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This Burmese democracy campaigner fought against the junta with jokes

Rogue Trader

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
Myanmar satirist fought junta with jokes
AFP
Wednesday, Oct 12, 2011


20111012.151645_internet_zarganar.jpg


BANGKOK - Myanmar's most famous comedian made a career out of poking fun at the country's military junta and his decades-long prison sentence was a testament to their lack of a sense of humour.

Zarganar, a poet, filmmaker and performer, has been a prominent voice of dissent in military-dominated Myanmar and his latest prison sentence, from which he was released on Wednesday, was by no means his first.

According to his supporters, the 50-year-old did not let jail dull his wit - deprived of pens and paper, he memorised jokes and regaled the wardens.

"The prison guards. Lots of them are Zarganar fans. They love him. They love his work. In fact they tell his jokes to their friends after work," said his friend Htein Lin, quoted on the Free Zarganar campaign website.

Bald and energetic, with a wry comic style that used word play to skirt the country's strict censorship laws, Zarganar built his career satirising the military leaders of the country also known as Burma.

"Burmese people love to laugh. If I can't speak, jokes will still spread. People will make them up themselves," the Free Zarganar site quotes him as saying.

Born Maung Thura, the son of two writers, he worked with several performance groups while studying at dental school and later adopted the name Zarganar, meaning "tweezers".

He joined the 1988 student-led uprising against the then military dictator Ne Win and was arrested that year, tortured and sent to Yangon's Insein Prison, where he was held for several months before being released in 1989.

In 1990, Zarganar was arrested again for criticising the regime at a rally in the run up to elections that would see Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) swept to victory - a result that the junta ignored.

According to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, he was sentenced to four years in prison with hard labour and was released in 1993.

He went back to the entertainment industry but in 2006 was banned from writing, publishing or performing. He was arrested the following year and briefly held for his role in the monk-led "Saffron Revolution".

Zarganar's latest prison term stems from his rush to help victims of the devastating Cyclone Nargis, which tore through the Irrawaddy Delta in May 2008 leaving 138,000 people dead or missing.

As the regime drew international condemnation for refusing access to the region to aid and rescue groups for weeks, the comedian was among the first bands of local people to get provisions to some of the 2.4 million people struggling desperately for survival.

He was sentenced to 59 years' imprisonment, later reduced to 35 years.

Zarganar, who is believed to suffer from heart disease, has described severe beatings and torture during previous stints of incarceration.

In late 2008, he was moved from Yangon to Myitkyina prison in the far north of the country, in what supporters describe as an attempt by the regime to further punish detainees by separating them from friends and family.

Dubbed the "Burmese Chaplin" by press freedoms group Reporters Without Borders, Zarganar's determination to fight political repression with comedy has drawn international support.

The British performing arts trade union Equity, who have made the comedian an honourary life member and sponsor his website, used one of Zarganar's jokes in its campaign to support him.

"There was a lucky Burmese man - he managed to get a passport and he went to India. Once in India he visited a dentist and the Indian dentist said to him: 'Why don't you wait until you go home? Don't you have dentists in Burma?'


"The Burmese man said: 'Oh yes, sure. It's just that we are not allowed to open our mouths.'"

 
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