Photo: MOHD RASFAN/AFP/Getty Images
Anyone who worked on Myanmar knew Professor David Steinberg. There was also a very good chance that David knew everyone who worked on Myanmar, too. David was the preeminent U.S. scholar on all things Myanmar, having conducted research on the country for 50 years or more.
I first met David when I was asked in 2007 to cover Myanmar for Congress while working at Congressional Research Service (CRS). I was told at the time that my new assignment would not be much work, as there was little going on in the country of interest to Congress. I cannot understand how inaccurate that statement proved to be.
While I knew the basics about Myanmar back then, David kindly invited me to lunch at the Cosmos Club to provide a primer on the politics and social dynamics of the country. I learned a lot during our lunch, including David’s most important observation, “Everything in Myanmar is complicated.”
At the time, I did not fully appreciate how accurate and profound that statement was. Every time one Iooks into a new aspect of Myanmar, the issue is more complicated and intricate than it first appears. Nothing is as it seems in Myanmar, and a wise person is always open to seeing issues in a new light and from a different angle.
Despite his decades of expertise and experience, David was always interested in hearing my view of the current issues in Myanmar. He would listen with interest, mull over my thoughts, and frequently point out an additional detail or aspect for me to consider. More often than not, we shared very similar views on Myanmar, with the one exception of the effectiveness and appropriateness of U.S. sanctions on the Myanmar military. Perhaps because I was working for Congress, or perhaps because of the unrelented interest of Myanmar officials to learn what they had to do to convince the U.S. government to lift the sanctions, but I was and continue to be convinced that Myanmar military despise the U.S. sanctions and will take many actions to get those sanctions removed.
David also has an interesting way of balancing the personal politics of Myanmar with the larger social and institutional dynamics of the country. He saw the flows of political power between the major institutions of Myanmar—the military, the sangha, the various ethnic armed organizations, etc.—but also could weave in how certain individuals played critical roles in the social dynamics. David also saw both the good and the bad of each person involved with Myanmar, including the so-called “foreign experts,” such as myself.
David’s death is a great loss to Myanmar and those of us who care about the future of the country. I will miss his kind smile, his curiosity about my latest work on Myanmar and his pithy observations on my musings on Myanmar.
Michael F. Martin is an adjunct fellow (non-resident) with the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
