Not light reading in the first few minutes of the new year, but an important and essential one nonetheless--
I was reading Raul Hilberg's memoir, The Politics of Memory, in which he says the size of the Holocaust Museum in DC is very important. I must go back again and go through the whole experience again.
In the past, I only went for one event, as I reasoned I had been to Auschwitz and Majdanek in Poland already, so why go to a museum--but it seems the museum visitor is given a card (an ID card of a victim) and then "goes through life" with this computer card at various points in the Museum, I guess with the Nazis coming to the house, being deported in a cattle car and so on.
In c. 2001 C3 and S. went, but I sat on a bench on the Mall and waited for them. I still find my visits to Majdanek and Auschwitcz memorable, traumatic and unforgettable, though it was in 1968-69.
In any case this book, has a large online sample
Including a complete introduction by Peter Hayes--
a table of contents and the introduction by Neumann--
Just reading this sample, I can't help but think about Burma--
in this book the behemoth can only be removed by military action and Nuremberg-style trials, and Peter Hayes says that in practice, the amount of de-structuralization in (West) Germany was much less than Neumann had thought.
I wonder about de-structuralization in Japan after defeat in WW II and about Cambodia after defeat of Khmer Rouge by Vietnam.
I haven't read the Neumann book yet, but now I have reviewed it, maybe more thoroughly than some reviewers, I might as well post this on Amazon.
Even the online sample, you should read it in small doses, as it is abstract and theoretical, but theoretical does not mean it is untrue--
like all theory it is an attempt to make sense of a situation, and I feel that it is much much better than all the jargon and cliches written about the so-called democratization and reform, both so-called, in Burma, said to be taking place right now.
I did not think at all I would go this route intellectually in 2016, but it seems I will.
On Facebook, if you can follow me please do, if you can't look at the pictures of flowers etc, but I myself will go this route.
Burmese Rohingya supporters should also read the arguments that anti-semitism is ingrained in German culture.
A slow and dark read, but at the end you will understand a whole lot more, I am sure.
KMKaung
1-1-2016
