The health of citizens can be a good measure for the health of their country.  In Burmese culture, there are ninety-six forms of illness.  We thus grew up hearing on countless occasions ‘‘May your glory be great.  May you live a long life, a hundred years or more.  May you be free from ninety-six forms of illness.’’  Our parents, the elderly or monks usually say this prayer to our health upon receiving our obeisance.

The prayer reflects a sad reality.  One must have great glory, meaning that one has to be rich, powerful or influential, if one wants to be free from illness and live a long life.  In Burmese society, ‘great glory,’ whether it has been justifiably earned or not, has been a prerequisite for a long life free from the suffering of sickness.  Standard health care has simply been out of reach of ordinary Burmese people.

Just like other dictators around the world, most military rulers in Burma lived remarkably long.  General Ne Win, the person who ushered Burma into the dark age of military rule in 1962, died at the age of 91 in 2002.  The head of the Burmese junta, Generalissimo Than Shwe,  born in 1933, is now a septuagenarian.  Likewise, most of the members of his cabinet are sexagenarians and aging, but alive and kicking.  Not trusting the home-grown physicians, the generals have been known to fly to the best clinics in Singapore for their medical check-ups.

In contrast, an average Burmese man is expected to live 58 years and woman, 64 years.  Out of every thousand births, sixty two children die in infancy in Burma.  ‘‘The loved ones live short, the loathed ones live long.’’ remarks the eminent Burmese poet Tin Moe.

Increasing number of Burmese people are now living with ‘third-world diseases’ such as AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis.  The concerned international aid agencies have been stepping up measures to intervene in the health affairs of Burmese regime which has failed to help the country.

Authoritarianism also damages the mental health of citizens.  The failures of democracy in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq have been attributed to the collective psychological damage done to the citizens by Taliban and Saddam Hussein regimes.  The culture of fear and corruption promoted by ‘the Marcos dynasty’ explains the  failure of democracy, the behaviours of corrupt politicians and pervasive poverty in the Philippines today.

This means that, what may be called ‘chronic authoritarianism’ to a country can be as bad as a third-world disease to an individual.  It is extremely difficult for a country to recuperate once it has been down with chronic authoritarianism.  Alluding to the myriads of social ills in Burma, Vicky Bowman, who recently finished her stint as a British ambassador to Burma, has labelled our country ‘the Burmese Patient.’  We the Burmese could only hope that the military will not stay in political culture of our country forever like HIV would in the blood of an AIDS patient.