Free A Fortune-Teller Told Me by Tiziano Terzani Page B

being shot.” Now in its place is one proclaiming in big gold letters: “Tourists! Welcome to Burma!”
    So, Burma too has yielded to the common fate. For thirty years it tried to resist by remaining isolated and going its own way, but it did not succeed. No country can, it would seem. From Mao’s China to Gandhi’s India to Pol Pot’s Cambodia, all the experiments in autarchy, in noncapitalist development with national characteristics, have failed. And what is more, most have left millions of victims.
    At least the Burmese experiment had a fine name. It was called “the Buddhist way to socialism.” This was the invention of General Ne Win, who took power in 1962 and imposed a military dictatorship. He tried to spare Burma the severity of the Communist regime that ruled China on the one hand, and the American-style materialist influence that was taking root in Thailand on the other. Ne Win closed the country, nationalized its commerce and imprisoned his opponents, claiming that only in that way could Burmese civilization be protected. In a certain sense he was right, and ultimately this bestowed legitimacy on his dictatorship. In Ne Win’s hands Burma did indeed preserve its identity. The old traditions survived, religion flourished, and the way of life of the forty-five million inhabitants was not thrown into confusion byindustrialization, urbanization and mindless aping of the West. By these means a country like Thailand has indeed been developed, but it has also been traumatized.
    The Rangoon authorities did not want too many foreigners to “pollute the atmosphere;” they doled out visas sparingly, allowing only seven-day visits. Those who went there came back feeling that they had seen a country still untouched by influences from the rest of the world. Burma was a fascinating piece of old Asia, a land where men still wear the
longyi
, a sort of skirt woven locally; where even women smoke the cheroot, strong green cigars rolled by hand, and not Marlboros; a land where Buddhism is still a living faith and the beautiful old pagodas are still places of living worship, not museums for tourists to stroll around.
    That Burma is now about to disappear, too. After a quarter of a century of uncontested power, Ne Win handed over the reins to a new generation of military men, who have imposed a dictatorship more brazen, more violent and murderous, but also more “modern,” than the former paternalistic one.
    One had only to walk through the market in Tachileck to see that the new generals who are now the masters in Rangoon have dropped all pretense of following “a Burmese path.” They have decided to put a stop to the country’s isolation, and have adopted as a model of development the one that for decades has been knocking at their door, as at those of the Laotians, the Khmer and now the Vietnamese: Thailand.
    Tachileck has already lost its Burmese patina. It has fourteen casinos and numerous karaoke bars. Heroin is on sale more or less openly. The largest restaurant, two discotheques and the first supermarket are owned by Thais. No transaction takes place in the local currency, the kyat. Even in the market the money they all want is that of Bangkok, the baht.
    It is the military and the police who organize tourist visas, who change dollars, who procure a jeep, a driver and an interpreter. I took it for granted that the interpreter assigned to me was a spy, and I managed to get rid of him by offering him three days’ paid holiday. In the market I had been approached by a man of about fifty who seemed more trustworthy. He was a Karen—a member of an ethnic minority hostile to the Burmese; a Protestant, and hence used to Western modes of thought; and he spoke excellent English. Meeting him was a rare pieceof luck, because Andrew—a name given him by American missionaries—was a mine of information and explanations.
    “Why are the hills so bare?” I asked as soon as we left Tachileck.
    “The Thais have cut down