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I've been hearing a little about this here and there, and then all of a sudden it's front-page news that monks and protesters have been attacked, villages have been destroyed, and the government has shut down Internet access to prevent news from getting out.
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Noemon started one. It didn't get much response.
Ultimately, the Burmese government doesn't care what most other countries think and will continue the violent crackdown until the people stop acting up. The only coutnry that I think could have a major effect is China, and they aggressively don't care. The international community could put pressure on China, especially with the impending Olympics, but that's unlikely to happen.
So, I just don't know what we can do about it.
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Squick's read on the subject is pretty accurate. India and China are Burma's two largest trading partners, and while either of them might be able to influence Burma's government (China much more so than India, but India's influence shouldn't be discounted), neither seems willing to do so.
Because of the reverence with which monks are held, I thought it was possible that attacking them might cause division among the military, possibly resulting in a civil war, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.
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I read at HRW the same thing-- that Burma's major trading partners (besides China and India they listed Japan and, um, I can't remember-- Thailand?) are in a position to wield considerable power, but are not.
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My parents live in Malaysia and my mom mentioned it in the last email she sent.
She said the woman who cleans her house (edit: not that she can't clean her house perfectly well herself, but if she hadn't hired on the woman that cleaned the house before my parents moved in the woman would be out of a job. I don't know why I felt the need to exlpain that, but I did.) and the woman's husband left Myanmar (which is what they call Burma. She said the name changed in '88 when the monks started the revolution.) four years ago and had to leave their daughter behind with relatives. Now they can't go back and see their daughter, whom they haven't seen in over a year. The woman said that this will likely result in another gov't change.
It sounds like a really bad situation for the people from the island, but, unfortunately, it sounds like something they're pretty familiar with.
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National Geographic had a wonderful article on Myanmar last year, it was pretty eye opening. I will look and see if I can find it in my stack. I believe it was April 2006.
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Myanmar and Burma are both terms for the country that have been around for some time, with Myanmar being the more formal, literary of the two and Burma being the more everyday vernacular name for the country. The country's official name had been Burma for quite some time, but in 1990, a year after the uprising, the current government officially changed it to Myanmar. The party that won power (and was then denied it by the military government that contiues to hold power there) in the 1988 elections rejects the name Myanmar, and countries that are sympathetic to that party tend to refer to the country as Burma. Basically, that's the US and the UK. The UN recogizes the name Myanmar, and the EU officially refers to the country as Burma/Myanmar.
The current situation in the country is not one that people there are familiar with. The government there is pretty bad news, ruling brutally, keeping its citizens in a state of poverty (when it's one of the richest countries in the region in terms of natural resources) for the most part, and employing a fairly extensive network of secret police to maintain a state of distrust and fear among the populace, but there haven't been widespread protests (and overt government action againt the monks) since 1988.
Note that there has been and continues to be fighting going on between the government and rebels, mostly hill tribes (and of them, mostly Karen), though.
[Edited to change the year of the elections, which I mistakenly wrote took place in 1988]
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(I wasn't sure and hesitated between Myanmar and Burma, not knowing which is the one that would be more, um, accepted by the people who live there, but I just used the one more used in the news accounts I saw.)
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quote:Originally posted by vonk: My parents live in ... not that she can't clean her house perfectly well herself ...
I'm just curious why cleaning your parents (plural) house is only one parent's (your mother's) job?
I guess the implication in your post that having servants is somehow bad or wrong, meanwhile seemingly missing totally the fact that if "she" cleans "her" own house, your father still has a servant, just now he's married to her, and that's apparently perfectly fine, struck me as odd.
-Tatiana: Questioning unquestioned assumptions since 1958.
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Is it? I don't mean to be harsh at all. I'm just curious about that assumption. I myself think it's fine to have people work for you particularly if you're a good boss and pay well, and give opportunities for advancement in various ways. It just puzzled me why the implication that the servant is his mom's servant, not his parents' servant, and so on. It seemed an odd juxtaposition in someone who seemed to feel servants needed explanation, from which I draw the conclusion that vonk feels it's better or more worthy somehow for people to do their own housework.
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P.S. I think it sucks what is happening in Myanmar now. I wish something could be done to stop it.
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Maybe you haven't encountered it, Tatiana, but there's a popular perception in much of American culture that people who hire a maid are either lazy or too rich to want to do their own work (or both) or otherwise just "don't have it together." I don't think vonk was subscribing to that but he's obviously encountered it. And it's not uncommon for couples to decide that the spouse that doesn't work outside the home, or works shorter hours, is primarily responsible for care of the home. So it would not be unreasonable to assume that the maid is of more help to his mother than his father.
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(And I think the reason your post seemed harsh to me is that I am a spouse who stays at home, and I don't find anything wrong with the idea that since my husband is somewhere else during the day, most of the daily maintainance of the home should fall on me. I'm not his servant, I'm taking care of my part of the responsiblity of caring for our family.
Not that I actually am right now. I'm mostly laying down in between throwing up. But generally that is how it would go.)
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kq, I don't see anything wrong with families splitting up the chores in whatever way works best for them. So I hope you didn't hear my post as any sort of criticism for SAHMs or women who do most of the housework. I just find it strange when guys are said to "help with the dishes" or "babysit for the kids" or whatever. I find the implication that it's all the woman's job and the man is just helping out, to be strange. I mean, presumably men also eat off dishes in most families. Instead of helping with the dishes, I would say men are doing the dishes, and instead of babysitting their own children, I would say men are keeping the kids, or watching the kids, or spending time with the kids. The idea that housework belongs to the mom and is somehow something the dad has nothing at all to do with is what seems strange to me. Men wear clothes and get them dirty just like women do, and so on.
I hope you feel better soon! I heard that keeping eating separate from drinking liquids can help that kind of nausea, though it doesn't make sense to me. Exciting reason to be throwing up, anyway. I'm jealous! <drinks the Hatrack water>
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Tatiana- the babysitting thing is something my husband and I constantly fight over. We are both grad students so equally busy with non-family obligations. But, when he has to watch the baby, he says I am forcing him to babysit when I go to work. When he goes to work, I am watching the baby.
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There is a little bit of give lately. China has made a step forward. Granted that step only consists of slightly more critical rhetoric, it shows that they might be willing to budge on the issue. The more this shapes up to be about what role China will play in Southeast Asian affairs, the more they will feel pressured to act. They want the same power and influence that Western powers traditionally have, and that means Southeast Asia is their backyard, and therefore their sphere of influence. If they want us to butt out of the area, they have to show that they can handle it by themselves.
I think Burma just proved that they aren't going to move for the heck of it. The last I heard on NPR was that they'd shut off the internet, and Monks were being forcibly kept in their monastaries under house arrest, which is why the protesters are without them at the moment.
If China sits on their hands, or even worse, holds up Security Council votes on the subject, they are going to lose face on the issue, they won't just come out even. Soon you'll see the effort shift away from pressuring Burma and towards pressuring China, and I think when the US, South Korea, and Japan all team up, India at the very least will budge, and then I think China will find itself in a bind. But I don't really expect to see that happen unless the protesters keep up the pressure against the junta to keep committing atrocities against the people, it'll keep them on the front page of CNN.
Of course, I would be equally unsurprised if absolutely nothing happens and we just keep up business as usual.
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Not that I am a geography snob, but we really should refer to Burma as "Myanmar" now, as that is the name they have adopted officially, as of 1989 anyway.
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But if I say "Burma", you'll understand I mean "Myanmar", right? I accept both names, but if I'm in a group of people, I'll probably say "Burma" because that's what most people know the name of the country as.
I understand your position, though.
(And here's hoping there's a government change, for the better.)
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quote:Originally posted by vonk: She said the woman who cleans her house (edit: not that she can't clean her house perfectly well herself, but if she hadn't hired on the woman that cleaned the house before my parents moved in the woman would be out of a job. I don't know why I felt the need to exlpain that, but I did.)
In this part of the world, among foreigners who are relatively wealthy, it's pretty common to hire servants, even when they really don't need them (ie are perfectly capable of doing their own cooking and cleaning, and would do so if they were back in their home country), as a way of giving back to the community, injecting cash into the local economy, and giving a family an income they can live off that would otherwise be far poorer.
Of course, locals don't understand that - they think we're spoiled - but that's another discussion entirely.
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Squick's post matches what I've heard as well. The only foreign influence that might make a difference (financial or diplomatic) would have to come from either India or the PRC, and neither seems interested in exerting either. Everything else, even the sorts of targeted sanctions against rulers on luxuries, have little or no impact.
This seems to me to be a situation that cannot possibly be resolved without violence, unfortunately. From one side or the other. So long as the government in power doesn't respond to any pressures brought to bear by peaceful demonstrations and politics, the status quo will remain.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Not that I am a geography snob, but we really should refer to Burma as "Myanmar" now, as that is the name they have adopted officially, as of 1989 anyway.
I'm going to continue to refer to it as Burma for the reasons laid out in my earlier post on the subject.
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn:The last I heard on NPR was that...Monks were being forcibly kept in their monastaries under house arrest, which is why the protesters are without them at the moment.
It's gotten worse than that, unfortunately. If those monks are killed, I wonder if it'll trigger that civil war I was talking about earlier.
I also wonder what impact all of this is having on the Karen rebels fight against the government.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: we really should refer to Burma as "Myanmar" now, as that is the name they have adopted officially, as of 1989 anyway.
Do you say "Germany" instead of "Deutschland?"
Or perhaps more analagous, The People's Republic of China?
What about the Republic of China?
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I think that it's likely that they haven't yet been shot, but I think that they probably will be.
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I don't know, wiping out 4,000 monks in one shot seems a pretty risky move even for the military junta. The chances of us not finding out are pretty slim, and despite the negative attention of shipping them off to a gulag in the north, it won't bring the same negative attention, and possible uprising that outright genocide would bring. Though I don't see why they can't do both, as in, march them north and then kill them at a later date.
Considering the restraint shown in the past (well, relative restraint) towards the monks, murdering 4,000 of them seems a huge escalation.
But it wouldn't surprise me.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: we really should refer to Burma as "Myanmar" now, as that is the name they have adopted officially, as of 1989 anyway.
Do you say "Germany" instead of "Deutschland?"
Or perhaps more analagous, The People's Republic of China?
What about the Republic of China?
You can find examples of the word Germany on anything translated into English in Germany. I refer to mainland China as the PRC and Taiwan as the ROC. If you want to incite a riot go around calling Taiwan part of the PRC while in Taiwan. Why did we stop calling Taiwan, "Formosa?" Or when did China stop being Cathay? I'm sure if you used the colonial name of Burma while in Myanmar people would greatly appreciate it. Why don't we just refer to the US as, "The colonies?" Part of their break from colonialism was to break from the old name. I see it as a courtesy to respect their wishes.
I was just moderately concerned since EVERY post before mine referred to the country as Burma. Most American's do not even know that Burma and Myanmar are the same country. If folks want to keep saying Burma, that's their prerogative, I thought I'd try to be helpful.
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quote:Originally posted by vonk: My parents live in ... not that she can't clean her house perfectly well herself ...
I'm just curious why cleaning your parents (plural) house is only one parent's (your mother's) job?
I guess the implication in your post that having servants is somehow bad or wrong, meanwhile seemingly missing totally the fact that if "she" cleans "her" own house, your father still has a servant, just now he's married to her, and that's apparently perfectly fine, struck me as odd.
-Tatiana: Questioning unquestioned assumptions since 1958.
There really outa be a raised eyebrow graemlin. 1) The email I was talking about was from my mom. The story I was relating came from my mom. Therefor my mom was the central character in the story, and mentioned when my dad was not.
2)She is responsible for her house because she is the one that lives there most of the time. My dad travels a lot and the house is pretty much hers. While I'm sure he'd be more than willing to clean while he is home, I'm also sure they would both agree that that wouldn't be the happiest way to spend his one day home this month. He's helped clean the house and raise seven kids right along side my mom, not behind and not in front of -- I don't know why I'm defending my dad to you. I'm gonna stop now.
KQ and quidscribis understand perfectly.
Apologies to everyone for the derail.
quote:The current situation in the country is not one that people there are familiar with. The government there is pretty bad news, ruling brutally, keeping its citizens in a state of poverty (when it's one of the richest countries in the region in terms of natural resources) for the most part, and employing a fairly extensive network of secret police to maintain a state of distrust and fear among the populace, but there haven't been widespread protests (and overt government action againt the monks) since 1988.
So it's a situation they're familiar with, and now they're taking action. It's a good thing that the people and monks are protesting, right? Even though it's causing untold murders and atrocities, at lease they're trying to do something about it. Here's hoping they are effective enough to make some changes for the good.
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quote:The current situation in the country is not one that people there are familiar with. The government there is pretty bad news, ruling brutally, keeping its citizens in a state of poverty (when it's one of the richest countries in the region in terms of natural resources) for the most part, and employing a fairly extensive network of secret police to maintain a state of distrust and fear among the populace, but there haven't been widespread protests (and overt government action againt the monks) since 1988.
So it's a situation they're familiar with, and now they're taking action.
Hm. I think that I was misunderstanding you, then. When you said this:
quote:It sounds like a really bad situation for the people from the island, but, unfortunately, it sounds like something they're pretty familiar with.
I thought that the situation you were referring to was the immediate one of protests and overt government aggression against the protesters.
In rereading what you originally wrote, though, I'm puzzled. When you say "people from the island", who are you talking about?
quote:It's a good thing that the people and monks are protesting, right? Even though it's causing untold murders and atrocities, at lease they're trying to do something about it. Here's hoping they are effective enough to make some changes for the good.
You know, I'm having a hard time categorizing what they're doing as good or bad either one. I'm certainly sympathetic to their cause, but when you're dealing with a government as brutal and unconcerned with both its populace's well being and the opinions of other nations as Burma's is, I don't know that using the tactics that would be effective against a more humane government is wise. I'm also not a big fan of "just doing something" (as in "at least they're trying to do something about it"). At the same time, something does have to be done.
I don't think that the military government will relax their stranglehold on the country. I don't think that China and Russia will allow the UN to send in troops. Given those two things, it seems to me that armed rebellion is going to be the only thing that will really change the situation. If the government is stupid enough to slaughter the monks it is rounding up, that may be enough to tip the country into open civil war. I wonder if the monks' intent (or the intent of some subset of the monks, anyway) at the outset of this was to martyr themselves to bring about revolution.
We've already had one report of an officer defecting to Thailand rather than bring force to bear against the monks; hopefully that's just the tip of the iceburg.
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quote:In rereading what you originally wrote, though, I'm puzzled. When you say "people from the island", who are you talking about?
Oh, I'm just an idiot. My mind told me Burma/Myanmar was one of the Pacific islands, and I foolishly believed it.
And yeah, by the "situation" I meant the situation of having a violently oppresive militarty dictatorship abusing it's citizens, not the current conflict.
quote:You know, I'm having a hard time categorizing what they're doing as good or bad either one. I'm certainly sympathetic to their cause, but when you're dealing with a government as brutal and unconcerned with both its populace's well being and the opinions of other nations as Burma's is, I don't know that using the tactics that would be effective against a more humane government is wise. I'm also not a big fan of "just doing something" (as in "at least they're trying to do something about it"). At the same time, something does have to be done.
That's a really challenging moral dilemma. Is it better to revolt and accept the much higher rate of death on the hope of success, or aquiesce and accept a slower, but eventually more devestating, rate of death. I dunno, but if there are significant signs that the revolt will be successful, I would say it is a good thing, and that the immediate higher rate of death is a horribly tragic, but acceptable, means to an end. One officer deflecting isn't a significant sign, but I think it is a sign, and a significant step in the right direction.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I was just moderately concerned since EVERY post before mine referred to the country as Burma.
BlackBlade, you might have conflated this with a different thread entirely, because a good bit of the thread upstream to your first post was spent discussing this point specifically:
quote: Posted by vonk October 02, 2007 04:12 PM
My parents live in Malaysia and my mom mentioned it in the last email she sent.
She said the woman who cleans her house (edit: not that she can't clean her house perfectly well herself, but if she hadn't hired on the woman that cleaned the house before my parents moved in the woman would be out of a job. I don't know why I felt the need to exlpain that, but I did.) and the woman's husband left Myanmar (which is what they call Burma. She said the name changed in '88 when the monks started the revolution.) four years ago and had to leave their daughter behind with relatives. Now they can't go back and see their daughter, whom they haven't seen in over a year. The woman said that this will likely result in another gov't change.
It sounds like a really bad situation for the people from the island, but, unfortunately, it sounds like something they're pretty familiar with. [emphasis added]
quote:Posted by porcelain girl October 02, 2007 05:24 PM
National Geographic had a wonderful article on Myanmar last year, it was pretty eye opening. I will look and see if I can find it in my stack. I believe it was April 2006. [emphasis added]
quote:Posted by Noemon [this is the explanatory post referred to later by Noemon] October 02, 2007 05:35 PM
I've fixed the link; sorry about that.
Myanmar and Burma are both terms for the country that have been around for some time, with Myanmar being the more formal, literary of the two and Burma being the more everyday vernacular name for the country. The country's official name had been Burma for quite some time, but in 1989, a year after the uprising, the current government officially changed it to Myanmar. The party that won power (and was then denied it by the military government that contiues to hold power there) in the 1988 elections rejects the name Myanmar, and countries that are sympathetic to that party tend to refer to the country as Burma. Basically, that's the US and the UK. The UN recogizes the name Myanmar, and the EU officially refers to the country as Burma/Myanmar.
The current situation in the country is not one that people there are familiar with. The government there is pretty bad news, ruling brutally, keeping its citizens in a state of poverty (when it's one of the richest countries in the region in terms of natural resources) for the most part, and employing a fairly extensive network of secret police to maintain a state of distrust and fear among the populace, but there haven't been widespread protests (and overt government action againt the monks) since 1988.
Note that there has been and continues to be fighting going on between the government and rebels, mostly hill tribes (and of them, mostly Karen), though. [emphases added]
quote:Posted by ketchupqueen October 02, 2007 05:37 PM
(I wasn't sure and hesitated between Myanmar and Burma, not knowing which is the one that would be more, um, accepted by the people who live there, but I just used the one more used in the news accounts I saw.) [emphasis added]
---
I could be wrong, but it may be that an assumption that the people discussing things here are so out of the loop that they are not aware of not only the name change, but also the politics involved in the name choice -- especially when this was specifically discussed in this very thread -- might be stepping on a few toes. Noemon had graciously pointed you back to his more detailed post later as well. ("I'm going to continue to refer to it as Burma for the reasons laid out in my earlier post on the subject.")
However, it is all over the news and the discussion fora these days, and you might well have been thinking of a different discussion when you replied. I have done that myself, many times. *rueful
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quote:In rereading what you originally wrote, though, I'm puzzled. When you say "people from the island", who are you talking about?
Oh, I'm just an idiot. My mind told me Burma/Myanmar was one of the Pacific islands, and I foolishly believed it.
Eh, it happens; no big deal.
quote:And yeah, by the "situation" I meant the situation of having a violently oppresive militarty dictatorship abusing it's citizens, not the current conflict.
Yeah, I'd completely misunderstood what you meant. You're definitely right that the people of Burma have been living under that situation for far too long.
quote: One officer deflecting isn't a significant sign, but I think it is a sign, and a significant step in the right direction.
I'm not sure how significant it is; I would like to know how high up he was, and whether he's an anomoly or just the tip of the iceburg.
Noemon/CT: Thanks for setting me straight. I'm really starting to question my ability to process information because after reading Noemon's post regarding having already addressed the Myanmar/Burma issue I still couldn't find it anywhere. Then CT, you made your post and I looked again, and Noemon's post was right there in plain sight.
I don't even know what to say, besides sorry I even said anything. I'm probably going to vacate this thread for sometime so that real discourse can take place.
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Not to distract terribly from the conversation, but on BlackBlade's note, Burma/Myanmar is not the only country undergoing "name change." Many of the cities and towns in northern Canada have been changing names, too. I think that has to do with the new province (or territory?), Nunavut. Of course, I dare any layperson to try pronouncing those names. Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Looks like setting this up was what Ibrahim Gambari was up to over there. As usual, though, it looks like the government's just playing with the UN's envoy--the conditions are that Aung San Suu Kyi stop supporting interntional sanctions against Burma, which they can be quite confident that she won't do, and that she "abandon her confrontational attitude", which is of course so subjective that regardless of what she did they could claim that she had failed to meet the condition.
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Noemon, can you give some more information on the situation/background of Aung San Suu Kyi? It sounds like she's in government custody?
I'm so not up to date on this, I know I should do my own research, but I'm having a rough day stomach-wise and it's kinda tiring.
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Sure kq, I'd be glad to. I've got to run do some stuff right now, but I'll post something later on this evening.
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Wow. Having read the Wikipedia article, it seems this woman is on a par with other great Nobel Peace Prize winners such as King, Desmond Tutu, and Mandela.
Now my question is, why didn't I learn about her in school? She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. At the time I was in 3rd grade. There was ample opportunity for teachers to mention her name or the situation-- but I had never heard of her until these past few days.
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The Wikipedia entry on her is pretty good; I think that if I were to write something up it'd basically just be a recap of it.
Kq, I'm not sure why she isn't better known. Provincialism, I suppose. If you're interested in reading some of her speeches, I'd recommend her book Freedom from Fear.
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World Cup qualifiers start this month (yes soccer). Myanmar's 1st round opponent: PRChina
The Burmese team plays in China on the 21st, hosts the Chinese in Yangon on the 28th.
Many interesting possibilities. Will anyone try to defect in China ? Or try to use the stage to show solidarity with the monks (ala the raised fist from the '68 Olympics)? Will activists be able to pass off footage to visiting Chinese sports reporters ? Will the Burmese government even allow fans into the home game or would they fear a planned mass gathering?
Loads of dicey situations.
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They continue to make the same demands that they were making, and the NLD has officially rejected them. They don't necessarily speak for Aung San Suu Kyi, but I can't imagine that she'll consider the demands either.
More significant, to me, than the subject discussed in the headline are the efforts on the part of the US, UK, and France to get the rest of the Security Council on board with calling for democratisation and the release of political prisoners in Burma. The statement they're circulating has been watered down to make it more palatible to China and Russia.
A Burmese diplomat in London has resigned his position of 10 years in response to the government's treatment of the monks, saying openly that he'd hoped that the protests would force the military to come to an agreement with the NLD.
I'm not really sure why this is news; I suppose it's because it's one that the Burmese military is admitting to. He was tortured to death, and his body was cremated rather than returned to his family. The US is demanding an investigation into his death.
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But generally that is how it would go.)
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I'm jealous! ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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Oh, I'm just an idiot. My mind told me Burma/Myanmar was one of the Pacific islands, and I foolishly believed it. ![[Grumble]](graemlins/grumble.gif)
