Thank you for your comments Mr Cohen. Having read your post I would have to concur that “postmodern Western notions of feminism” are perhaps ill-suited to the current Cambodian context. However, I would qualify this somewhat. Before I do so, I’m not sure that the ongoing pursuit of women’s rights in Cambodia (look at the work of local NGOs such as ADHOC and LICADHO in this arena) is identical to NGO practice and government policy (or lack thereof) aimed at tackling the serious issue of child sex tourism.
The underlying message of the article concerned the “representation” of women in Cambodia. Beneath the layer postmodern feminist literature, which definitely influenced my writing of the piece, are ideas about “representation” which I feel have relevance for the Cambodian present. Consider for instance how women are represented in the Chbap Srey (Women’s Code/Rules for Women), which in some passages could be interpreted to legitimise marital violence; similarly with the Law on Domestic Violence.
Additionally, consider the issue of bauk (gang-rape, “plussing”) which saw something of a spike in recent years. Back in 2003 Gender and Development for Cambodia produced a report which addressed youth attitudes towards rape. Interviewing men who had participated in gang-rape it revealed some worrying representations of women and of a woman’s right to control the use of her own body. Furthermore, one interviewee stated that he never did bauk with “good girls” only sex workers.
Add to this the perceptions of sex workers in general who are often referred to as srey kouc (lit. broken, spoilt women). The rights of sex workers and their representation in society as a whole is an important issue which has been taken up by the Cambodian Prostitutes Union (CPU).
Also of interest to locally based human rights organisations has been the chaos of land ownership as a product of post-Khmer Rouge population movements and institution building as well as more recent land speculation and corruption which have had particular implications for Cambodian women.
These issues and representations of women are of very real interest to local NGOs and INGOs in Cambodia, even though government, sadly, appears uninterested in the issue with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs appearing under-funded and under-supported.
The article was intended as a starting point for a discussion of some issues that have unique impacts on Cambodian women in particular.
“Wanimal”‘s apsara images are photographic fine art, both dignified and tasteful. See for yourself. They may be found by a Google Images search for “wanimal+apsara”.
What is indeed pornographic is our sexualisation of women’s breasts and the double standards which allow men to go topless but women not.
We may also say that the Wanimal apsara images are historically accurate. In my view, they glorify the ajesty of Angkor not demean it.
1. Can I ask are High Commissioners supposed to engage in political debate?
2. Did 30 million (mentioned above) die in China – when and how did they die?
This is because as far as I know 30 millions Chinese people died as a result of the Japanese invasion from 1937 to 1945..
Then there would be the figure arising from the Civil War…
The other figure I read of was 60 million Chinese died (from 1949 to 1978) when the Communisted liberated China from the KMT. However, this figure is interesting for this reason.
In 1949 the Chinese population census figure was aorund 440 million people and this rose to 700 in 1978.
So the increase was more than the deaths?
May be some one with better information can explain or give a better analysis?
3. My third question is was Chinese communism (now capitalist) more humane than the British colonialiats as I read somewhere that British colonialism was responsible for the death of 1 billion people at the height of its heydays.. i.e. deaths from wars of imperialist conquest and famines caused by these wars and colonial policies..
4. Can someone explain how the damage done by communists is greater than the damage done by UMNO BN to Malaya and its 2 colonial dependencies Sabah and Sarawak?
Widodo met with NU and Muhammadiyah leaders in December and asked them if they wanted the execution of drug offenders. They said yes. This is what a Muslim majority Indonesian democracy is starting to look like. Widodo wants votes that went to Prabowo.
KWI released a statement opposing the executions. Islamists criticised the Bishops for not putting out a similiar statement condemning the extra judicial shooting of terror suspects.
Meanwhile, the Sunni Shia civil war in the ME is once more being reflected in Indonesia as a Sunni cleric calls for Jihad against Shia. He just happens to be a Prabowo supporter. What does is mean for us?
Hazara asylum seekers are Shia and no longer welcome in Sunni Indonesia. We pay IOM to build new facilities for them, incredibly placed near known hotspots of Sunni radicalism like Hidayatullah in Kaltim. Locals are angry and jealous, feeling the new facilities are better than their own. Sunni clerics smell a rat, claim the US, Austrlia and IOM are facilitating Shia into Indonesia to destabilise them and provoke a reaction, which can then be used as a pretext for crackdowns on Sunni. Some of the conspiracy theories are not fit to be repeated here. With ever so slightly more credibility, they claim that the new facilities only become a new pull factor for more Hazaras to follow.
When extremist Sunni clerics dogwhistle, the risk of militant action is real enough.
Those who closely follow people smuggling developments will know that the boats continue to depart and the focus has now shifted to Medan and Padang. The Sulawesi-Bogor syndicate is bringing ‘Rohingyas’ from Malaysia, displaced by the most recent crackdown on illegal workers. This makes them easy prey for the smugglers, who promise them jobs in Indonesia. More than 100 in 4 different groups are publicly known to have entered north Sumatra by boat in the last 2 weeks. When they realise there’s no job in Indonesia, the smugglers promise them a job in Australia and extort what’s left of their savings for a boat trip. A boat left Padang for Xmas Isl in December and hasn’t been heard of since. Another was stopped from departing last Thursday. 9 of those detained have already, errr, ‘escaped.’
Widodo has said he’ll react strongly to any perceived breach of sovereignty. OSB may be, wisely, keeping a very low profile.
So this is the context in which our two guys find themselves. We shouldn’t overwork the Widodo ‘tough guy, needs to stand up to Prabowo’ stuff. Widodo is doing what he wants to do because he’s a politician and sees votes in it. In the process he’s wrecking the new image of his country, painstakingly nurtured back to credibility since 1999. And alienating a new generation of opinion makers and media here just as Indonesia wants to be given a second chance to do the right thing in Papua. What a very silly man he is.
The fact that Jokowi didn’t refer to YOU about maids in the Gulf, doesn’t mean he did not mention it. He did mention several times in vernacular press and to his cabinet ministers, several of whom I know. He explicitly talked about ending Indonesian female employment in the Gulf, as well as Malaysia, but in fact the rift with Malaysia had died down somewhat, but NOT with the Gulf. A rift that had already existed under SBY. Your expectation that President Jokowi is unaware of Indonesia’s long tradition of sending women to the Gulf is untenable. Also, untenable is the notion that somehow being abused in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Dubai, Bahrain, etc. is justified because employment is scarce at home. During the period that SBY brought home maids, they found employment at home. It is the investment in the hotel and service industry that President Jokowi needs to emphasize, and not the abuse of Indonesian women overseas, hardly a new issue, and NOT one NGO in Indonesia, that I am aware of, supports.
I am aware as lot of male Indonesians, who may put woman’s issues on the backburner, might not be so enlightened. There is also a limit to the number of indigenous native tree species that can be logged, without being able to sustain primary forest. That hasn’t stopped logging in Indonesia (or Malaysia). Perhaps if you found yourself
on death row for “witchcraft” in Jeddah, your sarcasm would be lessened.
Jokowi made this statement after having discussed Indonesian workers’ conditions in Malaysia, presumably with Nadjib. This experience he had found humiliating, he complained. Indonesia’s ‘martabat’ and ‘harga diri’ suffered from having Indonesians performing menial tasks overseas. He may also have had in mind the Malaysian company that used the slogan ‘Fire your Indonesian maid!’ in a commercial shortly before Jokowi’s visit.
He didn’t refer to maids employed, abused and even beheaded on the Arabian Peninsula.
The problem is finding employment back home. There is, after all, a limit to the number of repatriated maids who can be gainfully occupied in a Proton car plant.
I agree with you in large measure about President Jokowi, however, bringing home Indonesian maids from the Gulf, where they are raped, tortured, defiled, falsely accused of bogus witchcraft charges, and with about 86 Indonesian women in Saudi jails for no crimes at all, it is both right and mandatory to bring them home. SBY was correct to berate the Saudi Ambassador (it takes Chutzpah for an Indonesian Leader to dress down a representative of the nation with the two holiest sites in Islam; he also had the Ambassador recalled for a few weeks) and to put a temporary moratorium on exporting Indonesian women to the Gulf. SBY’s mistake was that he did not make it permanent. President Jokowi, whatever his other failings, has suggested the same measures, and he is right to do so. There isn’t enough money on the planet that is worth the lost dignity of an Indonesian housemaid, having nails drilled into her body, object plunged into her, or rape and torture explained away as “witchcraft” by an abusive Arab household. Unlike Saudi Arabia, Indonesia is NOT a Wahhabi-Salafi Sunni Islamic State; let’s try and keep it that way.
Jokowi wasn’t responding to public pressure when he first decided to reject all pleas for clemency. He also took this option before any corruption scandals erupted.
Jokowi seems to have a repellent streak of violence in him, which is also manifest in his government’s blowing up of foreign fishing vessels. His Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister apparently enjoys watching such scenes of destruction. But she smokes cigarettes or stretches her legs instead of playing the fiddle.
We should be grateful, I suppose, that Attorney-General Prasetyo hasn’t yet thought of being on hand to observe an execution. Nor Jokowi of doing a blusukan on a firing-squad.
The disillusionment with Jokowi, to which these authors allude, is likely to spread, as Indonesians come to grasp not just how crony-ridden but also how incompetent he is. Witness, for example, his statement on bringing overseas workers home.
Cambodia is a major destination for sex tourism, particularly for Europeans, Americans and Australians, in search of underage youth. Paedophilia is a crime; it is repugnant; and it is a cancer on human society. Sadly, Cambodia remains a major centre for such reprehensible activities,
and in the context of what the Khmer (and Cham) people have experienced, in the last 70 years, a very tragic state for the nation indeed. I do not think postmodern Western notions of feminism, which originate in the safe halls of academe, and not in Cambodia, has any utility. This is not about an academic treatise on something like the “Zizekian patterns of Postmodern Khmer female self-idealization” and other related bullsh*t. Paedophilic prostitution must be ended; it must be punishable by long prison terms; and since Hun Sen seems to not take it too seriously, perhaps a permanent Interpol representative in Phnom Penh, might change his mind.
Thanks for the link to the commemorative trek, Mr. Coggan.
Of course, everything I know about Colin McPhedran was through his book, but I do share a few things with him: (a) I was born in Burma before Burma’s independence (b) I spent part of my childhood in Maymyo (c) I went to the same school that he described at the very beginning of his book.
On the other hand, I have never been to Australia!
I use a pseudonym because my unconventional opinions about Burma are quite different from the so-called “Burma-experts” who make a living out of “studying” Burma (my professional life has nothing to do with where I was born) and free speech is something that Burmese society (not just the military junta) does not fully appreciate. In my opinion the history of Burma will never be accurately recorded. In Burma, as in many Asian countries, facts get “distorted” to promote certain political and/or nationalistic agendas, unfortunately. In that sense, Colin McPhedran’s book is a gem, because “scholarly theories” might come and go, but a life is lived only once.
Not to out do Clive, but I recall teasing Tok Guru, years past, about the great charm (I used less formal terminology) of young Kelantanese women. Tok Guru laughed, rolled his eyes, and proclaimed that “Islam is sexier”. I didn’t think so at the time, but on the other hand, I had no way of disproving him.
I did not include or repeat in my brief memoir the wry joke that I made, I believe, in a footnote buried deeply somewherw in my PhD thesis. Nik Aziz had written a book, published in Kota Baru in the early 1960s, that was a fairly standard Islamic exploration and denunciation of, and polemic against, the Christian idea of the Trinity. The title of that book was “Mengapa Saya Tidak Masuk Agama Kristian”. So I offered the playful joke that, in common with Bertrand Russell, Ustadz Nik Aziz was the author of a book entitled “Why I Am Not a Christian”.
My word – your note led me to google Colin McPhedran, and I discovered (a) that he died in Bowral not long ago, and (b) that there’s to be a Colin McPhedran Commemorative Trek in February 2016.
President Jokowi is going for the quick-fix. It is much easier to show Indonesian machismo and appeal to the blood lust in the crowd. Economic and other issues require thought and planning, not a strong point recently. For all of President Jokowi’s hiding in Megawati’s so-called liberal secular shadow, so far, President Jokowi has shown himself to be adept at gaining popular opinion in the short term, but not necessarily doing what is in the best long term interests of Indonesia. No one disputes that drugs are evil, that they destroy nations, and that drug users and distributors are dangerous to society, but even former President SBY (a military man, hardly a pushover) had misgivings about capital punishment, and there was a partial moratorium on executions, from 2008-2013. President Jokowi can take the high road, imprison these criminals for 20-25 years, in some ways a harsher punishment (try and visit an Indonesian prison some day), and he has still meted out justice, without antagonizing foreign nations and human rights activists. He has the power; but does he have the will ?
This “un-state” idea was founded on an abstract idea of “the state”, one that few states in history could live up to. There is a much more straightforward way to understand the question that this post raises. Simply look at the concept of democracy, its classic expression found in Prime Ministerial Order 66/2523, that the Thai Army assimilated in its struggle with the CPT. That concept hinges on an unmediated relationship between “the people” and those who run the state. It takes elections, politicians and political parties threats to that relationship. So, yes, Gen P is being sincere. But the only way to understand why is to understand what he is actually saying, and what he means by “democracy”.
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The naked Apsara in Cambodia
Thank you for your comments Mr Cohen. Having read your post I would have to concur that “postmodern Western notions of feminism” are perhaps ill-suited to the current Cambodian context. However, I would qualify this somewhat. Before I do so, I’m not sure that the ongoing pursuit of women’s rights in Cambodia (look at the work of local NGOs such as ADHOC and LICADHO in this arena) is identical to NGO practice and government policy (or lack thereof) aimed at tackling the serious issue of child sex tourism.
The underlying message of the article concerned the “representation” of women in Cambodia. Beneath the layer postmodern feminist literature, which definitely influenced my writing of the piece, are ideas about “representation” which I feel have relevance for the Cambodian present. Consider for instance how women are represented in the Chbap Srey (Women’s Code/Rules for Women), which in some passages could be interpreted to legitimise marital violence; similarly with the Law on Domestic Violence.
Additionally, consider the issue of bauk (gang-rape, “plussing”) which saw something of a spike in recent years. Back in 2003 Gender and Development for Cambodia produced a report which addressed youth attitudes towards rape. Interviewing men who had participated in gang-rape it revealed some worrying representations of women and of a woman’s right to control the use of her own body. Furthermore, one interviewee stated that he never did bauk with “good girls” only sex workers.
Add to this the perceptions of sex workers in general who are often referred to as srey kouc (lit. broken, spoilt women). The rights of sex workers and their representation in society as a whole is an important issue which has been taken up by the Cambodian Prostitutes Union (CPU).
Also of interest to locally based human rights organisations has been the chaos of land ownership as a product of post-Khmer Rouge population movements and institution building as well as more recent land speculation and corruption which have had particular implications for Cambodian women.
These issues and representations of women are of very real interest to local NGOs and INGOs in Cambodia, even though government, sadly, appears uninterested in the issue with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs appearing under-funded and under-supported.
The article was intended as a starting point for a discussion of some issues that have unique impacts on Cambodian women in particular.
The naked Apsara in Cambodia
“Wanimal”‘s apsara images are photographic fine art, both dignified and tasteful. See for yourself. They may be found by a Google Images search for “wanimal+apsara”.
What is indeed pornographic is our sexualisation of women’s breasts and the double standards which allow men to go topless but women not.
We may also say that the Wanimal apsara images are historically accurate. In my view, they glorify the ajesty of Angkor not demean it.
Free the nipple!
Reply to Dr Poh Soo Kai’s rejoinder
QUESTIONS FOR THE COMMENTATORS
1. Can I ask are High Commissioners supposed to engage in political debate?
2. Did 30 million (mentioned above) die in China – when and how did they die?
This is because as far as I know 30 millions Chinese people died as a result of the Japanese invasion from 1937 to 1945..
Then there would be the figure arising from the Civil War…
The other figure I read of was 60 million Chinese died (from 1949 to 1978) when the Communisted liberated China from the KMT. However, this figure is interesting for this reason.
In 1949 the Chinese population census figure was aorund 440 million people and this rose to 700 in 1978.
So the increase was more than the deaths?
May be some one with better information can explain or give a better analysis?
3. My third question is was Chinese communism (now capitalist) more humane than the British colonialiats as I read somewhere that British colonialism was responsible for the death of 1 billion people at the height of its heydays.. i.e. deaths from wars of imperialist conquest and famines caused by these wars and colonial policies..
4. Can someone explain how the damage done by communists is greater than the damage done by UMNO BN to Malaya and its 2 colonial dependencies Sabah and Sarawak?
Thank you.
Why executions won’t win Indonesia’s drug war
Widodo met with NU and Muhammadiyah leaders in December and asked them if they wanted the execution of drug offenders. They said yes. This is what a Muslim majority Indonesian democracy is starting to look like. Widodo wants votes that went to Prabowo.
KWI released a statement opposing the executions. Islamists criticised the Bishops for not putting out a similiar statement condemning the extra judicial shooting of terror suspects.
Meanwhile, the Sunni Shia civil war in the ME is once more being reflected in Indonesia as a Sunni cleric calls for Jihad against Shia. He just happens to be a Prabowo supporter. What does is mean for us?
Hazara asylum seekers are Shia and no longer welcome in Sunni Indonesia. We pay IOM to build new facilities for them, incredibly placed near known hotspots of Sunni radicalism like Hidayatullah in Kaltim. Locals are angry and jealous, feeling the new facilities are better than their own. Sunni clerics smell a rat, claim the US, Austrlia and IOM are facilitating Shia into Indonesia to destabilise them and provoke a reaction, which can then be used as a pretext for crackdowns on Sunni. Some of the conspiracy theories are not fit to be repeated here. With ever so slightly more credibility, they claim that the new facilities only become a new pull factor for more Hazaras to follow.
When extremist Sunni clerics dogwhistle, the risk of militant action is real enough.
Those who closely follow people smuggling developments will know that the boats continue to depart and the focus has now shifted to Medan and Padang. The Sulawesi-Bogor syndicate is bringing ‘Rohingyas’ from Malaysia, displaced by the most recent crackdown on illegal workers. This makes them easy prey for the smugglers, who promise them jobs in Indonesia. More than 100 in 4 different groups are publicly known to have entered north Sumatra by boat in the last 2 weeks. When they realise there’s no job in Indonesia, the smugglers promise them a job in Australia and extort what’s left of their savings for a boat trip. A boat left Padang for Xmas Isl in December and hasn’t been heard of since. Another was stopped from departing last Thursday. 9 of those detained have already, errr, ‘escaped.’
Widodo has said he’ll react strongly to any perceived breach of sovereignty. OSB may be, wisely, keeping a very low profile.
So this is the context in which our two guys find themselves. We shouldn’t overwork the Widodo ‘tough guy, needs to stand up to Prabowo’ stuff. Widodo is doing what he wants to do because he’s a politician and sees votes in it. In the process he’s wrecking the new image of his country, painstakingly nurtured back to credibility since 1999. And alienating a new generation of opinion makers and media here just as Indonesia wants to be given a second chance to do the right thing in Papua. What a very silly man he is.
Burma/Myanmar: Bibliographic trends
Kokang is a very delicate topic for China, since some people think Peking is pulling a Crimea on Burma!
http://www.voanews.com/content/thousands-fleeing-myanmar-fighting-cross-into-china/2647226.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-31511331
http://backup.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/ID/907884/North-Myanmar-peace-imperative-for-China.aspx
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/14/world/asia/kokang-rebels-kill-dozens-of-soldiers-in-myanmar-near-border-with-china.html?_r=0
The Irrawaddy also has a number of articles about Kokang.
Why executions won’t win Indonesia’s drug war
The fact that Jokowi didn’t refer to YOU about maids in the Gulf, doesn’t mean he did not mention it. He did mention several times in vernacular press and to his cabinet ministers, several of whom I know. He explicitly talked about ending Indonesian female employment in the Gulf, as well as Malaysia, but in fact the rift with Malaysia had died down somewhat, but NOT with the Gulf. A rift that had already existed under SBY. Your expectation that President Jokowi is unaware of Indonesia’s long tradition of sending women to the Gulf is untenable. Also, untenable is the notion that somehow being abused in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Dubai, Bahrain, etc. is justified because employment is scarce at home. During the period that SBY brought home maids, they found employment at home. It is the investment in the hotel and service industry that President Jokowi needs to emphasize, and not the abuse of Indonesian women overseas, hardly a new issue, and NOT one NGO in Indonesia, that I am aware of, supports.
I am aware as lot of male Indonesians, who may put woman’s issues on the backburner, might not be so enlightened. There is also a limit to the number of indigenous native tree species that can be logged, without being able to sustain primary forest. That hasn’t stopped logging in Indonesia (or Malaysia). Perhaps if you found yourself
on death row for “witchcraft” in Jeddah, your sarcasm would be lessened.
Why executions won’t win Indonesia’s drug war
Jokowi made this statement after having discussed Indonesian workers’ conditions in Malaysia, presumably with Nadjib. This experience he had found humiliating, he complained. Indonesia’s ‘martabat’ and ‘harga diri’ suffered from having Indonesians performing menial tasks overseas. He may also have had in mind the Malaysian company that used the slogan ‘Fire your Indonesian maid!’ in a commercial shortly before Jokowi’s visit.
He didn’t refer to maids employed, abused and even beheaded on the Arabian Peninsula.
The problem is finding employment back home. There is, after all, a limit to the number of repatriated maids who can be gainfully occupied in a Proton car plant.
The naked Apsara in Cambodia
To condemn the sexualization of the female form is to condemn male sexuality.
Why executions won’t win Indonesia’s drug war
Ken,
I agree with you in large measure about President Jokowi, however, bringing home Indonesian maids from the Gulf, where they are raped, tortured, defiled, falsely accused of bogus witchcraft charges, and with about 86 Indonesian women in Saudi jails for no crimes at all, it is both right and mandatory to bring them home. SBY was correct to berate the Saudi Ambassador (it takes Chutzpah for an Indonesian Leader to dress down a representative of the nation with the two holiest sites in Islam; he also had the Ambassador recalled for a few weeks) and to put a temporary moratorium on exporting Indonesian women to the Gulf. SBY’s mistake was that he did not make it permanent. President Jokowi, whatever his other failings, has suggested the same measures, and he is right to do so. There isn’t enough money on the planet that is worth the lost dignity of an Indonesian housemaid, having nails drilled into her body, object plunged into her, or rape and torture explained away as “witchcraft” by an abusive Arab household. Unlike Saudi Arabia, Indonesia is NOT a Wahhabi-Salafi Sunni Islamic State; let’s try and keep it that way.
Why executions won’t win Indonesia’s drug war
Jokowi wasn’t responding to public pressure when he first decided to reject all pleas for clemency. He also took this option before any corruption scandals erupted.
Jokowi seems to have a repellent streak of violence in him, which is also manifest in his government’s blowing up of foreign fishing vessels. His Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister apparently enjoys watching such scenes of destruction. But she smokes cigarettes or stretches her legs instead of playing the fiddle.
We should be grateful, I suppose, that Attorney-General Prasetyo hasn’t yet thought of being on hand to observe an execution. Nor Jokowi of doing a blusukan on a firing-squad.
The disillusionment with Jokowi, to which these authors allude, is likely to spread, as Indonesians come to grasp not just how crony-ridden but also how incompetent he is. Witness, for example, his statement on bringing overseas workers home.
The naked Apsara in Cambodia
Cambodia is a major destination for sex tourism, particularly for Europeans, Americans and Australians, in search of underage youth. Paedophilia is a crime; it is repugnant; and it is a cancer on human society. Sadly, Cambodia remains a major centre for such reprehensible activities,
and in the context of what the Khmer (and Cham) people have experienced, in the last 70 years, a very tragic state for the nation indeed. I do not think postmodern Western notions of feminism, which originate in the safe halls of academe, and not in Cambodia, has any utility. This is not about an academic treatise on something like the “Zizekian patterns of Postmodern Khmer female self-idealization” and other related bullsh*t. Paedophilic prostitution must be ended; it must be punishable by long prison terms; and since Hun Sen seems to not take it too seriously, perhaps a permanent Interpol representative in Phnom Penh, might change his mind.
Burma/Myanmar: Bibliographic trends
Timely piece with todays news.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/02/myanmar-declares-state-emergency-war-torn-region-150217124515270.html
It will be interesting to see how different news outlets cover this to see if the academic boom is coming through in the mainstream press.
Burma/Myanmar: Bibliographic trends
Thanks for the link to the commemorative trek, Mr. Coggan.
Of course, everything I know about Colin McPhedran was through his book, but I do share a few things with him: (a) I was born in Burma before Burma’s independence (b) I spent part of my childhood in Maymyo (c) I went to the same school that he described at the very beginning of his book.
On the other hand, I have never been to Australia!
I use a pseudonym because my unconventional opinions about Burma are quite different from the so-called “Burma-experts” who make a living out of “studying” Burma (my professional life has nothing to do with where I was born) and free speech is something that Burmese society (not just the military junta) does not fully appreciate. In my opinion the history of Burma will never be accurately recorded. In Burma, as in many Asian countries, facts get “distorted” to promote certain political and/or nationalistic agendas, unfortunately. In that sense, Colin McPhedran’s book is a gem, because “scholarly theories” might come and go, but a life is lived only once.
Remembering “Tok Guru”
Not to out do Clive, but I recall teasing Tok Guru, years past, about the great charm (I used less formal terminology) of young Kelantanese women. Tok Guru laughed, rolled his eyes, and proclaimed that “Islam is sexier”. I didn’t think so at the time, but on the other hand, I had no way of disproving him.
Remembering “Tok Guru”
I did not include or repeat in my brief memoir the wry joke that I made, I believe, in a footnote buried deeply somewherw in my PhD thesis. Nik Aziz had written a book, published in Kota Baru in the early 1960s, that was a fairly standard Islamic exploration and denunciation of, and polemic against, the Christian idea of the Trinity. The title of that book was “Mengapa Saya Tidak Masuk Agama Kristian”. So I offered the playful joke that, in common with Bertrand Russell, Ustadz Nik Aziz was the author of a book entitled “Why I Am Not a Christian”.
Burma/Myanmar: Bibliographic trends
My word – your note led me to google Colin McPhedran, and I discovered (a) that he died in Bowral not long ago, and (b) that there’s to be a Colin McPhedran Commemorative Trek in February 2016.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Colin-McPhedran-Commemorative-Trek-February-2016/704101939604980
Thank you Mr Tokharian (I suspect that’s not your real name, but I’m sure you have your reasons).
Why executions won’t win Indonesia’s drug war
President Jokowi is going for the quick-fix. It is much easier to show Indonesian machismo and appeal to the blood lust in the crowd. Economic and other issues require thought and planning, not a strong point recently. For all of President Jokowi’s hiding in Megawati’s so-called liberal secular shadow, so far, President Jokowi has shown himself to be adept at gaining popular opinion in the short term, but not necessarily doing what is in the best long term interests of Indonesia. No one disputes that drugs are evil, that they destroy nations, and that drug users and distributors are dangerous to society, but even former President SBY (a military man, hardly a pushover) had misgivings about capital punishment, and there was a partial moratorium on executions, from 2008-2013. President Jokowi can take the high road, imprison these criminals for 20-25 years, in some ways a harsher punishment (try and visit an Indonesian prison some day), and he has still meted out justice, without antagonizing foreign nations and human rights activists. He has the power; but does he have the will ?
Soldiers with democratic hearts?
This “un-state” idea was founded on an abstract idea of “the state”, one that few states in history could live up to. There is a much more straightforward way to understand the question that this post raises. Simply look at the concept of democracy, its classic expression found in Prime Ministerial Order 66/2523, that the Thai Army assimilated in its struggle with the CPT. That concept hinges on an unmediated relationship between “the people” and those who run the state. It takes elections, politicians and political parties threats to that relationship. So, yes, Gen P is being sincere. But the only way to understand why is to understand what he is actually saying, and what he means by “democracy”.
A rage against history
Fascinating stuff.
Remembering “Tok Guru”
What a nice heartfelt write-up of TGNA. May he rest in peace.