I spoke on the same panel as Ian at BSC, and for my presentation wanted to provide audience members with a guide to better understand the unique constraints facing artists in Burma during the censorship period. My talk focused on the mechanics of censorship of painting, and how it imposed limitations on artists’ channels of expression but also drove them to develop a new vocabulary that is crucial to understanding art produced from 1964 onwards. I chose this starting point because of Ne Win’s 1964 Code that regulated art exhibitions and formed the guidelines, however ambiguous, for how the Censorship Board judged artwork.

I spent the summer of 2013 interviewing artists about their experiences with censorship – which, if any, of their works had been rejected by the Censorship Board; the topics or subject matter that triggered censorship; and the mechanics of censorship in Burma. My research centered on the overarching question of why Burma followed a unique path of censorship in contrast to other socialist governments at the time. I wanted to know who staffed the Board, how they functioned, and even the dynamic and interactions between artists and Board members. To me, by seeing both banned paintings and paintings that made it past the censors, we could have a closer glimpse into artistic life under censorship and even the fears and paranoia of the military governments.

From my conversations with artists, and also a Censorship Board official, four or five major themes emerged of content in paintings that triggered censorship, and in turn helped to construct a sense of the military regime’s aspirations of national identity and the image they hoped to project. Most often, and on an ad hoc basis, the Board censored paintings with an undercurrent of a political message, abstract paintings, prolific use of the colors black, red and white, and perceived unorthodox treatment of Burmese culture (nudes or unconventional depictions of Buddhist imagery). Censorship officially ended in August 2012, but in my opinion artists are still walking a fine line to test the boundaries of freedom of expression within the visual arts.

In August 2013, on my last day in Yangon that summer, I stopped by Lokanat Galleries and found myself confronted by two black, red and white nude paintings by the artist Sandar Khine. Marked for sale and elegantly framed they appeared to shatter the Board’s former guidelines with their rather defiant stance and prominent position on the gallery wall. I departed Myanmar thinking that I had seen proof of the demise of the censorship regime and that a new space in visual arts would emerge for artists to experiment with non-traditional forms and tackle a wider berth of social commentary. However, in July 2014, I spoke to the artist and learned that those same paintings had lasted only a day in the exhibit until the Board rejected them for nudity.

The legal code and regulations outlining art exhibits might be evolving towards greater freedoms on paper, but how these relaxed guidelines regarding art exhibitions and overall freedom of expression are implemented remains to be seen. Until then, contemporary artists in Myanmar will continue to produce work in an ambiguous environment for freedom of expression. Will the remnants of an irrelevant Censorship Board fade away into the background? Or will new forms of censorship surface to shape the visual arts in more subtle but fine-tuned ways?

Melissa Carlson is a recent graduate of Johns Hopkins University – SAIS and is interested in censorship, national identity, and painting in Myanmar.

Back to BSC, my own talk focused on art and protest in Myanmar. As censorship is rolled back, art can be used, indeed is being used, as a tool of dissent. In the new environment not every creative artist or intellectual seeks to make a political statement, and that’s just fine. But many do, and headline issues such as Myitsone and Letpadaung, as well as far more mundane problems, draw abundant artistic comment and criticism. In the process, bridges increasingly link the political and creative sides of civil society.

My sense is that to date, though, most of the topics addressed at least by painters (with whom I have the closest ties) are pretty safe. Popular political heroes are celebrated. Ongoing transitional problems are documented. The need for greater democracy is promoted. Until recently, none of these matters could be tackled openly, because 50 years of rigid state censorship kept the art world on a tight leash. What we’re seeing in contemporary paintings is therefore revolutionary for Myanmar – and that’s terrific. At the same time, though, it tends not to reach beyond mainstream progressive opinion, which fully endorses deification of opposition leaders, criticism of faltering political progress, and a campaigning stance on democracy.

Largely missing, then, is any attempt by painters, and I think creative artists and intellectuals more generally, to challenge mainstream progressive opinion – notably with controversial and uncomfortable views regarding seismic issues of sectarian conflict, 969, Mabatha, and all that. I say largely missing because some work does do this. A series of paintings recently completed by Aung Soe Min is entitled “The crisis of Buddhism”. Several canvases by Zwe Yan Naing also look to be critical of monks and supportive of interfaith harmony, though his own reading does not always support that interpretation. Nevertheless, the main point is that the reasonably substantial volume of political art now being produced in Myanmar stands mostly inside, not outside, established boundaries of progressive politics.

In many ways, that’s perfectly understandable. In mid-February, a Mandalay literary event was cancelled following protest from Buddhist monks about the Muslim affiliation of three scheduled speakers. In mid-June, The Open Sky, a 20-minute documentary dealing with March 2013 sectarian violence in Meiktila, was withdrawn from Yangon’s Human Rights Human Dignity International Film Festival when social media erupted with aggressive criticism. Certainly, then, there are sensitivities of a magnitude that foreigners (like me) may not fully grasp. Nevertheless, it’s striking that some of the most wrenching political questions facing the country do not draw more artistic attention.

In late June I had a chance to talk with eight or nine painters about this and other things. My good buddy Ko Pyay Way from Yangon’s Nawaday Tharlar Gallery helped out. Broadly, they all felt that painters have a responsibility to protest, to bring issues to people’s attention, and to point the way to a better society. At the same time, though, their general view was that they don’t know enough about sectarian tension and violence to take a position on that. They added that they worry about saying the wrong thing and inflaming an already dangerous situation. Of course, they may even share the positions taken by 969 and Mabatha – we didn’t go there.

There are, then, real concerns and I don’t want to dismiss them. At the same time, I believe there is here an element of denial. I also feel that if, for instance, painters cannot address the most difficult issues facing transitional Myanmar, then the future is quite bleak. If not creative artists and intellectuals, then who?

Ted Widmer has an excellent New York Times op-ed on President Woodrow Wilson, World War I and American idealism. At the start of the Great War, Wilson aligned himself with established presidential tradition in holding both that the US should steer clear of foreign entanglements, and that grandiose schemes for human betterment were best avoided. Throughout his first term, he therefore made scant public mention of the carnage unfolding in Europe. However, once the slogan “He kept us out of war” had propelled him to a slim victory in the 1916 presidential election (277-254 in the electoral college), he changed course dramatically. This is how Widmer puts it:

“But Wilson’s silence would eventually give way to a different voice, the one that we remember him for. In the spring of 1917, after three horrific years, the world had changed greatly, and so had he. As he brought the United States to the precipice of war, he began to speak in a way that has defined the American presidency ever since. It was not merely that the United States would enter a European theater for the first time, in huge numbers. Wilson also asked that Americans fight to make the world ‘safe for democracy.’ In a sense, he asked the United States to become the world’s judge as well as its sheriff, with an evangelical optimism that has brought both inspiration and exasperation to the 96 percent of the world that is not American.”

Widmer’s interest is how Wilson steered the US onto an idealistic, interventionist path from which it has never really deviated throughout the century to today. Additionally, that path of course led directly, though also falteringly, to the formation of contemporary international society – through the League of Nations after World War I, the United Nations after World War II, and everything else subsequently placed in that rarified sphere. Furthermore, 1917 must count as a critical year in the process. For the second book of his multivolume life of President Herbert Hoover, George H Nash chose the title The Humanitarian: 1914-1917. Why 1917? Because by then Hoover’s Commission of Relief in Belgium had shown that humanitarian action can pay spectacular dividends, and had built a reputation that would lift Hoover himself to the White House little more than a decade later. (His fabulous presidential library just off I-80 in West Branch, Iowa tells the full story.)

In The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History, Samuel Moyn argues that only quite recently did human rights register with significant numbers of (elite) people as the proper cause of justice. Here he is on page 3: “The drama of human rights, then, is that they emerged in the 1970s seemingly from nowhere.” In particular, 1977 was a key year. Jimmy Carter assumed office as America’s first “human rights” president, Amnesty International was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and the New York Times printed the term “human rights” five times more frequently than in any previous year. All this was clearly important in shaping our global order.

In plotting the history of what exists today as international society, however, we need to look not only to 1977, when human rights came of age, but also to 1917, when global idealism found iconic articulation in the speeches of Woodrow Wilson.

Congratulations to TS1 Gallery on Yangon River’s Lanthit Jetty. Opening today, and running through September 20, is Aung Myint: 14 AM – a pretty cool title for a 14th solo show. One of Myanmar’s leading experimental artists, Aung Myint in this collection looks back at the age of 67 on a career dominated by five decades of state censorship. Appropriately, he focuses the entire exhibition on three colours that always troubled the censors – white (too pure), black (too menacing), and red (too bloody). Aung Myint’s work has long been available at his own Inya Art Gallery – really just a couple of garden sheds or garages in Yangon’s Golden Valley, not far from Min Wae Aung’s New Treasure Art Gallery and Khin Zaw Latt’s KZL Gallery. Recently he also had a painting displayed at New York’s Guggenheim Museum – part of No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia. TS1’s show can only bolster an already significant reputation.

I confess that until a week or two ago at BSC I hadn’t given the notion of commodity futures exchange a single thought – didn’t even have a clear sense of what it is. But I was convinced of its significance to Myanmar’s economic growth when I attended a presentation by Myoe Myint, executive director of MyanAmer Energy, New York.

In Myanmar, as in many countries at a very early stage of development, agriculture accounts for a major share of economic activity. In this case, 70 percent of the labour force is employed in the sector, and 40 percent of GDP derives from it. Yet trading arrangements remain primitive. In the years since the collapse of socialism in 1988, 44 commodity exchanges have opened in places such as Yangon, Mandalay and Monywa. Within them, though, there is little or no standardization of commodities, and everything operates on the basis of spot or cash markets for immediate delivery. Price volatility of 10 percent in a single day is entirely possible. While there are some unofficial forwards markets, they are characterized by widespread default and are therefore highly problematic.

What to do? The fundamental need, Myoe Myint argued, is to move from informal forwards markets to a formal futures market. A forwards contract is typically bilateral, customized, and unregulated. By contrast, a futures contract is based on uniform agreement for a standardized commodity, set within a clear regulatory framework. It generates far more predictability, and is therefore of enormous benefit to farmers facing tricky crop planting decisions.

To bring a futures market fully into being, at least four discrete reforms will be needed. First, a public warehouse system for storing standardized commodities will have to be created. Second, an organized commodity futures exchange will have to be brought into being. Third, a central payments clearing house will have to be instituted. Fourth, an appropriate regulatory framework will have to be set in place.

This remains the sum total of my knowledge. To me, though, Myoe Myint’s core argument makes a lot of sense. Creating a well-organized, centrally-cleared and regulated commodity futures exchange is essential for sustainable development of Myanmar’s agro-based economy.

Linked to Jared’s BSC presentation about doing business in Myanmar were some opening remarks from Zaw Oo, adviser to President Thein Sein on economic matters, and head of the Centre for Economic and Social Development at Myanmar Development Resource Institute. Among much else, he drew attention to the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index. This takes 189 jurisdictions, aggregates ten relevant indicators, and from them generates an overall evaluation of the regulatory environment facing anyone wishing to start or operate a local firm. The Doing Business 2014 data for Myanmar give the country an overall rank of 182 out of 189 (and the lowest place outside of Africa). Especially bad are disaggregated rankings for starting a business (189), enforcing contracts (188), protecting investors (182) and getting credit (170). As Zaw Oo put it, the only way is up.

Jared Bissinger ended his excellent BSC presentation on doing business in Myanmar with this quotation: “For my friends, anything. For my enemies, the law.” It’s variously attributed to a host of South American dictators – Brazil’s Getulio Vargas by the BBC in 2005, for instance, and Peru’s Óscar R Benavides by the Economist in 2012. Jared’s point was that it could also be uttered by any number of contemporary Myanmar leaders. Now far from a socialist period that was deeply hostile to private-sector endeavour, and pulling ever further away from a junta era of flagrant crony capitalism, the country continues to be characterized by generalized elite hostility to level-playing-field regulation of commercial activity. Land grabs are a routine feature of rural politics, business licences still tend to go to friends of the politico-military establishment, and even the constitution hampers entrepreneurial drive. Meanwhile, ordinary people find it hard to make a living. For reformers, the political economy of Myanmar’s transition generates many of the most difficult challenges.

Such a brilliant title from Jane Ferguson of the University of Sydney – I couldn’t resist. Also a great paper, as ever, delivered at BSC in Singapore just over a week ago. Mainly, of course, Jane focused on the manifold ways in which Myanmar’s 2014 census lacked sensibility, through not being appreciative of, or responsive to, the complex social setting it was designed to map. Noting that British colonial administrators conducted their first Burma census in 1872, followed up in 1881, and then at 10-year intervals from 1891 to 1941 sought to audit the territory they seized fully in 1886, she argued that they found neither caste nor religion to be a useful marker of difference in their new colonial holding. They therefore alighted on language. In a society that, especially in peripheral parts, was far from monolingual, this was a fateful decision that continues to play out today. The 135 ethnic groups that structured the 2014 census have long been part of the political landscape, but remain deeply problematic. Some reference language groups, others location groups. Notably in Chin State, some appear to overlap through the use of distinct spellings for what is in reality a single group. Particularly in Kachin State, the official list conflicts with entrenched local understandings of ethnic identity. In the northwest of the country, at least one group is found in two different states (Chin and Rakhine). Nationally, several groups with a decent claim to recognition are lost without trace. Jane’s paper, read from a prepared script and no less compelling for that, was a tour de force.

Today is the 26th anniversary of Burma’s 8-8-88 uprising – not as special as last year’s milestone, but still not to be missed. Having looked at The Lady on Aung San Suu Kyi’s birthday in June, I turn now to Beyond Rangoon. Based on an actual story, the film was directed by John Boorman, and bears some resemblance to his 1972 masterpiece, Deliverance. It stars Patricia Arquette, had Kyaw Win and Alan Clements as special advisers, and dates from 1995.

The weakest parts of the movie come near the start. In a distorted history of Burma’s 1988 uprising (something this film shares with The Lady), American protagonist Laura Bowman (Arquette) wakes to find Rangoon’s dark streets filled with people waving Aung San and Aung San Suu Kyi banners. Out of the night steps a simpering Suu Kyi (Adelle Lutz with none of the depth or presence of Michelle Yeoh). In her first and sole scene, she faces down a phalanx of armed soldiers as if it were nothing more than a student stunt. A little later, Bowman buys a bird and releases it into the air, only to find it flutter quickly back to captivity. Cue heavy symbolism from prospective tour guide Aung Ko (playing himself): “All they know is the cage.”

Thereafter the movie gets considerably better as Bowman, lacking proper documents and abandoned by her unnerved fellow travelers, joins Aung Ko to negotiate a dangerous escape to the Thai-Burma border. True, the central plains of Burma look remarkably hilly – but at a time of extreme isolation it clearly was not possible to film in-country. On the plus side, a very good tale of private and public grief unfolds. The 1974 student revolt is mentioned, government troops dutifully massacre peaceful demonstrators in downtown Rangoon, and palpable fear pervades the nation. In a voiceover from after Beijing’s later clampdown on democracy protesters, Bowman makes an important point. “What the Chinese did in Tiananmen Square was televised. But Burma wasn’t. So for most of the world, it just didn’t happen.”

Some 20 years on, I think it’s fair to say Beyond Rangoon is largely forgotten. For at least two reasons, that is regrettable. One is that it fills an important gap – can we really afford to overlook one of the few major movies about Burmese politics? The other is that it is an excellent film – can we really allow such good work to go unheeded? Fortunately, the movie can easily be found on YouTube (view count: 250,000), and is well worth downloading.

One of the best talks at the Yunnan symposium was given by Ashley South – an update from a key figure in the Myanmar Peace Support Initiative. In common with the rest of us, he had only 15 minutes. In that time, though, he managed to provide a masterly survey. I have his permission to present here my understanding of the main points.

Ashley began by looking at positives. In conflict-affected communities, notably in southeastern parts of Myanmar, many lives have been transformed. Freedom to travel is now greater than even a few years ago, with individuals no longer needing to buy a pass from state soldiers. Freedom to access ethnic language classes in public schools is spreading, led notably by developments in Mon State. Freedom to live a peaceful life is becoming a more common experience across peripheral areas. At the level of high politics, ethnic issues top the agenda for the first time in decades. Since the closing months of last year, government negotiators have been doing something they long declined to do – speak to an alliance of ethnic armed groups (rather than engage in a series of bilateral talks). None of this palpable progress is to be discounted.

At the same time, there are ongoing negatives. Separate resumptions of fighting in Kachin State and northern Shan State at the start of the transitional period, and quite widespread human rights abuse in both areas, are deeply troubling. The failure of peace negotiations to embrace all ethnic armed groups, with the United Wa State Army a notable absentee, is also worrying. The fear that fighting could again erupt in parts that have been getting used to peace is a real concern. These matters all require close attention as the process unfolds.

Additionally, many political challenges still need to be confronted. One is the role of the tatmadaw in the peace process. For the first year or two, military leaders were not fully engaged. Now, as that changes, they are proving to be less flexible than government negotiators. How problematic is that likely to be during the search for a final settlement? Another is the constraint imposed by the electoral cycle, which will start to have an impact no more than a few months from now as politicians move into campaign mode ahead of the 2015 general election. How much progress in securing agreement across government, parliament and the 16 ethnic armed groups can be made in such a context? Yet another is the content of any viable agreement, which will have to contain some “wins” for ethnic armed groups. Can there really be a meeting of minds on difficult matters like federalism and governance of the security sector, in which individuals across the entire political spectrum have close interests? Indeed, how might the multi-stakeholder dialogue required to examine such issues even be structured? Finally, basic questions relating to land ownership and sustainable livelihoods need to be tackled. At a time of rampant land grabs and large-scale commercial investment, can ordinary people register a significant peace dividend? Together, these many challenges generate much uncertainty.