Burma, a country that was ruled by
the military regime isolating from the rest of the world for nearly 6 decades
is now opening its doors allowing its people to connect with the outside world
by different means.
Once very difficult procedure even
to get a passport for an ordinary citizen restricting people getting one like
having to go through what they called ‘’Education Clearance’’ which as I
understood was some amount of money you had to pay back to the government for
its education services that were offered to you throughout your life when you
intend to leave the country and right when you apply a passport (no matter if
you intend just for a short day vacation to Bangkok , 45 min fly away from the former capital, Rangoon) , is now eased to a great extent in which you can have your
passport within 10 days thru a very much simpler procedure without any
particular restrictions.
As country is opening up, Burmese
are now able to easily be in contact with other people of the world even though
there are still some constraints for ordinary people to travel internationally
with regards not only to financial incapabilites but also to some visa
requirements which has always not been a problem at all for some of the developing
countries in the region. For instance, before a recent visa exemption agreement
between Burma and Thailand which has come into effective only earlier this
month of August, Burmese used to apply for a tourist visa at Thai embassy in
Rangoon which you either get in line since early morning (could be as early as
3 am) to lodge your application or have it done overnight by a travel agent
with some significant amount of money as a fees.
Given the constraints and
circumstances Burma have in place, Burmese people tend to use the benefit of Technology
to be able to connect to the outside world which to most of the Burmese generally
means their families and friends working or studying overseas. The recent established
foreign telecommunication companies such as Telenor or Ooredoo has been playing
lately a very important role in the communication sector of Burma which is one
of the poorest in the region. With their affordable SIM cards and fast internet
connection, people in Burma are now accessible to Internet.
Everyone has got mobile phones and
can stay connected. With the help of Technology, people became familiar with
social networks and media. Even a stay-home mom who had no clue what the
internet was and never touched a computer is now connected via her smartphone
and is able to see what’s happening throughout the country and beyond. Many
people including older generation are now reading news on their smartphones accessing
the news media websites and facebook pages.
Younger generation become very
active on social networks, mainly Facebook as Twitter is not very popular here
in Burma for some reasons. Youths express themselves from their Facebook pages
and actively participate in commenting, discussing and sharing different
contents on the internet.
As the news appear very fast on
social media, Burmese are also very keen to receive and share news online. News
and media agencies has now grown a habit of putting the latest news on their
Facebook pages and people became so very familiar with that that people go
online and check their Facebook pages to get the news rather than waiting to
get the full story from traditional printing media even without any desire to
go check to the actual websites of the news agencies. I even saw some people
copied-and-pasted the news article from the website on the comments of Facebook
post so that other people won’t have to go to the website to attain the information.
There are also immense amount of
faux news and misleading information being created and widely shared on social
media especially of the news about the politics and religions which already are
very sensitive topics to talk about in the country.
Also with little or no knowledge of
privacy, (or even lack of) intellectual property rights and laws and
regulations on the Internet (Facebook for vast majority of users), there is a great
potential risk for misuse such as cyber bullying, grooming and abuse by online
predators, identity theft and exposure to inappropriate content including
self-harm, racist, hate speech and many more which of course are the threats not
only to Burma but also to the world nowadays.
A lot measures and education are
being very much needed to take place in the country just like almost every sector
of the country as it is trying to open up and tempting to become a fast growing
country in the region and catch up with the rest of the world. I hope Burma
will be growing safe and sound.
