Review of Banmaw Tin Aung's Ng'Aw

This post provides a translation of a review of Banmaw Tin Aung's novel Ng'Aw, published in 1961.

Vocabulary:

လက်တို့ ။ to give notice, call to attending
ကျေချမ်း ။ to be appeased, conciliated
အပြစ်တင် ။ to put blame on somebody
ဆိုးသွမ်း ။ to be bad, unruly, delinquent
စွမ်းရည် ။ ability, capability
ညှဉ်းပန်း ။ to torture, ill treat
ချုပ်နှောင် ။ imprison; keep in custody; put sb in irons
အသားလွတ် ။ without reason
ကြမ်း ။ rough; harsh; violent; vicious; severe
မောင်းတက် ။ to goad
လူခွန် ။ capitation tax, poll tax
ကာလပေါ် ။ of the current period
ပျစ်ပျစ်နှစ်နှစ် ။ (abuse) roundly
ကြိမ်း ။ scold, threaten
ပြင်းပြင်းထန်ထန် ။ severely, violently
ကန့်ကွက် ။ to object, protest
နိုးကြား ။ become active; be alert; be vigilant; be watchful
နှိပ်ကွပ် ။ to oppress
ညှဉ်းပန်း ။ torture, ill treat
အုံကြွ ။ rise up; protest in anger; rebel
တိုက်ခိုက် ။ to attack, fight against
ဖြိုခွဲ ။ to demolish, scatter, destroy
ချည်းသက်သက်သာ ။ only, just
စားကြွင်းစားကျန် ။ remnants or leftovers (of food)
ခွဲဝေ ။ to distribute
ရှေ့ဆောင် ။ leader, lead
စွန့်ခွါ ။ to leave, abandon, foresake
ယောင်ဆောင် ။ pretend, imposter
ချောင်ထိုး ။ neglect, ignore
ပွပေါက် ။ a good chance
ကြိုးကြီးချိတ် ။ silk cords interwoven into a wavy pattern
ရမ်းကား ။ the most unruly
နလပိန်းတုံး ။ blockhead; dumbbell
ဖြုတ် ။ take off, uncouple, unhitch
လှည့်စား ။ to deceive
ကမ်းကုန် ။ to go beyond the limit
မားမားမတ်မတ် ။ resolutely
ပြတ်သား ။ decisive
လိပ်ခေါင်း ။ piles, hemorrhoids
ရွှံ့ ။ mud
ကုန်း ။ (apply oneself to a task) with all-out effort
ဟုမ်းမရူး ။ home rule, self-government
သဏ္ဍာန် ။ the form
ဖော်ဆောင် ။ elucidate and reveal the meaning
နောက်မြီးဆွဲ ။ a lackey, hanger-on
လွတ်မြောက်ရေး ။ emancipation
ကယ်ပါ ။ beggar
စာ ။ noise
တောင်းခံ ။ to request, collect
မျက်ဝါးထင်ထင် ။ vividly, clearly, with one's own eyes
လေးနက် ။ worthy of serious consideration; weighty; deep; profound
တောမီး ။ a forest fire
ယမ်းပုံမီးကျ ။ to fly into a rage
ခုခံ ။ to resist, oppose
တွန်းလှန် ။ repulse, repel
ရက်စက် ။ be cruel; be pitiless; be ruthless
ချေမှုန်း ။ destroy or wipe out completely; annihilate; crush
စွန့်လွှတ် ။ relinquish, give up; disown
အန်တု ။ vie with; contend; challenge
သင်းကွပ် ။ to castrate
သံသရာကြွေး ။ debt of sins committed in the previous existences
နွံနစ် ။ to sink
ရုန်း ။ to struggle free
ခေါင်းငုံ့ခံ ။ take things lying down
ဆင်းသက် ။ to derive from
တံစဉ် ။ sickle

Translation:

Writing that I'd like to call to your attention
Book title: Ng'Aw
Writer: Banmaw Tin Aung
(Kyaw Oo Publishing, first edition, June 1961)

(1)

It is said: "Hey Ng'Aw! Why have you gone to Targyi? Mother's house is here," and blame is laid on Ng'Aw. Ng'Aw is a villain. He is a villain but he is a good man. Is there a little confusion? When good people are unruly it is not yet evident whether it is for good or bad reasons. Ng'Aw is among those people who say that they are fortunate to have been imprisoned. The organisational ability of political prisoners from Tharyarwaddy Prison has the ability to turn a villain into a revolutionary.

It is not know with what type of people he came into contact while being tied up and tortured in Tharyarwaddy Prison for about a month and a half. When he returned to Banswe he was using strange speech.

Ng'Aw who previously when he was drunk would violently incite the neighbourhood leader, village head, and the police, would now [say things like] "Diarchy is not good, 'the [party of] 21' are traitors. The capitation tax is unjust. The English must be driven out. Village heads and neighbourhood leaders must be killed and revolt initiated." (page 85)

If Ng'Aw was still around, he would thoroughly denounce the present day diarchy and "[Party of] 21".

In the national liberation struggle that involved violent activism against British colonialism, a distinctive issue was the emergence of political awareness among Myanmar's 70 percent plus farmers. The farmers understood that the colonialists who oppressed them by unjustly purchasing at a low price the rice that they had exhaustingly harvested were their main enemy.

Due to that intense resistance on the part of the whole people of Myanmar, the colonialists established diarchy rule in Myanmar in order to destroy that great national liberation uprising and maintain their colonial system. Diarchy rule was just a new form of the colonial system. While enslaving and exploiting Myanmar, although it was just the previous British colonialists, it was only a distribution of their meager leftovers to some domestic Myanmar traitors who had joined with them to get special privileges.

At that time, 21 members from within the Wunthanu federation that was leading the independence struggle and some traitors abandoned the people and joined with the colonialists. (page 162)

There is a lesson in studying history so as to not be ignorant. Now, pretending to not want to know and neglecting history, a new "[Party of] 21" says "Will there be good opportunities?" and they are drunk with dreams in the USDP's diarchy parliament.

The pitiful new "[Party of] 21" is taking on the duty of carrying a packet of rice and curry in order for soldiers to become members of parliament, for ex-military officers who have removed their military trousers and put on embroidered sarongs to become members of parliament, and for the USDP thugs who are the most unruly military officers to become members of parliament.

It is said that that is not military rule. The people are not idiots. The internet is censored, satellites are forced to be taken down, [but] the people have life knowledge that they get from practical experience. In the period of the independence struggle it was not possible to deceive the people by diarchy.

(2)

In order to force out of Myanmar the British colonialists who were excessively oppressing the people, the farmers looked for good leadership and good weapons. In that, they did not find a leader who would provide resolute and decisive leadership. Political leaders were shouting loudly on the main roads. Not one person entered into the farm fields and the mud. Waving their outstretched arms and fists as though they were on the verge of breaking out in hemorrhoids they shouting loudly with all-out effort about "home rule", about which the farmers didn't understand a single word. Not understanding [these proclamations the farmers] had no interest [in them]. (page 212)

In organising the lowest classes, politicians need to use words that will be understood; it is necessary to expose the form of struggle that many people can take part in. In this place, without the people just being lackeys, it is necessary to be able to actively lead the people in order that they join in the appropriate path. Finally, the farmers joined in a collectively lead uprising for their own emancipation.

When no one emerged during this noisy shouting who would save them, the poor farmers came to understand clearly that if they did not save themselves there would be no one who would do the saving. They came to understand profoundly. In the final week of December 1930, starting from the 30 districts of Tharyarwaddy, after the farmers consulted among themselves, taking knives and spears in their hands they revolted against the British colonists.

Before long the great farmer revolt spread a fire with great intensity to the whole of Myanmar. (page 224-227)

It was not the case that the great farmer revolution emerged as a result of some person and political parties organising and agitating. While the farmers across the whole country were exploding in anger with the question of whether they were going to die of starvation due the oppression and injustice they had so long endured, of whether they were going to die fighting the great Thayawaddy 30 revolt gradually caught fire.

The Galon association was centred at the Alan-taung camp in the 30 districts of Tharyarwaddy and they fought back with the weapons they had obtained. Although the imperialist government ruthlessly crushed the farmer revolt with the unjust use of fire power, the relinquished challenges of the great farmers in the battle who glowed with prestige were a leading light in Myanmar's independence struggle.

At present, the great farmers are being made slaves of the military. Agricultural fields are being confiscated. The right to freely cultivate and sell has been blocked. The future of farmers' families is being castrated. They are sinking into debt. Only once they struggle free will they not sink into being slaves of the military. As much as injustices are committed, as much as they take things lying down, they will just be planting their bowed head into the ground.

Not only would that practice be irresponsible for farmers' future generations but it would also be blind to the gratitude [owed] to the agricultural fields of their ancestors which were past down through history. The person to deliver the rights of farmers is none other than the farmers themselves. At Alan-taung camp, it is necessary to hear Ng'Aw's words and for the hands that hold the sickle that harvests the crops to display sharpness as sharp as a knife.

Aswe-daw