Aung San Suu Kyi, on her knees, speaks to elderly writer Dagon Taryar at the 92nd birthday ceremony of prominent politician Thakhin Thein Maung (Wakhema) on Wednesday, February 2, 2011. Photo: Mizzima

When we, Burmese people, hear the name of 94-year-old writer Dagon Tayar, we immediately think of peace. Since Burma was a British Colony he has been speaking about and working for peace. He became the chairman of the World Peace Congress (Burma) in 1951, vice chairman in 1952 and an attendee in 1953 and 1974. Beyond that, he was the chairman of the Writers’ Association in 1950, as a representative of the All Burma Students’ Union, as the head of publicity of the Rangoon University Students Union in 1940 and as an editor for multiple literary magazines.

As a writer, poet, and peacemaker, he made many remarkable statements including “politics is making enemies become friends.” He also said, “I don’t have anyone I hate. I only have people who I love.”

Dagon Tayar expands on this in his book Culture of Politics. Burmese philosopher Sun Tun Thaung wrote an article about this book, commenting, “Dagon Tayar’s ideology is Ethical Epistemology, which is based on the idea of cause and effect. Dagon Tayar explained in his book that ‘It is not because I have no enemies that I have no hate, it is because I have no hate that I have no enemies.’

In the preface of another book, Images, he wrote: “Once, during the revolution for national independence, the people were united to fight against the British army and Japan. This united force was set in stone then, and I now want to rediscover this history.” Based on his experience fighting for independence, he added, “We should build unity to have peace.”

He carried out many events and activities, not only for the World Peace Congress but also to encourage a ceasefire in Burma. Because of these activities General Ne Win put him in jail from 1963-1967.

Recently, in Burma, there have been battles between ethnic forces and the government army. These battles resulted in signs of civil war, which caused Dagon Tayar to campaign for peace once again, saying: “I hope that artists and intellectuals can participate in the process of creating peace. Creating peace is difficult to achieve, but it is necessary.”

I got to know Dagon Tayar during the early 1990s when I was still a new writer. After the 1988 uprising I proofread the sequel to his novel We Will Definitely Get Our Era. The book is about the fight against the British and ends with a paragraph written at the time that Burma gained independence. Unfortunately, because of censorship in Burma, he had to publish it abroad. At the time, he was nearly 90 years old, and I thought that he would spend the rest of his life with his granddaughter. But, he told me, “I will continue this series into the future.” And that’s why he has lived so long: He is always thinking about working for peace and sharing his ideologies and experiences.

Dagon Tayar has been a part of the fight for independence against Britain and Japan, the civil war period post-independence, the 50 years the country was under military government, the 1988 uprising and proceeding demonstrations, the 2007 Saffron Revolution, and the 2010 civilian government’s start on the “Road to Democracy.” He saw these periods with his own eyes and participated throughout this history. He worked with a commitment to peace and love for the people who loved him in return. I feel that he is a living record of history and I miss that “history book.”

Talk2DVB anchor. Photo: Taken from youtube user DVBBurmese

These are samples of the annoying messages we receive on talk2dvb@gmail, the gmail chat account of Democratic Voices of Burma. Though it’s possible to know who’s leaving comments on our Facebook page, you can never know who someone is on G-chat. That’s why we must be patient when dealing with several thousand followers. Lost temper? We block them.

We only keep people who come to talk about their problems: Local armies grabbing land from poor farmers, abuse from officials, child soldiers, forced labour, corruption, no electricity, no running water. They are desperately seeking help since no one else has paid attention to them, but it’s too much noise.
Like Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” the scream from Burma is getting louder, louder! LOUDER!

“Dong! Dong! Dong! Dong!” The notification sounds on G-chat are non-stop from angry people. To deal with the flood of complaints we needed the help of some reporters from our office in Thailand until we started running an office in Norway. Sometimes there are four to five DVB members checking the account at the same time.

What is frustrating is that, apart from follow-up questions on each of the issues our contacts raise, we can’t talk to them like we would in a personal chat. We can’t even give a name when they ask who we are. Rather, we say we are a group, the talk2dvb team. Of course, some people don’t feel comfortable with such a robotic answer.

Even though it’s great to have thousands of contributors and to link them to one another, sometimes it can be a burden when all of us are on the run just before a live news broadcast. The rush hours.

“What the hell are you doing?”
“That f—ing busy?”
“Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy”
“HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”
Ah, there’s an angry mob on the line if you don’t pay attention for several minutes. If this was happening in the real world, there might be flying slippers and bottles.

On one occasion two anchors were reading some letters on-air. Next to them was a big TV screen showing our Gmail page.
I whispered into their earpiece, “Hey look! someone is talking right now about the early vote problem.” Then they read the comment on the show.
I wanted to show real-time incoming messages like other programs do, but it was a big mistake. The author sent us several messages after the broadcast.

“Why did you show my chat on a live talk-show?”
“It’s my real name, and now the whole town realizes it was me.”
“Got a problem, police watching me.”
We had made trouble for one of our sources, and the only thing we could do was apologize.

It was surprising to know that so many people were watching us in a small town in the middle of Burma,but it was also a spicy lesson for me: Of thousands of account names, not all are pseudonyms. Be careful when revealing your sources in such authoritarian country.

À bientôt

Poet John Schoorl at City of Asylum's Permutation House. Photo: Laura Mustio

John Schoorl is a award-winning reporter and investigative journalist from the Dutch daily newspaper de Volkskrant. As a poet he made his debut in 2007 with A Capella and two years later he came with Uitloopgroef (‘Run-out-groove’): Poetry as a hidden track of his favorite songs. He also made an anthology of Dutch poetry about Elvis. He lives with his wife and three kids in a small village, just across a statue of Hansje Brinker, the boy who puts his finger in the dike.

On April 17th Schoorl talked with us on Sampsonia Way’s block. This street on Pittsburgh’s North Side is where City of Asylum/Pittsburgh has a row of houses for writers in exile, all of which are adorned with original artwork.

Schoorl appears in front of the Permutation House which features writing by Wole Soyinka.

Schoorl and other Dutch poets came to Pittsburgh by invitation of City of Asylum Pittsburgh. The event was presented in collaboration with the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s “Distinctively Dutch” festival, the Consulate General of the Netherlands, the Dutch Foundation for Literature, Kleine Revolutie Producties, and Lira.