The Foreign Service Journal, September 2007

O n a makeshift stage in a slum dwelling on 39th Street in Mandalay, it is still over 100 degrees at 8 p.m. The Moustache Brothers — actually two brothers and a cousin— are checking the mikes and plugging in the electric generator. In this neighborhood of jerry-built houses and open sewers, the electricity is out most of the time. Tonight, as they do seven nights a week, the three comedians are preparing to regale the audience of foreign tourists with their “politically incorrect” humor. The tiny living room is crammed with up to 30 cus- tomers, each paying the equivalent of five dollars for a seat. “If the secret police come in the front, we will escape out the back,” jokes Lu Maw, startling a German tourist in the front row. The perform- ers hold aloft a sign in English pro- claiming, “Moustache Brothers Are Under Surveillance.” In Burma the government may be a joke, but to laugh is to risk prison. In 1996, two of the group, Par Par Lay and Lu Zaw, performed at the Ran- goon home of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. As usual, the junta was the butt of their jokes. Par Par Lay wisecracked, “You used to call a thief a thief; now you call him a government servant.” The generals were not amused. Charged with “disrupting the stability of the Union,” the two comedians received the maximum sentence of seven years at hard labor in a jungle prison camp. At the time of their ar- rest, a government newspaper wrote, “They satirized and mischievously attacked the government, disparaging its dignity and making it a laughing stock.” After serving five years break- ing rocks, feet and hands in shackles, they were suddenly released. The Moustache Brothers credit their early release and, indeed, their continued freedom, to letters of sup- port from American comedians Rob Reiner and Bill Maher, as well as Amnesty International. They returned home emaciated but unbowed and, in the vaudeville tradition, vowed the show must go on, despite orders to cease performing or face prison again. Lu Maw, the only English speaker, starts with a monologue of jokes and hackneyed clichés that would make Jay Leno or David Letterman grimace. Overall, it is a bizarre mix of slapstick, costumed dancers and traditional Burmese music, like the “pwe” — entertainment by a troupe of political satirists, musicians, puppets and dancers — described by George Orwell in his classic novel Burmese Days , written when the author was a British colonial police officer in Northwest Burma. Now, however, Burma has become the 1984 Orwell wrote about later in his life: every artist, journalist, and even athletes, must be registered with the government, and prior permission is required to create anything new or stage a performance, including clear- ances from police, hospitals and mili- tary intelligence. So it is something of a mystery that the brothers’ outpost of uncensored “pwe” is allowed to exist. The brothers believe it is because the generals are reluctant to risk the bad publicity that another arrest would cause, curtailing the flow of tourist dol- lars. “Tourists are our Trojan horse. Tourism protects us and through them the world can learn of our plight,” says Lu Maw. About 250,000 foreign tourists visit Burma each year (visa re- strictions were eased a few years ago). After the show the brothers encour- age interviews. “Everybody hates the government,” says Lu Maw in a voice raspy after three hours of almost non- stop performance. “One day we will see change in our country. I haven’t given up hope.” On the way back to my hotel a young rickshaw peddler tells me the Moustache Brothers are heroes and a true voice of the people in today’s Burma. The paranoid and insecure men who rule are fearful that silencing them could unleash a storm of contro- versy that would again fill the streets with protestors, as in 1988. But as one foreign tourist observed, “It is one thing to arrest Lenny Bruce, but can a government really be brought down by Henny Young- man?” 92 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 7 R EFLECTIONS Politically Incorrect in Burma B Y D ON N ORTH Don North has covered war and ter- rorism in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Col- ombia, the Middle East and the Bal- kans, both as a cameraman and corre- spondent for ABC News and NBC News and as an independent filmmak- er. He also lectures on journalism and trains television journalists.