Burmese Governance and the Buddhist Ironies of U Win Pe’s “Clean, Clear Water”

Jamie S Scott

doi:10.22452/sare.vol57no1.12

Abstract

The Theravadan Buddhist dharma [teachings of the Buddha] and Burmese cultural identity are inseparable. Likewise, Burmese monarchs from the eleventh to the nineteenth centuries revered India’s Mauryan ruler Ashoka (c. 280-200 BCE) as the epitome of noble Buddhist kingship. In recent decades, military regimes have drawn upon inherited Theravadan tropes and topoi, while dissident pro-democracy voices have invoked the Theravadan dharma to expose the hypocrisies of authoritarian rule in subtly disguised ironical writings. This essay argues that the Buddhist ironies permeating U Win Pe’s short story “Clean, Clear Water” epitomize this latter phenomenon. A witty folktale on one level, the story reverberates ironically with the tropes and topoi of the Theravadan dharma. On the one hand, “Clean, Clear Water” prompts critical reflection upon the suffering associated with the attitudes and policies of Burma’s military rulers; on the other hand, the story’s ambiguous ending encourages some wishful thinking about the ostensibly consensual politics of Burma’s contemporary democratic reformers. The essay closes with some observations about U Win Pe’s continuing dissident work and concludes that his multifold use of irony in “Clean, Clear Water” constitutes an important marker in Burma’s ongoing struggle to restore the country’s tradition of right relations between political power and Theravadan Buddhist thought and practice.

Highlights

The Theravadan Buddhist dharma [teachings of the Buddha],1 and Burmese cultural identity are inseparable.2 the precise historical origins of this association are unclear, Burmese chroniclers relate several legends linking the Buddha himself directly with Burma
In 1994, U Win Pe was chosen as the first writer from Burma to participate as a Visiting Fellow in the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program (Zon Pann Pwint 2015)
Let ywe zin wuthtu do mya [Selected Short Stories]

Summary

Introduction

The Theravadan Buddhist dharma [teachings of the Buddha],1 and Burmese cultural identity are inseparable. the precise historical origins of this association are unclear, Burmese chroniclers relate several legends linking the Buddha himself directly with Burma. Though, “Clean, Clear Water” ends in an ellipsis, the story’s outcome at once indeterminate and undetermined, left in suspension like “the glass suspended in his [Ba Gyi Kyaw’s] hand” (U Win Pe 1992: 17) This ellipsis captures the ambivalence about the filtered water’s purity felt by every member of the family, by Mr U Maung Maung Ba the biochemistry professor, and even, it seems, by Ba Gyi Kyaw himself, despite the mass of scientific evidence testifying irrefutably to the efficacy of the patriarch’s water purification project. Though ironic, the devotional language dominating the closing paragraph of “Clean, Clear Water” leaves the reader questioning the legitimacy of Ba Gyi Kyaw’s autocratic attitude and the scientific rationalism within terms of which it is expressed, and wondering about alternative ways of conceiving and enacting relations between those with authority and those over whom it is exercised that the story’s ironical and indirect invocations of the Theravadan dharma suggest

Conclusion

Works Cited