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As a long time advocate on behalf of displaced and persecuted Burmese ethnic minority citizens living in relocation camps, forced labour camps, and jungle hide-sites inside Burma, as well as those living in refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border, I wanted to find out what life was like in the urban areas of Burma, where the famous democracy movement protests of 1988 had taken place, and where in 1990 Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy (NLD) had been elected in a landslide, and then promptly jailed by the military dictatorship.
I began frequenting Burma news websites in order to get a better idea of the issues faced by the citizens of Burma who suffer national poverty under the brutal Burmese military dictatorship known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), those favored citizens who are lucky to be spared the ethnic violence, persecution, and forced labour which are rampant in the ethnic homelands behind the Burmese Bamboo Curtain.
After reading claims by certain individuals in the comment sections of articles at The Irrawaddy Magazine website, and also at the Democratic Voice of Burma website, stating that a London businessman they referred to as "Crown Prince Shwebomin" is the pretender to the abolished throne of Burma, I decided to find out more about the man whom these individuals call "His Majesty King Shwebomin II".
Apparently, Mr. Shwebomin has not set foot in Burma since he left at the age of 13 to begin his schooling in Great Britain, and other than his own claims regarding his ancestry, his life in Great Britain, and his back-story as regards the events surrounding his so-called "exile", there does not seem to be anyone in Burma who has ever heard of him.
His story is that after being chaperoned to the airport in London by Burmese embassy people for his return to Burma, at the last moment he fled his connecting flight in Frankfurt, escaped to Switzerland, and then disappeared into Great Britain for twenty years. Now if as he said in one account, he had been sent to England to be protected as the future King of Burma, how does he later end up meekly being escorted to the airport by embassy officials with no mention of fighting to stay in England?
And if he had gone against direct orders from the Burmese embassy to return to Burma, it seems logical that he would have been declared persona non grata by the military dictators he had shunned, and it therefore seems doubtful that he would continue receiving passport renewals from the Burmese embassy. It is equally doubtful that Great Britain would have allowed him to remain indefinitely on an expired passport.
I can only speculate that Shwebomin has most likely become a citizen of Great Britain at some point during the intervening years.
Not wanting to short-cut the process of determining the ancestry of Mr. Shwebomin, I decided to look around online to see what the general concensus was among genealogists as regards the the descendants of the Burmese Royal bloodline.
In fact, Edward Taw Phaya who was born in 1924 and still lives in Burma, is the last surviving grandson of the last King of Burma, and it is he who is recognized as the heir to the throne of Burma by leading genealogical experts, not Mr. Shwebomin.
Other than those who seem to take Shwebomin's claims at face value, I found no historians or genealogists who accept him as a legitimate heir to the abolished throne of Burma. And it was not because they did not request that he submit details of his ancestry so that they could properly place him in his alledged family line either.
I went so far as to email renowned genealogist Christopher Buyers in Great Britain, whose ROYAL ARK website is well known for his extensive research of the genealogies of the Royal and ruling houses of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. Mr Buyers maintains an extensive genealogy of the Royal families of Burma, and his genealogy of the Konbaung Dynasty alone, from which "Shwebomin" claims his ancestry, is 19 pages long.
When asked about "Crown Prince Shwebomin" Mr Buyers replied:
"The so called Shwebomin is a complete hoax who has been doing the European pretender party circuit for years. Sometime ago several people, including myself, who were interested in Royal genealogy asked him to provide his ancestry. He never provided anything despite several requests. Whenever questioned, his explanations always sounded very shifty and he would disappear for a while."
Since no one posting from Burma has ever heard of him, I was not surprised to hear that he was unwilling to reveal any details of his alledged royal ancestry.
Considering that Mr. Shwebomin has refused to cooperate with genealogists, he must have either had something to hide, or nothing to show.
That was when I found the two online video interviews on the British talkshow called "The Defining Moment". One segment was titled "Leadership and Selflessness" and the other segment "Power vs. Moral Authority". In both segments he rambled on as if he had been recognised as Burmese royalty prior to his "self-exile" in order to avoid being used by the military regime.
His comments alluded that he has been raised-up from boyhood to be the King of Burma someday. However, in the few written interviews with the alledged "Crown Prince" which are still available online, I found that his explanations as regards the dates and circumstances surrounding his leaving Burma were contradictory to what was revealed in the Defining Moment videos.
In one interview dated January 2004,"East End Exile for Burmese Prince" , Shewbomin's back-story is that he had "lived in Burma under military rule for 18 months" before he left, and that his (unidentified) uncle had decided that the future king's life would be in danger from the military government if he stayed.
Yet in his introduction by Host Ajay Rai for the "Power Vs. Moral Authority" interview in May 2007, the back-story was "His Royal Highness came to England in 1961, initially for his education. However, eight months later there was a military coup, which ushered in the communist regime".
Why did he earlier say that he had lived under military rule for 18 months, if the military coup occurred 8 months after he left to begin his education in England?
I am not sure why his unidentified uncle was no longer part of the story, however, it was also stated in the January 2004 interview that: "In July 1961, Prince Shwebomin saw and spoke to his parents and four younger brothers for the last time before boarding a flight to England".
Even though there is no such title in Burmese royalty known as a "Crown Prince", and the Burmese Monarchy ceased to exist when King Thibaw abdicated his throne, if one is willing to play-along and say that the 13 year-old Shwebomin was alledgedly the "future King", and his father (also unidentified) was alive at the time his uncle decided that Shwebomin must be transported to England for his protection, wouldn't his father have still been the "Crown Prince" at the time?
And if so, why would it have been his uncle's decision to send the "future King" to England, if his father was the "Crown Prince"?
One of the most disturbing aspects of the Defining Moment interviews, is how Shwebomin hardly ever mentions the impoverishment and suffering of the Burmese citizenry under the successive military dictatorships, the millions of brutally persecuted ethnic minority citizens which he only spoke of one time when he referred to them as "insurgents", and the 1988 protests for democracy which led to the 1990 elections which the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi won by a landslide which was overturned by the military dictators who instead of handing over power, placed her under house-arrest.
In an strangely aloof manner, Shwebomin described South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandella as his ideal of a selfless leader for having endured 27 years in prison, instead of the Burmese Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratically elected leader of Burma, who has spent most of the last 2o years either in prison or under house arrest in Burma. And, in what I can only see as his contempt for the Burmese people who elected her as their leader in 1990, during the two half-hour long programs he never once mentioned Aung San Suu Kyi, and was mostly supportive of the military regime, which at one point he described as "His Army".
If anything, his comments regarding what his inputs would be as the King of Burma, seemed to be based on some sort of utopian best case scenario where all of Burma's problems of political, economic, ethnic, and religious oppression and government corruption had already been solved, at which point the citizens of Burma would then see the absolute necessity to reinstate the monarchy and crown him as His Majesty King Shwebomin II.
His final comment at the end of the interview demonstrates how little understanding he had of the brutal SPDC regime which he had earlier described as "His Army", the shock-troops of which would be beating, disrobing, and murdering Buddhist monks a few months later in September 2007.
I have received permission from The Defining Moment to transcribe and post the content of the two video interviews, therefore in order to attempt to clear up unproven claims regarding Mr. Shwebomin at Burmese News outlets, I am posting the "Power vs. Moral Authority" interview so that everyone can meet "Crown Prince Shwebomin" up close and personal, and separate the man from the myth.
For those who are familiar with his *supporters comments, after watching this interview, it may become apparent that Mr. Shwebomin is perhaps personally posting those comments on his own behalf.
*Myanmar Patriot4 UMPF aka Myanmar Patriots aka Burmese People to name a few.
I recommend viewing the video the first time through, and then reading the transcript while listening to the audio portion of the interview.
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Ajay:
Hello, my name is Ajay Rai, and you're watching The Defining Moment, for creating the culture of conscience. Today it’s truly an honor for us to welcome His Royal Highness, the Crown Prince of Burma on the show.
His Royal Highness came to England in 1961, initially for his education. However, eight months later there was a military coup, which ushered in the communist regime. Continuing his education, he gained a degree in mechanical engineering, and later a masters in thermo-dynamics. Then, he pursued a career as a consultant engineer, and a financial analyst. Not stopping then, he went on to gain an MBA at Cranfield, and later also another masters, this time in International Relations, from the University of Kent. In 1993, he became the founder, and the patron of the Royal Burma Society, which continues to support the more than 200,000 refugees who are now living in Thailand.
Your Royal Highness, thank you so much for joining us on The Defining Moment.
Shwebomin:
Pleasure.
Ajay:
Well today's topic is about power vs. moral authority, and before we do get into that, can you please share with us, a defining moment from your life?
Shwebomin:
Yes, I would say my defining moment in my life is when I went against the military regime, uhm, that came into power in 1962, I think actually it’s the second of March 1962 they came into power. Now I need to-to explain to you a little about the historical background.
Burma became independent on the fourth of January 1948, and uh, we had a civilian government uh, for ten years there were some problems with the uhm, so-called uh, ethnic minorities, but they are actually insurgents, and uh, the prime minister U Nu, who was a very close friend of my Grand Uncle, handed the power over to General Ne Win whose real name was Shu Maung, and I think he- but he was half-Chinese and Half-Burmese from a very humble background, he started as a post office clerk.
So, he ruled the country for about eighteen months, and then there were general elections, and of course U Nu's party won again, and we thought that it was going to be a democratic government and uh, when I left in the middle of 1961, in about seven or eight months later, the military coup took place, so after my first masters degree which was [MSA?] in thermo-dynamics from Birmingham University, I was sent back to Buh-... to Burma.
Now that year, interestingly there was a Russian scientist called Kachenko, who was a physicist, and he was very happy working for a British institution, I believe it was the Rutherford Laboratory, as a physicist, and he was uhm, bundled into a crate and flown back to the Soviet Union, and there was a terrible diplomatic row between the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom.
So he was from Birmingham University too, he was my next-to[sic] faculty.
When my turn came to go back to Burma, I thought, maybe I should not argue with the embassy people, so I let then chaperone me to the airport, I waved to them with a smile, and then I got on the plane. But the- they didn't realize I had planned to jump-plane at Frankfurt, so as soon as the-the airoplane touched-down at Frankfurt, I rushed to the airport, and uh, went to the train station, and off to Zurich and then to Switzerland and I, I just disappeared, and for about three months and I sneaked back into Burma, and uh sorry, into-into London.
And so for me my defining moment was to go against the power, uh, the, uh that was not legitimate in my heart, and also I did not want to be part of the regime under um,uh, the-the, also to report to um, a general, or a army officer who kill these students in 1962 when they seized power from the elected government of U Nu, and that man was known as the Butcher of Rangoon, and his name was Sein Lwin, and he was notorious, he was the one who headed the secret, the military police. And uh, that was the reason, so I wasn't prepared to be part of it, so to me that was my defining moment.
Ajay:
So from 1968 you just went underground, for twenty years?
Shwebomin:
Underground for twenty years yes, I just lived a normal life anonymously, partly very happy, or mostly very happy I would say, I had a wonderful time, although there was a great sadness, uh, which I did not discuss with anyone, there was much sadness, you know in the background.
Ajay:
Obviously, not being able to be with your family in your own country?
Shwebomin:
Absolutely, there was always, you know sometimes I had um, bad dreams, nightmares, and uh, it was a difficult period but I tried to get over it by, you know, um, meditation, and try to-to, rem.. tell myself that, you know, nothing's going to last forever. There'll be good times to come when the time comes, I must be ready to serve my people, so therefore, during those twenty years, I was gaining experience in terms of work, and also gaining more qualifications. So now, I'm ready to come out and tell the world "Look, I'd love to do more for my people".
Ajay:
So you yourself were not prepared to be ruled under the force of power alone?
Shwebomin:
Yah, yah, that's right yes, that's right, you're absolutely right.
Now, so if I may explain to you why, because to me power means the ability to make people, uh, do things against their will. Now, the power came out of the barrel of a gun, so not from the hearts and minds of the people.
So because of that, the power wha-was negative, I think technically, all powers are negative, by definition, because someone, whoever has the power is able to force other people to go against their wishes.
So therefore power is not legitimate in government.
However, moral authority is. Of course some people may be confused, and the dividing line may be thin, but technically there is directly a distinction. Moral authority is vested in those who are serving humanity. Now if they are government, they have to serve the nation, the society. At the same time, at the same time, safeguarding the state. So there is such a thing as the concept of the state, which also can be good, which could also can be bad. If the state power, the power of the state when it is, not legitimate power, that is, when it is not the legitimate moral authority, then, things go bad and the people do suffer.
Ajay:
Now can you explain what you mean by moral authority?
Shwebomin:
Moral authority is, your authority is justified, because it has been vested in you, by the people, they have appointed you, they have asked you to take their place. So in other words, individuals cannot make changes for the society, if they have to appoint someone, or a group of people, basically a cabinet, then you know the government, they will delegate the responsibility to the functionaries, by the civil servants and through them all the activities take place.
They could be social activities, they could be causal activities, economic activities, educational, causal, whatever they are, this is for the good of the people, and therefore that is not for the people in power, that is not for their benefit, the people who have been given the moral authority, they are doing a job for the people, but not for their own benefit.
And of course people appreciate that they have to be looked after, so therefore they are paid their salaries, and they have got good pensions, fair enough, there is nothing wrong with that.
Ajay:
And in what way would you consider that royalty, obviously being of royalty yourself, do royalty have a moral authority as opposed to let's say a political regime, or a military regime?
Shwebomin:
Oh of course, the-the the royalty, historically, why were Kings created?
Because people always needed someone to guide them.
And, that is not by force, I mean pe- some people were bad, once they have the moral authority, it, they turn it into power, that is wrong. But if they do that, people have a choice, they can't [sic] quite openly get rid of a King, and they can appoint someone else, you know, as his successors to the throne, there's nothing wrong with that.
But of course, statistically speaking, of course if the blood-line continues because they-they believe that genetically there is a good person, good family, you know, good upbringing, that is the case of course there are people who actually broke the rule, and they did not keep up with the traditions of the royalty, but the royalties keep coming back. It's not the end of the royalty, even in a lot of countries which have believed to be republican, you never know, because life goes on forever. So they could come back.
Ajay:
Now in-in, actually in line with what you've just said, as I understand it, in Burma the tradition is a Buddhist one, the culture.
Shwebomin:
Absolutely, yeah.
Ajay:
Now, is there a concept similar to the English tradition of the divine rule of Kings? Is there something similar in terms of the moral authority comes from a divine source rather than just uh, well it's, it's a good family?
Shwebomin:
No, they, they, in the Buddhist Kingship, no King can assume himself to be higher than even the Sangha, that is the monks, because the- the King is the patron of Buddhist doctrine. Of course, the King will support the monks but he doesn't place himself as the head of the church, it is not his business.
Actually he is the protector of the Sangha, Sangha means the collective, the monkhood, so all the religious leader efforts, they are actually they could even watch over the King, and to make sure,.. the King,.. doesn't, .. you know,.. break the-the rules of good Kingship, and if he does, the Abbots have the right to intercede, and even tell the people, we are- we don't have a good King, and the people can take action against the King.
Ajay:
So if you were in your monarchy right now, in Burma on the throne, you would still be accountable to the priesthood, or the monkhood?
Shwebomin:
Yah,...yah...yah,...yah...yah...Oh, Oh absolutely, because uhm, I was born, and I was brought up as a Buddhist boy, and I uh, went to the Buddhist monastery, I would pay homage to the monks, and I myself was a Buddhist monk for twenty two days. This is initiation, it's like the uhm, the baptism in-in Christianity, so every boy, a Buddhist boy has to be a monk for a time. So I was a monk before I left Burma, just to make sure that I left as a-a proper Buddhist boy.
Ajay:
OK, Now uh, just moving on from, I guess that topic in terms of the moral authority and where does that really come from, uh let's just go back to power itself. I mean power of course is often associated with something negative, I guess it's just a, an impression. However, you do need to have some kind of power.
Shwebomin:
Oh certainly, yes, ... yes,.. yes for sure.
Ajay:
A kind of authority, now where do you think that, in terms of the management of a country, or in your case, taking uh, the responsibility for a nation, how do you go about that?
Shwebomin:
Well I think the,.. one should not, uh, use force because the force is actually irrational.
Because, in the long run, I think if you change things using force, what will happen is, that the-the victims will wait for the opportunity to use the force against you, so what event, that is very unstable. It's better to have a tradition of moral authority, it's better to have a system that safeguard the moral authority of the people who are elected to have moral authority.
So, on a long-term basis, of course the monarch, the King is the overseer of that process. So, the King can be a King all his life, but he will not assume, that absolute power, like life of, and death of the people, that is not the right thing. He will always consult his minister, he will have his council, they have a debating chamber.
With the Burmese system, the King had got the left hand side, the right hand side, the minister, they would debate, and the King would look at it, like a judge, so then he would say "OK, I will look at your argument, I'll listen to your argument, I think, on balance, the right thing to do is, such and such", which is very much like being a judge.
But why is it so in this country United Kingdom, who do they report to- actually they are our majesty, courts of justice not the executive government is it? So, that also come in with the concept of the separation of the powers, the executive, judiciary, and the legislature. So, these three have to be separate. Of course, all the three circles will have a overlapping area which is the monarch. Now that is what it is missing in Burma. So once we have that, we will have a system with moral authority, and the people who do not conform, or do not comply with the requirements of their responsibility, can be thrown out of office.
That's how it should be.
Ajay:
Your Royal Highness, I know that Burma, like many parts of the world, has a colonial past. Now can you tell us about that, and also in your reflection do you think that that in itself was an example of power or moral authority?
Shwebomin:
Oh it's definitely power, there's absolutely no doubt about that. Uhm, I studied in international relations, one of the subjects is international political economy, and of course economics as well, and uh,... Karl Marx wasn't right in everything, but he was right in saying that, at the extremity, capitalism was actually, ..it could lead to, imperialism.
But what happened was, that the-the British empire basically was actually to extract the resources from the colonies, so they were not justifying their action to the,.. to the native people, they just did whatever they like. And of course all in all, uhh, the whole of Burma was under colonialism, under the colonial rule, only about two generations, only about sixty-two, sixty-three years, not very long. But all the time the Burmese were fighting, Burmese wanted our own King. And in 1937 there was a movement, our own King amongst us. So that means in Burmese called "KoMin KoChin". KoMin is our own King, KoChin - amongst us.
But that idea was muted, but at that time, the Queen Supayalat, the wife of King Thibaw who was exiled to India, Ratnagiri, he died there, but the Queen was sent...went back to Burma, and because of her, the idea of monarchy wasn't revived. So....Burmese people were not allowed to study the Burmese history from the Burmese perspective.
And the.. the British did not really teach the Burmese history, to the Burmese people, the schools' curriculum did not include Burmese history. The worst thing was that, when the British, uhmm, took over, they seized the Mandalay Royal Palace, actually they burned the Royal archives.
The Burmese Kings throughout centuries had kept-up meticulously, all the genealogy. Now, the reason was this, if you destroy a country's history, you can destroy the people's spirit, they can break your spirit. But that spirit wasn't broken, the Burmese people know what has happened. The only problem was, in my case, recently, or actually for, ever-since I came out in 1988, there were people on the Internet, but some Americans saying I'm a phony, whatever, fake, whatever, they wrote about these things, but I don't take any notice of that because I know the truth. So, to answer your question, the colonialism never was moral authority, whatever they say, there was no moral authority. In fact, colonialism retarded the growth of the evolution of the democratic moral government system.
Ajay:
Is that the distinction between power and moral authority, the very fact that when it comes to power alone, there is very much a self-interest?
Shwebomin:
Absolutely, absolutely, the people in power, they want to perpetuate power so that they can feather their own nest. And what is so curious is, that even in democracy, once people get into power, they stop becoming democrats, and they try to do whatever...er um...you know, they can, to perpetuate their power. Now...the paradox of democracy is this, Hitler came into power through democratic means, and he was a...dictator. Now how do you explain that? You know it is, unless there are checks and balances on the person who is being elected, the person will turn himself into a dictator. Now that is no longer, there is no longer democracy.
Ajay:
Now obviously having done an MB I'm sure you are familiar with case studies, so perhaps we can look at other nations, and see what we can learn. Can I start with Nepal? What do you think are the lessons to learn from the Royal family there?
Shwebomin:
Well, it saddens me greatly to learn what happened to the Royal family, and it is very tragic. But unfortunately, Nepal has a bigger problem than Burma. Umm, it is a small country, and is even I believe, poorer than Burma, and uhh, the problem with Nepal is that they have a very strong Maoist movement there is very much entrench ideologically.
Now how do you bridge the gap between that and monarchy is quite difficult. Ahh, what I know from the newspaper and the media generally is that, the King took a very strong, ahm, action against these people, maybe that is not the wisest thing. But perhaps, ahm, the King could invite these people to have a dialogue, and maybe modify his position, not give up everything he has, but still make a deal with them that... oh-ok, I like your, you know, ideals, in other words, equality, opportunities, but on the other hand, freedom of expression, and the single party rule is not quite right.
But what about having a legitimate political party for your people?
And then go to the ballot box and whoever wins the election can be the government. So just, usher in democratic process, in consultation with the Maoists.
Ajay:
Do you think there are some lessons there for you, particularly in your position right now being in exile?
Shwebomin:
Yes, I will not take, uhm, sort of, a slack-sledgehammer approach, I will not crush anyone, I would talk to everyone, I will try to get the concensus, that will be my-my approach.
This is why, when I was pursuaded to condemn the present Burmese military regime, I said "no, a king never condemns his army, a king never condemns his political party either, because they are all part of the Burmese populace, and they are my people."
So, what I would do is, I will try to pursuade them to become gentler, to be more caring, and loving, now which they believe they are doing. Now the problem is that, this goes back to the colonial era as well, because we don't have party traditions in Burma. But you do need to at least, you know, strong parties so that, there is no one party state.
If you look at the one,- at the East Germany, ahhh, which has been, you know, united with West Germany. They used to call themself, the emm, German Democratic Republic, whereas West Germany was called German Federal Republic. Isn't it interesting that communist East Germany called themself democratic? It's just so incredible that their own perception of democracy, one party state with no opposition, and the country is supposed to be democratic.
And I think, what is happening in Nepal is probably, the Maoist, the communist party there, they always believe in their own ways that theirs-theirs is the true path to democracy. But that is pure power democracy, it is not the moral authority democracy.
Ajay:
Interesting, and uh, you did mention of course East Germany, and that the fact that they think of themselves as a democracy, or, they did think of themselves as a democracy and that’s a parallel just uh, to North Korea where again you have a communist regime and they call themselves a democratic state.
Shwebomin:
That's amazing, that's right, that's right, North Korea is, it's so funny that, you know, it's a one party state, and the son handed over the power to, the father, when he went, what happens to the son? There was like behaving like a King in a way. On the one hand they didn't… they are republicans, they don't recognize monarchy. But once they get in power, they just try to emulate the Kings without the understanding of the moral Kingship, the force of sophical side of Kingship. The King has to be, strictly speaking, a philosopher.
Ajay:
Now isn't that a, just a paradox, the fact that uh, communism itself wants to deny, let's say, the divine rule of not only Kings, but of the divine rule of God Himself, but nevertheless, when they get into power they become a god.
Shwebomin:
Yes, yes, and they play God. Yes, yes, that's right. Yah, it's, it's, it's, it's quite sad, because it's stag... it basically is political stagnation. Or of course, if you look at other countries, I think the closest to us actually is uh, it's Thailand.
But, funny thing was, after 1988 military coup on the military communist regime, I knew straight-away that there was a sea change. So, I wrote letters to Burma, and I...ah..eet, an old etonian,... took hundred and fifty letters to Burma, he posted from within Burma that reached the ministers, and the religious leaders, and the generals who were ruling at that time, headed by General Saw Maung.
General Saw Maung mentioned that, what our country needs, is like a monarch, like Thailand, Japan, and Great Britain. And he had me in mind.
And, one American newspaper...rubbished him, saying he wanted to say thanks to his daddy the Shu Maung, the General Ne Win who staged the military coup in 1962. It wasn't the case. I knew that that man himself was under house arrest. But here, some of the colonialists said that he was still ruling, pulling the strings from behind,- it wasn't the case. When he died, there was no state funeral, there was no representation from the army at all, army didn't want to know him because he ruined the country. So the present situation is, the army is trying to modernize the economy.
I told them "look, open the country, liberise the economy" and they did. But the problem is, when you have, when you liberise the economy, liberise the markets, you do have to regulate them, you do need law.
What happened is, when you keep total freedom, then comes the dictatorship within the economy, in other market economy, also created monopolies, and then link with the military, so, it hasn't actually solved the problem.
So you really need, uhm, a central, uhm, authority, that can control the market, that can regulate the markets, for the good of all, for the good of the collective, the whole nation. So not for the benefit of a few.
I mean look for example, the- the Russian Federation. Communism is gone, immediately what do you get? You got the oligarch, quite interesting isn't it? Suddenly people became very rich, but the poor Russians are still poor. It is sad, so, they have to evolve. Nevertheless, the fact that they got rid of communism is good. They have some semblance of democracy, it's not perfect democracy. Where do you have perfect democracy? I can't think of any country where democracy is perfect.
Ajay:
Well actually, I was going to ask you, is there a nation where you feel there is a, the right balance between power, and moral authority?
Shwebomin:
Uhm, I don't think so, because what happened is, that the tendency tends to be on in favor of power in a lot of countries. Uhm,..the country to me which is very close to moral authority is Switzerland. That the rule is by moral authority is Switzerland, is the cantonal system. And Uhh, for various reasons they seem to be a very successful country, and democratic country, and a humane country. Because it's a small country, sometimes it's a lot easier, and they can manage it. Also, they have advanced technology.
And in fact, the royal countries, like peek-..countries like Burma, if the mod-.. western model of democracy doesn't fit well, we should go back to traditional monarchy, a monarchical democracy. Another monarch as a titular head of state, without executive power, but keeping an eye on the executive, that means government. So the government is answerable to the monarch, and the monarch is answerable to his subjects, to his people, because that is his primary duty, to look after his people. So in other words, there's a circular relationship.
Ajay:
But then what happens? As you said like in communist regimes, if your monarch becomes an egotistical maniac who just wants to take power.....
Shwebomin:
We don't,..you don't have a monarch, what you have is a dictator, who has the pretension of monarch. That's what it is. They have the pretension, without understanding the real meaning of monarchy.
Ajay:
And what would be the right course of action in that situation?
Shwebomin:
Right course of action is education. In fact even educating people from the top. Starting with the top. Because, if is, they have not absorbed it, in their hearts, in their minds, they're not gonna change. So what happen is, that they are comfortable with their material trappings, because power means they are able to tell people to do things, against their will. And they can do whatever they like to the people, they can put people in prison, and they have no recourse.
So, they're quite happy, because they do what they like. But that can't go on forever, because they're,..if they're gone, what will happen is the country will stagnate. When the countries stagnate, they become weak economically, and they could buy missiles, and nuclear weapons, but, that is not going to protect the people. The country will fall. In fact, the state could fail, if they do that.
The strength of the state, depends very much upon the people. The people are more developed, more democratic, more caring, they take responsibility for each other, then that will be a strong state, because there is cohesion. Cohesion is very, very important. Once a country is cohesive, it will be difficult for the external powers to interfere. External powers can interfere when the country has no harmony, no cohesion. People are selfish, and when the leaders are selfish, when the foreign invaders come, do you think the people would defend them? No way. So what happen is they become divided, and they become slave states.
Ajay:
And finally, your Royal Highness. If hypothetically, you were to be able to come back out of exile and take up your leadership role, on the throne, back in Burma, if that was to happen, let's say tommorrow, in order to establish, let's say this monarchical democracy, what would be the first thing you would do?
Shwebomin:
Oh, I would like to invite the Generals, and the politicians, and all the community leaders together to thank them, for bringing me back. And I would say, you know, we are now in a new era, now let us work, let us create a system where there is justice, where there is harmony, there is peace, and there is a caring society.
And for the good of everyone, we look after the elderly, we look after the children, because the Buddhist tradition is so easy, because we don't resort to violence. When did you ever hear about assassination attempts in Burma? No! When did you ever hear about people throwing bombs in Burma? No! In spite of all of the repression, I think my people have followed the correct path, by not resorting to violence. And that is correct. So, I'm very proud of my people.
Ajay:
Your Royal Highness, thank you so much for joining us on The Defining Moment.
Shwebomin:
Welcome, thank you, thank you very much indeed.
Ajay:
You've been watching the defining moment for creating the culture of conscience. If you would like to find out more we're on the web at www.definingmoment.eu. Thank you for watching, and we wish you all the best.
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