Using this time of self-isolation at home I thought I would spend some time writing up some of the inspirational and interesting stories told to me by fascinating characters I have met over my decades in Asia. Some of these stories are covered in my three life story books on South East Asia and India and some have been told to me by elderly Myanmar citizens for my Myanmar Oral History Podcast.
As a slight deviation from a life story I thought you might be interested in an experience I had last year that links the ruthless Joseph Stalin, the former Premier of the Soviet Union and the slightly less, but still ruthless, General Ne Win who led the military junta in Myanmar from 1962 to 1974.
Some of you probably saw the recent movie, The Death of Stalin in which the Soviet leader forces his inner circle (Beria, Khrushchev, Malenkov, and Molotov) to sit through a screening of John Ford’s 1939 movie, “Stagecoach”. Whilst that was a very strange scene, it is historically accurate. John Wayne who stars in that movie was Stalin’s favourite movie star. This was at a time when foreign movies were absolutely banned in the Soviet Union. Foreign movies weren’t dubbed for Stalin – this would have made the dictator’s tastes in cinema known to more people than Stalin wanted to. So, he had Ivan Bolshakov, who was called “Stalin’s projectionist”, learn the dialogue of each movie by heart.
General Ne Win also loved western movies and his particular favourites were all the James Bond movies. Movies weren’t banned in Myanmar but there was strict censorship. Whilst Stalin could only risk having his closest political colleagues watch the western movies in his home, this was not so for General Ne Win who was known to invite friends to join him for dinner and a movie on a Saturday night.
You may be by now wondering how this links to my life. Well, back in 1995 a senior Myanmar Government official (who remains a friend to this day and shall remain nameless) arranged for me as a life experience to be ordained as a Buddhist monk in a Yangon monastery and for our teenage son, Nick to join me – see photo. Last year I caught up with my friend and we yarned about “the old days” and I asked him how he managed to persuade the rather unpleasant Lieutenant General who was the Minister of his Department to arrange this for him. At that time the junta discouraged contact between locals with foreigners who were often looked at with suspicion. He then told me the story of what happened and which he had kept to himself for over 20 years. My friend told me that when he asked the General to arrange for me to go into the monastery he replied “So now you want to bow down in front of foreigners” which all Buddhists would do when they met a monk who, in this case, would be me. Nevertheless, the Lieutenant General arranged the visit for me. My friend told me that he knew his request had earned him a big black mark. Not long after this, my friend reviewed a project in the normal course of his work and rejected it. My friend did so, not realising the project had come from a friend of the General. This led, not just to a second black mark, but my friend being transferred to a remote place in the country at a date to be nominated by the Lieutenant General. The date never came. “Why?” I asked my friend. “Well” he told me “that is a very interesting story. To make ends meet, my wife started a small retail business and one day General Ne Win’s wife came in to buy something and, over time, they became friends. This led to us being regularly invited to General and Mrs Ne Win’s home on Saturday nights for the screening of movies. The Lieutenant General knew my wife was friends with General Ne Win’s wife and, so if my wife turned up one Saturday night for a screening without me, it is quite likely General Ne Win would ask my wife where I was.” General Ne Win had an extremely short and violent temper (worse I understand as he got older) and thus there was a big risk for the Lieutenant General that if General Ne Win saw my friend’s transfer for what it was, the next day or even that night, the Lieutenant General could be relieved of his ministerial position and transferred himself to some unimportant military post.
A month or so after this encounter, I met up with U Nay Oke (see photo), a Burmese friend I have known for almost 30 years. He comes from a truly fascinating family and he himself has led a remarkable life which I have covered in one of my books and also in my oral history podcast. I asked Nay Oke about General Ne Win’s love of western movies and to which he replied, “Didn’t you know that I used to review movies for the Censorship Board?” Of course, I had no idea and so he explained what happened. While Nay Oke was at school he started writing for magazines and doing reviews of movies. “Apparently General Ne Win read one of my reviews and enjoyed it tremendously, no doubt because it echoed his own view of the movie. He told his adjutant to go and find the reviewer and appoint him to the Censorship Board. So, a number of military officers turned up at my parent’s home and asked to see me. My father was extremely worried as he, needless to say, thought I had done something wrong and would be carted off to jail. I was still a teenager and when I came to the door the soldiers were shocked at my age and asked, ‘Are you the U Nay Oke who writes movie reviews?’ I responded that indeed I was. They looked at each other and you can see they quickly decided there was no way they were going back to General Ne Win and explain I was only a teenager. Ne Win’s orders were orders and so I was appointed to the Censorship Board. In 1962, ‘Dr No’, the first James Bond movie was released and, of course, I wrote a glowing review with which General Ne Win wholeheartedly agreed. A year or so later the second Bond movie was released. As you may remember it was called ‘From Russia with Love’. The Censorship Board wanted to ban it as they thought it was a political movie criticising the Soviet Union with which Burma at that time was close. I insisted that General Ne Win would love the movie. They would not budge until I came up with the suggestion that we would change the name of the movie in Burmese to something like ‘From Europe with Love’ and that I would take full responsibility. They knew if it all went horribly wrong with Ne Win, I would get the blame. Of course, Ne Win loved it and from that day on my colleagues on the Board never opposed any of my recommendations.
And that is my story of the link between Joseph Stalin and General Ne Win.
Peter Church blog 