In the focus group discussions in all three research zones, I tried to get the views of villagers on cultural aspects related to the disaster. It was assumed that some elements of culture enhanced community resilience. On the other hand, there are some cultural aspects that are arguably not helpful. On example is that many Burmese abstain from talking about negative scenarios such as ill health or disasters. Such cultural traditions constrain people from talking about possible negative impacts that need adjustment and could contribute to the community’s resilience.
There are two arguments on culture and the Burmese community: ‘it is the culture that blinds us’ argument and ‘it is the culture that bind us’ argument. During the summer, almost every Buddhist village has what is locally known as ‘continuous recital of Pa Htan’ (a ceremonial reading of a part of Buddhist holy scripture) performed collectively over a few days to a week. Such a recital of Buddhist text is believed to protect the community from possible danger. One of the famous poems in Burmese that was blacklisted by the censorship board for several years underscored how life in Myanmar was vulnerable to disasters even with this recital. A few verses are translated to reflect the cultural dimension of the people’s risk perception: ‘...it is good to have
Pa Htan recital for freedom from harm, but what is not good is we are not free from
harm’ (Pwint 2015, p.5).
People who challenged the prevailing culture argue that the ‘practice of asking protection from higher-up power does make us weaker. It takes our attention away from working on real things for protection’. (discussion in Bogale of Zone II during preliminary field trip)
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On the other hand, the ‘it is the culture that binds us’ group believed these traditional religious activities carried deeper meaning than asking help from the people who hold power:
We did this because we are aware of risks and uncertainty. Contrary to assumption that it is a blind faith, this is an idea of caution in practice. Without these activities, where these poor, helpless (little support from their own government) will gain strength. These cultural activities give them strength. When you walk in paved road you do not need much to care as traffic police even will work for you. But when you are going inside the forest there are a lot of unseen and unpredictable. So, homage to the forest guardian or religious text recital before going inside the forest gave you some sort of strength. You may think yourself wise for not adhering these practices if you have protective gear and equipment enough and when you can really feel safe to go inside the forest. But for most of us, these cultural activities give us chance to come together as a group and help building social cohesion that leads to a sort of resilience. (Discussion in Pathein with local community based organizations during preliminary trip) Harris (2012) argues that behavioral changes for disaster preparedness may link to existing cultural and religious practices. In the case of the Delta community, cultural attribution of risk perception is visible but it is hard to delineate how it extends to the boundaries of vulnerability or resiliency.
Regardless of disapproval between these two perspectives, both cultural arguments somehow have common ground in understanding that the military government’s incorporation of cultural practice to enhance its legitimacy did not help disaster resilience. The military government attempted to portray themselves as providers of safety and security. They set up ‘organized religious activities’ aiming to show the Buddhist majority people that they were the true patron of religion and defenders of the faith and the country (Ganesan 2007). For many years under the military regime, the State-owned television frequently broadcast the early morning sermons of popular monks, one of which carried the remark, ‘this monk protects the country in palm of his hand’. It is plausible to say that the military government was buffering themselves from poverty and the struggles of the people, and even enhancing their credibility with such a plain security narrative. On the other hand, the regime failed to provide practical measures of human security for the people.
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However, community-based cultural practices with multiple connections to the lives of local people are very different from state-led rituals. Still the administrative authorities usually occupy cultural and religious spaces and propagate grand narratives of security that have impacts on village communities. When the power, propaganda and false security narrative in the form of cultural and religious images replaced real action based in real life, it was the local community that had to deal with distorted belief systems and live with weakened resiliency:
When some people in our village said ‘nothing bad is going to happen such as
disaster, because we are devoted Buddhist and honorable monks are here to
protect us too’, I was responding to them in my thought. No. No. This is not
mentioned in Buddhist teaching and this is not correct thinking. But you see, where do the people get this kind of narrative? The answer is the State television. (A founder of a local NGO)