But naturally you have a first-hand account of LKY’s collaboration with the Japanese, don’t you Mr Smith ? Of course, you are not going to reveal your sources, lest the PAP put out a wanted poster, right Mr Smith ? You may now join William in the playroom.
It seems you have double standards for Malays/Indonesian and everyone else.
Lee Teng Hui – 2nd Lieutenant in the IJA who sore an oath the Japanese Emperor is not a collaborator
Suharto – Sergeant in the KNIL than became an officer in PETA (local defense force) is a collaborator
Then there is Sukarno and Benigno Aquino both of them were given very high ranking positions under the Japanese.
By Chinese and South Korea definitions everyone mentioned were collaborators. Lee Kuan Yew, Lee Teng Hui, Suharto, Sukarno and Aquino.
The Japanese didn’t point a gun to LKY and say apply to be the editor with the Japanese propaganda department. The same for Lee Teng Hui and being an officer in the IJA.
Most South Korean generals who fought in the Korean War were former IJA officers, and some were assigned to units that committed war crimes.
The KMT didn’t model itself after the CPC (Chinese Communist Party), it is modeled on the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. There is a difference. The USSR had relations with both the KMT and the CPC.
From 1928-1941 the KMT got assistance from the Russians and Nazi Germany.
Lee Teng Hui Japanese? OK, if you believe that nonsense.
Singapore is not China, where such a thing would be deadly to one’s political career. As I said before all of non-Communist SEA and East Asia was run for the most part by Japanese collaborators after WW2.
Lee Kuan Yew was not just a translator, but the editor for the cable news editor for Hodobu, the Japanese information and propaganda department.
David Marshall was my great uncle, and I can corroborate your comments. However LTH was a Taiwanese Chinese, from Japanese-Occupied Formosa. He was NOT Japanese by ethnicity, culture or temperament and only by birth, and not a collaborator, as you correctly state. The Kuomintang actually were supported by the Americans during the Nationalist years, as well as by Russia. LKY did not collaborate with the Japanese, some insist (here on NM, no less), he did with the British, but I think the jury has not fully returned on that. Marshall, as my relative, only collaborated with LKY until LKY threw him aside to France as Ambassador. Joe, all you say (except about Lee Teng Hui in part) is correct. The reason I did not want to take up too much space pointing out William’s nonsense, is so others could, which you have. In addition, Benigno Aquino was no collaborator. I suspect William includes anyone who got along with the US, so why didn’t he mention Ngo Dinh Diem or Marcos or Soeharto ? The late King Norodom Sihanouk and Hun Sen changed sides so many times, one can’t keep track. Thank you for your corrections, however, to be accurate:
Lee, like LKY, was Hakka, born on Formosa, which made him Japanese by birth, but reverted to Chinese National after Japanese “gave up” Taiwan. The KMT modeled itself after the CPC, but were not Communist, in fact having relations with the US and Russia. If all translators were traitors, half of Java and Sumatra should be indicted for collaborating with the Japanese. I don’t see that happening, anytime soon. Your facetious comment is very well-paced.
On the late Bu Norma (Princess Nindyikirono), I interviewed her several times in my research. Some of the stories in the book about HBIX’s period as Vice President come from her. It was however hard to tell what direct influence she had on him in political terms.
As a former member of Sukarno’s staff, she had been politically suspect, and even spent some time in jail in 1966. So I surmise that any influence she had would have needed to be discreet, and thus hard to guess at. As the Sultan’s own power and influence were pretty limited in the later part of his New Order career, her influence cannot have been especially significant overall.
Lee Teng Hui was not a Japanese collaborator. He is a Japanese. Do you have any evidence that Lee Kuan Yew was a collaborator or you merely heard this allegation from Looney Fringe Han Hui Hui? LKY took a job as a Japanese translator. Does that make him a traitor? Has there been any evidence to suggest he colluded with the Japanese to the detriment of fellow Singaporean? If there were, his political rivals David Marshall, Lim Yew Hock, Lim Chin Siong et al would have seized the opportunity to inflict fatal damage on his political career. Even the British or Japanese would have revealed his trachery. They did not because no such evidence existed.
Ceasefire capitalism suits the regime to a tee. The MPC as its agent becomes a money spinner with foreign aid (Harn Yawnghwe of the Euro-Burma Office set an example), and there’s the exciting promise of economic development backed by potential foreign investment like a big juicy carrot dangling in front of the ethnic leaders some of whom find it irresistible perhaps with those import licences for new cars as starters. It certainly managed to split the KNU leadership quite successfully.
Only gullible people buy into the myth of a rogue military acting alone. The good cop bad cop show carries on although one of the two good cops had overplayed his part and got himself unceremoniously thrown out in a nocturnal putsch with the other one now in pole position.
Unless ASSK/NLD win a majority in the next parliament none of these ‘reforms’ cheered on and assisted by the ‘international community’ will have a fighting chance to achieve any significant breakthrough, not to mention the unwelcome R word.
An entire industry has grown up around all these interminable internationally funded ‘transitional processes’ in such a way that there exists no incentive to reach the destination, which many suspected was never the real intention in the first place, as the journey being undertaken looks increasingly like not a means to an end but an end in itself. The scenic route may yet enjoy a lot more mileage until a new driver gets behind the wheel. Or the show must go on.
Here are a list of Japanese collaborators in other Asian countries – Lee Kuan Yew, Park Chung Hee. Lee Teng Hui. Aung San, Manual Roxas, Benigno Simeon Aquino, and the list goes on and on. All of non-Communist SEA and East Asia were led by collaborators after WW2. So why only bring out Malaysia and Indonesia?
How about the West come clean for propping up these dictators and collaborators for the past 70 years.
Lastly, its funny how you focus the attention on the POWs, who by the way in Indonesia’s case were occupiers themselves. So the Indonesian nationalist should have rose up against the Japanese, freed the POWs, only to have these same soldiers occupy them after independence. I know Dutch soldiers who were POW and who ended up fighting the nationalist after Independence.
Nationalist like Sukarno stuck with the Japanese, because there was little indication that the Dutch would have given independence to Dutch East Indies after the Japanese were defeated. Had the Dutch sincerely indicate during the War that Independence was to be granted, the nationalist might have switched sides like Aung San in March of 1945.
In an age of web-based events, texts, films, etc is cancellation of these physical presence location-based events geared towards academics (book launches, photo exhibitions or discussion panels) really that significant?
For teaching the history of the Indonesia genocide wouldn’t a web-based platform be more effective? (i.e. an Indonesian language web content with an eye towards traffic maximization, not academics).
Bit torrent was most assuredly the way most people watched the documentary “The Act of Killing” that has probably done more than anything else to educate people about this history.
This is an interesting article which I have read several times. I like particularly the implicit argument that social welfare did not begin with ‘NGOs’, but is much older, deeper and wider. But it contains some conceptual and empirical contradictions: on the one hand it emphasises the close connection of social work to politics – which I totally endorse, because one cannot operate independently from the other, see Hegel’s ‘B├╝rgerliche Gesellschaft’ -, on the other hand it denies precisely this connection: social work as something detached from and sometimes against ‘politics’ whatever that may be. That is not how it works, in Myanmar or elsewhere.
Also, while it might be true that social work in Myanmar is done without any idea of ‘entitlement’ from the state, this is more born out of necessity than of ideology: the state simply does not perform, so one does not expect anything from it. But that does not obviate the idea that the state DOES have some duties towards its citizens in which it fails. According to Buddhist doctrines the state does have a duty to guarantee the life and livelihood of the population, even though on the other hand, the state is also one of the five evils. An interesting paradox, is it not, and one that might explain some otherwise enigmatic constellations.
Patron client relationships are what they typically rely on. Imcunbant power especially military in nature has virtually no contenders. It’s hubris that led Than Shwe to name the new capital Naypyidaw. The same when they did not even bother changing the name except the minimum Association to Party.
What in Burmese is known asdabè mway saya mway (cultivate subordinates cultivate superiors) typifies the military top brass. Hence periodic purges and putsches.
They are likely to fade away from pole position in the end and on a more level playing field with civilian power and patronage. But “Burmese Days” are far from over. In other words it’s Third World politics.
I can think of at least 200 “exciting” issues in Malaysia far more trite than this. One would be the percent by weight of porcine DNA in Cadbury chocolates. Another would be: Does being sprayed with Holy Water turn Malays into Roman Catholics (my response would be: One could only hope so) and cause your hands to become excessively pubescent. I think the article above is far more relevant (and interesting).
What an absolutely stupid cause and waste of time. And to think the campaigner could be helping real victims of underage prostitution or some form of sex trafficking.
“Advocates of sex (and love) with robots are really advocates of the sex trade.”
No, they are alternatives. It is a failure of morality/ethics on the campaigner’s part to not realize this.
Blowup dolls, mechanical dildos, and other anthropomorphic toys are not people–people are people!
In this article, the cultural cleavage here is not between advocates of an adult sex trade and that against the sex trade because of some religiously-derived morality. The cultural cleavage is between, instead, those like the campaigner who wish to assert authority over other people’s lives (male or female or both) and those who wish to allow people their liberty.
Let’s get this straight: this is about authoritarianism vs liberty. The campaigner wishes to control the action of others so that she can sleep better at night? Seriously, wtf?
We are NOT talking about sex workers and the ethics behind that–which is a different discussion. We are talking about anthropomorphic toys.
The campaigner needs to feel some embarrassment for eliding the difference between real goddamn humans and a mechanical linga and/or electric yoni. It is our job to ostracize such a campaign.
This boils down to only one thing, which is essentially ad homenim: one prude, morally over-righteousness, ethically confused, sex-starved fascist who wants to control the private actions of other adult females, males, or both.
And to think that the campaigner could contribute to a REAL campaign within the topic area of the sex industry like underage trafficking.
As a community of independent scholars and need not be afraid to call out the campaigner on this issue.
Of all the problems/challenges facing our species, this has got to be the most trite issue possible.
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Censorship and the forbidden past
But naturally you have a first-hand account of LKY’s collaboration with the Japanese, don’t you Mr Smith ? Of course, you are not going to reveal your sources, lest the PAP put out a wanted poster, right Mr Smith ? You may now join William in the playroom.
Censorship and the forbidden past
Benigno Aquino was not a collaborator. He was not recruited by the Japanese. You, however, may have been recruited by other planets.
Censorship and the forbidden past
It seems you have double standards for Malays/Indonesian and everyone else.
Lee Teng Hui – 2nd Lieutenant in the IJA who sore an oath the Japanese Emperor is not a collaborator
Suharto – Sergeant in the KNIL than became an officer in PETA (local defense force) is a collaborator
Then there is Sukarno and Benigno Aquino both of them were given very high ranking positions under the Japanese.
By Chinese and South Korea definitions everyone mentioned were collaborators. Lee Kuan Yew, Lee Teng Hui, Suharto, Sukarno and Aquino.
The Japanese didn’t point a gun to LKY and say apply to be the editor with the Japanese propaganda department. The same for Lee Teng Hui and being an officer in the IJA.
Most South Korean generals who fought in the Korean War were former IJA officers, and some were assigned to units that committed war crimes.
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/483941.html
The KMT didn’t model itself after the CPC (Chinese Communist Party), it is modeled on the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. There is a difference. The USSR had relations with both the KMT and the CPC.
From 1928-1941 the KMT got assistance from the Russians and Nazi Germany.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-German_cooperation_until_1941
https://www.quora.com/What-kind-of-relationship-did-the-KMT-Kuomintang-Chinas-Nationalist-Party-and-Nazi-Germany-have
Look at the helmets of the Chinese soldiers, they are wearing Stahlhelm, also worn by the Wehrmacht.
Censorship and the forbidden past
So Lee Teng Hui joining the IJA as a second lieutenant isn’t collaboration? He wasn’t conscripted, he volunteered as an officer.
Benigno Aquino was a collaborator. We was recruited by the Japanese to form a government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benigno_Aquino,_Sr.
Censorship and the forbidden past
Lee Teng Hui Japanese? OK, if you believe that nonsense.
Singapore is not China, where such a thing would be deadly to one’s political career. As I said before all of non-Communist SEA and East Asia was run for the most part by Japanese collaborators after WW2.
Lee Kuan Yew was not just a translator, but the editor for the cable news editor for Hodobu, the Japanese information and propaganda department.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/03/23/asia-pacific/lee-kuan-yew-founder-modern-singapore-dies-91/#.VjFbf2vmiKF
Of course the British and Lee Kuan Yew aren’t going to disclose how extensive his involvement was for the Japanese during WW2.
A war on words, a murder of memory
http://news.yahoo.com/indonesia-minorities-under-threat-muslim-hardliners-210443651.html
Let’s start here and we will understand why Indonesians cannot reconcile in the long-term.
Censorship and the forbidden past
Kuomintang and not Koumintang ! Getting old fast.
Censorship and the forbidden past
David Marshall was my great uncle, and I can corroborate your comments. However LTH was a Taiwanese Chinese, from Japanese-Occupied Formosa. He was NOT Japanese by ethnicity, culture or temperament and only by birth, and not a collaborator, as you correctly state. The Kuomintang actually were supported by the Americans during the Nationalist years, as well as by Russia. LKY did not collaborate with the Japanese, some insist (here on NM, no less), he did with the British, but I think the jury has not fully returned on that. Marshall, as my relative, only collaborated with LKY until LKY threw him aside to France as Ambassador. Joe, all you say (except about Lee Teng Hui in part) is correct. The reason I did not want to take up too much space pointing out William’s nonsense, is so others could, which you have. In addition, Benigno Aquino was no collaborator. I suspect William includes anyone who got along with the US, so why didn’t he mention Ngo Dinh Diem or Marcos or Soeharto ? The late King Norodom Sihanouk and Hun Sen changed sides so many times, one can’t keep track. Thank you for your corrections, however, to be accurate:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Teng-hui
Lee, like LKY, was Hakka, born on Formosa, which made him Japanese by birth, but reverted to Chinese National after Japanese “gave up” Taiwan. The KMT modeled itself after the CPC, but were not Communist, in fact having relations with the US and Russia. If all translators were traitors, half of Java and Sumatra should be indicted for collaborating with the Japanese. I don’t see that happening, anytime soon. Your facetious comment is very well-paced.
Review of A Prince in a Republic
Thank you Muhammad Yuanda Zara, for that review.
On the late Bu Norma (Princess Nindyikirono), I interviewed her several times in my research. Some of the stories in the book about HBIX’s period as Vice President come from her. It was however hard to tell what direct influence she had on him in political terms.
As a former member of Sukarno’s staff, she had been politically suspect, and even spent some time in jail in 1966. So I surmise that any influence she had would have needed to be discreet, and thus hard to guess at. As the Sultan’s own power and influence were pretty limited in the later part of his New Order career, her influence cannot have been especially significant overall.
Censorship and the forbidden past
Lee Teng Hui was not a Japanese collaborator. He is a Japanese. Do you have any evidence that Lee Kuan Yew was a collaborator or you merely heard this allegation from Looney Fringe Han Hui Hui? LKY took a job as a Japanese translator. Does that make him a traitor? Has there been any evidence to suggest he colluded with the Japanese to the detriment of fellow Singaporean? If there were, his political rivals David Marshall, Lim Yew Hock, Lim Chin Siong et al would have seized the opportunity to inflict fatal damage on his political career. Even the British or Japanese would have revealed his trachery. They did not because no such evidence existed.
A separate peace
Ceasefire capitalism suits the regime to a tee. The MPC as its agent becomes a money spinner with foreign aid (Harn Yawnghwe of the Euro-Burma Office set an example), and there’s the exciting promise of economic development backed by potential foreign investment like a big juicy carrot dangling in front of the ethnic leaders some of whom find it irresistible perhaps with those import licences for new cars as starters. It certainly managed to split the KNU leadership quite successfully.
Only gullible people buy into the myth of a rogue military acting alone. The good cop bad cop show carries on although one of the two good cops had overplayed his part and got himself unceremoniously thrown out in a nocturnal putsch with the other one now in pole position.
Unless ASSK/NLD win a majority in the next parliament none of these ‘reforms’ cheered on and assisted by the ‘international community’ will have a fighting chance to achieve any significant breakthrough, not to mention the unwelcome R word.
An entire industry has grown up around all these interminable internationally funded ‘transitional processes’ in such a way that there exists no incentive to reach the destination, which many suspected was never the real intention in the first place, as the journey being undertaken looks increasingly like not a means to an end but an end in itself. The scenic route may yet enjoy a lot more mileage until a new driver gets behind the wheel. Or the show must go on.
Censorship and the forbidden past
Here are a list of Japanese collaborators in other Asian countries – Lee Kuan Yew, Park Chung Hee. Lee Teng Hui. Aung San, Manual Roxas, Benigno Simeon Aquino, and the list goes on and on. All of non-Communist SEA and East Asia were led by collaborators after WW2. So why only bring out Malaysia and Indonesia?
How about the West come clean for propping up these dictators and collaborators for the past 70 years.
Lastly, its funny how you focus the attention on the POWs, who by the way in Indonesia’s case were occupiers themselves. So the Indonesian nationalist should have rose up against the Japanese, freed the POWs, only to have these same soldiers occupy them after independence. I know Dutch soldiers who were POW and who ended up fighting the nationalist after Independence.
Nationalist like Sukarno stuck with the Japanese, because there was little indication that the Dutch would have given independence to Dutch East Indies after the Japanese were defeated. Had the Dutch sincerely indicate during the War that Independence was to be granted, the nationalist might have switched sides like Aung San in March of 1945.
The USDP faces the people
Sorry about the typo – should read “Incumbent”.
A war on words, a murder of memory
In an age of web-based events, texts, films, etc is cancellation of these physical presence location-based events geared towards academics (book launches, photo exhibitions or discussion panels) really that significant?
For teaching the history of the Indonesia genocide wouldn’t a web-based platform be more effective? (i.e. an Indonesian language web content with an eye towards traffic maximization, not academics).
Bit torrent was most assuredly the way most people watched the documentary “The Act of Killing” that has probably done more than anything else to educate people about this history.
The limits of big ‘P’ politics in Myanmar’s elections
This is an interesting article which I have read several times. I like particularly the implicit argument that social welfare did not begin with ‘NGOs’, but is much older, deeper and wider. But it contains some conceptual and empirical contradictions: on the one hand it emphasises the close connection of social work to politics – which I totally endorse, because one cannot operate independently from the other, see Hegel’s ‘B├╝rgerliche Gesellschaft’ -, on the other hand it denies precisely this connection: social work as something detached from and sometimes against ‘politics’ whatever that may be. That is not how it works, in Myanmar or elsewhere.
Also, while it might be true that social work in Myanmar is done without any idea of ‘entitlement’ from the state, this is more born out of necessity than of ideology: the state simply does not perform, so one does not expect anything from it. But that does not obviate the idea that the state DOES have some duties towards its citizens in which it fails. According to Buddhist doctrines the state does have a duty to guarantee the life and livelihood of the population, even though on the other hand, the state is also one of the five evils. An interesting paradox, is it not, and one that might explain some otherwise enigmatic constellations.
The USDP faces the people
Patron client relationships are what they typically rely on. Imcunbant power especially military in nature has virtually no contenders. It’s hubris that led Than Shwe to name the new capital Naypyidaw. The same when they did not even bother changing the name except the minimum Association to Party.
What in Burmese is known asdabè mway saya mway (cultivate subordinates cultivate superiors) typifies the military top brass. Hence periodic purges and putsches.
They are likely to fade away from pole position in the end and on a more level playing field with civilian power and patronage. But “Burmese Days” are far from over. In other words it’s Third World politics.
Sex robots and the sex trade
I stop reading after “Advocates of sex (and love) with robots are really advocates of the sex trade.”
There isn’t a need to read further after that line..
Review of A Prince in a Republic
[…] http://www.newmandala.org/2015/10/24/review-of-a-prince-in-a-republic/ […]
Sex robots and the sex trade
I can think of at least 200 “exciting” issues in Malaysia far more trite than this. One would be the percent by weight of porcine DNA in Cadbury chocolates. Another would be: Does being sprayed with Holy Water turn Malays into Roman Catholics (my response would be: One could only hope so) and cause your hands to become excessively pubescent. I think the article above is far more relevant (and interesting).
Sex robots and the sex trade
What an absolutely stupid cause and waste of time. And to think the campaigner could be helping real victims of underage prostitution or some form of sex trafficking.
“Advocates of sex (and love) with robots are really advocates of the sex trade.”
No, they are alternatives. It is a failure of morality/ethics on the campaigner’s part to not realize this.
Blowup dolls, mechanical dildos, and other anthropomorphic toys are not people–people are people!
In this article, the cultural cleavage here is not between advocates of an adult sex trade and that against the sex trade because of some religiously-derived morality. The cultural cleavage is between, instead, those like the campaigner who wish to assert authority over other people’s lives (male or female or both) and those who wish to allow people their liberty.
Let’s get this straight: this is about authoritarianism vs liberty. The campaigner wishes to control the action of others so that she can sleep better at night? Seriously, wtf?
We are NOT talking about sex workers and the ethics behind that–which is a different discussion. We are talking about anthropomorphic toys.
The campaigner needs to feel some embarrassment for eliding the difference between real goddamn humans and a mechanical linga and/or electric yoni. It is our job to ostracize such a campaign.
This boils down to only one thing, which is essentially ad homenim: one prude, morally over-righteousness, ethically confused, sex-starved fascist who wants to control the private actions of other adult females, males, or both.
And to think that the campaigner could contribute to a REAL campaign within the topic area of the sex industry like underage trafficking.
As a community of independent scholars and need not be afraid to call out the campaigner on this issue.
Of all the problems/challenges facing our species, this has got to be the most trite issue possible.