Over the past 20 years Burma has sunk ever further into an abyss of political oppression and economic malaise under a brutal military junta that shot monks on the streets of Yangon during the Saffron Revolution in September 2007, and then exacerbated the natural tragedy of cyclone Nargis this past May by hampering international relief efforts. Under this regime, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for 13 of the past 19 years and her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), has not been allowed to take control of the government despite winning a landslide victory in the 1990 elections.
The new constitution, "approved" in a rigged referendum held in May, disqualifies Aung San Suu Kyi, the nation's most prominent and popular political leader, from running for office and also institutionalizes a continuing political role for the military by reserving seats for it in Parliament. New elections are scheduled for 2010, but the junta is loading the dice so the people won't have a chance to give the "wrong" verdict again.
This witty and incisive graphic novel draws on the 14 months in 2005-06 when Guy Delisle accompanied his wife on a posting in Burma with Doctors Without Borders. Delisle, who has also published graphic novels about North Korea and China, mines the everyday life and experiences of an expatriate, often shared with his infant Louis. Even from within a relatively comfortable cocoon, Delisle helps readers understand what it means to live under an incompetent but scary dictatorship.