My Life

Olivia Ma

When people approach me with curious eyes I already know their questions. I wish they stopped asking what my disabilities were. It would be easier if I wrote down all my answers on a sheet of paper and hung it around my neck before anyone showed how much they cared about me. I feel uncomfortable when people stare or look at me with pity. I want them to look at my ability, not my disability.

I was a novelty at my primary school. My classmates loved me very much. They never judged me. They treated me very well. They played with me. Whenever they went outside, they wanted me to follow them around. I didn't dare go outside because juniors made fun of me and seniors bullied me. They copied the way I walked. When they pulled my leg, I would literally collapse onto the floor. They threw stones at me. Whenever I met them, I felt like I was an alien from another planet. My teachers and parents never taught me what bullying was and what to do if I was bullied.

I was born with a defect. Some of the nerves are missing in my spinal cord. I was only one year old when I went under the knife. After the surgery, l began to lose control of my bladder and bowel. My leg muscles atrophied. When it was time to start crawling, l was having a bit of trouble. l tried to reach the place where I wanted to go by rolling around on the floor. I was able to walk by myself by the time I was three years old. I couldn't raise the front part of my feet, however. I could only wear soft handmade shoes.

A calamitous accident happened when I was in the sixth grade. I broke both my legs in a car crash. I underwent two orthopaedic implant surgeries at the same time. A titanium rod was placed to correct my broken right thigh bone, and two pins were screwed in the neck of my left thigh bone. After one month, the two pins suddenly slipped out of my bone. I had another surgery. As luck would have it, my broken bone had already healed. My doctors agreed to remove the pins from my left thigh bones. I was in a wheelchair for three months. I did my rehab exercises every day. Whenever I tried to start walking, I felt the sharpness of the metal rod in my right thigh. It was cutting my muscle from the inside. I couldn't bear the pain. l could hear the rod rubbing against the bone in my right thigh. It was excruciating. I couldn't help crying. I didn't want to give up my life. I tried to keep walking everyday. After one year, I got my life back to ‘normal.’ Even today the metal rod still makes its presence felt in my right thigh. It hurts my right femur from time to time. Both my thigh bones continue to ache when the weather is cold.

I was on cloud nine when I successfully passed my matriculation exam. I would like to join the University of Technology or the National University of Arts and Culture. I was interested in architecture and painting. My parents didn't allow me to join those universities. They only wanted me to join the University of Distance Education because of my health condition and their financial problems. My little brother was a Maritime University student. My parents couldn't afford to support both of us at the same time.

I gave up my dream. I felt totally lost for my future. My depression got worse, and turned into suicidal thoughts. I didn't want to get out of bed to face the day. I lost my appetite. I once confided my suicidal thoughts to one of my family members. He thought I was being extra-sensitive. He insulted me every time we met. He revealed my weak points to everyone he knew. Struggling with suicidal feelings was not a joke. The biggest lesson I've learned from him is that we don’t have to worry about family members who ignore us and act like we don’t matter. We need to love the ones who are always there for us, no matter what.

I knew I needed something to keep myself motivated. I began to take part in translation competitions. Whenever I came out on top, I felt like I was a heroine of my dream world. I learned to cope with depression by picking up a new passion. For my future career, I knew I had to be more pragmatic. I chose to study law. In Myanmar, a law degree provides the best chance of employment for disabled people. Since ‘the right of persons with disabilities law’ was enacted in 2015, ableism is illegal, at least, technically. In practice the terms ‘physically fit’ or ‘energetic’ remain to be widely used in both public and private sector job descriptions.

My mom was an assistant director at a regional government office. She and her colleagues offered me a job. I politely declined. I felt it wasn't my real competence. I wanted to become a lawyer by my own doing. My mom was a breadwinner for the family. She was always busy with her work. My dad was a retired clerk. He had resigned from his job at a young age just to look after me. One of my aunts also saw to my wellbeing. Throughout my school years, my dad and my aunt undertook the school runs for me. I would be nothing without them.

When I became a university student, I had to overcome transportation barriers. Since the late 1990s, most of the universities in Myanmar have been relocated to regions outside urban centres. All new built campuses were also at least an hour away from city centres. The military government didn't want students to come together in downtown areas lest student protests turn into a mass movement as it happened in 1988. My university was one hour away by car from my house. I attended my lectures in a university shuttle light truck. Although I felt privileged for being entitled to the front passenger seat in the light truck, unlike other normal students who were crammed into the back of a small truck, it was very difficult for me to get into the front seat. Sometimes I had pain in my back and femurs. Some of the drivers were mean to me. I was often weepy but managed to hold my tears back.

I burned the midnight oil every night in my final year and passed with the highest grade point average in my class. The rector of Mandalay University of Distance Education didn't give his students a chance to apply for an MA. In his opinion we weren't well-qualified because we only attended a ten-day intensive course per academic year. Most students of distance education hailed from impoverished families as they couldn't afford a regular higher education. For most of us, no chance for further education might translate into no chance for social mobility.

My graduation was set one year after my final exam. I spent much time in anticipation of the big day. My parents didn't think I could be physically present at the ceremony. They preferred that I didn’t attend it at all. As luck would have it, the head of department for students affairs put my name down for the ceremony. I was thrilled.

Around the same time I tried to learn what my disability was. My parents were unable to explain exactly what kind of condition I had. I did research online, and found that I was born with Spina Bifida. I had a meningocele sac on my back. It pushed through the gap in the spine and the skin. That’s why I had a major operation at the age of one. Every Spina Bifida patient has an impressive scar on the waist or the hip. Most people with Spina Bifida are in wheelchairs and have significant physical disabilities. I can walk with walking aids. I can wear suitable footwear, such as sneakers and sandals. At the graduation, I walked up the stage, aided by a pair of forearm crutches and foot drop splints, and received the BA certificate. It was one of the happiest days of my life.

After graduation, I tried to become a lawyer. To become a higher grade pleader, I must be fully qualified for chamber and get a lawyer license conferred by the Supreme Court of the Union of Myanmar. Over the course of a one-year apprenticeship, I needed to train with an advocate master. I went to the Court in my township and found my favorite master, a septuagenarian. I was very happy the senior advocate immediately took me in as his apprentice once he saw me. He promised that he would take care of me as his own child and teach me to become a successful lawyer. But he didn't keep his word. He left me forever after we met twice. When I heard of his death, I couldn't believe he was really gone forever. I didn't go to his funeral. I didn't have the heart to see him lying in wake.

My trauma was getting worse and worse. Nobody knew my pain. My master's assistant advocate accepted me as her student. I encouraged myself to keep going. Whenever I found difficulty in my workplace, I always heard my master's words and I could handle everything myself. In the brief time we met, my master had taught me the do’s and don'ts in complex relationships between a judge, lawyer, and client. 

A trainee lawyer has to pay attention to every trial they have been to and record the statement for each case in a notebook. After the trial, the judge has to sign the apprentice’s chamber book. I collected the judges' signatures almost everyday. Then came COVID-19. All courts were closed to the public until further notice. l didn't have the chance to finish my term, and I was unable to submit my chamber book to the Supreme Court.

Then came something else, far more dangerous than the COVID-19 for the people of Myanmar. At that time, we lived in staff housing, located in the compound of a regional parliament and government where my mother served. I smelled a rat in the wee hours of 1st February 2021. I awoke early at 3am. I checked my phone. There was no signal. I rebooted my phone but it didn't work. I thought I needed to go to the phone repair shop. As I scrolled through social media news feeds on WiFi, I read on the BBC breaking news that there had been a military coup in Myanmar. It was the end of the world to me. I couldn't sleep anymore. The military junta cut off the phone lines and troops were already deployed around where we lived. At around 3am, the region’s Prime Minister, the parliamentary delegates and government officers were already taken into custody, without a warrant. A witness told us that a couple of military trucks had secretly entered our staff housing on the night of 31st January 2021. It was against Section 80 of the Criminal Procedure Code. According to Section 444 of the Penal Code, whoever trespasses a property after sunset and before sunrise is said to commit ‘lurking house-trespass by night.’ 

They didn't allow us to go outside in the morning. Visitors weren't allowed either. A few hours later they stipulated that a person per household could go out to buy groceries or run an errand. One had to produce a national identity card or employee card to security forces to be able to go outside.

The military-owned Myawaddy TV announced that Vice-President U Myint Swe would serve as the Acting President of Myanmar. The military declared a state of emergency and seized power on the morning of 1st February 2021. According to Section 73(a) of the Constitution, one of the Vice-Presidents who has won the second highest votes in the Presidential election shall serve as Acting President if the office of the President falls vacant due to resignation, death, permanent disability or any other cause. One doesn’t have to be a lawyer to see that the military junta committed several serious offences against Sections 64, 71, and 73 of their own Constitution.

The junta troops deliberately killed peaceful protectors and bystanders after the coup. According to Section 131 of the Criminal Procedure Code, any commissioned officer of the Army may disperse such assembly by military force, and may arrest and confine any persons forming part of it, in order to disperse such assembly or that they may be punished according to law when no Magistrate can be communicated with. In shooting at anti-coup protesters, the Myanmar army again committed the offences against Sections 130 and 131 of the Criminal Procedure Code. 

Around the end of October 2021, combat aircrafts were flying twice per hour to and from their Regional Command in Thantlang in Chin State, a town not very far from where we lived. Although we weren't in Thantlang, we felt like we were on the battlefield. Our lives were no more safe. More than 160 buildings were set on fire and the whole Thantlang was displaced, but it was just the beginning of Myanmar’s nightmares.

The People's Defence Force that had emerged against the junta tried to shoot at the soldiers at the gate of our parliamentary compound many times. Courts that were shut since the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t have a chance to reopen. These days, all the hearings are conducted in closed trials inside jails, under junta-appointed judges. The trainee lawyers are not allowed in those courts. It looks like my dream to become a lawyer is uncertain under the present circumstances.

Fortunately, my mom turned sixty in November 2021, and decided to retire to a rural area to live out the rest of her life peacefully. We moved to her favourite village. I lost contact with my friends and colleagues in the heartland of the country where my old home was. The military junta cut off telecommunication services in anti-regime resistance strongholds. Almost everyday they set fire to villages in the heartland of Myanmar, where anti-junta resistance is very formidable. I am worried-sick about my friends and colleagues there. I don’t think I should submit my lawyer application if my friends are unable to do so.

I am sitting tight, hoping for a return to a normal life. We want our democracy back, no matter how flawed it was. I may not become a lawyer after all, but I’ll never repent my decision. I will keep moving forward.

After all, I believe, Myanmar people must, and will prevail. One day.