Sunday, December 22, 2013

From my Facebook page -- Bo Aung Kyaw tribute -& comments -

  • 75 years ago today - University student "Bo" Aung Gyaw was killed and dozens of other Burmese demonstrators against colonial rule wounded by police on Sparks Street (now Bo Aung Gyaw St) as they attempted to march around the Secretariat. He was the first 'martyr' of the nationalist movement and tens of thousands of people attended his funeral a week later (so many lined the route that it took four hours for the cortege to travel the half mile from Rangoon University to Kyandaw cemetary (now Junction Square mall). Burmese nationalism was taking a radical turn. Elsewhere in the world Europe was veering towards the Second World War (Adolph Hitler had just been named Time "Man of the Year") and Japanese armies advancing across China, forcing Chiang Kai-shek to withdraw his capital to Chungking. Within two years the war would come to Burma.
    75 years ago today - University student "Bo" Aung Gyaw was killed and dozens of other Burmese demonstrators against colonial rule wounded by police on Sparks Street (now Bo Aung Gyaw St) as they attempted to march around the Secretariat.

    He was the first 'martyr' of the nationalist movement and tens of thousands of people attended his funeral a week later (so many lined the route that it took four hours for the cortege to travel the half mile from Rangoon University to Kyandaw cemetary (now Junction Square mall). Burmese nationalism was taking a radical turn.

    Elsewhere in the world Europe was veering towards the Second World War (Adolph Hitler had just been named Time "Man of the Year") and Japanese armies advancing across China, forcing Chiang Kai-shek to withdraw his capital to Chungking. Within two years the war would come to Burma.
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    •  I had an "entertaining" segue reading the comments on this post and looking up the profiles and thoughts of the Burmese nationalists, some associated with the Burmese military, who made those comments. Very interesting. What a bubbled world some live in.

    • Kyi May, I lived with my family on Sparks Street, No 224, 3rd Floor from 1947- 1961. Every day between 1948 and 1954, my brother Nyun Wynn and I walk to St Pauls High School. It was at the gate near Fraser St and Spark Street corner that the police horses charged the rioters and Bo Aung Gyaw got hurt and later suscumbed. People can tell stories, but Burma's history cannot be re-invented by people who will try to . The ordinary Burmese know and undewrstand their own history. With Metta.
      23 minutes ago · Unlike · 1
    • Kyi May Kaung Thank you, U MN. At the radio station, I produced a dramatization of the incident that was much praised. I even re-produced the sound of the Brit police batons hitting heads, as I had read somewhere the sound of a human head hit sound like a cabbage...See More
      16 minutes ago · Like
    • Kyi May Kaung The absolute clincher is "nationalism" gave us Ne Win and the present junta.
      9 minutes ago · Like
    • Kyi May Kaung
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