Let them bar the way from this corner
The water of a creek is there, and another…
I have a multitude of ways
To travel; at the end of the day
I will without fail
Reach my intended destination.5
My reflections on these conditions in Burma are not meant to suggest that the
situation is unique. Most countries suffering from poverty cannot afford technologically
advanced libraries; any more than rural U.S. counties or Indian reservations with low tax
bases can keep up with affluent suburban libraries. The consequence is an ever-widening
gap between the haves and have-nots in capacity to educate students capable of
producing value-added goods and services that, in turn, pay for future quality education
and information systems. The vicious circle must and can be broken, as U Thaw Kaung’s
extraordinary effort demonstrates. The victory is not yet in hand, but the creation of a
structure and professional training of a staff to serve all of Burma as the society re-opens
to civil rule, owes much to him. Who among us would forget that the library is often the
only place in a community where reading, reflection, and learning can happen?
Burma’s smaller neighbors--Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore—each have vital
national library systems. Internet connections are in place, young people access the world
in an instant, and no power on earth is likely to keep them from a common destiny with
the rest of modern civil society. Singapore to an even greater degree shares with urban
places in India and China advanced IT competencies that rival European and American
corporate achievements and erode Japan’s global dominance. The proper question should
be how Burma can most efficiently and economically benefit from its Asian neighbors’
technical advances, not how its people can be kept isolated from, and ill-educated about
the world, which is the consequence of current junta and U.S. policies.
I conclude this review of U Thaw Kaung’s role as a star librarian in a pariah state
with an illustration of how he has maneuvered to resolve the isolation issue. His core
belief is that direct communication and trust is the foundation upon which human
problems may be resolved, and that transparent agendas must accompany any goal set by
government and its agencies, including educational institutions. To disabuse Burma’s
tyrant generals of their inherent fear of libraries and the unfettered knowledge that
accompanies them, Thaw has lobbied them frequently and courageously to explain the
4
Thein Han [Sawgyi] The Hyacinth Way, translated by Amaythar, Yangon: Myawaddy Publishing House,
poem # 10. U Thein Han preceded U Thaw Kaung as Central Universities Librarian, and then immersed
himself in poetry.
5
Ibid, from poem 26, freely adapted.
goals, functions, and necessary skills needed to create a nationwide learning system.
While never endorsing their egregious behavior, he has been a consummate team player,
pushing other librarians, scholars, and administrators into the spotlight when his own
substantial management skill made the accomplishment possible. While not familiar with
the organization, he fully grasps the Cooperative Extension Service axiom; “anything can
be accomplished if it matters not who gets the credit.” Though a devoted Buddhist, he
lives by the Christian Science Monitor’s masthead quotation from Corinthians, which
Allen Dulles also had carved over the CIA’s entrance: Ye shall know the Truth, and the
Truth shall set you free.
John H. Badgley
University of Washington Libraries
Seattle, WA 98020
June 2001