One Day the Soldiers Came - Charles London [50]
But there are others who feel no such connection to a cause, despite the persecution they have suffered.
Aung Su was ten years old. He had lived in Thailand for one year.
“I used to live in Mon State, but I came here with my mother one year ago. She wanted to work here and wanted me to work. It’s very difficult to earn money in Burma.”
Judging by this first answer, Aung Su’s family were economic migrants, unregistered and illegal, without any protections afforded those “fleeing fighting.” He did not mention political reasons for fleeing, though they perhaps existed. His disengagement with a nationalist cause might come from his mother’s disengagement or the fact that some parents choose not to discuss politics with their children.
“It was hard to cross the border. There are robbers, Mon soldiers”—the Mon are another ethnic group in Burma—“Burmese soldiers, Karen soldiers, all wanting money. We had to pay many times at many checkpoints. It was dangerous.”
The gamble of encountering hostile or unscrupulous soldiers while traveling through conflict ridden areas away from the safety of one’s own village seems like a big risk to take with a ten-year-old, unless the risks of staying put are greater.
After about half an hour talking together about sports and movies, school and dogs (he hates them, because they chase and bark; I told him that I miss my childhood dog, which he found absurd), Aung Su began to describe life in Burma.
“There are lots of problems with soldiers. They search for young men to take as porters. Many troubles. We came here. They came to my village and took young men and put them on a truck. They took rice too. My uncle climbed a tree to get away from the soldiers, but he fell and died. A ghost pushed him out. Another uncle died in battle as a porter. They don’t get guns to protect themselves. Many die.”
This description of his situation in Burma presented another side of the story. The reasons his mother could not earn money in Burma were directly connected to the fighting. The threat of theft by the military and of forced conscription loom over everyday life. Aung Su has a bright smile and enjoys talking. He is more outgoing than many of the children I have met. He works at a small shop in town when he is not in school. He recently saw the Spider-Man movie on his employer’s television set and drew me several pictures of the red-and-blue-clad superhero.
“I like to draw Spider-Man, but I don’t usually have colors. I like this.” He held up one of the pictures. “It looks more like it should with color. I am happy when I’m drawing” (Figure 14).
“What would you do if you were Spider-Man?” I asked him.
“First I would go to the Thai gangs. They attack people at night. They rape people and rob them. I would get rid of those gangs.”
“Would you go back to Burma?”
“I don’t want to go back to Burma. I want to be an English soldier. I want to drive and have lots of guns.”
An English soldier? He said he could not explain why. He just liked English soldiers, by which I think he meant American soldiers. (He thought I was English, so perhaps he was telling me what he thought I wanted to hear.)
Aung Su is like most boys anywhere. When I was ten, I played with G. I. Joe. I liked the idea of guns and soldiering, driving big cars and blowing things up. But Aung Su has seen war up close. He knows that it kills and destroys villages. Knowing this, his young boy visions of guns and cars are still intact. Is this the power of the media, which still reaches him through his boss’s television? Is this an innate quality in young boys who want to be bigger and tougher than they are? Is Aung Su angry at his powerlessness to save his uncle from the army that chased him into the tree, from the ghost that pushed him out? Is it power Aung Su wants, and if so, isn’t it power that those soldiers who came to his village wanted too? After all, he who has a gun does not go hungry.