Watch out for Myanmar

Make no mistake about it, Myanmar is out to impress the world, or at least Southeast Asia, when it stages the 27th Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) in 2013. The SEA Games are scheduled to kick off on Dec. 11, 2013 or, as May Chen of The Straits Times of Singapore put it, on 11.12.13. And when Myanmar vows to impress this part of the world, it means that it will, in what appears to be its coming out party after years of isolation, showcase its organizational savvy, and of course, its athletic prowess.

The signs of Myanmar’s brutally repressive regime coming out and being an enlightened member of the international community are slowly emerging: from granting a bit more freedom to opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, to welcoming the visit of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (who, as a world leader herself has met up with some of the most powerful figures in the world, was unusually excited in meeting Suu Kyi) to its assumption of more leadership responsibility in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN.

The 27th SEA Games will be the first time Myanmar will be host since 1969 when the country was still known as Burma and the Games were still known as the Southeast Asian Peninsular Games or SEAP Games. The Philippines, Indonesia and several other countries were not yet part of the regional festival of sports then. Myanmar (Burma) finished at the top of the medal standings in 1969 but has since retrogressed because of, among other things, its isolationist policy and autocratic methods.

The hosting of the 27th SEA Games is one example of what Myanmar intends to do. Opening up one’s country and granting more civil liberties to one’s people is a necessary consequence of hosting international events when one’s country is forced to undergo close scrutiny under the international microscope. Hordes of international media and visitors are expected to descend upon its new capital Naypyidaw (which will most likely host 26 sports) while its old, run-down capital of Yangon (where Suu Kyi is still under house arrest) will probably take care of four sports.

South Korea, which was long under dictatorship, hosted the 1988 Olympics after President Chun doo-hwan, who took over from the assassinated Park Chung-hee, was forced to call the country’s first honest Presidential elections in 1987. Chun had hoped to legitimize and deodorize his authoritarian rule through the Olympics and to tell the world that it too had “arrived”. 

Myanmar is therefore taking albeit, a calculated risk in its efforts to go up the world stage. It therefore hopes to spur economic development by ridding itself of its isolationism especially during natural calamities and disasters. Myanmar received aid during those calamities on condition that it will do the actual distribution of relief goods to prevent contact between the ordinary Burmese and foreigners.

With this impending softening of isolationism, expect a burst of activities in Myanmar in some aspects of human activity, including sports. I foresee, for example, various exchanges between Myanmar and other countries, in sports medicine, coaching and management. Expect the influx of foreign coaches and “friendlies” between Myanmar and sports powers from different parts of the globe. I can see the revival of “ping pong diplomacy” that attended the initial thawing of relations between the US and China in the early 1970’s.

Myanmar will be a threat to the Philippines and, if we are not careful, we could be dislodged from sixth place. Should that happen we will be ahead only of tiny countries like Laos, Cambodia, Timor-Leste and Brunei .

With two years to go, a lot of things can happen. The Chinese will definitely come to the aid of Myanmar, despite some occasional diplomatic wrangling between the two nations which share a common border. Chen reports that while most of the 14 new venues will be designed and built by locals, organizers have sought help from China for more complicated ones like the aquatics stadium.

Myanmar captured 16 gold medals as against our 36. To escape from falling into the ultimate humiliation of ending up number seven , we have to overcome either Singapore (fifth in Jakarta with 42 golds, 22 of which or 50 percent from swimming) or Malaysia (fourth in Jakarta with 59 golds, 18 of which, or 30 percent, were accounted for by athletics, diving, swimming. The Malaysians also got five golds each from tenpin bowling and track cycling). As of now, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia are just too far ahead for us to overtake them in the next two years.

It is rather obvious what we ought to do but we can’t do it without doing our homework and serious planning. We have to be more proactive, creative, objective and clinical and less political.