TRAVELLING THROUGH NEWLY INDEpendent Burma in 1952, Norman Lewis concluded that the country: has freed itself from Western domination almost with the ease of removing an unwanted garment. As a result, no trace of bitterness remains, and a Westerner can travel with at least as much safety as a Burmese from one end of the country to the other, meeting, as I did, with nothing but the most genial and touching hospitality.
The great travel writer was beguiled by the charm of the Burmese. He believed they had a promising future so long as they stayed true to their strengths and traditions and didn’t try to replicate Western consumerism.
These hopes were half-realised, albeit not as Lewis envisaged. In the ensuing decades of ethnic revolts, communist insurgencies, brutal military dictatorship and grotesque human rights abuse, the Burmese Road to Socialism indeed isolated its peoplefrom Western influence, causing unimaginable suffering in
