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Abstract
This paper examines the refusal by the Burmese military junta to allow western humanitarian aid to be distributed among the survivors of the natural disaster that hit the country in May 2008. By taking part in the international relief efforts the rulers had to identify those under their rule as the victims of the ravage of fortune. In doing so the junta could identify themselves as the witness of excessive force in contrast to their widely recognised role as the perpetrator of political violence against the Burmese people. The international aid, however, provided the survivors of the natural disaster with the opportunity to enter into exchange with the western aid-givers who were inspired by the role of citizen, a subject with a persistent demand for protection from the ravages of fortune. Thus, the notion of entitlement communicated between the aid-givers and takers subverted the tyrannical relationship between rulers and ruled in Burma.
Notes
1. In the absence, for example, of a national base in the relationship between rulers/ruled in Iran, many people across the globe are justified to remain worried about the outcome of the enrichment of uranium in the country (Sanadjian, Citation2008). The Iranian rulers can be as much trusted to take care of the ramifications of nuclear production for public safety as the military rulers in Burma to protect the Burmese against the ravages of fortune. Similarly the continuous erosion of the national power base has made Robert Mugabe as exposed to use an excessive force to rule over Zimbabweans as to remain oblivious to the international concern over the plight of those ruled by him.
2. The wisdom of legislation, Machiavelli concludes, is demonstrated in the law that far from containing the desire of the multitude enables the expression of such desire (see Lefort, 2000).
3. It is more accurate to say that the ruled are identified by their rulers as a people as the moment of constitution. In contrast, the ruled self-identify themselves as the people as the moment of insurrection. The insurgent assertion of We the people is a counter-identification by the people to their constitution by their rulers as a people (Balibar, 1994).
4. ‘It would be better, before examining the act by which a people chooses a king, to examine that by which it has become a people; for this act, being necessarily prior to the other, is the true foundation of society’ (Rousseau, Citation1973, p. 190) is, on the other hand, the reciprocal exchange between rulers/the people envisaged by Machiavelli to which Althusser alludes when he points out that the Prince, who is far from being a conventional tyrant ruler, presides over the national state (p. 125). The ‘daily plebiscite’ through which Ernest Renan once considered the membership of a national community is achieved is, one could argue, equally applicable to the ordinary members of the community and its rulers (see Renan, Citation1882, p. 81).
5. The dilemma faced by rulers in using the election as the means of securing a desirable verdict by the ruled on the identity of their rulers accounts for the intimidation and excessive restrictions placed on the election in countries like Iran. During the presidential election of May 1997 that brought Mohammad Khatami, the ‘reformist’ candidate to power, only 4 out of 238 who asked their names to be included among the candidates were allowed by the Council of the Guardians to face the verdict of the electorate. The remaining 234 applicants who had their applications rejected by the Council included the former minister in early Islamic governments (Sanadjian, Citation1997, p. 395).