Sunday, October 10, 2010
Saturday, October 09, 2010
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Poetry posting once removed -- Simone Jacobson --
http://washingtonart.com/beltway/jacobson.html
Burmese American poet Simone Jacobson
is daughter of Jocelyn Law Yone, and grand daughter of the late U Law Yone, founder of the famous The Nation newspaper of democratic Burma prior to the 1962 coup.
Kyi May
Burmese American poet Simone Jacobson
is daughter of Jocelyn Law Yone, and grand daughter of the late U Law Yone, founder of the famous The Nation newspaper of democratic Burma prior to the 1962 coup.
Kyi May
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Kyi May Kaung's review of William Dalrymple's The Last Moghul --
Book review:
William Dalrymple, The Last Mughal – The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857.
Alfred K. Knopf, New York, 2007.
ISBN 978-1-4000-4310-1
When the British annexed India in 1857 and Burma in 1886, they sent the Burmese King Thibaw and his family to Ratnagiri near Madras in India, and the Indian Emperor to Rangoon in Burma.
I lived in Rangoon almost 40 years before I came to the United States, but until 1988 I had never heard of Zafar Shah, the last Indian Emperor. In 1988, when my childhood friend, Yasmin and I were having high tea at the Hotel Atop the Bellevue in Philadelphia, Yasmin, who is Burmese-Muslim and can trace her origins to her grand aunts in Mandalay, the last capital city of the Burmese kings, happened to mention a Zafar Shah Road in Rangoon. Lost in a fugue state in one of the worst exile periods of my life, I asked Yasmin, “Who was he?” She then told me in one sentence about the British colonial power’s cunning prisoner exchange.
I had heard about the Sepoy Rebellion and the Indian Mutiny, in relation to the economic history of Burma and its annual budget, when it was a part of the Indian colonial empire until 1937. But I realize now, this 1857 event was a rebellion or a mutiny only if seen from the point of view of the British administration. From the Indian point of view, it is a national uprising and an attempt to regain native control of the Indian territories, which were being successively taken over by the East India Company.
I had read William Dalrymple’s other best-selling book, The White Mughals, 2002, a few years ago. This book was given to me by another childhood friend, this one the daughter of my father’s closest British, actually Scottish, friend. I loved The White Mughals, which was about the star-crossed marriage of a Mughal princess, Khair un-Nissa and the “gone native” British Resident at the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad. So it was easy for me to find The Last Mughal on the shelves at Politics and Prose in Washington, DC.
The author photo on the back book jacket flap of The Last Mughal shows William Dalrymple sitting on what must be an Indian veranda, holding his right hand to his forehead as if to keep all the historical facts he has researched together in his head. This book is indeed a tour de force of primary research and gripping historical narrative. It holds the reader’s rapt attention until the very last page – leaving you still yearning to learn more about Zafar’s family and his descendents.
To write this book, Dalrymple and his colleague Mahmood Farooqui translated the Mutiny Papers from the Urdu in the Indian National Archives, and there were also primary sources in Persian. In Rangoon, then UK Ambassador to Myanmar Vicky Bowman, he says, helped him “get into the Rangoon Archives.” Again, until I read this book I had no idea the Zafar Shah papers still existed in Rangoon, though I come from a well known bookish Rangoon family myself.
Because of this wealth of new primary material, Dalrymple’s book presents an amazing “I was there, and this is how it was” view of Indians from various walks of life before, during and after this earth-shaking uprising of 1857. At the same time as we obtain the views of the ruling British Resident family, the Metcalfes, we also get the views of members of Zafar’s family and court.
One of the most lucid and effective contemporary commentators was the court poet Ghalib, who was, by a fluke of luck, one of the only survivors of the mass killings and rapes that accompanied the re-taking of Dehli from the rebels. At the same time, Dalrymple has marshaled his facts so well, telling us only what we need to know at the right moment and no earlier, that the narrative reads like an historical novel.
As in the best fiction, the main characters change over time. Gradually, Zafar loses hope. He was after all in his mid-eighties. But he always conducted himself with dignity and humanity and quite a degree of political astuteness even in the face of overwhelming odds, in contrast to the outright brutality of the British officers and soldiers.
On the other hand, driven by thoughts of revenge, Theo Metcalfe, the scion of the Metcalfe family, metamorphoses into a frightening monster with his own gallows in his own back garden. In The Last Mughul, the facts themselves read somewhat like the quotes in Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, and I mean this of course as the highest of compliments.
The Last Mughal is also just plain well-written. Some of the most affecting and lyrical chapters are the ones depicting what a day in the life of the capital city was like before the troubles. Contrasted with the carnage after, The Last Mughal is a must read as an accurate depiction of what happens when wars of colonization take place.
---------
Kyi May Kaung holds a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in Political Economy and is an expert on totalitarian systems and Burma.
William Dalrymple, The Last Mughal – The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857.
Alfred K. Knopf, New York, 2007.
ISBN 978-1-4000-4310-1
When the British annexed India in 1857 and Burma in 1886, they sent the Burmese King Thibaw and his family to Ratnagiri near Madras in India, and the Indian Emperor to Rangoon in Burma.
I lived in Rangoon almost 40 years before I came to the United States, but until 1988 I had never heard of Zafar Shah, the last Indian Emperor. In 1988, when my childhood friend, Yasmin and I were having high tea at the Hotel Atop the Bellevue in Philadelphia, Yasmin, who is Burmese-Muslim and can trace her origins to her grand aunts in Mandalay, the last capital city of the Burmese kings, happened to mention a Zafar Shah Road in Rangoon. Lost in a fugue state in one of the worst exile periods of my life, I asked Yasmin, “Who was he?” She then told me in one sentence about the British colonial power’s cunning prisoner exchange.
I had heard about the Sepoy Rebellion and the Indian Mutiny, in relation to the economic history of Burma and its annual budget, when it was a part of the Indian colonial empire until 1937. But I realize now, this 1857 event was a rebellion or a mutiny only if seen from the point of view of the British administration. From the Indian point of view, it is a national uprising and an attempt to regain native control of the Indian territories, which were being successively taken over by the East India Company.
I had read William Dalrymple’s other best-selling book, The White Mughals, 2002, a few years ago. This book was given to me by another childhood friend, this one the daughter of my father’s closest British, actually Scottish, friend. I loved The White Mughals, which was about the star-crossed marriage of a Mughal princess, Khair un-Nissa and the “gone native” British Resident at the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad. So it was easy for me to find The Last Mughal on the shelves at Politics and Prose in Washington, DC.
The author photo on the back book jacket flap of The Last Mughal shows William Dalrymple sitting on what must be an Indian veranda, holding his right hand to his forehead as if to keep all the historical facts he has researched together in his head. This book is indeed a tour de force of primary research and gripping historical narrative. It holds the reader’s rapt attention until the very last page – leaving you still yearning to learn more about Zafar’s family and his descendents.
To write this book, Dalrymple and his colleague Mahmood Farooqui translated the Mutiny Papers from the Urdu in the Indian National Archives, and there were also primary sources in Persian. In Rangoon, then UK Ambassador to Myanmar Vicky Bowman, he says, helped him “get into the Rangoon Archives.” Again, until I read this book I had no idea the Zafar Shah papers still existed in Rangoon, though I come from a well known bookish Rangoon family myself.
Because of this wealth of new primary material, Dalrymple’s book presents an amazing “I was there, and this is how it was” view of Indians from various walks of life before, during and after this earth-shaking uprising of 1857. At the same time as we obtain the views of the ruling British Resident family, the Metcalfes, we also get the views of members of Zafar’s family and court.
One of the most lucid and effective contemporary commentators was the court poet Ghalib, who was, by a fluke of luck, one of the only survivors of the mass killings and rapes that accompanied the re-taking of Dehli from the rebels. At the same time, Dalrymple has marshaled his facts so well, telling us only what we need to know at the right moment and no earlier, that the narrative reads like an historical novel.
As in the best fiction, the main characters change over time. Gradually, Zafar loses hope. He was after all in his mid-eighties. But he always conducted himself with dignity and humanity and quite a degree of political astuteness even in the face of overwhelming odds, in contrast to the outright brutality of the British officers and soldiers.
On the other hand, driven by thoughts of revenge, Theo Metcalfe, the scion of the Metcalfe family, metamorphoses into a frightening monster with his own gallows in his own back garden. In The Last Mughul, the facts themselves read somewhat like the quotes in Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, and I mean this of course as the highest of compliments.
The Last Mughal is also just plain well-written. Some of the most affecting and lyrical chapters are the ones depicting what a day in the life of the capital city was like before the troubles. Contrasted with the carnage after, The Last Mughal is a must read as an accurate depiction of what happens when wars of colonization take place.
---------
Kyi May Kaung holds a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in Political Economy and is an expert on totalitarian systems and Burma.
Kyi May Kaung's review of JoAnne Growney's Red Has No Reason -- poetry
Kyi May Kaung – Review of JoAnne Growney’s poetry chapbook, Red Has no Reason:
• Paperback: 82 pages
• Publisher: Plain View Press (May 15, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1935514520
• ISBN-13: 978-1935514527
This amazing little volume of poems, meticulously made and carefully sequenced, is like picking up a precise multifaceted jewel, seeing now and then flashes of red, and sometimes just feeling the sense of red, without overt showy splashes.
Featured are Growney's signature square poems, which always confound a non-able-to-count intuitive poet and painter like me. How can she stick to these exact rules and still produce a sentence with astounding truth value?
The poems look simple, but they aren't.
Somewhere in there is a mother, like mine, who withheld praise.
The counting poem of the farmer's daughter is spectacular and clear-eyed.
The hammer poem shows a sound sense of rhythm and a great ear for sounds.
Kyi May Kaung.
Burmese-American poet.
August 2010
• Paperback: 82 pages
• Publisher: Plain View Press (May 15, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1935514520
• ISBN-13: 978-1935514527
This amazing little volume of poems, meticulously made and carefully sequenced, is like picking up a precise multifaceted jewel, seeing now and then flashes of red, and sometimes just feeling the sense of red, without overt showy splashes.
Featured are Growney's signature square poems, which always confound a non-able-to-count intuitive poet and painter like me. How can she stick to these exact rules and still produce a sentence with astounding truth value?
The poems look simple, but they aren't.
Somewhere in there is a mother, like mine, who withheld praise.
The counting poem of the farmer's daughter is spectacular and clear-eyed.
The hammer poem shows a sound sense of rhythm and a great ear for sounds.
Kyi May Kaung.
Burmese-American poet.
August 2010
Kyi May Kaung's review of Mischa Berlinski's novel Fieldwork.
Mischa Berlinski, Fieldwork.
• 336 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (February 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374299161
• ISBN-13: 978-0374299163
http://www.amazon.com/Fieldwork-Novel-Mischa-Berlinski/dp/0374299161
Book review by Kyi May Kaung.
I bought Mischa Berlinski’s Fieldwork because of the picture of the pink hibiscus on the cover and the blurbs on the book jacket.
It did not disappoint.
As part of my job with a Burmese non-profit, I have made several trips to Chiangmai, Thailand, where Berlinski’s story of an anthropologist, Martiya van der Leun, who goes native, but goes a little too far, is set.
The novel begins rather slowly, with the narrator, Mischa, describing his time in Chiangmai. Chiangmai as a “cool Thai city” – cooler in terms of both climate, that is, a little less hot than sweltering Bangkok, and also “cool” in the sense of stylish and chic -- is full of non-profit organizations, working with Burmese refugees from across the border or with the hill tribes which live around the fashionable hill station, which is full of expatriates.
Berlinski successfully captures the do-gooder culture of the place, which does have a bit of cultural condescension about it, in the sense that the non-profit organizations think they “know better” than the locals, what the locals’ problems really are.
Anthropology as a subject discipline may have a bit of this. Berlinski describes with sensitivity the awkwardness of Martiya living in a one-room Dyalo hut as an observer with a Dyalo family, of which the household head would like to sleep with her. Berlinski is supposed to have originally wanted to write about the real life Lisu tribe, but his fictional Dyalo are no less compelling, especially in their belief systems.
The counter culture of the pi (Thai) or nats (Burmese) – the spirit world or animism, is beautifully depicted here. In Fieldwork, the rice spirit which possesses Martiya’s native lover is a character in his own right, and in the end possesses Martiya also.
When Berlinski as the narrator of the story arrives on the scene, Martiya has already been murdered, having met a mutual friend who goes and sees her in a Chiangmai prison only once. Martiya is in prison because she murdered a Christian missionary.
One of the most affecting scenes in the book is when this friend goes to see her in prison, and Martiya, a western woman and a researcher who is an ABD (all but dissertation) on her way towards a doctorate, crawls or grovels out into the waiting room in the traditional Thai style. Her hair has been cut in the short Thai style, somewhat like a “butch” hairdo.
In Thai and Burmese culture, and perhaps in other Southeast Asian cultures, the head is the highest and holiest part of the body and the feet the lowest or most lowly.
In the 19th century one Thai princess drowned because no one dared touch her body.
As a prisoner, Martiya was crawling out on all fours so her head would be lower than those of the other people in the room who were sitting in chairs.
The Dyalo and the non-profiteers are not the only two tribes or cultures that play a large role in this fascinating novel. There is also the intergenerational family of the Walkers, a Christian missionary tribe. Here, Berlinski does the missionaries’ God-talk particularly well.
As a learned person’s book, Fieldwork is full of satisfying intellectual detail. It is told backwards, after the fact of the murder, as Berlinski the narrator keeps finding out more and more.
In the end, it is a certain must-read, as it demonstrates vividly how each culture has its own way of thinking. Try as we might, we can only enter another culture at risk of total immersion, perhaps losing our own individuality and even our lives in the process.
Berlinski tells us that in the end, Martiya van der Leun did not go on to get her Ph.D. and considered herself as “just beginning to understand the Dyalo” when she died.
*
Kyi May Kaung (Ph.D.) has written fiction set in Burma and Thailand and spent decades in academia.
• 336 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (February 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374299161
• ISBN-13: 978-0374299163
http://www.amazon.com/Fieldwork-Novel-Mischa-Berlinski/dp/0374299161
Book review by Kyi May Kaung.
I bought Mischa Berlinski’s Fieldwork because of the picture of the pink hibiscus on the cover and the blurbs on the book jacket.
It did not disappoint.
As part of my job with a Burmese non-profit, I have made several trips to Chiangmai, Thailand, where Berlinski’s story of an anthropologist, Martiya van der Leun, who goes native, but goes a little too far, is set.
The novel begins rather slowly, with the narrator, Mischa, describing his time in Chiangmai. Chiangmai as a “cool Thai city” – cooler in terms of both climate, that is, a little less hot than sweltering Bangkok, and also “cool” in the sense of stylish and chic -- is full of non-profit organizations, working with Burmese refugees from across the border or with the hill tribes which live around the fashionable hill station, which is full of expatriates.
Berlinski successfully captures the do-gooder culture of the place, which does have a bit of cultural condescension about it, in the sense that the non-profit organizations think they “know better” than the locals, what the locals’ problems really are.
Anthropology as a subject discipline may have a bit of this. Berlinski describes with sensitivity the awkwardness of Martiya living in a one-room Dyalo hut as an observer with a Dyalo family, of which the household head would like to sleep with her. Berlinski is supposed to have originally wanted to write about the real life Lisu tribe, but his fictional Dyalo are no less compelling, especially in their belief systems.
The counter culture of the pi (Thai) or nats (Burmese) – the spirit world or animism, is beautifully depicted here. In Fieldwork, the rice spirit which possesses Martiya’s native lover is a character in his own right, and in the end possesses Martiya also.
When Berlinski as the narrator of the story arrives on the scene, Martiya has already been murdered, having met a mutual friend who goes and sees her in a Chiangmai prison only once. Martiya is in prison because she murdered a Christian missionary.
One of the most affecting scenes in the book is when this friend goes to see her in prison, and Martiya, a western woman and a researcher who is an ABD (all but dissertation) on her way towards a doctorate, crawls or grovels out into the waiting room in the traditional Thai style. Her hair has been cut in the short Thai style, somewhat like a “butch” hairdo.
In Thai and Burmese culture, and perhaps in other Southeast Asian cultures, the head is the highest and holiest part of the body and the feet the lowest or most lowly.
In the 19th century one Thai princess drowned because no one dared touch her body.
As a prisoner, Martiya was crawling out on all fours so her head would be lower than those of the other people in the room who were sitting in chairs.
The Dyalo and the non-profiteers are not the only two tribes or cultures that play a large role in this fascinating novel. There is also the intergenerational family of the Walkers, a Christian missionary tribe. Here, Berlinski does the missionaries’ God-talk particularly well.
As a learned person’s book, Fieldwork is full of satisfying intellectual detail. It is told backwards, after the fact of the murder, as Berlinski the narrator keeps finding out more and more.
In the end, it is a certain must-read, as it demonstrates vividly how each culture has its own way of thinking. Try as we might, we can only enter another culture at risk of total immersion, perhaps losing our own individuality and even our lives in the process.
Berlinski tells us that in the end, Martiya van der Leun did not go on to get her Ph.D. and considered herself as “just beginning to understand the Dyalo” when she died.
*
Kyi May Kaung (Ph.D.) has written fiction set in Burma and Thailand and spent decades in academia.
Case of the disappearing ropes -- VOA TV Burmese --
http://www.voanews.com/burmese/video/
unofficial translation and summary --
"-- Have you heard, they caught a white elephant -- (believed to be auspicious for upcoming so-called election)
but ropes tying it disappeared by a tech trick (Photoshop)
ropes disappearing are nothing -- even a whole human being -- Daw Aung San Suu Kyi talking to Kurt Campbell --
was obliterated. And even the rats are running away from Naypyidaw."
unofficial translation and summary --
"-- Have you heard, they caught a white elephant -- (believed to be auspicious for upcoming so-called election)
but ropes tying it disappeared by a tech trick (Photoshop)
ropes disappearing are nothing -- even a whole human being -- Daw Aung San Suu Kyi talking to Kurt Campbell --
was obliterated. And even the rats are running away from Naypyidaw."
Monday, September 20, 2010
Text of NLD Tin Oo's letter ref. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung's views on Burmese so-called election 2010
National League for Democracy
97/B West Shwegondaing Street
Bahan Township, Rangoon
Mr. Andreas List
European Commission
South East Asian Unit
Subject: Rountable Discussion on "Burma/Myanmar before the
parliamentary elections - Perspectives from inside the country"
Dear Mr. Andreas List,
We learnt that you are going to give comment at the above Rountable
Discussion sponsored by Friedrich Ebert Siftung to be held on
September 17th, 2010 in Berlin. It is a matter of grave concern that
this discussion/workshop might be a deliberate attempt to present a
biased picture of the serious situation in Burma.
For instance, what evidence is there to say in the invitation that "In
light of these developments growing parts of the population are
reluctantly optimistic that the elections will bring about some
positive change in creating more space for political action" when just
yesterday the Election Commission deregistered 5 political parties
that they themselves had permitted to form very recently? It shows
clearly that the present political parties can function only for this
discreditable election, only in time of election and no more "space"
post election.
Besides, the impartiality of both of the speakers is questionable. Is
there any other prisoner of conscience who would cliam that Mr. Khin
Zaw Win was a "prisoner of conscience"? What had been his seditious
writings and human rights work that bestowed him that title?
Is "Myanmar Egress" the organization founded by Mr. Nay Win Maung
independent from the junta's influence or is it a broker between the
government's cronies and the NDF which it is touting as a substitute
for NLD?
It is highly disturbing that Mr. Andreas List, an European Commission
official responsible for this country is going to give comments on the
selected international views and reactions as a recap after the
speeches of these two dubious "experts". This could create the
impression that the European Commission is trying to steam roller this
election which most see as a means to constitutionalize military
dominance in Burma.
We strongly urge that the appropriate measures to be taken by European
Commission to make clear that it is not acting in concert with those
who are disseminating pro-junta propaganda.
Yours sincerely
U Tin Oo
Vice Chairman
Copy to: -
Mr. Jurgen Stetten
Head of Department for Asia and the Pacific, FES
The Ambassador
Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Rangoon
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Government of the FRG
Per kind favour of the Ambassador
97/B West Shwegondaing Street
Bahan Township, Rangoon
Mr. Andreas List
European Commission
South East Asian Unit
Subject: Rountable Discussion on "Burma/Myanmar before the
parliamentary elections - Perspectives from inside the country"
Dear Mr. Andreas List,
We learnt that you are going to give comment at the above Rountable
Discussion sponsored by Friedrich Ebert Siftung to be held on
September 17th, 2010 in Berlin. It is a matter of grave concern that
this discussion/workshop might be a deliberate attempt to present a
biased picture of the serious situation in Burma.
For instance, what evidence is there to say in the invitation that "In
light of these developments growing parts of the population are
reluctantly optimistic that the elections will bring about some
positive change in creating more space for political action" when just
yesterday the Election Commission deregistered 5 political parties
that they themselves had permitted to form very recently? It shows
clearly that the present political parties can function only for this
discreditable election, only in time of election and no more "space"
post election.
Besides, the impartiality of both of the speakers is questionable. Is
there any other prisoner of conscience who would cliam that Mr. Khin
Zaw Win was a "prisoner of conscience"? What had been his seditious
writings and human rights work that bestowed him that title?
Is "Myanmar Egress" the organization founded by Mr. Nay Win Maung
independent from the junta's influence or is it a broker between the
government's cronies and the NDF which it is touting as a substitute
for NLD?
It is highly disturbing that Mr. Andreas List, an European Commission
official responsible for this country is going to give comments on the
selected international views and reactions as a recap after the
speeches of these two dubious "experts". This could create the
impression that the European Commission is trying to steam roller this
election which most see as a means to constitutionalize military
dominance in Burma.
We strongly urge that the appropriate measures to be taken by European
Commission to make clear that it is not acting in concert with those
who are disseminating pro-junta propaganda.
Yours sincerely
U Tin Oo
Vice Chairman
Copy to: -
Mr. Jurgen Stetten
Head of Department for Asia and the Pacific, FES
The Ambassador
Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Rangoon
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Government of the FRG
Per kind favour of the Ambassador
Oldie but goldie -- interview of 1988 veteran Aung Thu Nyein on prospects for upcoming "election" 2010 Nov 7
from VOA
http://www.voanews.com/burmese/video/
If Burmese is not your language of origin, pl ask VOA Burmese for help.
http://www.voanews.com/burmese/video/
If Burmese is not your language of origin, pl ask VOA Burmese for help.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Burmese National League for Democracy's U Win Tin hospitalized.
http://burmatoday.net/news2005/2010/201009/100912_bty_bur_u_%20win_tin.swf
From Burma Today -- in Burmese.
Summary:
Dr. Phyu Phyu Thin says U Win Tin has very bad cough and is being given oxygen, but continues talking to visitors.
He has heart problems and has a pacemaker.
From Burma Today -- in Burmese.
Summary:
Dr. Phyu Phyu Thin says U Win Tin has very bad cough and is being given oxygen, but continues talking to visitors.
He has heart problems and has a pacemaker.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Quote of the Day: James Wright --
But the dead have no names, they lie so still,
And all the beautiful are blameless now.
James Wright
from Poetry Foundation -- Poetry on Line
And all the beautiful are blameless now.
James Wright
from Poetry Foundation -- Poetry on Line
Monday, September 06, 2010
Saturday, September 04, 2010
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Kyi May Kaung's comment on Taxation in Burma report mentioned in Irrawaddy magazine --
left on Irrawaddy site --
9-1-2010
I wrote the forward for this Report by Dr. Sean Turnell and Dr. Alison Vicarey.
It contains nothing but The Truth.
Everyone should read it.
It shows how the junta is squeezing the farmers with "taxation," most of it arbitrary and based on whim of military government/officers. In other words, they do what they like.
"Taxed to death" would be a good description.
Other researchers, including Dr. Nancy Hudson Rodd and U Sein Htay, have also documented similar situations where farmers are losing their land "as in the 1930s" Dr Turnell has noted.
The 1930 situation brought on by the decline in rice prices due to the world wide Great Depression led to the Saya San Revolution.
The British colonial government called it a "rebellion" and it was suppressed by Madras sepoys.
Kyi May Kaung (Ph.D.)
9-1-2010
I wrote the forward for this Report by Dr. Sean Turnell and Dr. Alison Vicarey.
It contains nothing but The Truth.
Everyone should read it.
It shows how the junta is squeezing the farmers with "taxation," most of it arbitrary and based on whim of military government/officers. In other words, they do what they like.
"Taxed to death" would be a good description.
Other researchers, including Dr. Nancy Hudson Rodd and U Sein Htay, have also documented similar situations where farmers are losing their land "as in the 1930s" Dr Turnell has noted.
The 1930 situation brought on by the decline in rice prices due to the world wide Great Depression led to the Saya San Revolution.
The British colonial government called it a "rebellion" and it was suppressed by Madras sepoys.
Kyi May Kaung (Ph.D.)
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
US Department of State -- ref. Burma "dictator in civilian clothes."
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2010/08/146439.htm
According to the very well regarded Irrawaddy magazine, the new civilians (ex-Army generals) are frantically buying up gold and diamonds.
Go figure.
According to the very well regarded Irrawaddy magazine, the new civilians (ex-Army generals) are frantically buying up gold and diamonds.
Go figure.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Re-posting -- Kyi May Kaung's dissertation on the Run Down System --
http://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI3116650/
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Citation/Abstract
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Modernization, breakdown and structural configurations: Retrogression in Burma (1962--1988)
by Kaung, Kyi May, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1994, 692 pages; AAT 3116650
Abstract (Summary)
When the pro-democracy demonstrations broke out in Burma in 1988, the demonstrators quickly progressed from asking for minor concessions to calling for a complete system change. Most academic work on Burma, especially by native born Burmese, gingerly circumvents any discussion of politics. In this dissertation, using a comparative and theory building approach, an attempt is made to explain retrogression in Burma by the formulation of a theory of run-down. In 1962, the military government which staged a coup, and remains in force until today with minor changes, set up a Socialist-type economy based on the Stalinist model of rapid industrialization through exploitation of agriculture, with the exception that collective farms were not formed. The Burmese "model," if there is conscious model, is compared to various policy changes in the USSR and the PRC, and the conclusion is reached that the Burmese approach was ad hoc and opportunistic for the ruling military elite rather than a formalistic imitation. The strategist in the form of the paramount leader or CEO sets up a top-down control structure. This structure has many similarities to the authoritarian structure of the pre-colonial Burmese monarchies. In the colonial period, the basic bureaucratic structure of the former kingdom was more or less left intact. In the dynasties before colonization, increased control was viewed as success, but as control was increased, the economic base of the country declined. In the post-1962 period, it is seen that control has also led to decline. The process by which this takes place has been termed the reverse prismatic process; in that it reverses the normal tendency of development to create pyramidal structures with diverse and separate apexes (Fred Rigg's prismatic process). Instead, we see in Burma, that enforced control from the top has produced an artificial single-apex simple structure which effectively constrains all economic and political development. This run-down is the reason the people called for a systemic change in 1988.
Indexing (document details)
Advisor: Teune, Henry
School: University of Pennsylvania
School Location: United States -- Pennsylvania
Keyword(s): Modernization, Breakdown, Structural configurations, Retrogression, Burma
Source: DAI-A 64/12, p. 4573, Jun 2004
Source type: Dissertation
Subjects: Economic theory, Public administration, Social structure
Publication Number: AAT 3116650
Document URL: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdlink?did=765195461&Fmt=7&clientId =79356&RQT=309&VName=PQD
ProQuest document ID: 765195461
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Modernization, breakdown and structural configurations: Retrogression in Burma (1962--1988)
by Kaung, Kyi May, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1994, 692 pages; AAT 3116650
Abstract (Summary)
When the pro-democracy demonstrations broke out in Burma in 1988, the demonstrators quickly progressed from asking for minor concessions to calling for a complete system change. Most academic work on Burma, especially by native born Burmese, gingerly circumvents any discussion of politics. In this dissertation, using a comparative and theory building approach, an attempt is made to explain retrogression in Burma by the formulation of a theory of run-down. In 1962, the military government which staged a coup, and remains in force until today with minor changes, set up a Socialist-type economy based on the Stalinist model of rapid industrialization through exploitation of agriculture, with the exception that collective farms were not formed. The Burmese "model," if there is conscious model, is compared to various policy changes in the USSR and the PRC, and the conclusion is reached that the Burmese approach was ad hoc and opportunistic for the ruling military elite rather than a formalistic imitation. The strategist in the form of the paramount leader or CEO sets up a top-down control structure. This structure has many similarities to the authoritarian structure of the pre-colonial Burmese monarchies. In the colonial period, the basic bureaucratic structure of the former kingdom was more or less left intact. In the dynasties before colonization, increased control was viewed as success, but as control was increased, the economic base of the country declined. In the post-1962 period, it is seen that control has also led to decline. The process by which this takes place has been termed the reverse prismatic process; in that it reverses the normal tendency of development to create pyramidal structures with diverse and separate apexes (Fred Rigg's prismatic process). Instead, we see in Burma, that enforced control from the top has produced an artificial single-apex simple structure which effectively constrains all economic and political development. This run-down is the reason the people called for a systemic change in 1988.
Indexing (document details)
Advisor: Teune, Henry
School: University of Pennsylvania
School Location: United States -- Pennsylvania
Keyword(s): Modernization, Breakdown, Structural configurations, Retrogression, Burma
Source: DAI-A 64/12, p. 4573, Jun 2004
Source type: Dissertation
Subjects: Economic theory, Public administration, Social structure
Publication Number: AAT 3116650
Document URL: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdlink?did=765195461&Fmt=7&clientId =79356&RQT=309&VName=PQD
ProQuest document ID: 765195461
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Merchant of Death -- book review by Bertil Linter --
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/IK10Ag01.html
Book is about Victor Boot, Russian arms dealer, now in a Thai prison and about to be brought to trial.
Book is about Victor Boot, Russian arms dealer, now in a Thai prison and about to be brought to trial.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Dr. Zarni on Nov 7th -- so-called election in Burma
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,,12758,00.html
From Deutsche Welle --
click on right.
Posted with permission of Dr. Zarni.
From Deutsche Welle --
click on right.
Posted with permission of Dr. Zarni.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
The state of the publishing industry -- The Times They Are A Changing -- by M. Scott Douglass --
THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGING…
Last month Amazon.com announced that, for the first time, it is now
selling more e-books than it is printed books. On Wednesday, August
4th, Barnes & Noble announced it was for sale because it couldn’t see
a viable way that it would be able to continue selling books. The
headline on MSNBC read: “Kindle kills the Nook.”
Multiple media reports claim there is no one out there big enough to
buy Barnes & Noble and even if there was, the industry is changing so
quickly and B&N has not kept. Most of its physical assets are the very
reason why it is losing shares and will be down graded for sale.
Nonetheless, investors think there is an opportunity here for someone.
B&N stock shot up 25% before the NYSE opened August 4.
We’ve seen changes coming and talked about it for years, but what does
all of this mean to readers, writers, booksellers, publishers and
distributors?
I’ve mentioned this before: The people most at risk with the oncoming
e-book surge are printers and distributors. Already, many big
publishers have sent their productions overseas, but even hardback
production houses in China have closed due to a lack of business. With
fewer books to distribute and big box stores teetering, look for
distributors to cut back on expensive warehouse facilities, personnel
and delivery turnaround. I expect at least one to fail by the end of
next year.
Readers will have more options as long as they are willing to consider
the e-reader format. Because e-books take nothing to produce, the
current glut of publishers will escalate even faster. There will be
more choices, but with filters diluted, quality will as well.
Writers, too, will have more options. This is the age of the writer.
Anyone can get into print—whether it’s paper print or e-print, there
are so many options, it’s hard NOT to get published somewhere. The big
question will then become: how do you make a living at it when you
are competing with so many options? Marketing techniques that were
successful only five years ago are already being replaced by tech-
savvy marketing companies, but the problem still becomes the fish in
the pond, not the type of lure, the weight of the line—the fact that
you’re still in a freaking pond? And if you venture out into the
internet ocean? Now you’re in a row boat in the middle of the
Atlantic. Yes, more writers will get published, but what will be the
payoff for their work?
Big box bookstores will need to find innovative ways to survive.
They’ll need to team up with fast food outlets, publishers—even
writers and writing groups—to justify paying the rent on the space
they fill as the way readers buy books shifts from printed material to
electronics. B&N made a strategic mistake two years ago when it issued
a memorandum to its store managers and event coordinators instructing
them not to allow signings without guaranteed sales of at least 20
copies—essentially eliminating many small press publishers and local
authors. Authors like to shop where they can find their own books on
the shelf. This decision drove many to other places to buy.
I hate to tell you this, but writers with printed books are your
market bookstores. If you ignore them, they will find somewhere else
to sell and to buy. And they did. Some Independent Bookstores embraced
the opportunity. Art galleries embraced it. There are book Tupperware
Parties. As I said in an editorial 5 years ago, small independents are
less at risk to the changeover because they don’t have as much
overhead. When they embraced local author events, it was a boon for
them, but some here in the Charlotte market are now backing away as
well. When you drive your customers somewhere else, you hasten your
own demise. Even the small independent bookstores have a limited life
expectancy moving forward. There will always be a place for collectors
and folks who prefer reading on paper, but it’s a niche market. The
items they will want are niche items. If you don’t make yourself
special by carrying those items, they may as well shop online. You
will have consigned yourself to a fate similar to B&N.
Publishers—my home arena—will make more money per book by publishing e-
books, so you can rest assured that the big houses will survive and
evolve and, as I mentioned above, newer houses will come into being
and grow. Main Street Rag will begin experimenting with e-books itself
in the near future. I do not anticipate us walking a way from print,
particularly since we own the equipment to produce it and have always
specialized in short runs, but I do see us offering certain titles
electronically in the very near future. We will start with our novels
since they are more expensive to produce and appeal to a broader
market. I still think that most poets and poetry buyers are a tactile
lot; they like holding a book in their hands. So we will continue to
produce our chapbooks and poetry books the same way. Poetry books are
also light and easy to transport and ship, so they are not our first
target, but we will eventually get to them as well.
I’ve been considering this for years. Conversion by a third party is
expensive, but I’m about to invest in software to do it myself and the
new versions of Adobe InDesign allow designers to export everything to
e-book. We’re not giving up on print, we’re just enhancing what we do
by moving with the industry. We’ll keep you posted on how it goes here
in this newsletter.
Posted on this blog with permission of
M. Scott Douglass
Publisher/Editor
Main Street Rag
Last month Amazon.com announced that, for the first time, it is now
selling more e-books than it is printed books. On Wednesday, August
4th, Barnes & Noble announced it was for sale because it couldn’t see
a viable way that it would be able to continue selling books. The
headline on MSNBC read: “Kindle kills the Nook.”
Multiple media reports claim there is no one out there big enough to
buy Barnes & Noble and even if there was, the industry is changing so
quickly and B&N has not kept. Most of its physical assets are the very
reason why it is losing shares and will be down graded for sale.
Nonetheless, investors think there is an opportunity here for someone.
B&N stock shot up 25% before the NYSE opened August 4.
We’ve seen changes coming and talked about it for years, but what does
all of this mean to readers, writers, booksellers, publishers and
distributors?
I’ve mentioned this before: The people most at risk with the oncoming
e-book surge are printers and distributors. Already, many big
publishers have sent their productions overseas, but even hardback
production houses in China have closed due to a lack of business. With
fewer books to distribute and big box stores teetering, look for
distributors to cut back on expensive warehouse facilities, personnel
and delivery turnaround. I expect at least one to fail by the end of
next year.
Readers will have more options as long as they are willing to consider
the e-reader format. Because e-books take nothing to produce, the
current glut of publishers will escalate even faster. There will be
more choices, but with filters diluted, quality will as well.
Writers, too, will have more options. This is the age of the writer.
Anyone can get into print—whether it’s paper print or e-print, there
are so many options, it’s hard NOT to get published somewhere. The big
question will then become: how do you make a living at it when you
are competing with so many options? Marketing techniques that were
successful only five years ago are already being replaced by tech-
savvy marketing companies, but the problem still becomes the fish in
the pond, not the type of lure, the weight of the line—the fact that
you’re still in a freaking pond? And if you venture out into the
internet ocean? Now you’re in a row boat in the middle of the
Atlantic. Yes, more writers will get published, but what will be the
payoff for their work?
Big box bookstores will need to find innovative ways to survive.
They’ll need to team up with fast food outlets, publishers—even
writers and writing groups—to justify paying the rent on the space
they fill as the way readers buy books shifts from printed material to
electronics. B&N made a strategic mistake two years ago when it issued
a memorandum to its store managers and event coordinators instructing
them not to allow signings without guaranteed sales of at least 20
copies—essentially eliminating many small press publishers and local
authors. Authors like to shop where they can find their own books on
the shelf. This decision drove many to other places to buy.
I hate to tell you this, but writers with printed books are your
market bookstores. If you ignore them, they will find somewhere else
to sell and to buy. And they did. Some Independent Bookstores embraced
the opportunity. Art galleries embraced it. There are book Tupperware
Parties. As I said in an editorial 5 years ago, small independents are
less at risk to the changeover because they don’t have as much
overhead. When they embraced local author events, it was a boon for
them, but some here in the Charlotte market are now backing away as
well. When you drive your customers somewhere else, you hasten your
own demise. Even the small independent bookstores have a limited life
expectancy moving forward. There will always be a place for collectors
and folks who prefer reading on paper, but it’s a niche market. The
items they will want are niche items. If you don’t make yourself
special by carrying those items, they may as well shop online. You
will have consigned yourself to a fate similar to B&N.
Publishers—my home arena—will make more money per book by publishing e-
books, so you can rest assured that the big houses will survive and
evolve and, as I mentioned above, newer houses will come into being
and grow. Main Street Rag will begin experimenting with e-books itself
in the near future. I do not anticipate us walking a way from print,
particularly since we own the equipment to produce it and have always
specialized in short runs, but I do see us offering certain titles
electronically in the very near future. We will start with our novels
since they are more expensive to produce and appeal to a broader
market. I still think that most poets and poetry buyers are a tactile
lot; they like holding a book in their hands. So we will continue to
produce our chapbooks and poetry books the same way. Poetry books are
also light and easy to transport and ship, so they are not our first
target, but we will eventually get to them as well.
I’ve been considering this for years. Conversion by a third party is
expensive, but I’m about to invest in software to do it myself and the
new versions of Adobe InDesign allow designers to export everything to
e-book. We’re not giving up on print, we’re just enhancing what we do
by moving with the industry. We’ll keep you posted on how it goes here
in this newsletter.
Posted on this blog with permission of
M. Scott Douglass
Publisher/Editor
Main Street Rag
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Burmese dissidents now lost to death --
It is so sad that Daw Taw Myo Myint, Naw Louisa Benson, and Ko Latt, all CA based, have all passed away.
Ko Latt reunited with his sister, who joined him in CA. At the time I met her, she was staying with Taw and her family. Taw and U Khin Maung Shwe took us to the Rose Parade and Louisa and her husband came to visit, Louisa telling me about her brother, Jonathan, who was my fifth grade classmate.
Here is an LA Times article from 1996.
Los Angeles Times, Monday March 11
* Subject: Los Angeles Times, Monday March 11
* From: freebrma@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
* Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 01:18:00
Subject: Los Angeles Times, Monday March 11 1996 Article 1 of 2
Burmese Press Their Cause Here
Los Angeles Times, Monday, March 11, 1996
Metro Section
Subhead: Resistance: Expatriates are becoming more organized and vocal in
their opposition to the military junta that rules their homeland. Living
with the memory of protesters slain in 1988, many toil at menial jobs while
campaigning for democracy.
By K. Connie Kang, Times Staff Writer
When KoLatt lies down to sleep in his modest room in Alhambra after a
long day's work as a packer, he often pictures the magnificent rain forests
and sun-drenched beaches of his beloved Burma.
More often than not, however, his memories of the lush jungles and
tranquil waters are pushed aside by another image--the bloodied faces of his
classmates, slaughtered by soldiers during the 1988 pro-democracy protest at
the University of Rangoon.
It is the remembrance of the 49 friends murdered before his eyes that
keeps KoLatt packing boxes by day and working the telephone and fax machine
by night.
"Because I'm alive, I owe it to them to continue the movement to free
Burma," said KoLatt, 32, his gentle demeanor belying a steely determination.
KoLatt belongs to a small but growing Burmese expatriate community of
about 10,000 in Southern California that is becoming more organized and
vocal in its resistance to the military junta in Myanmar.
Like KoLatt, many Burmese activists toil at menial jobs, beneath their
training and education, because they want more time to give to the cause.
They live together in cooperative arrangements to reduce expenses. And,
like KoLatt, their dream is to return to a democratic homeland.
For KoLatt, a slender man with a shock of black hair, his whole life
revolves around the lonely struggle. Awake or asleep, he says, Burma is on
his mind.
"I love my country even more since I came to America," he said, adding:
"Please call it Burma, not Myanmar. That's the name the military gave to
try to fool the world."
KoLatt's readiness to make sacrifices for democracy is not an easy thing
for Americans to comprehend, says anthropologist Carol Richards, a Burma
specialist and co-founder of the Los Angeles-based Burma Forum, an
organization that coordinates the movement in California. Most Americans
take freedom for granted because they haven't had to make life and death
choices for democracy, she said.
Democracy is a guiding power by which KoLatt lives.
"Every decision KoLatt makes, including the one to talk to The Times, is
based on whether it will benefit the people of Burma," said Richards, who
has worked closely with him for the past five years.
"Ironically, every decision he makes to help Burma takes him one further
step from going back home--another clang of the door closing."
KoLatt, a devout Buddhist, is not afraid.
On his chest, he wears a button with a picture of his hero, Aung San Suu
Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991
while she was under house arrest.
It reminds him: "Fear is a habit. I am not afraid. Free Suu. Free Burma."
And, on his back, he wears a shirt that says:
I am wounded,
But I am not dead as yet.
Let me down
and let me bleed a while.
Tomorrow,
I will rise and fight again.
[]
The 1988 military crackdown forced KoLatt and thousands of pro-democracy
proponents to flee. Most live as refugees on Myanmar's borders with
Thailand, Bangladesh, India and China, where many of Burma's indigenous
peoples also dwell.
Others managed to get away to Japan, Europe and North America, where they
maintain an international network that stretches from Los Angeles to Tokyo
and New York to Paris.
They are succored by non-Burmese human rights activists, such as
Richards, who befriend and help them overcome the barriers of language,
culture and institutions and offer Western know-how.
In the United States alone, more than 80 campus and community groups
support the Burmese movement.
A focus of their campaign has been Unocal, the Los Angeles-based energy
company, and its prominent role in building a $1 billion pipeline in Myanmar.
Critics say the pipeline will enrich the illegitimate regime, plunder one
of the largest remaining tropical rain forests and disperse villagers along
its route--charges denied by Unocal.
"We are trying to speak for the people who cannot speak," KoLatt said.
He said forced labor is being used on the project--a charge denied by Unocal.
"It's an uphill battle because giant corporations, such as Unocal, have
all the resources," says Richards. "We're just volunteers trying to bring
the issue to public light."
A boycott campaign against Unocal gas stations and demonstrations in
front of the company headquarters are part of the pro-democracy campaign here.
Much that goes on, however, is unseen--a vigil of nameless people
reaching across geographical, linguistic and cultural boundaries.
The work is risky for Burmese nationals.
Despite the 10,000 miles that separate him and Burma, KoLatt feels the
long arm of the State Law and Order Restoration council, or SLORC, a panel
of soldiers who rule the country now known as Myanmar.
Informants watch his movements, have his picture taken at demonstrations
and monitor his mail and phone calls to Myanmar, he said.
Officials with the Myanmar Embassy did not respond to Times requests for
comment on the allegations or the activities of the resistance movement.
His activities have made relatives back home targets of government
surveillance, too.
"Sometimes agents show up [at their home] after midnight to check who is
sleeping under the mosquito nets," he said.
When KoLatt called his sister earlier this year, she told him not to
contact her again, he said.
Since the former student leader eluded authorities in the fall of 1988,
his activist brother was imprisoned and his mother died of a heart attack
after visiting her youngest son in prison. Soon afterward, his father fell
ill and died. And his oldest brother, a physician, has been missing ever since.
KoLatt's career is on hold, too, because his homeland comes first.
Though KoLatt studied botany at the prestigious University of Rangoon, he
cannot consider moving on from his $55-a-day job because he has to take so
much time off from work.
Where would he find another employer who'd let him work when he can? he asks.
[]
Though his blood family in Myanmar is all but gone, KoLatt has found
spiritual kinfolk in a Burmese couple in Alhambra.
KoLatt met Khin Maung Shwe and Taw Myo Myint in the jungles after his
escape, when he was ill with malaria. They nursed him back to health.
When Maung and Taw, who also were active in the 1988 anti-government
protests, came to the United States, KoLatt followed them.
Today, their Alhambra home is both a center for what they call "Our
Movement for Democracy," and home away from home for unmarried Burmese who
gather to share food and to work for a better day.
The couple's American-born daughter, Stephanie, 4, is everyone's niece.
Maung, a former manager of the state-run Salt Industry Corp., now works
nights as a chemical technician so he can work the phone and fax machine and
demonstrate days.
The advent of the Internet has made it easier to communicate with
activists inside Myanmar when they slip out to the Myanmar-Thailand border.
Maung and KoLatt cannot afford a computer, so they rely on Richards and
UCLA students.
International phone calls, faxes, printing leaflets and posters drain
their limited budgets. But they persist.
Their efforts appear to be paying off.
The cities of Santa Monica, Berkeley and Madison, Wis., have banned
contracts with companies doing business in Myanmar. UCLA will no longer
sponsor its "Burma Passage" tour. USC's Student Academic Senate has
unanimously condemned USC Alumni's "Road to Mandalay" tour and is urging the
alumni group to do likewise.
Some American businesses, including Levi Strauss, Macy's, Eddie Bauer and
Liz Clairborne [sic] have pulled out of Myanmar.
But the formidable target is Unocal.
Unocal, Total, a Paris-based oil company, and a Thai firm are partners
with Myanmar in the Yadana pipeline project that would transfer natural gas
to Thailand.
"The pipeline is the centerpiece of the regime's economic development
plan," says Richards.
By going ahead with the project, activists charge that Unocal is, in
effect, in partnership with the brutal government and helping it to remain
in power.
Not true, said Unocal spokesman David Garcia, emphasizing that the
company stays out of Myanmar's internal affairs.
Garcia, who visited Myanmar in January, accused critics and the press of
ignoring "positive benefits" of the project.
For example, he said, villagers along the pipeline welcome a chance to
become economically self-sufficient.
In Mawgyi, 75 villagers in January completed a 2.3-acre shrimp farm with
the money provided by Unocal and its partners, Garcia said.
"Reception to our programs has been very positive," Garcia said.
[]
Meanwhile, SLORC is tightening its rein on Aung San Suu Kyi, activists say.
"Immediately after her release, there was much euphoria and attention of
the international press, but in the last few weeks, the government has
tightened its rein on her," said Burma Forum co-founder Louisa Benson,
quoting her contacts in Myanmar.
"The government realizes that information is power, and people listen to
what Aung San Suu Kyi has to say. They are limiting people who can visit
her, including U.S. congressional staffers."
There has been a flurry of bad news from Myanmar, activists say.
When Maung, whose parents and six siblings live in Myanmar, recently
called home, he was told not to call again.
The prospect of losing contact with his family is heartbreaking, he said.
But his wife, Taw, said the couple reconfirmed their vow to the movement
by remembering: "Forty million Burmese are more important than one family."
A proof of the couple's conviction is their daughter, who participates in
all the protests with her parents.
Instead of nursery rhymes, Stephanie chants, "Democracy is our duty," and
"Unocal out of Burma."
Dressed in a longyi--a Burmese sarong--Stephanie hands out leaflets and
recites slogans at every event.
Even stern-looking passersby are charmed when Stephanie walks up to them,
and hands them a leaflet with a big smile on her innocent face.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Four Photos:
1) Front page of Metro Section: "Expatriate KoLatt, who survived 1988
massacre, wears T-shirt with a statement on behalf of the resistance against
military junta." [KoLatt faces away from camera]
2) Front page of Metro Section: "Stephanie Htet Taw, 4, hands out leaflets
at Unocal Corp. headquarters in L.A." [Stephanie, in foreground, has back to
camera as three men in suits approach her. She wears a green and yellow
longyi.]
3) Page B3: "At a shrine in his home, KoLatt prays for those living under
military rule. He is part of a growing expatriate community here."
4) Page B3: "Khin Maung Shwe, daughter Stephanie, 4, and wife Taw Myo Myint
with poster of patriot Aung San Suu Kyi."
=====B=O=Y=C=O=T=T=====U=N=O=C=A=L=====
Los Angeles Campaign for a Free Burma
freebrma@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
"In political tactics there are such things as dialogue and so
forth, but in our military science, there is no such thing as
dialogue. Someone may say, 'Look, friend, please don't shoot.'
Well, that is not the way it works."
-- Saw Maung, Fmr. SLORC Chairman.
. . .
UNOCAL \ | / PTET
S=L=O=R=C======-< # >-============== STOP THE PIPELINE!
TOTAL / | \ EGAT
. . .
Ko Latt reunited with his sister, who joined him in CA. At the time I met her, she was staying with Taw and her family. Taw and U Khin Maung Shwe took us to the Rose Parade and Louisa and her husband came to visit, Louisa telling me about her brother, Jonathan, who was my fifth grade classmate.
Here is an LA Times article from 1996.
Los Angeles Times, Monday March 11
* Subject: Los Angeles Times, Monday March 11
* From: freebrma@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
* Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 01:18:00
Subject: Los Angeles Times, Monday March 11 1996 Article 1 of 2
Burmese Press Their Cause Here
Los Angeles Times, Monday, March 11, 1996
Metro Section
Subhead: Resistance: Expatriates are becoming more organized and vocal in
their opposition to the military junta that rules their homeland. Living
with the memory of protesters slain in 1988, many toil at menial jobs while
campaigning for democracy.
By K. Connie Kang, Times Staff Writer
When KoLatt lies down to sleep in his modest room in Alhambra after a
long day's work as a packer, he often pictures the magnificent rain forests
and sun-drenched beaches of his beloved Burma.
More often than not, however, his memories of the lush jungles and
tranquil waters are pushed aside by another image--the bloodied faces of his
classmates, slaughtered by soldiers during the 1988 pro-democracy protest at
the University of Rangoon.
It is the remembrance of the 49 friends murdered before his eyes that
keeps KoLatt packing boxes by day and working the telephone and fax machine
by night.
"Because I'm alive, I owe it to them to continue the movement to free
Burma," said KoLatt, 32, his gentle demeanor belying a steely determination.
KoLatt belongs to a small but growing Burmese expatriate community of
about 10,000 in Southern California that is becoming more organized and
vocal in its resistance to the military junta in Myanmar.
Like KoLatt, many Burmese activists toil at menial jobs, beneath their
training and education, because they want more time to give to the cause.
They live together in cooperative arrangements to reduce expenses. And,
like KoLatt, their dream is to return to a democratic homeland.
For KoLatt, a slender man with a shock of black hair, his whole life
revolves around the lonely struggle. Awake or asleep, he says, Burma is on
his mind.
"I love my country even more since I came to America," he said, adding:
"Please call it Burma, not Myanmar. That's the name the military gave to
try to fool the world."
KoLatt's readiness to make sacrifices for democracy is not an easy thing
for Americans to comprehend, says anthropologist Carol Richards, a Burma
specialist and co-founder of the Los Angeles-based Burma Forum, an
organization that coordinates the movement in California. Most Americans
take freedom for granted because they haven't had to make life and death
choices for democracy, she said.
Democracy is a guiding power by which KoLatt lives.
"Every decision KoLatt makes, including the one to talk to The Times, is
based on whether it will benefit the people of Burma," said Richards, who
has worked closely with him for the past five years.
"Ironically, every decision he makes to help Burma takes him one further
step from going back home--another clang of the door closing."
KoLatt, a devout Buddhist, is not afraid.
On his chest, he wears a button with a picture of his hero, Aung San Suu
Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991
while she was under house arrest.
It reminds him: "Fear is a habit. I am not afraid. Free Suu. Free Burma."
And, on his back, he wears a shirt that says:
I am wounded,
But I am not dead as yet.
Let me down
and let me bleed a while.
Tomorrow,
I will rise and fight again.
[]
The 1988 military crackdown forced KoLatt and thousands of pro-democracy
proponents to flee. Most live as refugees on Myanmar's borders with
Thailand, Bangladesh, India and China, where many of Burma's indigenous
peoples also dwell.
Others managed to get away to Japan, Europe and North America, where they
maintain an international network that stretches from Los Angeles to Tokyo
and New York to Paris.
They are succored by non-Burmese human rights activists, such as
Richards, who befriend and help them overcome the barriers of language,
culture and institutions and offer Western know-how.
In the United States alone, more than 80 campus and community groups
support the Burmese movement.
A focus of their campaign has been Unocal, the Los Angeles-based energy
company, and its prominent role in building a $1 billion pipeline in Myanmar.
Critics say the pipeline will enrich the illegitimate regime, plunder one
of the largest remaining tropical rain forests and disperse villagers along
its route--charges denied by Unocal.
"We are trying to speak for the people who cannot speak," KoLatt said.
He said forced labor is being used on the project--a charge denied by Unocal.
"It's an uphill battle because giant corporations, such as Unocal, have
all the resources," says Richards. "We're just volunteers trying to bring
the issue to public light."
A boycott campaign against Unocal gas stations and demonstrations in
front of the company headquarters are part of the pro-democracy campaign here.
Much that goes on, however, is unseen--a vigil of nameless people
reaching across geographical, linguistic and cultural boundaries.
The work is risky for Burmese nationals.
Despite the 10,000 miles that separate him and Burma, KoLatt feels the
long arm of the State Law and Order Restoration council, or SLORC, a panel
of soldiers who rule the country now known as Myanmar.
Informants watch his movements, have his picture taken at demonstrations
and monitor his mail and phone calls to Myanmar, he said.
Officials with the Myanmar Embassy did not respond to Times requests for
comment on the allegations or the activities of the resistance movement.
His activities have made relatives back home targets of government
surveillance, too.
"Sometimes agents show up [at their home] after midnight to check who is
sleeping under the mosquito nets," he said.
When KoLatt called his sister earlier this year, she told him not to
contact her again, he said.
Since the former student leader eluded authorities in the fall of 1988,
his activist brother was imprisoned and his mother died of a heart attack
after visiting her youngest son in prison. Soon afterward, his father fell
ill and died. And his oldest brother, a physician, has been missing ever since.
KoLatt's career is on hold, too, because his homeland comes first.
Though KoLatt studied botany at the prestigious University of Rangoon, he
cannot consider moving on from his $55-a-day job because he has to take so
much time off from work.
Where would he find another employer who'd let him work when he can? he asks.
[]
Though his blood family in Myanmar is all but gone, KoLatt has found
spiritual kinfolk in a Burmese couple in Alhambra.
KoLatt met Khin Maung Shwe and Taw Myo Myint in the jungles after his
escape, when he was ill with malaria. They nursed him back to health.
When Maung and Taw, who also were active in the 1988 anti-government
protests, came to the United States, KoLatt followed them.
Today, their Alhambra home is both a center for what they call "Our
Movement for Democracy," and home away from home for unmarried Burmese who
gather to share food and to work for a better day.
The couple's American-born daughter, Stephanie, 4, is everyone's niece.
Maung, a former manager of the state-run Salt Industry Corp., now works
nights as a chemical technician so he can work the phone and fax machine and
demonstrate days.
The advent of the Internet has made it easier to communicate with
activists inside Myanmar when they slip out to the Myanmar-Thailand border.
Maung and KoLatt cannot afford a computer, so they rely on Richards and
UCLA students.
International phone calls, faxes, printing leaflets and posters drain
their limited budgets. But they persist.
Their efforts appear to be paying off.
The cities of Santa Monica, Berkeley and Madison, Wis., have banned
contracts with companies doing business in Myanmar. UCLA will no longer
sponsor its "Burma Passage" tour. USC's Student Academic Senate has
unanimously condemned USC Alumni's "Road to Mandalay" tour and is urging the
alumni group to do likewise.
Some American businesses, including Levi Strauss, Macy's, Eddie Bauer and
Liz Clairborne [sic] have pulled out of Myanmar.
But the formidable target is Unocal.
Unocal, Total, a Paris-based oil company, and a Thai firm are partners
with Myanmar in the Yadana pipeline project that would transfer natural gas
to Thailand.
"The pipeline is the centerpiece of the regime's economic development
plan," says Richards.
By going ahead with the project, activists charge that Unocal is, in
effect, in partnership with the brutal government and helping it to remain
in power.
Not true, said Unocal spokesman David Garcia, emphasizing that the
company stays out of Myanmar's internal affairs.
Garcia, who visited Myanmar in January, accused critics and the press of
ignoring "positive benefits" of the project.
For example, he said, villagers along the pipeline welcome a chance to
become economically self-sufficient.
In Mawgyi, 75 villagers in January completed a 2.3-acre shrimp farm with
the money provided by Unocal and its partners, Garcia said.
"Reception to our programs has been very positive," Garcia said.
[]
Meanwhile, SLORC is tightening its rein on Aung San Suu Kyi, activists say.
"Immediately after her release, there was much euphoria and attention of
the international press, but in the last few weeks, the government has
tightened its rein on her," said Burma Forum co-founder Louisa Benson,
quoting her contacts in Myanmar.
"The government realizes that information is power, and people listen to
what Aung San Suu Kyi has to say. They are limiting people who can visit
her, including U.S. congressional staffers."
There has been a flurry of bad news from Myanmar, activists say.
When Maung, whose parents and six siblings live in Myanmar, recently
called home, he was told not to call again.
The prospect of losing contact with his family is heartbreaking, he said.
But his wife, Taw, said the couple reconfirmed their vow to the movement
by remembering: "Forty million Burmese are more important than one family."
A proof of the couple's conviction is their daughter, who participates in
all the protests with her parents.
Instead of nursery rhymes, Stephanie chants, "Democracy is our duty," and
"Unocal out of Burma."
Dressed in a longyi--a Burmese sarong--Stephanie hands out leaflets and
recites slogans at every event.
Even stern-looking passersby are charmed when Stephanie walks up to them,
and hands them a leaflet with a big smile on her innocent face.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Four Photos:
1) Front page of Metro Section: "Expatriate KoLatt, who survived 1988
massacre, wears T-shirt with a statement on behalf of the resistance against
military junta." [KoLatt faces away from camera]
2) Front page of Metro Section: "Stephanie Htet Taw, 4, hands out leaflets
at Unocal Corp. headquarters in L.A." [Stephanie, in foreground, has back to
camera as three men in suits approach her. She wears a green and yellow
longyi.]
3) Page B3: "At a shrine in his home, KoLatt prays for those living under
military rule. He is part of a growing expatriate community here."
4) Page B3: "Khin Maung Shwe, daughter Stephanie, 4, and wife Taw Myo Myint
with poster of patriot Aung San Suu Kyi."
=====B=O=Y=C=O=T=T=====U=N=O=C=A=L=====
Los Angeles Campaign for a Free Burma
freebrma@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
"In political tactics there are such things as dialogue and so
forth, but in our military science, there is no such thing as
dialogue. Someone may say, 'Look, friend, please don't shoot.'
Well, that is not the way it works."
-- Saw Maung, Fmr. SLORC Chairman.
. . .
UNOCAL \ | / PTET
S=L=O=R=C======-< # >-============== STOP THE PIPELINE!
TOTAL / | \ EGAT
. . .
Sunday, August 08, 2010
Saturday, August 07, 2010
Reposting -- Kyi May Kaung's poem, Tongues don't have Bones, Lisa DiLillo's video --
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0lBFVcguKE
It's amazing how this is still so relevant,if not more so, 13-15 years after the poem was written and the video produced.
Kyi May Kaung.
It's amazing how this is still so relevant,if not more so, 13-15 years after the poem was written and the video produced.
Kyi May Kaung.
Friday, August 06, 2010
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Uzodinwa Iweala's Beasts of No Nation -- about child soldiers --
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/24/books/24iwea.html
Amazing book of 120 pages, I read it during one Chiangmai trip.
Chiangmai is in Thailand.
I have never been to Africa, but like the movies Blood Diamond, Invictus, Cry the Beloved Country etc. this speaks to me.
Kyi May Kaung
Amazing book of 120 pages, I read it during one Chiangmai trip.
Chiangmai is in Thailand.
I have never been to Africa, but like the movies Blood Diamond, Invictus, Cry the Beloved Country etc. this speaks to me.
Kyi May Kaung
The Baburnama or Memoirs of Babur -- founder of Moghul (Mongol) dynasty --
http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/babur/babur1.html
Translated from Turki language -- amazing voice coming to us from 1500.
Kyi May Kaung
Translated from Turki language -- amazing voice coming to us from 1500.
Kyi May Kaung
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Monday, August 02, 2010
Sunday, August 01, 2010
Disputed Preah Vihear Temple
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preah_Vihear_Temple
Preah Vihear and other Cambodia pictures --
http://www.galenfrysinger.com/preah_vihear_cambodia.htm
http://wikitravel.org/en/Preah_Vihear
Don't go without checking security first -- Thai(slope) side more accessible.
Kyi May Kaung
Preah Vihear and other Cambodia pictures --
http://www.galenfrysinger.com/preah_vihear_cambodia.htm
http://wikitravel.org/en/Preah_Vihear
Don't go without checking security first -- Thai(slope) side more accessible.
Kyi May Kaung
VOA Burmese news magazine -- video
http://www1.voanews.com/burmese/video/
Congratulations!
This is excellent -- "Burmese CNN"
Regards,
Kyi May Kaung (Ph.D.)
Congratulations!
This is excellent -- "Burmese CNN"
Regards,
Kyi May Kaung (Ph.D.)
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Casting call -- looking for the girl with the dragon tattoo
http://movies.yahoo.com/photos/collections/gallery/2787/casting-news-the-search-for-lisbeth-salander#photo0
I loved the first book, "saving" the 2 other books to read later.
I think the "Yo Yo" rapper with the $$$ in her name best coincides with how I imagine Lisbeth Salander to be, but maybe Daniel Craig might feel she will upstage him.
In my opinion she's the only one who has enough character to fit the role, and provide a balance to Daniel Craig.
Craig is a bit rougher than the original Blomkvist, who is a bit of a nerd and not as brave, at least in book one, as Lisbeth, but no doubt the Hollywood version will have beefed up action scenes for the sedentary(mostly) journalist.
Oh well.
Hollywood is about money -- Sweden is about art, it seems. Let's just hope it is not dumbed down too much.
Part of the fascination of the book was the intellectual meat one could chew on.
Blog post copyright Kyi May Kaung
I loved the first book, "saving" the 2 other books to read later.
I think the "Yo Yo" rapper with the $$$ in her name best coincides with how I imagine Lisbeth Salander to be, but maybe Daniel Craig might feel she will upstage him.
In my opinion she's the only one who has enough character to fit the role, and provide a balance to Daniel Craig.
Craig is a bit rougher than the original Blomkvist, who is a bit of a nerd and not as brave, at least in book one, as Lisbeth, but no doubt the Hollywood version will have beefed up action scenes for the sedentary(mostly) journalist.
Oh well.
Hollywood is about money -- Sweden is about art, it seems. Let's just hope it is not dumbed down too much.
Part of the fascination of the book was the intellectual meat one could chew on.
Blog post copyright Kyi May Kaung
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