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Concord across the Atlantic blogs: re Burma
Of course I agree with Andrew Sullivan that ruling out ineffective, self-righteous, needlessly bellicose, or simply stupid steps in dealing with Burma should not mean: Hey, let's do nothing at all!
As with North Korea, as with Iran, as with anything important, it's a matter of knocking off the bombast and posturing -- about pre-emptive air strikes in the case of Iran, about Olympic boycotts in the case of China and Burma -- and using our brains, that neglected tool in Bush-era foreign policy, to figure out where we might most effectively apply pressure. Ingloriously, but realistically, for Burma this will probably involve some scheme to buy the generals' way into exile, before they have further chance to slaughter more of their own people.
So in solidarity with Andrew: slogans and hollow threats, No. Continued pressure to enlist the Chinese, the Indians, the ASEAN countries, and others toward removal of the junta, Yes.
Maybe this is just me, but....
... If I had been vociferously, prominently, moralistically, and disastrously wrong on the major foreign-policy issue of the time -- that is, if I had been all-out in favor of invading Iraq and had been withering in my dismissal of those not man enough to support that step or who said "what's the rush?" -- then I might, conceivably, be a little hesitant before striking similar cocksure poses about new issues as they came up.
But apparently this is just me. Because there is an emerging overlap between those who were 100% sure about the need to invade Iraq, and the certain success of that endeavor, and those who are 100% sure about the need to teach China a lesson about its coddling of the Burmese junta, and the moral righteousness of getting tough with the Chinese.
The generals who tyrannize Burma are indeed terrible. By my lights (and as I was saying back in "axis of evil" days), they are at least as great a menace to their own people as Saddam Hussein was to his, though it's hard to cook up any scenario in which they menace the world.
But the direness of a situation is not a reason to become blind to its its practicalities -- as happened with Iraq (Shiites? Sunnis? Kurds? Who cares!) and is happening with China and Burma now. It's a reason to understand the realities more thoroughly.
In Burma's case, this would mean being sure we had answered questions like: how much leverage, exactly, does China have over the brutal generals? What other countries -- India? Singapore? Thailand? Their neighbors in the region who chose to welcome Burma as a member of ASEAN? -- should be part of a coordinated anti-junta effort? Which approach -- ultimata in public, consultation in private -- is most likely to get the Chinese to do what they can? Etc. Again, think how nice it would have been if people had spent more time before the Iraq invasion asking comparable questions about what we were stepping into there.
But as I say, this may be just me.
Boycott the Olympics? There's no point in hollow threats
Three days ago, Fred Hiatt, who runs the Washington Post's editorial page, published a column about China's tolerance and support for the brutal junta in Burma. Its action point was this:
And here's something else I would do: Tell China that, as far as the United States is concerned, it can have its Olympic Games or it can have its regime in Burma. It can't have both.
I thought that was a bad and shallow idea -- and I say that even having some awareness, from trips to Burma over the last 19 years, how dark the situation there is. (The day after George Bush's 2002 State of the Union address identifying Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as the axis of evil, I said on a radio interview: if he is serious, he should have added Burma.)
At the invitation of the paper's "Post Global" feature, I laid out some of the reasons I think an ultimatum is foolish strategy. The text of that argument comes after the jump; the Post Global feature itself is here.
I didn't say there something else I think: that the idea of taking a brave, clear stand on China and Burma, and waving away as mere details any thought about the consequences, is reminiscent of the Post editorial page's relentlessly pro-war stance in the year leading up to the invasion of Iraq. Then the editorial page, under Hiatt, was impatient with any suggestion that we should wait, that we should think hard about the consequences of an occupation, that we should be very careful before launching a discretionary war. All of that was for wimps.
The tone of the Post's editorials was not the major factor, but was a factor, in cowing people in DC who might have objected to the rush to war. I've got nothing against Hiatt personally, whom I like; but I do have something against his page's pro-war tone in those days. I mention it because, again, I think there is a similarity in the "don't bother me with details, goddammit" tone.
Text of Post Global article follows:
Continue reading "Boycott the Olympics? There's no point in hollow threats" »
Yet more on CNN, Burma,and Myanmar
Perhaps I was unfair to single out CNN for its relentless insistence on the name Myanmar rather than Burma. Lamentably, the New York Times is doing the same thing (for instance, here). The Economist is bizarrely schizophrenic on the question. Its latest cover boldly says, "Burma's Saffron Revolution," but in the accompanying lead story all references are to Myanmar. Good for the Washington Post, which on its front page goes unashamedly with Burma, as does virtually all of the British media (BBC, Times, Guardian, Telegraph) except for the inexplicable Economist.
I suppose CNN sticks in my craw because they were the first media outlet in which I'd noticed such ostentatiously PC-sounding Myanmar-ization, especially in their arm's-length treatment of G.W. Bush's speech about "Burma." And just now they nonchalantly introduced comments "on Myanmar" from Archibishop Desmond Tutu, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a Burmese democracy advocate, and America's own Condoleezza Rice, only to have each of them begin, "The problem in Burma is" or "The people of Burma hope..." Take a hint, CNN and NYT!
One more thought experiment, on the argument that Burma is a "colonial" name: If a country changes its name in the process of becoming independent, no problem. Today's Ghana had been the Gold Coast as a British colony; when it became independent 50 years ago, it became Ghana too. New country; new name. But suppose a junta took over Mexico tomorrow and said that henceforth the world must call the country Atzlan. (Or, to choose a country with a name more obviously traceable to the colonial era, the Dominican Republican, or the Philippines.) It's not a new country; it's just a new regime, and there would be no need to oblige them, just there is no need to dignify the brutal Burmese generals
Background only: how Rangoon looked quite recently
For discussion tomorrow: whether China can do what many outsiders hope, and be the deus ex machina in the tragedy of Burma. It's pretty to think so, and to hope that Chinese intervention might spare Burmese monks and civilians from what looks like impending crackdown or massacre from the heavily-armed thugs who rule the country. I fear it's not realistic to think that China can or will play such a role. More later.
For now, street scenes from Rangoon, four months ago:
Rangoon city hall, with its somewhat eerie combination of British-colonial and traditional Burmese design. This appears in the background of many current protest videos. Here is how it looked on a weekday midmorning this May:
Continue reading "Background only: how Rangoon looked quite recently" »
More on Burma v. Myanmar
A reader in Yangon/Rangoon says this about the "Burma" v. "Myanmar" question:
In your article you miss one critical point.
Burma was the name given by the British, and is a corruption of Bamar. The Bamar people are the ethnic majority of the lowland areas of the country, referred to as divisions eg, Yangon Division, Bago Division, Mandalay Division. The other parts of the country are known as States, where other ethnic groups form the majority eg Chin State, Shan State, Karen State each named after majority ethnic group.
Therefore, to insist on calling the country Burma (Bamar) falls into the trap of Bamar nationalism, identifiable not just to Military but to the NLD as well, but always to the exclusion and the expense of the many other ethnic groups.
Unfortunately, Burmese nationalism has been a problem in the country for centuries (and made worse under the British policy of divide and rule), and unless the more inclusive Myanmar is used will continue to be so no matter who is in charge.
If you decide to use this info, please attribute it to ANON in Yangon (the historically correct name for Rangoon), and be assured I am not a stooge, but have friends here from pretty much every community !
Actually we don't disagree. As I said the first time around, within Burma there have been serious arguments for years about what the country should call itself, to reflect the relations among its component ethnic groups. If Burma wants to call itself Myanmar for internal purposes, no outsider should object.
But as for the name outsiders use, here is the plain fact: nearly 20 years ago the brutal SLORC commandos insisted on the change to Myanmar as a way of aggrandizing and legitimizing themselves and of suggesting a Year Zero, history-starts-with-us outlook on the country. There is no reason for outsiders to go along with them, especially now.
For once, I'm with Bush on a language issue: it's Burma, not Myanmar
I'm watching CNN in Beijing, which keeps tut-tutting President Bush for saying "Burma," rather than "Myanmar," in his just-completed UN speech, as if this were merely another of his gaffes.
I'm with Bush. For nearly twenty years, since first visiting the country during the violent protests in 1988, I've followed arguments about the twists and turns of what to call the country in Burmese. The complications mainly involve what the various names say about the relations between the Burmese people proper and other ethnic groups within the nation.
But when it comes to referring to the nation in English, there's little debate. Myanmar is the name invented 18 years ago by the benighted junta, known as SLORC* back then and the State Peace and Development Council now, when it seized power through force. When Westerners say "Myanmar," they're not being culturally respectful to the people of a beautiful but oppressed nation. (We don't call China Zhongguo or Germany Deutschland just because the locals do.) They're bowing to the whims of the generals who still imprison Aung San Suu Kyi.
There is no reason to humor them. Say Burma, as George Bush did. And CNN, grow some backbone when it comes to terminology!
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* "State Law and Order Restoration Council."
Update: Thanks to my Atlantic colleague Graeme Wood, I learn that I am agreeing here not merely with George W. Bush but, it seems, even with John Derbyshire! Sort of....
Burma: Life in the ruins
In the summer of 1988, my wife and I traveled through Burma mainly at night. We rode in the back of an open-bed pickup truck that held, in addition to us, half a dozen 10-gallon jerrycans full of gasoline. This was just after the military crackdown that left large numbers of students, civilians, and even monks dead and that cemented control over the country by the notorious junta later known as “SLORC” – the State Law and Order Restoration Committee. We had made a deal with a moonlighting Army officer to drive us north from Rangoon to Mandalay and Pagan and the upcountry regions. To minimize contact with the authorities, he drove only in the dark; to minimize wear and tear on his truck, he kept the headlights off. Our children, ages 11 and 8, were at a two-week summer camp on an island in Malaysia, where we then lived. When we finally got out of Burma and collected our children, it occurred to us to ask ourselves: What were we thinking???
What we thought about frequently while in Burma was its living-in-ruins effect. Rangoon’s downtown had a surprisingly intact array of stately colonial-era structures – none of them demolished, since there had been essentially no economic activity in the country for 40+ years, but none of them painted, repaired, or maintained in that time either.
Nearly twenty years later, the old buildings are still standing, and a few look better than before. The venerable Somerset Maugham-era Strand Hotel, a frozen-in-time rattletrap when we stayed there, with an ancient dining-hall staff who spoke with English accents and spent evenings watching Heckle & Jeckle cartoons on Burmese TV, is now spiffed-up and elegant. One or two modern office towers have appeared.
But this image suggests what is still the general effect. Shoeless squatters playing soccer in what was some kind of Socialist- architecture compound near the famed Shwedagon Pagoda.
Continue reading "Burma: Life in the ruins" »
How the world works: Burma edition
The three things that Burma (Myanmar, to its military regime) has to export are: drugs, gems, and rain forest timber. Most Western countries have applied a range of trade sanctions and import-prohibitions against Burmese goods. China has not and is Burma’s main trade partner.
I don’t know what the drug- or gem-export business looks like, and I’m not likely to get pictures of shipments as they occur. But recently in the port area of Rangoon (Yangon), I got an idea of how the timber trade looks.
Here are supplies waiting for shipment:
Continue reading "How the world works: Burma edition" »
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