The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Bye bye ‘bikepoo’: New era of transport dawns on Myanmar Posted: 11 Oct 2012 02:21 AM PDT  Sein Pain blesses a newly imported car at the shrine built around a banyan tree outside Yangon September 19, 2012. — Reuters pic For more than a century, owners of ox-drawn carts, World War Two-era trucks and decrepit buses have descended on the Shwe Nyaung Pin Nat Shrine under a banyan tree in Myanmar's biggest city to bless one of the world's oldest vehicle fleets, dominated by Japanese rust-buckets from the 1980s or older. Today, as the country emerges from 49 years of isolation, the shrine has new visitors: freshly minted cars. The Honda's owner, Nyein Chang Aung, hopes the blessing will protect him from accidents in a country with some of the world's most treacherous roads. "My elders were coming to this tree and I'm doing the same," he said. "They never had any accidents." As Myanmar opens up, its antiquated transportation system is undergoing dramatic change. New cars are plying roads dominated by rattletrap buses — known as "bikepoo", or "big belly", in the Myanmar language — and wheezing taxis. The decades-old buses as well as trains are being retired. Airlines are updating fleets of mostly ageing Fokker planes from the 1970s. Yet, despite the changes, travelling in Myanmar remains a colourful, surreal and daunting experience — a legacy of rules drawn up by paranoid generals who governed since a 1962 coup until last year, ruling by fear and superstition. Most vehicles, for instance, are right-hand drive, a throwback to British colonialism. Yet the roads are right-hand traffic, similar to the American system, reducing visibility and keeping drivers on perpetual alert. As more vehicles are imported, such quirks worsen the strains of already-congested roads. And few people know why such rules exist anyway. Late dictator Ne Win switched from left-hand drive after he seized power in 1962. Some locals put the change down to superstition, while others say it was an anti-colonial, political gesture. "Most people believe his trusted astrologer told Ne Win that changing from left to right hand side would bring him good luck in fighting against the leftist underground Burma Communist Party and its sympathisers," said Kyaw Nyunt, a 75-year-old former drug store manager. "Big belly" buses Car showrooms have mushroomed across the country, offering everything from Chinese-made micro cars to Japanese SUVs and expensive BMWs, all of which have begun jockeying for space on roads shared with tractors and occasional ox-carts. Conspicuously absent in Yangon are motorbikes and bicycles, possibly a casualty of the former junta's paranoia. They were banned in Yangon about 20 years ago. Explanations vary. Some say a motorbike driver once pointed his pistol-like finger at a car carrying a powerful general in the former military junta. Others say it was to prevent students cycling from campus to campus during protests. In August, Japan Car Co Ltd, a member of ICE Group of Japan, and Myanmar's state-owned Ministry of Rail Transport, signed a US$451 million (RM1.4 billion) deal to improve bus services in Yangon. Such deals mark the end for World War Two-era "bikepoo" buses. "This is the last month I'm driving a bikepoo", said Aung Win, its 48-year-old driver, as he surveyed passengers — students, Buddhist monks and farmers — sitting on wooden benches bolted into the vehicle's wooden floor. "I've been driving it for 20 years and I'm sorry my bikepoo is going to the scrap," he said of the 1940s modified Chevrolet C15, among the world's oldest buses in operation. "The bikepoo era is over," he added. His manager will use its licence to import a new bus. That also marks a change. From 1997 until last year when a semi-civilian government took office, military-owned companies monopolised the distribution of vehicle import licences. Only the rich and the powerful could afford them. But a new policy went into effect in September last year. Since then, import permits have been issued for more than 58,000 cars, Ministry of Commerce data shows. For travellers in Yangon's stifling tropical heat, that offers some relief: a few taxis now have air conditioning. Car prices have plunged but remain high compared to other countries, inflated by taxes. A typical 2001-model Toyota sedan now costs about 20 million kyat (US$23,000), compared to more than 120 million kyat (US$140,000) in August last year. A 1987 Nissan sedan now sells for about 7 million kyat (US$8,200), compared to 20 million kyat (US$23,000) previously. Trains are also getting refurbished, mainly with new cars imported from India and China. With Japanese assistance, a 600-km (370-mile) rail link between Yangon and Mandalay in the north will be upgraded, shortening the journey to eight hours from 14, Deputy Minister of Rail Transport Thaung Lwin told Reuters. A train line that loops around Yangon on ageing narrow-gauge rails is also being upgraded, he added, potentially transforming a colourful three-hour journey around the city of five million people. As rickety carriages jolt and sway between stations, passengers hang off the side. Banana-sellers and lottery-vendors hawk their goods inside. At a station in the suburb of Danyingone, women sell food on the tracks and naked children jump between platforms, their cheeks painted in swirls of yellow paste made from thanaka bark, a type of sun protection dating back centuries. Airlines are changing, too. State-owned Myanma Airways and five local private airlines recently bought second-hand aircraft while one more private airline will emerge in two or three months, according to government officials. General Electric Co reached a deal in September to lease two Embraer SA-made jets to Myanmar Airlines, the latest in a series of deals since the United States reopened commercial dealings with the long-isolated Asian nation. Myanma Airways still use Fokker F28s, a short-range jet that began flying in the 1960s. Many airlines operate on what is known locally as an "air bus system". Usually there are not enough passengers for direct flights to all destinations in Myanmar, a vast country as big as France and England combined. To be profitable, airlines often fly to one city, pick up passengers, and then fly to several more cities before a final stop, a bit like a bus route. At the holy tree in Yangon, business has rarely been better. "Business these days is good, very good," says Sein Pain, 67, after blessing the Honda. Sein's family owns the tree and manages the business. Car owners pay anything from US$3 to hundreds of dollars for different levels of blessings. "Since the government allowed new cars last year, numbers doubled. Now we have up to 60 cars on a busy day." — Reuters |
| German city battles elusive new-look neo-Nazis Posted: 11 Oct 2012 02:15 AM PDT  A display shows an anti-Nazi slogan at a museum in Dortmund in this September 4, 2010 file photo. — Reuters pic Eschewing their predecessors' fierce aversion to anything "un-German", they blend into the local community and easily escape detection. But police and experts say this new generation of young fascists is potentially far more dangerous and reckless than their older peers. "Today a neo-Nazi can eat Turkish kebabs and still go out and beat up immigrants," said journalist Johannes Radke, who has reported on the German far-right for more than a decade. "They say, 'We'll let everyone do whatever they want as long as they're a Nazi at heart.'" Headquartered in the down-at-heel western industrial city of Dortmund, a new group known as the Autonomous Nationalists (AN) is at the forefront of this transformation. They share the hard-core xenophobia of older cadres in the far-right, but their appearance and tactics are those of a dynamic, Internet-savvy youth movement. They wear stylish running shoes and expensive brand name windbreakers and communicate with each other via Twitter. The use of English slogans at protests, for decades taboo in far-right circles, is widespread. "They see themselves as the avant-garde of the Nazi scene," Radke said. "They're much more professional than some drunk, dim-witted skinhead - and more dangerous." Authorities and residents across Germany have become more sensitive to the threat of far-right militants since revelations last year that a neo-Nazi cell waged a seven-year racist killing spree throughout the country, murdering nine people, mostly ethnic Turks, one of them in Dortmund. The cell's existence only came to light by chance after two members committed suicide following a botched bank robbery. The murders forced an overhaul of Germany's intelligence services. Hitler banners Nearly seven decades after the fall of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime, far-right groups remain marginalised in Germany, with most of their support tending to come from the impoverished former communist east. But the so-called 'Zwickau cell' shows that the danger is not confined to any one area of the country. Left unchecked, experts say, neo-Nazis could again stage deadly attacks. This year, keen to show they take the threat seriously, federal authorities have been weighing a possible ban on the only far-right party to hold seats in any German legislature. The National Democratic Party (NPD), which sits in two state assemblies, is racist and anti-Semitic, intelligence services say. The party is careful not to break German laws forbidding Nazi symbols, denial of the Holocaust and public expressions of support for Hitler. The Autonomous Nationalists have no such qualms. They have no appetite for political manoeuvring and readily unfurl banners quoting Hitler at their protest rallies. "Many Nazis moved here because they thought this was a broken city," Dortmund mayor Ullrich Sierau told Reuters, adding that extremists exploited the fact the city of half a million has one of the highest unemployment rates in the region. Dortmund's new police chief Norbert Wesseler said there were 131 crimes tied to far-right militants including violent assaults in the city in the first half of the year. "The number of offences has risen considerably over earlier years," he added, without giving comparative figures. A former neo-Nazi from eastern Germany, who has since left the scene and spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said new recruits discover the Autonomous Nationalists are a restless bunch, always plotting their next move. "When you're in that scene, it's like you're living in a parallel universe to normal society," said the 25-year-old, who never joined the AN but often stayed at its flats. The neo-Nazis methodically prepare their attacks against anyone who opposes their radical views, he said. Much of the work they do mirrors that of private investigators: researching targets, staking out locations and taking pictures of opponents to match faces to names. Many do not work, living off welfare from a democratic state they vehemently oppose as well as donations from sympathetic outsiders. "They are also able to secure weapons through contacts in other countries, such as Bulgaria or Switzerland," he said. "If you need something, it's possible for them to get it across the border." Push-back Alerted to the threat, Dortmund is among the cities that is taking measures. Police raided AN clubhouses and apartments in Dortmund and two other cities in August, seizing weapons and propaganda material. The authorities also outlawed the AN's local branch there although no arrests were made. "We've all gotten better at recognising the relationship between criminal offences and far-right extremist ideologies and realising that there is an organisation behind the scenes that is calling the shots," Wesseler said. Wesseler said he had also increased police patrols in the area where the group rents its apartments. There are signs the campaign may be working. On Sept. 1, a date neo-Nazis mark to commemorate Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939, the only visible banners were those urging fascists to leave town. Lamp posts were newly painted with a special anti-adhesive to deter far-right vandals from defacing them. A message has been displayed on top of Dortmund's landmark U-Tower - a 1920s-era skyscraper crowned with an illuminated letter "U" and giant TV screens. "I, the tower, have always thought Nazis were uncool," it read. Hajo Funke, a professor of political science and far-right expert at Berlin's Free University, cautioned against complacency, however. "If the ban isn't enforced properly then nothing will happen," Funke said. "Then they'll be just as dangerous as before." — Reuters |
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