ha ha ha, I like that.. maybe the Chinese should learn from the West – plant a flag, bring in the arm forces and declare that the land belongs to the Empire!
It took me a while to decrypt your fastfood industry insider jargon but I eventually found something to takeaway. While waiting in the queue I was reminded of the businessman I once shared lodgings with in Indonesia, whose fastfood chook supply chain encompassed Thailand. He was kind enough to give me a headsup to never, ever, go near his produce, and – call me chicken if you like – but after a guided tour of his plant I assessed his information to be highly credible. Being pearshaped, manboobs have long ceased to be an issue for me, just thought I’d pass on the headsup as I wouldn’t want overenthusiastic dedication your sampling methodology to ruin your figure[s]. But I wouldn’t want to be a complete chicken little about this either so have fun and wash your hands.
The answer is actually purely academic. Dr. Farrelly believes Burma is a “fertile” research topic for the ANU. It is an important step for academics in Universities to specialise in research areas that are “hot” for getting funding etc. to impress the Tenure and Promotion committees and other “senior administrators”. Most Universities in the West are cash-strapped (that’s why they have to recruit so many overseas students from places like China).
Very interesting account and yes, long overdue. However, on a personal note late 1977, I together with my then Sino-Cambodian female partner and our young son (he of course had no say in the matter being just 18 months old) foolishly decided we would like to go back to Cambodia. We were ardent supporters of the Khmer Rouge – foolishly and naively brushing aside all refugee stories – and wanted to be embraced by Democratic Kampuchea. Fortunately for us the Chinese strongly suggested we should not return to Cambodia because the KR had yet to stabilize the initial gains of the revolution. To ensure we would not fly from Beijing we were told we would have to wait up to six months the weekly flight to Phnom Penh.
I’m quite thankful to Dr. Farrelly for being one of very few academics who understand the situation and approach practically. I believe the Rakhine situation will, in the best of circumstances, take about twenty years to resolve fully. After all, how long have the Americans taken to resolve the “color” problems? But in a climate of hectoring, lecturing and polarization, all of which encourage standoff and siege mentality, the Rakhine problem will take forever or about forty years.
In many ways, ordinary life of almost anyone has been improving. For this generation, the fact that a mobile phone costed 2000 US$ is laughable since a rickshaw driver can be seen posting comments on Facebook. For students who try hard, scholarships are there to study at foreign universities, in a stark contrast to usual closures of universities whenever protests occurred under previous regime. In her times, my sister, a graduate, took about a year to find a job, and she was lucky to have found one. Now, jobs are to be expected for anyone who studied hard. Hospitals are improved. Medicines and services are increasingly free. Lands confiscated are returned or compensated. People can now complain to many departments, from new Human Rights Commission to Director of President Office U Zaw Htay himself (try via Facebook! :D). Even for the Muslims out there, abusive border guard forces have been disbanded.
There is no hiding of the fact that many areas need improvement. Personally, I deeply regret many aspects of Myanmar culture such as “Pwe” and Burmese music, have disappeared or are fading. But nobody can deny that the country is changing for the better.
When I suggested that Thailand will not have a democracy until there is a real political party standing for election on a platform of real democracy, I was told that that cannot happen. I got reds galore, too.
You are getting greens for saying the same thing.
You have to wonder how the “readers” of this website actually think. If that is what they do.
My own feeling is the reflexive jerking of the knee really isn’t thinking. But then I am not privileged to take part in the “internal discourse” of the folks that gave us PT and Yingluck.
Actually the king is very very weak as all sovereign powers lie with the military and Sin-Thai capitalists and classes; they decide what happens in their form of rule and domination of ethnic groups and peoples
Mahathir was the biggest defender of the Tatmadaw and Myanmar’s entry into ASEAN.
Myanmar’s rich natural gas fields also
did not go unnoticed by Mahathir and PM
Najib. Mahathir is a hypocrite par excellence. He was rather silent about
Muslim “Rohingya” ten years ago. That you even mention the name “Mahathir” in a post about Myanmar is sickening. Mahathir is the one that needs to expelled, from Planet Earth.
I meant key in the sense that the first two options are unlikely or undesirable. Just what is the way out if the army is to be involved? (And how can the army not be involved? Look at the folly of disbanding the Iraqi army for example.)
Why is there so much coverage of Myanmar in New Mandala? The country is a pygmy in regional political and economic terms. So why not more about the giants of the region like Indonesia? No glamorous protest leader, I suppose!
We’ve seen ample evidence of the resilience of the Burmese in the wake of Cyclone Nargis. They are bound to make the place wherever.
This one of course works by compulsion be it govt servants, businessmen or diplomats. Besides all supplicants must kowtow before the great presence “under the royal golden feet”.
In an ideal world we’d all be sitting round a table contemplating, co-operating and collaborating happily for the greater good. Would that it should come true in the real world. We wouldn’t even have such a thing called politics.
It is worth noting that TNI, including Ryamizard, drew the conclusion that it needed military aircraft that were less than thirty years old. Why not also draw the fairly obvious lesson that TNI needed to improve its maintenance procedures for all its aircraft as well as other military equipment?
When outgoing TNI Commander General Moeldoko paid a farewell call on the DPR, he boasted that TNI had been able quickly to find the victims of the Air Asia crash this year in which 162 passengers and crew died. He made no mention, however, of the C130 Hercules crash in which barely twenty fewer were killed. Some of the dead had been innocently going about their business on the ground in Medan. Nor did the distinguished MPs quiz the general about it.
This ghastly accident brought to light the apparently common practice by which the air force sells tickets to civilians for travel on Hercules. One passenger who had survived an earlier flight was quoted as saying that he (or she, it was a unisex name) had paid RP500,000 and stood up all the way for the privilege of getting acquainted with some of the goats and chickens that were also on the (unwritten) passenger manifest.
Referring to 3 sons of the king, first I was surprised to learn that the king had three sons,and they might be illegitimate sons (ha ha ha). Actually it’s not new people have learned about this over 60 years…some would call the tools of the king.
The current king is so powerful (we know that) because he has the military and the judiciary in his hands, and also half or more of Thai population revere him but he is dying and part of his power also is dying with him …we will see a real power struggling right after his death as no more GOD’s eyes watching. We will see Thailand’s direction after the death.
Monarchical networks, their militaries not excepted, are who-you-know, not what-you-know systems. They are unstable because they always produce a rich pool of passed-over ambitious talent that itches to overthrow them. The failure of the Chakri dynasty to provide a credible successor to the almost-dead Bhumibol is too good an opportunity for those people to miss.
The real enemies of democracy are the military and some powerful backers within the elite.
The only way that Thailand can achieve democracy is by revolution.
There is no one in Thailand that I know of that can arouse the people to a peaceful revolution. NO political parties that stand on a revolutionary platform or even on any democratic platforms. Until a political party, democratically formed and with real political policies is formed any action can be quashed by the military.
Why is everyone so enthralled about succession? Why all the political drama about the next person to sit on the throne?
Succession only replaces one king with another. The policies of the military will not change. The policies of the elite will not change and nothing else will change. Everything in Thailand will remain the same as people are not taught real history of the military’s crimes against the people since the 1932 revolution, or in fact any history that throws Thailand into a bad light.
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Thailand will never have democracy unless…
What if Thailand is a republic under dictatatorship?
Can Myanmar benefit from China plan?
I do not find “arm forces” “pallatable”. You mean “armed forces” and “palatable”, I assume.
I can also “learn from the West” lol
Can Myanmar benefit from China plan?
ha ha ha, I like that.. maybe the Chinese should learn from the West – plant a flag, bring in the arm forces and declare that the land belongs to the Empire!
Would that make it more pallatable to you?
The irresistible rise of Colonel Sanders
Thanks Tim
It took me a while to decrypt your fastfood industry insider jargon but I eventually found something to takeaway. While waiting in the queue I was reminded of the businessman I once shared lodgings with in Indonesia, whose fastfood chook supply chain encompassed Thailand. He was kind enough to give me a headsup to never, ever, go near his produce, and – call me chicken if you like – but after a guided tour of his plant I assessed his information to be highly credible. Being pearshaped, manboobs have long ceased to be an issue for me, just thought I’d pass on the headsup as I wouldn’t want overenthusiastic dedication your sampling methodology to ruin your figure[s]. But I wouldn’t want to be a complete chicken little about this either so have fun and wash your hands.
The sunny side of ordinary life
The answer is actually purely academic. Dr. Farrelly believes Burma is a “fertile” research topic for the ANU. It is an important step for academics in Universities to specialise in research areas that are “hot” for getting funding etc. to impress the Tenure and Promotion committees and other “senior administrators”. Most Universities in the West are cash-strapped (that’s why they have to recruit so many overseas students from places like China).
Review of Brothers in Arms
Very interesting account and yes, long overdue. However, on a personal note late 1977, I together with my then Sino-Cambodian female partner and our young son (he of course had no say in the matter being just 18 months old) foolishly decided we would like to go back to Cambodia. We were ardent supporters of the Khmer Rouge – foolishly and naively brushing aside all refugee stories – and wanted to be embraced by Democratic Kampuchea. Fortunately for us the Chinese strongly suggested we should not return to Cambodia because the KR had yet to stabilize the initial gains of the revolution. To ensure we would not fly from Beijing we were told we would have to wait up to six months the weekly flight to Phnom Penh.
A tale of two cities in Myanmar
A fascinating insight into Myanmar. I can only hope that the elections are run in a truely democratic way. Thanks for the article.
The sunny side of ordinary life
I’m quite thankful to Dr. Farrelly for being one of very few academics who understand the situation and approach practically. I believe the Rakhine situation will, in the best of circumstances, take about twenty years to resolve fully. After all, how long have the Americans taken to resolve the “color” problems? But in a climate of hectoring, lecturing and polarization, all of which encourage standoff and siege mentality, the Rakhine problem will take forever or about forty years.
In many ways, ordinary life of almost anyone has been improving. For this generation, the fact that a mobile phone costed 2000 US$ is laughable since a rickshaw driver can be seen posting comments on Facebook. For students who try hard, scholarships are there to study at foreign universities, in a stark contrast to usual closures of universities whenever protests occurred under previous regime. In her times, my sister, a graduate, took about a year to find a job, and she was lucky to have found one. Now, jobs are to be expected for anyone who studied hard. Hospitals are improved. Medicines and services are increasingly free. Lands confiscated are returned or compensated. People can now complain to many departments, from new Human Rights Commission to Director of President Office U Zaw Htay himself (try via Facebook! :D). Even for the Muslims out there, abusive border guard forces have been disbanded.
There is no hiding of the fact that many areas need improvement. Personally, I deeply regret many aspects of Myanmar culture such as “Pwe” and Burmese music, have disappeared or are fading. But nobody can deny that the country is changing for the better.
Thailand will never have democracy unless…
I agree wholeheartedly.
When I suggested that Thailand will not have a democracy until there is a real political party standing for election on a platform of real democracy, I was told that that cannot happen. I got reds galore, too.
You are getting greens for saying the same thing.
You have to wonder how the “readers” of this website actually think. If that is what they do.
My own feeling is the reflexive jerking of the knee really isn’t thinking. But then I am not privileged to take part in the “internal discourse” of the folks that gave us PT and Yingluck.
Thailand will never have democracy unless…
Actually the king is very very weak as all sovereign powers lie with the military and Sin-Thai capitalists and classes; they decide what happens in their form of rule and domination of ethnic groups and peoples
The sunny side of ordinary life
Oh Please,
Mahathir was the biggest defender of the Tatmadaw and Myanmar’s entry into ASEAN.
Myanmar’s rich natural gas fields also
did not go unnoticed by Mahathir and PM
Najib. Mahathir is a hypocrite par excellence. He was rather silent about
Muslim “Rohingya” ten years ago. That you even mention the name “Mahathir” in a post about Myanmar is sickening. Mahathir is the one that needs to expelled, from Planet Earth.
Thailand will never have democracy unless…
I meant key in the sense that the first two options are unlikely or undesirable. Just what is the way out if the army is to be involved? (And how can the army not be involved? Look at the folly of disbanding the Iraqi army for example.)
The sunny side of ordinary life
Why is there so much coverage of Myanmar in New Mandala? The country is a pygmy in regional political and economic terms. So why not more about the giants of the region like Indonesia? No glamorous protest leader, I suppose!
Is Naypyitaw growing up?
We’ve seen ample evidence of the resilience of the Burmese in the wake of Cyclone Nargis. They are bound to make the place wherever.
This one of course works by compulsion be it govt servants, businessmen or diplomats. Besides all supplicants must kowtow before the great presence “under the royal golden feet”.
In an ideal world we’d all be sitting round a table contemplating, co-operating and collaborating happily for the greater good. Would that it should come true in the real world. We wouldn’t even have such a thing called politics.
Sr Gen Min Aung Hlaing has said in the BBC interview much the same vein as Gen Saw Maung said in English in 1990 (@ 2:22 in the video clip).
Modernising Indonesia’s military
It is worth noting that TNI, including Ryamizard, drew the conclusion that it needed military aircraft that were less than thirty years old. Why not also draw the fairly obvious lesson that TNI needed to improve its maintenance procedures for all its aircraft as well as other military equipment?
When outgoing TNI Commander General Moeldoko paid a farewell call on the DPR, he boasted that TNI had been able quickly to find the victims of the Air Asia crash this year in which 162 passengers and crew died. He made no mention, however, of the C130 Hercules crash in which barely twenty fewer were killed. Some of the dead had been innocently going about their business on the ground in Medan. Nor did the distinguished MPs quiz the general about it.
This ghastly accident brought to light the apparently common practice by which the air force sells tickets to civilians for travel on Hercules. One passenger who had survived an earlier flight was quoted as saying that he (or she, it was a unisex name) had paid RP500,000 and stood up all the way for the privilege of getting acquainted with some of the goats and chickens that were also on the (unwritten) passenger manifest.
The irresistible rise of Colonel Sanders
Vantage point from which no one here care to observe from.
Simply illustrated:
Chicken Farm to supply KFC => More Chicken
to all besides supplying to KFC => More
AFFORDABLE PROTEIN/ CALORIC food source =>
Less rampant KWASHIORKOR and MARASMUS among
rural children.
2/3 of citizenry are rural, even among urban population most still exist under above nutritional condition.
Thailand will never have democracy unless…
Referring to 3 sons of the king, first I was surprised to learn that the king had three sons,and they might be illegitimate sons (ha ha ha). Actually it’s not new people have learned about this over 60 years…some would call the tools of the king.
The current king is so powerful (we know that) because he has the military and the judiciary in his hands, and also half or more of Thai population revere him but he is dying and part of his power also is dying with him …we will see a real power struggling right after his death as no more GOD’s eyes watching. We will see Thailand’s direction after the death.
Thailand will never have democracy unless…
Monarchical networks, their militaries not excepted, are who-you-know, not what-you-know systems. They are unstable because they always produce a rich pool of passed-over ambitious talent that itches to overthrow them. The failure of the Chakri dynasty to provide a credible successor to the almost-dead Bhumibol is too good an opportunity for those people to miss.
Thailand will never have democracy unless…
Certainly Chupong is flatterd by all comments made here.
Thailand will never have democracy unless…
The real enemies of democracy are the military and some powerful backers within the elite.
The only way that Thailand can achieve democracy is by revolution.
There is no one in Thailand that I know of that can arouse the people to a peaceful revolution. NO political parties that stand on a revolutionary platform or even on any democratic platforms. Until a political party, democratically formed and with real political policies is formed any action can be quashed by the military.
Why is everyone so enthralled about succession? Why all the political drama about the next person to sit on the throne?
Succession only replaces one king with another. The policies of the military will not change. The policies of the elite will not change and nothing else will change. Everything in Thailand will remain the same as people are not taught real history of the military’s crimes against the people since the 1932 revolution, or in fact any history that throws Thailand into a bad light.