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Nowhere to Be Home: Narratives From Survivors of Burma's Military Regime
Decades of military oppression in Burma have led to the systematic destruction of thousands of ethnic minority villages, a standing army with one of the world’s highest number of child soldiers, and the displacement of millions of people.
Nowhere to Be Home is an eye-opening collection of oral histories exposing the realities of life under military rule. In their own words, men and women from Burma describe their lives in the country that Human Rights Watch has called “the textbook example of a police state.”
Nowhere to Be Home is an eye-opening collection of oral histories exposing the realities of life under military rule. In their own words, men and women from Burma describe their lives in the country that Human Rights Watch has called “the textbook example of a police state.”
- GenresAsia
256 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 14, 2013
This made my CCLaP best-of-2011 list.
A few months ago I was on the subway, and a shambling, mumbling young guy came lurching toward me from the other end of the car, swaying and asking for change. I made one of those quick judgements, like you do, and decided that I wasn't going to give him any money. I was all the way at the end of the car, and he made it to my side and sort of came to rest next to me. I kept my face buried in my book. At the next station, a trio of those acrobatic dancing guys got on. I don't know if this is a national phenomenon, but they are all over the NYC subways. It's usually three, usually dudes, usually young and thuggish. These motherfuckers are amazing. They do these crazy flips and falls and balances, right in the middle of the moving, crowded train, swinging from the handrails and leaping over each other and holding themselves parallel to the ground on the poles. It's fucking nuts. Anyway, I always give those kids money, and I wanted to give them money this time too, and but then I remembered that the other guy was still standing next to me. It's not like I really think he believed me that I was so engrossed in my book that I failed to hear him asking for money, and it's not that I was quailing with fear of being judged by this guy, but still, as I put my coins in the upturned ballcap of one of the gymnasts, I felt like a total shithead. Like I've come to a point in my charitable life where I require entertainment for my alms? Or like how living in a big city forces you to all the time make these rankings, stratifying people according to some inner barometer of need or deservingness? Or like why couldn't I be rich enough that I could just give and give and give, coins by the fistful, to every person who ever asks? Why am I such a dick?
None of this has anything to do with Burma, obviously. But here's why I told that story: A little while ago I proofread the previous book in this series, Hope Deferred, and it totally wrecked me. And this one, too, was crushing, and harrowing, and shocking, and depressing. But somehow not quite as much, I guess. It didn't make me weep, certainly. So I again feel like a total douche, like I somehow again am in a position to rank the suffering of the world, and have decided that Zimbabwe has it worse.
They don't. The shit in Burma is awful. The people there are in dire, dire straights. The world is a horrible mess. What is going on? Fuck. Everyone should pay full price for and then read every single book in the Voice of Witness series, and you guys, we should fix the goddamn world somehow.
A few months ago I was on the subway, and a shambling, mumbling young guy came lurching toward me from the other end of the car, swaying and asking for change. I made one of those quick judgements, like you do, and decided that I wasn't going to give him any money. I was all the way at the end of the car, and he made it to my side and sort of came to rest next to me. I kept my face buried in my book. At the next station, a trio of those acrobatic dancing guys got on. I don't know if this is a national phenomenon, but they are all over the NYC subways. It's usually three, usually dudes, usually young and thuggish. These motherfuckers are amazing. They do these crazy flips and falls and balances, right in the middle of the moving, crowded train, swinging from the handrails and leaping over each other and holding themselves parallel to the ground on the poles. It's fucking nuts. Anyway, I always give those kids money, and I wanted to give them money this time too, and but then I remembered that the other guy was still standing next to me. It's not like I really think he believed me that I was so engrossed in my book that I failed to hear him asking for money, and it's not that I was quailing with fear of being judged by this guy, but still, as I put my coins in the upturned ballcap of one of the gymnasts, I felt like a total shithead. Like I've come to a point in my charitable life where I require entertainment for my alms? Or like how living in a big city forces you to all the time make these rankings, stratifying people according to some inner barometer of need or deservingness? Or like why couldn't I be rich enough that I could just give and give and give, coins by the fistful, to every person who ever asks? Why am I such a dick?
None of this has anything to do with Burma, obviously. But here's why I told that story: A little while ago I proofread the previous book in this series, Hope Deferred, and it totally wrecked me. And this one, too, was crushing, and harrowing, and shocking, and depressing. But somehow not quite as much, I guess. It didn't make me weep, certainly. So I again feel like a total douche, like I somehow again am in a position to rank the suffering of the world, and have decided that Zimbabwe has it worse.
They don't. The shit in Burma is awful. The people there are in dire, dire straights. The world is a horrible mess. What is going on? Fuck. Everyone should pay full price for and then read every single book in the Voice of Witness series, and you guys, we should fix the goddamn world somehow.
June 2, 2017
This is amazing and sad but everyone should read about what life is like in Burma during the military regime.
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November 20, 2025This is sad and interesting to find out about Burma. It’s not a place I know much about. It’s infuriating and depressing. Maybe it’s a little too repetitive.
September 14, 2013
In January, some very well traveled family friends of mine went on a biking trip to Burma and returned in awe of how undeveloped the country is. At the time, and over the last year or so, it has been touted as “the next unexplored place” to visit for globetrotting jetsetters, now that the country is transitioning from a military dictatorship to a democracy. Much as Cuba is currently touted as trendy and “frozen in time” by travel magazines catering to the Western wealthy, Burma has recently been received as an untouched paradise for travelers interested in seeing pagodas and temples and getting an Angkor Wat experience without the crowds.
My friends returned from their journey with memories but a bit of a sour taste: “If they want to attract tourists, they have some serious infrastructure to build,” they noted. I suspect they, like most Americans – myself included until reading this book – have little to no concept of Burma’s very recent history and how much it’s a miracle that Western tourists are even visiting the country.
My own knowledge of Burma/Myanmar until reading this was limited to the occasional “it’s safe to travel here” or “Americans beware” transmissions over the news; a moderate interest in Aung San Suu Kyi as a female political leader under house arrest; and a debate in the newsroom over whether the Associated Press Stylebook prefers calling it Burma or Myanmar, probably when my paper ran stories from the wire about the Saffron Revolution and other recent political upheavals in the country.
Perhaps as a result, I didn’t connect with this book as much as I did with others in the Voice of Witness series. Knowing (or perhaps naively believing) that things are currently much better for the country – they have American tourists! They have four-star hotels! – “Nowhere to be Home” read for me less as a plea for action than a collected oral history book of a regime now in the outs, so I felt less empathy for those whose stories were being told (which is horrible to say). It took me a lot longer to get through this book than others in the series, and I’m not sure if it’s because of that or because I went into it knowing little-to-nothing of Burma’s history.
That being said, I love the Voice of Witness project and would recommend the book – perhaps to those same well-traveled friends – as it offers an education in the recent history of a country (I’d argue that) most Americans know little about.
My friends returned from their journey with memories but a bit of a sour taste: “If they want to attract tourists, they have some serious infrastructure to build,” they noted. I suspect they, like most Americans – myself included until reading this book – have little to no concept of Burma’s very recent history and how much it’s a miracle that Western tourists are even visiting the country.
My own knowledge of Burma/Myanmar until reading this was limited to the occasional “it’s safe to travel here” or “Americans beware” transmissions over the news; a moderate interest in Aung San Suu Kyi as a female political leader under house arrest; and a debate in the newsroom over whether the Associated Press Stylebook prefers calling it Burma or Myanmar, probably when my paper ran stories from the wire about the Saffron Revolution and other recent political upheavals in the country.
Perhaps as a result, I didn’t connect with this book as much as I did with others in the Voice of Witness series. Knowing (or perhaps naively believing) that things are currently much better for the country – they have American tourists! They have four-star hotels! – “Nowhere to be Home” read for me less as a plea for action than a collected oral history book of a regime now in the outs, so I felt less empathy for those whose stories were being told (which is horrible to say). It took me a lot longer to get through this book than others in the series, and I’m not sure if it’s because of that or because I went into it knowing little-to-nothing of Burma’s history.
That being said, I love the Voice of Witness project and would recommend the book – perhaps to those same well-traveled friends – as it offers an education in the recent history of a country (I’d argue that) most Americans know little about.
July 30, 2011
This book is a deeply distressing encyclopedia of human savagery. These narratives of survivors of Burma's brutal military regime have been collected by Voice of Witness, an organization which seeks to empower those most closely affected by contemporary social injustice by bearing witness to their struggles. The editors of the volume interviewed dozens of Burmese, many of them in exile in Thailand and Malaysia, about their experiences. The 22 narratives that were chosen are an appalling testament to the cruelty and viciousness of the the Burmese regime and civil society. A few characteristic representatives:
* Kyaw Zwar, a political activist who was brutally beaten and tortured in prison,
* Byin Pu, who worked in China to earn money for her family, was never paid, and threw herself out a window to escaper a kidnapper and would-be rapist,
* Nge Nge, raped and forced into a brutal marriage, could not escape because her husband bribed the judges and police whenever she managed to get him arrested for beating her,
* Khine Su, who was forced into unpaid labor for the Burmese army, after her village was forced to move by the government, and
* Aye Maung, likewise forced into slave labor by the army.
The list goes on. Reading the testimony of these witnesses has value in itself, but it is to be hoped that stories like these can help galvanize the efforts of international human rights organizations. The United States provides precious little support to NGOs that provide help to these victims, and the barking jackals of the right begrudge even that little bit. If enough people are exposed to these stories, perhaps they can be made to understand the need for international humanitarian programs.
* Kyaw Zwar, a political activist who was brutally beaten and tortured in prison,
* Byin Pu, who worked in China to earn money for her family, was never paid, and threw herself out a window to escaper a kidnapper and would-be rapist,
* Nge Nge, raped and forced into a brutal marriage, could not escape because her husband bribed the judges and police whenever she managed to get him arrested for beating her,
* Khine Su, who was forced into unpaid labor for the Burmese army, after her village was forced to move by the government, and
* Aye Maung, likewise forced into slave labor by the army.
The list goes on. Reading the testimony of these witnesses has value in itself, but it is to be hoped that stories like these can help galvanize the efforts of international human rights organizations. The United States provides precious little support to NGOs that provide help to these victims, and the barking jackals of the right begrudge even that little bit. If enough people are exposed to these stories, perhaps they can be made to understand the need for international humanitarian programs.
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March 2, 2013Can the subaltern speak? Yes, if researchers are willing to go to the area outside the refugee camp, by the latrines, where the unofficial refugees stay, and find a translator to record the life story of the woman who was gang raped and forced to flee her country, yet who still has hope for her month-old daughter. Stories like this are a crucial historical record, as well as careful proof that the most disadvantaged people in the world don't just suffer, they FEEL. This book is also an antidote to any self-pity or malaise that privileged readers like myself might occasionally experience. Thank you, Maggie Lemere, Zoë West, and all those people who shared their stories!
May 19, 2011
Another Voice of Witness masterpiece. The stories within are both inspiring and devastating. A must read for anyone interested in the human rights crisis in Burma today.
November 3, 2011
I didn't quite finish this but it was, of course, great. All the books in this series are. A sister of a friend of a friend is one of the editors and my BFF Bub helped research the book.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews