Romanisation of the Burmese language is a dog’s dinner. Territorial integrity is under threat by the Rohingya and the Chinese, indigenous or no. As for moral integrity, for an awfully long time the gospel according to Ne Win’s ex-communist ideologues – morality requires a full stomach – has held true, and it remains a malleable tool in the hands of regime stooge monks and lay persons alike.
Transliteration doesn’t matter a damn, except as an initial crutch for language learning. The Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS), blessed be its name, is completely hopeless – but the outside world gets by anyway.
Orthography doesn’t matter a damn either (Chinese is the best example I can think of!!!).
Neither factor, nor a language’s grammatical structures has the slightest bearing on logical or precision thinking: in every language we use whatever constructions it takes to convey a meaning with the desired degree of precision.
I think you make the mistake of early Indo-Europeanists in believing that we have some kind of God-given special grammar system that beats all others.
In fact language is capable of making do more-or-less without tenses; or most verbs, or articles or person or number or declension. There is *always* a way to say what you mean (sorry for the repetition).
Burma doesn’t need a standardised language to teach heavy science. Maybe invent/borrow some new vocabulary (like we all do), but probably not much of that – Burmese very likely has most of the secondary meanings of native words in place already to write about 20th century physics.
And of course there is the point that degree-level studies might well, as in many other countries, be conducted in English. Best for the student in the long term for international participation.
I don’t deny that “Precision of language is important for progress”. I don’t deny that you will hear imprecise or muddled language from Burmese from time to time, or even that in their culture they may be a few years behind the Brits in embracing more politically correct language for some of the issues they face.
But to generalise, to imply that Burma cannot conduct its affairs and make “progress” with its current mind-set and way of speaking, that is just breath-taking arrogance.
Instead, the fault lies mostly with its entrenched totalitarian and corrupt regime that has survived beyond its normal span by brute force and talking in slogans. I think you’ll find conversation with an “ordinary” Burmese or Mon or Shan, etc, a much more pleasant experience.
Jokowi in my opinion has done a very good job, giving that he has only been in office for 3 months.
SBY was long on policy statements, but short on execution.
As for Megawati being dominant. Given the PDI-P large number of DPR seats relative to their coalition partners, the PDI-P is underrepresented in Cabinet. PDI-P had four party members in Cabinet vs 3 for PKB, who only one half the number of seat. NasDam got 2 even though it had 1/4 the number seats as the PDI-P..
If you compare Jokowi situation vs Modi’s in India, which would you rather be in? Jokowi’s ground breaking budget has been passed, in the US a budget that radical would most likely entitle a government shot down. In some sectors like infrastructure, the budget doubled. Because of the drop in the oil price, Jokowi has been able to do in 3 months for fuel subsidies what would have taken 2-3 years under his campaign platform. On the economic and budgetary front, He has done in 3 months, what 5 successive President haven’t done, put the gas subsidy bogeyman to rest.
A rational response (unlike plan B)
I wasn’t talking about how foreigners learn Burmese. My point was more about a consistent orthography and a consistent transliteration. Precision of language is important for progress: legally, diplomatically, politically and scientifically. Colloquialisms or dialects are a completely different matter. For example, Universities in Burma would need a standardised language to teach complex modern ideas (such as the Higgs boson lol). Sloppy language leads to imprecise reasoning. For example, one thing I notice is the way Burmese media use the word “ethnic” (Rohingya mess). They actually mean “indigenous”. As you know, the insistence by many Burmese that “Rohingyas do not exist” because they are not “ethnics” is something that just makes the rest of the world scratch their heads over. So correct translation of terminology is crucial for conducting the affairs of a sovereign country. This is why people go to Universities like ANU!
By the way, you didn’t say when you were born in England. Before Scottish Independence? 😉
Uan: “What Thailand needs are more people with “eyes open” so that when the right time comes some real reform can occur. This is why discussions like these are important.”
Yes. I think many people have lost sight of how and why pro-democrats came to terms with a certain degree of inevitability in the electoral success of Thaksin-related political parties.
What was once a very clear-eyed recognition of his anti-democratic authoritarianism and his willingness to work in the backrooms making deals rather than relying on the mandate granted by the sovereign people of Thailand has turned into a defensive shifting of all blame for political dysfunction onto the royalist-militarist “enemy”.
In one sense we have simply moved from the old yeller cry of “Thaksin Bad!” to the new red shout of “Prayuth Bad!” without actually pausing to consider the role of all concerned in driving yet another stake through the heart of Thailand’s always-developing democracy.
It’s just “echo-chambers” all the way down.
But this is to drift a little too far off the topic of this thread.
Merriam-Webster’s Free has “to charge (a public official) with a crime done while in office”.
Whatever current practice or custom, the key is surely that the crime was done *while* in office. Why should resignation or removal somehow absolve or give immunity to the perpetrator???
That said, of course the whole Taksin persecution is a joke, whatever your views on their behaviour, integrity or politics.
It’s just a complete farce that the only democratically elected and re-elected party in the whole of Thailand’s history has been forced out of government for “democratic” reasons.
Sadly, Bangkok’s snooty middle class doesn’t want to give up one Baht for the sake of the “untouchables” in the regions. And I’m losing friends for saying so.
Of course the Army and Establishment won’t give way. I wonder what the Revolutionary King really thinks.
Your comments on spelling and pronunciation might similarly be directed at other languages, from various original families, found in Southeast Asia – in fact worldwide. Sound changes, over the centuries, have corrupted original phonetic correspondences. That’s no more a Burmese problem than Thai or English.
But then it’s not a huge problem for the natives who learn “irregular” spellings from an early age. Just a lot harder for foreigners to pick up.
As for territorial integrity, blame historic conflicts and ultimately the colonists – not the melting-pot of ethnicities subjected to ignorant and unsympathetic administrations.
As for moral integrity… the Burmese majority now understandably have a problem finding a modus vivendi with the minorities, just as Thai, Vietnamese, English, Iraqis.
Whether minorities in the end get expelled, absorbed or nicely integrated depends on moral integrity and a huge number of other factors. That history is yet to be written for Burma.
One thing should be obvious. The Burmese and others who share Burma’s frontiers want peaceful, healthy and prosperous lives. Not divisions and conflict.
It is the duty of SLORC’s successors along with ethnic minority leaders to maintain moral integrity in their search for the right path.
All Burma’s people deserve that.
Disclosure: I was born in Britain (also known as England).
We cheered when a guy that became the president is not part of the oligarch, doesnt own media, not a chairman of a political party, and not part of the military regime. But suddenly everyone expect him to be as powerful as suharto. Is evryone that naive? He needs to consolidate his power. He needs to manage his political support. Why not give him the chance to do that? We dont want him to end up like Gus Dur, who actually had much stronger political support.
And why suddenly tell that he has poor judgment only based by him appointing ministers from his own party? I mean he publicly said that about 40% positions of ministers will be offerd to his coalition parties. On the condition that all ministers has to resign from their parties. This is much better than SBY era cabinet where almost 70% of ministers are active members or chairmans of coalition parties. And why picking up on minister Tedjo?. What about Minister of Maritime, fisheries, energy, treasury, public works, transportaion, information? they are all very good professionals with good track records, and they have started make big changes. And I think his maritime agenda is a great breaktrough.
Jokowi is far from perfect. And he has weaknesses. I really oppose his view on death penalty and some of his decisions. But overall I think he can deliver real progress. And I hope he will make it.
One more example: that extremist Buddhist monk’s name is Wirathu with an “r” not a ‘y”. There is no consistency at all, but Burma is a country without territorial or moral integrity, let alone linguistic integrity!
Mr Gafoor has addressed Dr Poh’s rejoinder clearly, but there are some naive and foolish youngsters who persist in historical revisionism and academic political fashion statements, thinking it’s ‘hip’ to look neo-Communist, with no conception whatsoever of the damage that Chin Peng and the CPM had done to Malaya and Singapore. This obtuse persistence in defending a thoroughly evil, repugnant and self-serving man, in an absurd notion that a Communist Malaya would be a multiethnic and multireligious worker’s paradise, is borne out of ignorance and lack of any direct interaction with the CPM. Mr Gafoor and his version of events of that time
are more than vindicated.
Since at least the last ten years, the elite in Thailand is frightened due to insecurity. They noticed that the pillars their power is based on re decomposing. Thus, they perceive multiple dangers and can’t distinguish real from imagine challenges. The most explicit expression is the double issue of succession. Firstly, can the kind of personalized, highly emotinal relation the members have to HM King Bumiphol be maintained with his successor? Secondly, can their spoiled Ferrari-kids maintain the position of the family? Can they compete with the newly rising Tycoons?
To be on the sure side, they try to wipe out and marginalize anything and anybody that they feel endangering their position. Of course this becomes highly irrational. It seems they are chopping the pillars with their own axes.
It is quite difficult to judge based on current knowledge processes that took place under very different circumstances and social figurations. During the periode of the cold war, de-colonization, etc. alliances and relations like the one between the BS and CPM had a rather different quality, and that Poh might have helped CPM-members has to be interpreted from the conditions of the time and the interests of the different actors involved.
Poh’s words are but one part of the picture and critical readers can see for themselves that for every actor in this giant canvass, they have their self interest at stake. This includes Mr Burhan.
But if I were to choose between the words of Mr Poh and the CPM leaders, the choice would be the latter. Chiefly due to the Poh’s involvement and vested interest in highlighting facts only beneficial to his side of history.
Whereas for CPM leaders, when they wrote their autobiographies, they knew what they said would affect the legacies of the men who supported them. This led to considerable reticence in their revelations about the involvement of the Barisan, CUF and key leaders like Lim Chin Siong. But despite their restraint, they still ended up revealing the intimate relationship between Lim Chin Siong, Barisan and the CPM.
With this in mind, I think Mr Poh has to attempt to tackle these ‘damning’ revelations by key CPM leaders before his words can gain solid credibility or following. Otherwise this would just be another exercise in pointing fingers without real debate or expose.
There’s a definite shift toward nationalistic tendencies – blowing up foreign ships, executing foreign drug mules, etc. A worrying prospect is intervention in the economic arena with more restrictions on foreign businesses.
Thank you Professor Kessler.
Truth shines from this work in a way that has inspired me to take this on as part of a National responsibility; to lovingly illuminate dark confusion for what it is, under the current wave of ‘violent rage against History’. In everything recently read in a public forum, I finally found something truly worth sharing and expanding upon in illustration. Jn1.5
You must be dreaming. I really don’t think internet and other communication media will improve the situation. Actually, they are used to spread hatred, fanatic and conspirationnist messages. It’s easier to manipulate someone through internet than directly. Social media are widely used to recruit new adepts of the most fanatic kind.
When I teach Islam in Comparative Religion, I usually present the history as the early period, the Golden Age, colonialism and the last sixty years as Islam re-emerging and trying to work out its place in the modern world. An interesting perspective has also been offered by the comparison with Christianity which went through violent upheavals after the Reformation with the Wars of Religion about 1500-1700 years from the time of it’s founder life.
However we mustn’t forget that Christianity too in the modern age is going through different tugs in different directions, from militant US evangelism to liberation theology/radical Christianity. Even Hinduism is going through upheavals in India and to a certain extent, Judaism in Israel, all confronted by the question of where they belong in the modern world.
Tanri Abeng, Indonesia’s self-appointed management guru, is going public with statements criticizing the poor management he sees in the government. He argues that good management requires a hierarchical structure, so that those at the top can relax and ponder the big policy issues. Instead, Jokowi’s desire to get down to the desa is the equivalent of micro-management, with the coordinating ministers who should be running the government for Jokowi and JK being by-passed. Meanwhile the quality of many of the ministers is questionable, for instance Ignasius Jonan, who has made changes in aviation policy following the AirAsia crash that the industry says do not make sense. Tanri goes as far as to say that if this continues, chaos could ensue.
Sounds an interesting book. Just one remark: when I mentioned the MeNMar Girls to the young niece of one of my colleagues, she just said wearily: Oh them, they are soo out. So much for social relevance of and social change through girl or punk groups!
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Review of Burma’s Spring
Romanisation of the Burmese language is a dog’s dinner. Territorial integrity is under threat by the Rohingya and the Chinese, indigenous or no. As for moral integrity, for an awfully long time the gospel according to Ne Win’s ex-communist ideologues – morality requires a full stomach – has held true, and it remains a malleable tool in the hands of regime stooge monks and lay persons alike.
Review of Burma’s Spring
I still fail to see the logic of your point.
Transliteration doesn’t matter a damn, except as an initial crutch for language learning. The Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS), blessed be its name, is completely hopeless – but the outside world gets by anyway.
Orthography doesn’t matter a damn either (Chinese is the best example I can think of!!!).
Neither factor, nor a language’s grammatical structures has the slightest bearing on logical or precision thinking: in every language we use whatever constructions it takes to convey a meaning with the desired degree of precision.
I think you make the mistake of early Indo-Europeanists in believing that we have some kind of God-given special grammar system that beats all others.
In fact language is capable of making do more-or-less without tenses; or most verbs, or articles or person or number or declension. There is *always* a way to say what you mean (sorry for the repetition).
Burma doesn’t need a standardised language to teach heavy science. Maybe invent/borrow some new vocabulary (like we all do), but probably not much of that – Burmese very likely has most of the secondary meanings of native words in place already to write about 20th century physics.
And of course there is the point that degree-level studies might well, as in many other countries, be conducted in English. Best for the student in the long term for international participation.
I don’t deny that “Precision of language is important for progress”. I don’t deny that you will hear imprecise or muddled language from Burmese from time to time, or even that in their culture they may be a few years behind the Brits in embracing more politically correct language for some of the issues they face.
But to generalise, to imply that Burma cannot conduct its affairs and make “progress” with its current mind-set and way of speaking, that is just breath-taking arrogance.
Instead, the fault lies mostly with its entrenched totalitarian and corrupt regime that has survived beyond its normal span by brute force and talking in slogans. I think you’ll find conversation with an “ordinary” Burmese or Mon or Shan, etc, a much more pleasant experience.
Jokowi: The First Hundred Days
Jokowi in my opinion has done a very good job, giving that he has only been in office for 3 months.
SBY was long on policy statements, but short on execution.
As for Megawati being dominant. Given the PDI-P large number of DPR seats relative to their coalition partners, the PDI-P is underrepresented in Cabinet. PDI-P had four party members in Cabinet vs 3 for PKB, who only one half the number of seat. NasDam got 2 even though it had 1/4 the number seats as the PDI-P..
If you compare Jokowi situation vs Modi’s in India, which would you rather be in? Jokowi’s ground breaking budget has been passed, in the US a budget that radical would most likely entitle a government shot down. In some sectors like infrastructure, the budget doubled. Because of the drop in the oil price, Jokowi has been able to do in 3 months for fuel subsidies what would have taken 2-3 years under his campaign platform. On the economic and budgetary front, He has done in 3 months, what 5 successive President haven’t done, put the gas subsidy bogeyman to rest.
Review of Burma’s Spring
A rational response (unlike plan B)
I wasn’t talking about how foreigners learn Burmese. My point was more about a consistent orthography and a consistent transliteration. Precision of language is important for progress: legally, diplomatically, politically and scientifically. Colloquialisms or dialects are a completely different matter. For example, Universities in Burma would need a standardised language to teach complex modern ideas (such as the Higgs boson lol). Sloppy language leads to imprecise reasoning. For example, one thing I notice is the way Burmese media use the word “ethnic” (Rohingya mess). They actually mean “indigenous”. As you know, the insistence by many Burmese that “Rohingyas do not exist” because they are not “ethnics” is something that just makes the rest of the world scratch their heads over. So correct translation of terminology is crucial for conducting the affairs of a sovereign country. This is why people go to Universities like ANU!
By the way, you didn’t say when you were born in England. Before Scottish Independence? 😉
Impeaching Yingluck Shinawatra
Uan: “What Thailand needs are more people with “eyes open” so that when the right time comes some real reform can occur. This is why discussions like these are important.”
Yes. I think many people have lost sight of how and why pro-democrats came to terms with a certain degree of inevitability in the electoral success of Thaksin-related political parties.
What was once a very clear-eyed recognition of his anti-democratic authoritarianism and his willingness to work in the backrooms making deals rather than relying on the mandate granted by the sovereign people of Thailand has turned into a defensive shifting of all blame for political dysfunction onto the royalist-militarist “enemy”.
In one sense we have simply moved from the old yeller cry of “Thaksin Bad!” to the new red shout of “Prayuth Bad!” without actually pausing to consider the role of all concerned in driving yet another stake through the heart of Thailand’s always-developing democracy.
It’s just “echo-chambers” all the way down.
But this is to drift a little too far off the topic of this thread.
Impeaching Yingluck Shinawatra
Merriam-Webster’s Free has “to charge (a public official) with a crime done while in office”.
Whatever current practice or custom, the key is surely that the crime was done *while* in office. Why should resignation or removal somehow absolve or give immunity to the perpetrator???
That said, of course the whole Taksin persecution is a joke, whatever your views on their behaviour, integrity or politics.
It’s just a complete farce that the only democratically elected and re-elected party in the whole of Thailand’s history has been forced out of government for “democratic” reasons.
Sadly, Bangkok’s snooty middle class doesn’t want to give up one Baht for the sake of the “untouchables” in the regions. And I’m losing friends for saying so.
Of course the Army and Establishment won’t give way. I wonder what the Revolutionary King really thinks.
Review of Burma’s Spring
Your comments on spelling and pronunciation might similarly be directed at other languages, from various original families, found in Southeast Asia – in fact worldwide. Sound changes, over the centuries, have corrupted original phonetic correspondences. That’s no more a Burmese problem than Thai or English.
But then it’s not a huge problem for the natives who learn “irregular” spellings from an early age. Just a lot harder for foreigners to pick up.
As for territorial integrity, blame historic conflicts and ultimately the colonists – not the melting-pot of ethnicities subjected to ignorant and unsympathetic administrations.
As for moral integrity… the Burmese majority now understandably have a problem finding a modus vivendi with the minorities, just as Thai, Vietnamese, English, Iraqis.
Whether minorities in the end get expelled, absorbed or nicely integrated depends on moral integrity and a huge number of other factors. That history is yet to be written for Burma.
One thing should be obvious. The Burmese and others who share Burma’s frontiers want peaceful, healthy and prosperous lives. Not divisions and conflict.
It is the duty of SLORC’s successors along with ethnic minority leaders to maintain moral integrity in their search for the right path.
All Burma’s people deserve that.
Disclosure: I was born in Britain (also known as England).
Review of Burma’s Spring
“Burma is a country without territorial or moral integrity, let alone linguistic integrity!”
Sound just like a “My way or noway” person. Lots of extremist of Islam believe and carry out on going such nihilist tendency.
Jokowi: The First Hundred Days
We cheered when a guy that became the president is not part of the oligarch, doesnt own media, not a chairman of a political party, and not part of the military regime. But suddenly everyone expect him to be as powerful as suharto. Is evryone that naive? He needs to consolidate his power. He needs to manage his political support. Why not give him the chance to do that? We dont want him to end up like Gus Dur, who actually had much stronger political support.
And why suddenly tell that he has poor judgment only based by him appointing ministers from his own party? I mean he publicly said that about 40% positions of ministers will be offerd to his coalition parties. On the condition that all ministers has to resign from their parties. This is much better than SBY era cabinet where almost 70% of ministers are active members or chairmans of coalition parties. And why picking up on minister Tedjo?. What about Minister of Maritime, fisheries, energy, treasury, public works, transportaion, information? they are all very good professionals with good track records, and they have started make big changes. And I think his maritime agenda is a great breaktrough.
Jokowi is far from perfect. And he has weaknesses. I really oppose his view on death penalty and some of his decisions. But overall I think he can deliver real progress. And I hope he will make it.
Review of Burma’s Spring
One more example: that extremist Buddhist monk’s name is Wirathu with an “r” not a ‘y”. There is no consistency at all, but Burma is a country without territorial or moral integrity, let alone linguistic integrity!
Reply to Dr Poh Soo Kai’s rejoinder
Mr Gafoor has addressed Dr Poh’s rejoinder clearly, but there are some naive and foolish youngsters who persist in historical revisionism and academic political fashion statements, thinking it’s ‘hip’ to look neo-Communist, with no conception whatsoever of the damage that Chin Peng and the CPM had done to Malaya and Singapore. This obtuse persistence in defending a thoroughly evil, repugnant and self-serving man, in an absurd notion that a Communist Malaya would be a multiethnic and multireligious worker’s paradise, is borne out of ignorance and lack of any direct interaction with the CPM. Mr Gafoor and his version of events of that time
are more than vindicated.
Impeaching Yingluck Shinawatra
Since at least the last ten years, the elite in Thailand is frightened due to insecurity. They noticed that the pillars their power is based on re decomposing. Thus, they perceive multiple dangers and can’t distinguish real from imagine challenges. The most explicit expression is the double issue of succession. Firstly, can the kind of personalized, highly emotinal relation the members have to HM King Bumiphol be maintained with his successor? Secondly, can their spoiled Ferrari-kids maintain the position of the family? Can they compete with the newly rising Tycoons?
To be on the sure side, they try to wipe out and marginalize anything and anybody that they feel endangering their position. Of course this becomes highly irrational. It seems they are chopping the pillars with their own axes.
Reply to Dr Poh Soo Kai’s rejoinder
It is quite difficult to judge based on current knowledge processes that took place under very different circumstances and social figurations. During the periode of the cold war, de-colonization, etc. alliances and relations like the one between the BS and CPM had a rather different quality, and that Poh might have helped CPM-members has to be interpreted from the conditions of the time and the interests of the different actors involved.
Reply to Dr Poh Soo Kai’s rejoinder
Poh’s words are but one part of the picture and critical readers can see for themselves that for every actor in this giant canvass, they have their self interest at stake. This includes Mr Burhan.
But if I were to choose between the words of Mr Poh and the CPM leaders, the choice would be the latter. Chiefly due to the Poh’s involvement and vested interest in highlighting facts only beneficial to his side of history.
Whereas for CPM leaders, when they wrote their autobiographies, they knew what they said would affect the legacies of the men who supported them. This led to considerable reticence in their revelations about the involvement of the Barisan, CUF and key leaders like Lim Chin Siong. But despite their restraint, they still ended up revealing the intimate relationship between Lim Chin Siong, Barisan and the CPM.
With this in mind, I think Mr Poh has to attempt to tackle these ‘damning’ revelations by key CPM leaders before his words can gain solid credibility or following. Otherwise this would just be another exercise in pointing fingers without real debate or expose.
Jokowi: The First Hundred Days
There’s a definite shift toward nationalistic tendencies – blowing up foreign ships, executing foreign drug mules, etc. A worrying prospect is intervention in the economic arena with more restrictions on foreign businesses.
A rage against history
Thank you Professor Kessler.
Truth shines from this work in a way that has inspired me to take this on as part of a National responsibility; to lovingly illuminate dark confusion for what it is, under the current wave of ‘violent rage against History’. In everything recently read in a public forum, I finally found something truly worth sharing and expanding upon in illustration. Jn1.5
A rage against history
You must be dreaming. I really don’t think internet and other communication media will improve the situation. Actually, they are used to spread hatred, fanatic and conspirationnist messages. It’s easier to manipulate someone through internet than directly. Social media are widely used to recruit new adepts of the most fanatic kind.
A rage against history
When I teach Islam in Comparative Religion, I usually present the history as the early period, the Golden Age, colonialism and the last sixty years as Islam re-emerging and trying to work out its place in the modern world. An interesting perspective has also been offered by the comparison with Christianity which went through violent upheavals after the Reformation with the Wars of Religion about 1500-1700 years from the time of it’s founder life.
However we mustn’t forget that Christianity too in the modern age is going through different tugs in different directions, from militant US evangelism to liberation theology/radical Christianity. Even Hinduism is going through upheavals in India and to a certain extent, Judaism in Israel, all confronted by the question of where they belong in the modern world.
Jokowi: The First Hundred Days
Tanri Abeng, Indonesia’s self-appointed management guru, is going public with statements criticizing the poor management he sees in the government. He argues that good management requires a hierarchical structure, so that those at the top can relax and ponder the big policy issues. Instead, Jokowi’s desire to get down to the desa is the equivalent of micro-management, with the coordinating ministers who should be running the government for Jokowi and JK being by-passed. Meanwhile the quality of many of the ministers is questionable, for instance Ignasius Jonan, who has made changes in aviation policy following the AirAsia crash that the industry says do not make sense. Tanri goes as far as to say that if this continues, chaos could ensue.
Review of Burma’s Spring
Sounds an interesting book. Just one remark: when I mentioned the MeNMar Girls to the young niece of one of my colleagues, she just said wearily: Oh them, they are soo out. So much for social relevance of and social change through girl or punk groups!