Burmese artist narrates survival of ethnic cleansing, statelessness in CSPS exhibit

CEDAR RAPIDS — In Burma, life for Cedar Rapids resident Saw Naing Lin and his family depended on a color-coded system.

And for half his life in the rural Karenni State of the country now known as Myanmar, they lived in the wrong color — the red zone.

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In the red zone, humanity was not recognized by the state. Citizenship is withheld from families that have known no other home in their lives.

“It was like a countdown to when it was our turn to get killed,” Lin said through an interpreter.

With their own language, culture, values and a mix of religions, Karenni people in the red zone were not considered “true bloods” of Myanmar. So when life was seen by the ruling military junta, it was killed or enslaved without hesitation.

“In their eyes, we weren’t meant to be there or exist at all. And for them, the only way to wipe us out was to kill us,” explained Lin’s daughter, Laythuza Sar.

Today, Lin’s story is told at length in drawings and paintings documenting an agrarian lifestyle constantly bombarded by ethnic cleansing.

Through scenes drawn from Lin’s memory, the brutal realities of a complex history unknown to many Americans are outlined in living color.

If you go:

Where: CSPS Hall, 1103 Third St. SE, Cedar Rapids

Hours: 12 to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday

Details: An exhibition of 15 paintings depicting Cedar Rapids artist Saw Naing Lin’s life and memories in Burma remains on exhibition through July 10. For more details, visit cspshall.org/saw-naing-lin.

Pictures worth thousands of words

Through paintings on display and a sketchbook kept at home, the realities of daily life in Burma are masterfully articulated with clarity that transcends language barriers.

At CSPS Hall, 15 paintings on display document the duality of life for people like Lin: the joys of a simple life in a town without roads or hospitals, and the challenges of existing in a place where indigenous minorities are not allowed.

Sketches by the self-taught artist, 47, were often completed in about 10 minutes as he rushed to document memories in a stream of consciousness. Paintings were often completed in one stretch over a day or night.

“1999,” shows a camp along the Ti-Pwa-Loh River engulfed in flames after the Burmese military attacked. The only thing left intact is his wife’s blue skirt, hanging in a tree. This scene, the family said, was very common.

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“Each year, we built two or three houses,” a captioned sketch at home explains. “One in the village, and one in the forest in case Burmese soldiers came and attacked our homes in the village, so we could hide.”

“Haw Law Cave,” tells a story of survival in a hidden cave, where his family would live for days or weeks at a time as their village came under the control of government soldiers.

“The Burmese soldiers don’t care if you’re a human being,” Lin says in one unpublished sketch. “If they want to kill you, they will do it.”

“Run!” serves as its prequel — the frenetic course his family would take to safety each time the military returned.

Baskets designed to help them leave at a moment’s notice are packed with necessities, and livestock like chickens and pigs follow in tow. Lin notes his pride in the pig seen on a leash, who would come when called by name.

One memorial painting, “A Rose in Bud,” collages the military bombing of a school — a depiction of current events. The children’s metal tiffin boxes, packed with layered lunch staples like rice and meat, remain untouched.

“They didn’t even have a chance to open their lunch boxes,” Naing said.

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“Water Buffalo,” illustrates a boy fishing in the Bachaw river. Community-oriented life in Gee Leo, their village of about 600, relied on hunting by men, and fishing or gardening by women. Staples like fish paste and salt required a two- or three-day walk from the place with no roads, cars or motorcycles.

The ruling military junta took advantage of that by planting explosive mines in the gardens and land that provided their food.

“Lucky people like my grandma avoided stepping on a mine while my uncle stood on it,” one sketch narrates, showing a man losing his leg in an explosion. Many of the wounded died because there were no medicines, doctors or hospitals.

Villagers like their family found joy in small schools, where women taught what little they knew. People like Lin, who grew up in a Christian and Buddhist household, enjoyed Christmas caroling by torch light, collecting donations for the church.

A journey to safety

For most of their lives, there was no planning for the future — only subsistence.

Lin’s wife of 25 years, Mu Ruo, remembers being asked as a child what she would like to be when she grew up. But she couldn’t envision a future — much less an occupation — as a Karenni who would never be granted citizenship in Burma.

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After drawing many scenes of violence, Lin called the despair of never being recognized as a citizen of Myanmar “inhumane.”

“It was no future, no nothing,” said Ruo, who served as a schoolteacher.

The couple knew it was time to leave Myanmar when most of their family and friends had already left. After their first child was born, their perspective on the future changed.

In 2001, Lin started to scout paths through mountainous terrain, rivers and dense vegetation to a United Nations refugee camp in neighboring Thailand. The trip to safety required three weeks of walking.

There, the family lived for 9 years and had two more daughters.

Lin made the arduous journey back to Myanmar to deliver supplies and nongovernmental organization funding to schools, at one point contracting malaria. On a trip back to the refugee camp, he carried a 5-year-old orphan on his shoulders.

That boy, now in his late 20s, also lives in Cedar Rapids today.

Coming to America

After several years in the refugee camp, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees offered the family a chance to move to the United States.

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An American on site assured them they only needed two things to emigrate successfully: knowing “yes” and “no,” and a willingness to work hard.

“After hearing that, a lot of people became happy,” Lin’s sketchbook journals.

Linn had long hoped to take refuge in America, which had a reputation at camp — many of the donations they relied on were from the United States. And after eating tuna paste and yellow beans for years, he heard the food was good here.

More than living in another country, he wanted a place his family could belong — a realistic possibility in the United States.

“I get emotional when I think about us not having a home and a future,” he told The Gazette.

There was only one catch: the family had to finance most of their trip’s expenses.

Thanks to connections with middle men, Lin ran businesses like his popular ice cream stand. His daughter, Sar, works at their neighborhood Dairy Queen today.

Lin also labored long days in Thai fields, at great personal risk, to earn $45 per month.

A state to call home

In 2011, the family settled in Cedar Rapids, where Lin got his American start at a Tyson pork packing plant in Waterloo.

In 2016, the United States became the first country ever to grant him citizenship. He remembers the way his legs trembled on the trip to the naturalization ceremony, and how a video of President Barack Obama congratulated new Americans on their citizenship.

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In Myanmar, government leaders strike fear in their constituents. Here, he said it struck inspiration.

After 14 years in Iowa, the family remains reticent to tell their story. Even here, they fear being seen as less than human.

“Some people accept us, and some people push us away when telling our story,” Lin said.

He hopes his art raises awareness and dialogue about a humanitarian crisis that continues, unrepresented in most media.

But what’s more is that after decades hiding from a state blinded to his humanity, he is content with simply being seen.

Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.