The Campaign Smile: the Satire that Foreshadows the Downfall of Tanintharyi Region's Chief Minister

The satire that foreshadows the fall of a minister

The original Burmese version of the satire below appeared in Tanintharyi Journal in November 2017. Soon afterward, the regional government's office sued the journal, accusing it of disparaging the region's chief minister, Daw Lei Lei Maw.

The suit was filed under Article 25 (b) of Burma's Media Law, which punishes writings that "deliberately affects the reputation" of a person or organization. In another case, the same law was used to detain an editor and a columnist from The Voice Daily for a satire mocking the futile peace process, as previously reported by The Myanmar Times. 

Whereas the case against The Voice Daily was dropped, the case against Tanintharyi Journal ended up in a courtroom, with a judge issuing a fine of 500,000 kyats (about $327) against the paper, according to The Irrawaddy.

But ultimately, it may be Tanintharyi Journal's editor and satirist who got the last laugh. Today, The Irrawaddy reported that Burma's Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) announced the arrest of Tanintharyi region's chief minister Daw Lei Lei Maw. 

Reading the litany of improper transactions and contractual relations outlined in the ACC's report, one couldn't help but notice how they bear striking similarities to the conduct of the fictional corrupt figure Shin Gwan Gwi in the satirical piece. It seems Tanintharyi Journal is guilty of not only mocking but also exposing the misconducts of a powerful figure.

Groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have called attention to the way various articles in the Media Law -- most notably 66 (d) and 25 (b) -- have been used to punish journalists and writers in Burma, often not for reporting falsehood but for investigating and revealing what turns out to be true.

Currently two Reuters journalists -- Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo -- sit in prison, serving a seven-year sentence for their report on the Burmese Army's summary execution of a group of local Muslim men and boys. The Amy subsequently admitted their role in the incident.

The Campaign Smile

translated from the Burmese version published in Thanintharyi Journal, November 2017

Ever since she heard a new election for the director was underway, Shin Gwan Gwi couldn’t tear herself away from the mirror. She had been practicing her smile. She knew, to be reelected as the director she had to flash a mile at everyone.

“He he!”

Not good. With puffy cheeks cracking through patches of thanakha, her smile looked like a silly grin.

“Hah hah!”
“Hey hey!”
“Hm hm!”

Not one of them would do. She looked like an idiot. She didn’t want to look like she was kissing up either. This was difficult.

In 2015 when she first became director, she didn’t have to practice smiling. It was a breeze. Since the locals and villagers all hated her predecessor, since the village abbot, who was also her uncle, was looking out for her, she easily became director.

“Why not give Miss Big Mouth a chance? If you don’t like her, you can always fire her,” said the abbot.

To those blessed words, all the community leaders echoed, “Aye!” For the villagers, anyone who wasn’t the previous director would do. Even when they were displeased by what she did, they seemed willing to put up with her for the abbot’s sake. So she lasted, until now.

The next election was not a sure thing. She knew the villagers no longer respected her. When she first got into office, she got laughed at, for declaring farm trucks and ox-drawn carts must not pass her office, for confessing she didn’t know squat about governance, for forbidding people from grazing their cows, goats, and buffalos in the fields next to the village.

The worst part was the way she shot her mouth off about electricity. She’d bragged she could lower the electricity unit cost to about one-third of what it was. But two years later, she still couldn’t deliver.

What’s worse? The power generator at the utility firm run by her relatives kept breaking down, further eroding her support base in the village. By then, the abbot saw fit to take a vow of silence on all matters related to her administration.

The youth in the village, however, had been rocking her administrative seat with a variety of Facebook posts. (She found this out from her daughter; she herself didn’t know how to use Facebook.) “If you can’t do it, resign,” they wrote. Somehow, the abbot who didn’t use Facebook seemed fully aware of these posts.

“If you want to extend your administration, feed the folks long-stretching rice noodles,” the abbot counseled her secretly. 

Accordingly, she invited all the subdivision and sub-subdivision heads to a banquet of stringy rice noodle. But now, forgetting the noodles they wolfed down at her expense, they were all eying her seat for themselves.

So Shin Gwan Gwi must rely on herself, must keep practicing her smile. After a week’s rehearsed smiles (in private), she came up with a suitable one-size-fits-all campaign smile.

“Hwin hwin hwin!”

As a trial, she tested it out on her own previous daughter, Shin Gwan Gali. That was to buy her vote in the election for the People’s Representative of the Federated Households. If she could win over her own daughter, she could rest easy about her husband. Behind him, some people even called him “wrapped in htamein [a woman’s sarong].” That’s how easy to manage he was. But she was worried that her own daughter and husband might conspire to take her down. After all, her daughter Shin Gwan Gali was obsessed with Facebook posting.

“Hwin hwin hwin!”

Her daughter answered her smile with a scowl. After exchanging a few words, she began to get the picture.

“It’s not easy being your daughter, mom. The bachelors won’t hit on me because they know your reputation. And in five years or so, I’ll be past my prime.”

It seemed Shin Gwan Gali didn’t want her mom to run for office. Truth is, the girl had only her own water-barrel waist to blame for not finding a mate, and the whole village knew it. But still …

“Well, Darling Gali, there’s still a lot of unfinished projects. We’ll have to finish them to shore up our future .. I mean the country’s future. Hwin hwin hwin!”

At last, her campaign smile produced results! But Shin Gwan Gwi had to promise to immediately buy her daughter an Apple iPhone; and to fork over every month half of the director’s income as fashion allowance.

Having secured a vote to become a Federated Household Representative, she now had to work on becoming a ten-household director. First, from the households near her own home, she selected the ten households most likely to support her. Then off to the campaign trail!

“Hwin hwin hwin!”

It seemed to be going well. Some households owed her money; other were running secret gambling rings. These households were easy peasy. But somehow people found out about her campaign smile. Her daughter told her she was trending on Facebook, thanks to a certain group. She showed her a post on her phone:

If she comes around again with that campaign smile, I’m gonna slap her.

Good grief! What should she do now? There was a fair amount of like’s and thumbs-ups. Also among the reactions were the ha-ha’s and little baldheaded laughing emojis.

“Darling daughter Gali, what should I do?”
“Should be easy to fix. Give an iPhone to the one who wrote the post. I’ll deliver it for you. Take down everyone who said ha-ha or liked it, then invite them over and feed them something. Put their names in a raffle drawing for a hefty prepaid phone card. That should do it.”

The iPhone, the phone card, and the long rice noodle banquet set her back more than ten million. The day after the banquet, a letter came from her daughter.

Mom,
The half salary you promised is never going to happen. I didn’t have the heart to tell you nobody in the village is on your side. That’s why I consulted with my lover and cooked up this plan.
The one who wrote, “If she comes around again with that campaign smile …” was my little lover. He too wanted to have a shot at becoming director. That’s why we decided to elope; I’ve gone off with him.
Please give up already, mom. I will come to pay homage, as the wife of the new director.

Signed,
Shin Gwan Gali (currently wife of Facebook poster-in-chief)

“Eee hee hee!”

Shin Gwan Gwi cold no longer maintain her campaign smile. As last resort, she ran to her trusted village abbot and uncle. As if anticipating her, the monk spoke before she could.

“Shin Gwan Gwi, as far as I can tell, it’s not easy for you to be reelected. And I’d hate to see our family’s directorial lineage end with you, so …”
“Well, what’s to be done, abbot?”

The monk looked into the far distance. Then he intoned with a smile -- the very same smile Shin Gwan Gwi had been trying to master for weeks. Speaking one word at time, the abbot said:

“I’m going to leave the monastery, then run for director. Hwin hwin hwin!”

 --translated by Kenneth Wong