Dear U Kyaw Myaing,

Since I joined the service after you, my colleagues and I look upon you and a few others as 'mentors'. I regard you as Mr Clean.

The point you've raised whether to join in with the majority even though you know it is not 'morally correct' depends on how you were brought up, I suppose.

Bringing up children and economic hardships does not go well together at all. However, it is also a 'test' for your character - how clean you can lead your life. Say, if we were to believe in the Dhamma then there is no room for bending the rules when you are confronted with 'corruption'. We were raised to be content with what we have and what we can afford.

I considered myself lucky to have the opportunity to work for a while with Uncle when I started. He taught us many lessons, in particular, how to lead and ethical life in the service and what pitfalls we have to expect.

I find it hard to go with the flow and time and again I had to confront with those moral dilemma. Like you, I decided that I cannot be part of the system and sought political asylum. My parents always reminded me that to do a immoral act is like throwing a stone 'backwards'. Knowingly or unknowingly you're tarnishing the name of your ancestors. We were taught to have shame and fear of doing immoral things and it's a very straight and narrow path to follow when you're living in Burma. In Abhidhamma, shamelessness and fearlessness of wrong are the mental factors or cetasikas that will lead one to do immoral things.

As for those who commit inhumane or criminal acts with the excuse that 'they were just doing their duties - following orders' it was said that they have loss a sense of responsibility as a question of their submission to authority. The essence of obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and he therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for his actions. Once this critical shift of viewpoint has occurred in the person, all of the essential features of obedience follow.

Hannah Arendt in her book "Eichmann in Jerusalem" sets forth her then controversial thesis about 'the banality of evil': that the detestable Nazi Eichmann was not a 'monster' but was simply obeying orders that the Jews in his concentration camp be put to death in the camp's gas chambers. Eichmann was simply a bureaucrat obeying orders, like bureaucrats everywhere. I have my relatives in the military who were not much better than Eichmann when it comes to 'obeying orders or just doing their duty'.

It was also mentioned that there was an intense devalution of the victims prior to action against them. Vehement anti-Jewish propaganda systemically prepared the German population to accept the destruction of the Jews. Was there any difference in the genocide of Tutsis by the Hutus in Rawanda?

Let me quote you what George Orwell wrote:

As I write, highly civilised human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me. They do not feel any enmity against me as an individual, nor I against them. They are only 'doing their duty', as the saying goes. Most of them, I have no doubt, are kindhearted law abiding men who would never dream of committing murder in private life. On the other hand, if one of them succeeds in blowing me to pieces with a well-placed bomb, he will never sleep any the worse for it.

It is not just the authority that is to blame but the mindless obedience to the authority that can cause more harm. I do not think that I need to elaborate further.

We should never take obedience to authority for granted.