Human Flower Project

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Peach and Flowers for Myanmar’s Martyrs

Barred from the nation’s sacred mausoleum, young activists mourn in the street behind a floral barricade.

Members of the National Democratic League

in Yangon, Myanmar, paid respects to the

country’s martyrs from afar yesterday after

police blocked them from the national shrine.

Photo: Associated Press

July 19 in Myanmar, formerly Burma, is Martyrs’ Day. On this day in 1947 General Aung Sang and eight supporters were murdered in Rangoon as they met to further the Burmese movement for independence from British rule. The Martyrs Mausoleum near the foot of Shwedegon Pagoda Hill in Yangon (as Rangoon has been renamed) is a sacred nexus, where historical memory, national pride, ancestry, and power converge.

The mausoleum itself was bombed by North Korea in 1983, when South Korean officials visited Burma. Twenty-one people died and 47 more were injured in that attack. In other words, this is no ordinary memorial. Rather it’s a cultural and political proving ground, just the sort of place where one finds flowers opening in civic demonstration.

General Aung Sang died just six months before Burma gained its independence. His daughter is 61-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been intermittently under house arrest since she returned in 1988. Eight years ago, less repressive times, she was permitted to bring three wreaths to the mausoleum on Martyrs Day, but not this year. Though physically restrained by the Myanmar government, Aung San Suu Kyi’s movement and the National League for Democracy party continue to pulse and act, florally and otherwise.

This year young supporters of the NLD wearing their distinctive peach attire were not permitted to approach the shrine. According to the Associated Press, about 200 NLD supporters were repulsed by authorities in Yangon yesterday. “After nearly 20 minutes stand-off between authorities stationed at the road-block, the NLD members placed four flower baskets in the middle of the street facing the Martyr’s mausoleum and paid tribute to the slain leaders, in an act of defiance.”

Once again, the right to lay memorial flowers becomes an international sign of popular legitimacy. Whoever brings a wreath or basket says, “The legacy is mine. I claim it with my presence and my offering of living beauty. See for yourself!”  (Sidenote: Readers from 154 countries have visited the Human Flower Project but, so far as we can tell, not one from Myanmar. Yet.)



We’re awed by the courageous young people of the NLD who tried to exercise their right yesterday. May blossoms shield them and vivid non-violence prevail.