Global IssuesQ&A: ‘Cartoons Are My Way of Protesting against Burmese Junta’
He talks with his hands. They are in constant motion as he expresses a view, makes a joke, mumbles.
They are the hands that have combined with Harn Lay’s wit and political insights into exposing the oppression and absurdities in military-ruled Burma through a flow of cartoons that have appeared in the Burmese media in exile.
In one, 44-year-old Harn Lay depicts Burma’s strongman, Senior Gen Than Shwe, sweeping the homes of residents under a carpet to make way for the junta’s new administrative capital in Naypidaw. In another, he depicts the junta leader shaped like a giant balloon to show the increasing power of the military.
'Humour is my weapon to target the military regime in my country,' says Harn Lay, a member of Burma’s Shan ethnic minority who got his first taste of brutal politics during the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, which was crushed by the military, leaving over 3,000 students and activists dead.
He fled Rangoon soon after the crackdown to begin his first foray as a cartoonist and an illustrator for a Shan rebel group operating close to the Thai-Burmese border. But work in the public relations arm of the resistance movement was not for him.
The product of Rangoon’s School of Fine Arts Academy knew he had more to offer. The influence of his father, who painted as a hobby, had also shaped his interest in the visual media, including a 'fascination with cartoons.'
IPS caught up with Harn Lay on the sidelines of the just concluded Mekong Media Forum — which brought together more than 200 journalists from across the region — in this northern Thai city to talk about his art and his politics as a cartoonist in exile.
Q: When you first came to Chiang Mai in 2003, it was to be a journalist for an exile media organisation. So what made you switch? A: A friend here told me that there were many who could write but few who could produce good cartoons. I began that way and now do it full time for ‘The Irrawaddy’, the Shan Herald Agency for News and other Burmese media that want me to comment through humour.
Q: And in six years you have become famous for voicing anti-junta sentiments? A: Yes but it is not because I am very good but because I have freedom of expression and I can express my views through cartoons. It is different for very good cartoonists inside Burma. They do not enjoy the same freedom as I do and that is why there is a big black hole in newspapers.
And readers who like my cartoons inside Burma do so because they like the freedom of expression. They see the art of cartoons I create as a right, and they feel strongly about it because they do not enjoy such a right under the military government.
Q: Where do you draw your ideas from? Is there a method to your art? A: I go to ‘The Irrawaddy’ newsroom meeting three days a week and sometimes I get ideas from the issues and stories they are discussing. There are days when I come up with a cartoon, having followed an event related to Burma very closely. Friends have also helped, suggesting ideas.
I spend lot of time thinking about the new idea, over two hours, and I also look for relevant information before I start sketching and coming up with the images that will tell the truth I want to express.
Q: Your cartoons echo sentiments expressed by the Burmese opposition in exile. Are you comfortable being closely identified with such political views? A: Yes. Humour is my weapon to target the military regime in my country. I draw cartoons as my own protest against the military government. And it is part of a tradition in Burma since cartoons first appeared in newspapers when our country was a British colony.
Q: But at least during the British colonial period, cartoonists like you could poke fun at the rulers and still remain in the country. It is not so now after nearly 50 years of military oppression? A: That is true. There were many famous Burmese cartoonists during the British era who used to expose wrongdoing during the colonial period. Cartoons have been published since 1902. There were 30 newspapers at the time that had very good cartoonists. And the British government accepted that form of satire.
But since we came under military regimes since 1962, the country’s leaders have been intolerant of satire. So cartoonists cannot express their opinion and humour openly, freely, inside Burma because of the three generations of military leaders we have had. The cartoonists have no space to draw, to oppose the government through their humour.
The cartoonist is similar to the opposition party, exposing government wrongdoings. But the governments we have do not like this tradition, so the quality of cartoons has declined inside the country.
Q: But you have also compared a cartoonist to a child. You say so in your book of cartoons, ‘Defiant Humour’, that the cartoon 'describes the world through pictures the way a child sees it.' Where does that idea come from? A: I was inspired by that story about the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’. We have a Burmese version of that tale. Children never hesitate to point out things in public when they see something wrong. A cartoonist is like a child in that sense, pointing out the truth or wrongdoing. Sometimes people do not want to say aloud what they notice, but not children. They are honest and express their views openly like the child did in the tale, saying the king had no clothes while his courtiers were saying he was clothed.
Q: And the Senior Gen Than Shwe, Burma’s strongman, seems to make a regular appearance in your drawings. You spare little in the ability to exaggerate his flaws and his physical details in a style not found in other drawings of him. A: I think Than Shwe is trying to hide his real identity and real behaviour. But sometimes his true self comes out like the way he ordered the crackdown of the Buddhists monks peacefully protesting in September 2007, or the Depayin Massacre in May 2003 (when pro-junta thugs attacked opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her party’s supporters, leaving 70 people dead).
I think Than Shwe is worse than how he appears in public, so I want to convey this real side of him — the hidden side — through my cartoons.
Q: This naturally rules you out from going back to Burma like so many other political exiles. Your success has become a barrier. A: Of course. I will be arrested if I go back.
Q: But are you also thankful to someone like Than Shwe for paving your path of success? A: (Laughs) My friends tease me with that view. They say that although I poke fun at Than Shwe’s flaws, I really have placed a picture of him on my desk and pray to it daily that he is the reason for my job.
© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service