Archive for September 23rd, 2008

The meltdown in perspective…

Tremendous news from Burma about the release of Win Tin, the country’s longest-serving political prisoner. Freed after 19 years, he promised to continue his fight “until the emergence of democracy in this country.”

He makes the fuss over the sub-prime bail-out look like so much chin-wobbling opera.

He is now 79 but was first sentenced to jail when he was 60 – for looking after a girl suspected of having an illegal abortion.

Win Tin was one of 9002 prisoners set free, most ordinary criminals allowed out for good behavior.

He once wrote a poem which he gave to a UN envoy who visited him in prison. “Will death be my release? As long as democracy and human rights are not within reach, I decline my release. I am prepared to stay.”

I once reviewed an incredible novel about Burma’s political prisoners called The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly for the Wall Street Journal…

PEN is hosting a fundraiser tonight in New York for victims of the cyclone which hit Burma earlier this year. The most interesting sounding speaker is U Gawsita, a 28-year-old monk who helped lead the uprising against the government last year and is now in exile.

Gross National Happiness

On Friday, I attended a talk by Bhutan’s prime minister, Lyonchen Jigmi Thinley at the Rubin Museum in Manhattan. The Rubin is in the midst of a fabulous Bhutan program – with exhibits, talks and performances until December. The Prime Minister wore the traditional Goh, a thick embroidered jacket, and spoke about Bhutan’s transition from monarchy to democracy. He also described the country’s policy of Gross National Happiness, which has been well covered in the West – though I hadn’t yet heard such a high-ranking Bhutanese explain it. It came about when the King acceded to the throne in 1972, while still in his teens.

He looked for social models around the world, but found none he liked. He believed that what people wanted more than anything was happiness – things like health, prosperity, education, were simply means to that. Economic development, he saw again and again, was pursued at the expense of the individual. So he made Bhutan’s national goal happiness. Plain and simple.

The four pillars of Gross National Happiness are: the promotion of equitable and sustainable socio-economic development, preservation and promotion of cultural values, conservation of the natural environment, and establishment of good governance.

Measuring happiness, of course, is a challenge. But the Bhutanese, with lots of help from curious well-wishers from abroad, try. Among their findings: rural people are slightly happier than urban people; cultural participation and identity is the strongest determinant of happiness among both groups; religious people tend to be happier.

You can read more about GNH here at the Center for Bhutan Studies site.