Mr. Cohen,
Happy to be called a Kerala native, but I’ve never been there. I’m a Vermonter and a Jew. And yes, I speak better Burmese than any USG official I knew in the Embassy there. I respect your grasp of ethnography and history. I’m well aware of how the Thai border-based guerrilla groups “own” US public opinion on Myanmar and how they absolutely do not represent the views of Myanmar’s ethnic tribes.My informants on these subjects are the border guerrillas themselves and their victims–generally fellow Karen, Kachin, and Shan peoples. It was invariably stated as gospel truth by USG personnel that South Korean and Thai military dictatorships were the only vehicles for stability in their countries. For some reason the Tatmadaw was never given the same courtesy pass. In my view, they should be.
Nice summary of events but I don’t think its conclusions are ultimately substantiated. I’d want to see more evidence that a politician is ‘anti-democracy’, and it fails to account for the lack of democratic virtue in the current system. Where is the case for appeals to nationalism. Instead all you have done is conflate democracy with egalitarianism.
This primitive tribal racial/ethnic classification is too complicated for my pea-brain and is totally obsolete and oxymoronic in this day and age of Higgs Bosons, although I am still proud to be descended from amphibians!
OMG, after the “Big-Bang” all these Sarong, Panties, Singlet, Trouser, or Shirt were merely called great religions under Allah; Yaweh, Krishna, Tokong,and etc being washed cleansed by Magnetic Spinner called God…which is like computer…function under Electricity…Electrical Energy of Vibration with codes written in the RNA and DNA…Finally; The ultimate Spiritual Beings who write and program the Code of Life is the very Self that stay within US as One Power; Force and Energy that keep the Cycle of Life eternally Universally Omnipresence, Omnipotent and Omniscience. We, our bodies are all the Textiles in the Universe to house the “Spirit” of the God…Cotton, Nyanlon or plastic fibric or Jude or silk just abide and obey the master’s will; existing in whatever fashion that pleases to Lord. Stop being quarreling and be noisy…Or else, next outing after: You find yourself missing from action???
First of all the ‘Jews’ of Mizoram and Aizawl
are ethnically Sino-Tibetan and are not Indo-Aryan, which means they are similar to other ethnic tribal groups in Burma. Secondly, DNA genetic evidence conducted on the Mizoram ‘Jews’ show little ethnic allelic (genetic)
homology (similarity) with Jews from India
(Kerala, Mumbai, Calcutta) or Jews from the Middle-East or elsewhere. In fact, the Mizoram tribes, who claim to be one of the ten lost tribes of Israel, are genetically similar to other non-Jewish tribes in Assam, Mizoram and Burma. As these people are not Indian origin, as I have explained that Kalar and Kallar refer only to Indian castes of Indo-Aryan orgin, these Mizoram tribes cannot be called Kalar-Jews. Thirdly, most of these Mizoram tribes converted to Christianity long long ago by Missionaries in Northeastern India, and are not Jews by birth. The sole claim to Jewish origin among the Mizoram tribes is a superficial resemblance of some of their religious practices (before Christianity) to aspects of Judaism, like the Mizoram don’t eat pork, and they have names for prophets that sound like Hebrew names, and they fast on the same day as contemporary Jews, so some liberal Jews went to Mizoram and asked whether any of them wanted to immigrate to Israel, some said yes (some also said no and remain in Mizoram). Of those who chose to immigrate to Israel, you must understand, that there is no clear genetic evidence (so-called ‘Jewish genes’) tying the tribal people to other Jews. For example, it might be more accurate to call the Jews from Kerala in Southeastern India as Kalar-Jews, though nobody referred to Jews in India as Kalar generically and historically. The Kerala Jews have similar alleles as Jews from Yemen, thousands of miles away, so nobody disputes the Jewishness of Jews from Kerala
(or Mumbai or Calcutta). The other point you
must remember is that only Orthodox (strict)
Judaism is allowed in Israel, that means since most the Mizoram ‘Jews’ were Christians
or followed tribal beliefs, by Israeli Law, they had to formally convert to Judaism from Christianity in order to obtain Israeli citizenship. The situation also happened with
many Ethiopian Jews, some of whom remained Jewish for centuries, but others converted to
Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity and had to convert to Judaism to reside in Israel as citizens claiming Jewish belief. I will not address the ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’ of this process, but the facts remain that almost all the Mizoram ‘Jews’ had become Christians, lack genetic alleles common to other Jews, and only had rituals and oral history that claimed descent from the one of the lost tribes. As some Mizoram tribal people agreed to undergo conversion upon arrival in Israel, and follow standard
Jewish practices, subsequently they are as Jewish now as a German, Russian, Indian, Brazilian, American, Iraqi or any other recognized Jew. Therefore, in Burmese, you should call them by the same name they call themselves in the Mizoram or Assamese language, or refer to them as Mizoram tribal people as transliterated into Burmese. Kalar-Jews or even Mizoram Jews would be inaccurate for the reasons I have stated. Would you call a Christian a Jew, just based on the fact that they might recognize the Old Testament (even if they follow the New Testament which Jews don’t recognize) as holy scripture or because Jesus was born a Jew ? No, you wouldn’t call a Christian a Jew, unless the became a Jew and followed Jewish practices, so it is the same with the Mizoram tribes, who by the way, are unfamiliar with the Five Books of Moses, a key component of Jewish belief and philosophy. Maybe in the U.S., where there are Reform Jews (so-called liberal Jews who have liberal view of religion), the Mizoram can be converted in
a Reform Jewish Temple, but they conversion will not be recognized in Israel, and apparently many Mizoram tribal people are so devoted to the notion of their Jewish origins, they only want to go to Israel or stay where they are. You won’t find many Mizoram tribal people in the West.
All these shutdowns stirred up emotional dust storm. Emotion call for victory by any mean.
But when the dust settle, logic emerge. The end does not justify the mean, especially with such vague end.
Now make up your mind Srithanonchai: were Y2010 Red/Black Shirts children playing with their grenade launchers, assault rifles, bombs and petrol-filled plastic bottles or not?
Was General Khattiya child-playing when he declared that he reports ‘only to Thaksin’ and his mission, publicly declared in a NY Times interview, is to ‘wage an urban civil war’?
And that top Red Shirt leader Arisman was child-playing too, if Srithanonchai is to be believed when he goaded the Red Shirts followers in Y2010: “Just show up each with one glass bottle to fill with gasoline. Fill it up 75cc to 1 liter. If we go to Bangkok with one million people and one million liters of gasoline, rest assured that Bangkok will turn into a sea of fire.”
Have you really ever played with your own children Srithanonchai to understand what ‘children’s stuff’ mean?
90 unarmed Red Shirts protesters were killed by the military. A full judicial inquiry is certainly demanded and an open public hearing is in order. Abhisit, Suthep and Gen. Prayuth all agreed to submit themselves to such an inquiry so they can make an open accounting of what ‘really transpired’. But Thaksin/Yingluck would not have any of it, both brother/sister and their 310-Thaksin-servants-pretending-to-be-lawmakers want an amnesty instead so that the Y2010 could be ‘buried and forgotten’ and to those 90 Red Shirts victims … tsk tsk ‘reconciliation comes first’.
I used to erupt with laughter when I saw your comments, but that has become boredom as they are all the same: either criticizing New Mandala or parroting the most trite “opposition” talking points.
In my view, New Mandala is doing what academics are supposed to do, take a unbiased and analytical look at issues and allow open discussion on them.
Yes, this does tend to ignore the views of “your side”, but even you must admit that those are grossly overrepresented by the country’s two English language papers, which seem to be written at the protest sites.
I would think that any Thasksin fan commentary would receive the same level of negative reviews that you get, but the fact is that there is very little if any ideological Thaksin support in the New Mandala.
In my view New Mandala and commenters are trying to understand and debate issues and arrive at a middle ground, which is likely to alienate both ideological extremes equally.
In fact, many commenters do say that Thaksin should be in jail or banned from Thailand (or Thai politics for life). I suspect that the vast majority of New Mandala authors and commenters are in fact like me anti-Thaksin,
The only reason that Thaksin fanatics don’t consistently rail agains participants here like the yellow short fanatics is that there really aren’t that many Thaksin fanatics in English language discussions.
So, what is it that really offends you so much that you must write dozens of nearly identical rants over many years?
And since I have said that I am anti-Thaksin, I think it is safe to assume that any blind fait Thaksinites here will vote me down, not up.
So Buddha was a Kalar, not even a “Ku la: phru” (I can speak Burmese like a Rakhaing, many of whom, by the way, have some Kalar genes (including Portuguese genes) I, myself, am probably 1/4 Rohingya-Kalar genetically speaking!
There are even remnants of lost Jewish tribes in the Mizoram area who have recently been allowed to immigrate to Israel: http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/society/131019-lost-tribe-of-jews-in-india-immigrating-to-israel
so how should we call these people in Burmese? Kalar-Jews or what?
[…] Yet a more careful look into electoral results reveals that out of the 23 constituencies the Democrats managed to win over in this election, 10 of them represent a tight race, whereby Democrats candidates beat their Pheu Thai counterparts by less than 5% of the votes. Sripathum University calculates that overall the Democrats actually lost, on a numerical basis, 31% of the votes in Bangkok alone, 14% of which went to Pheu Thai, while 7% went to Chuvit’s Rak Prathet Thai.[i] […]
[…] Following Nick Nostitz’s very informative coverage of the opposition to what he calls “reconciliation games,” below is an unofficial translation of the four versions of the important articles of the proposed reconciliation bills. […]
[…] the UDD – beginning with the Court’s request to halt the third reading (see my earlier article here). After the verdict, some Peau Thai members wanted to push ahead with the third reading, while […]
Of course he hopes for more deaths, best thing that police shoots back when being shot at … he wants blood because he needs blood to achieve his vicious goals !!!
I am not sure if you give Malaysia and Singapore (where one party has ruled continuously for decades and which have no better scores in civil liberties than Thailand) as positive or negative examples. I agree with you that Thailand under Thaksin was developing into this direction. But would you say that social stability and relative economic success justify the lack of democracy and civil liberties?
You, legitimately, denounce what you call brainwashing by “amaat-controlled” media. But we should not forget the enforced conformity of media and harassment of oppositional publications under Thaksin. Was that any better?
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Thoughts of a pro-government leader
Thaksin has been regularly accused of not paying tax on that transaction by his opponents.
Maybe 112 is less of a problem than the habitual distortion of the truth by both sides. Not so much a deaf mute but a congenital liar?
Beyond bigotry: Unravelling ethnic violence in Rakhine
Mr. Cohen,
Happy to be called a Kerala native, but I’ve never been there. I’m a Vermonter and a Jew. And yes, I speak better Burmese than any USG official I knew in the Embassy there. I respect your grasp of ethnography and history. I’m well aware of how the Thai border-based guerrilla groups “own” US public opinion on Myanmar and how they absolutely do not represent the views of Myanmar’s ethnic tribes.My informants on these subjects are the border guerrillas themselves and their victims–generally fellow Karen, Kachin, and Shan peoples. It was invariably stated as gospel truth by USG personnel that South Korean and Thai military dictatorships were the only vehicles for stability in their countries. For some reason the Tatmadaw was never given the same courtesy pass. In my view, they should be.
Who’s who in Thailand’s anti-government forces?
Nice summary of events but I don’t think its conclusions are ultimately substantiated. I’d want to see more evidence that a politician is ‘anti-democracy’, and it fails to account for the lack of democratic virtue in the current system. Where is the case for appeals to nationalism. Instead all you have done is conflate democracy with egalitarianism.
Beyond bigotry: Unravelling ethnic violence in Rakhine
This primitive tribal racial/ethnic classification is too complicated for my pea-brain and is totally obsolete and oxymoronic in this day and age of Higgs Bosons, although I am still proud to be descended from amphibians!
Sleeping dogs
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. — Diderot
A Malaysian Inquisition?
OMG, after the “Big-Bang” all these Sarong, Panties, Singlet, Trouser, or Shirt were merely called great religions under Allah; Yaweh, Krishna, Tokong,and etc being washed cleansed by Magnetic Spinner called God…which is like computer…function under Electricity…Electrical Energy of Vibration with codes written in the RNA and DNA…Finally; The ultimate Spiritual Beings who write and program the Code of Life is the very Self that stay within US as One Power; Force and Energy that keep the Cycle of Life eternally Universally Omnipresence, Omnipotent and Omniscience. We, our bodies are all the Textiles in the Universe to house the “Spirit” of the God…Cotton, Nyanlon or plastic fibric or Jude or silk just abide and obey the master’s will; existing in whatever fashion that pleases to Lord. Stop being quarreling and be noisy…Or else, next outing after: You find yourself missing from action???
Beyond bigotry: Unravelling ethnic violence in Rakhine
TYPO ERROR:
“For example, it might be more accurate to call the Jews from Kerala in Southwestern India..”
Beyond bigotry: Unravelling ethnic violence in Rakhine
Tocharian,
First of all the ‘Jews’ of Mizoram and Aizawl
are ethnically Sino-Tibetan and are not Indo-Aryan, which means they are similar to other ethnic tribal groups in Burma. Secondly, DNA genetic evidence conducted on the Mizoram ‘Jews’ show little ethnic allelic (genetic)
homology (similarity) with Jews from India
(Kerala, Mumbai, Calcutta) or Jews from the Middle-East or elsewhere. In fact, the Mizoram tribes, who claim to be one of the ten lost tribes of Israel, are genetically similar to other non-Jewish tribes in Assam, Mizoram and Burma. As these people are not Indian origin, as I have explained that Kalar and Kallar refer only to Indian castes of Indo-Aryan orgin, these Mizoram tribes cannot be called Kalar-Jews. Thirdly, most of these Mizoram tribes converted to Christianity long long ago by Missionaries in Northeastern India, and are not Jews by birth. The sole claim to Jewish origin among the Mizoram tribes is a superficial resemblance of some of their religious practices (before Christianity) to aspects of Judaism, like the Mizoram don’t eat pork, and they have names for prophets that sound like Hebrew names, and they fast on the same day as contemporary Jews, so some liberal Jews went to Mizoram and asked whether any of them wanted to immigrate to Israel, some said yes (some also said no and remain in Mizoram). Of those who chose to immigrate to Israel, you must understand, that there is no clear genetic evidence (so-called ‘Jewish genes’) tying the tribal people to other Jews. For example, it might be more accurate to call the Jews from Kerala in Southeastern India as Kalar-Jews, though nobody referred to Jews in India as Kalar generically and historically. The Kerala Jews have similar alleles as Jews from Yemen, thousands of miles away, so nobody disputes the Jewishness of Jews from Kerala
(or Mumbai or Calcutta). The other point you
must remember is that only Orthodox (strict)
Judaism is allowed in Israel, that means since most the Mizoram ‘Jews’ were Christians
or followed tribal beliefs, by Israeli Law, they had to formally convert to Judaism from Christianity in order to obtain Israeli citizenship. The situation also happened with
many Ethiopian Jews, some of whom remained Jewish for centuries, but others converted to
Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity and had to convert to Judaism to reside in Israel as citizens claiming Jewish belief. I will not address the ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’ of this process, but the facts remain that almost all the Mizoram ‘Jews’ had become Christians, lack genetic alleles common to other Jews, and only had rituals and oral history that claimed descent from the one of the lost tribes. As some Mizoram tribal people agreed to undergo conversion upon arrival in Israel, and follow standard
Jewish practices, subsequently they are as Jewish now as a German, Russian, Indian, Brazilian, American, Iraqi or any other recognized Jew. Therefore, in Burmese, you should call them by the same name they call themselves in the Mizoram or Assamese language, or refer to them as Mizoram tribal people as transliterated into Burmese. Kalar-Jews or even Mizoram Jews would be inaccurate for the reasons I have stated. Would you call a Christian a Jew, just based on the fact that they might recognize the Old Testament (even if they follow the New Testament which Jews don’t recognize) as holy scripture or because Jesus was born a Jew ? No, you wouldn’t call a Christian a Jew, unless the became a Jew and followed Jewish practices, so it is the same with the Mizoram tribes, who by the way, are unfamiliar with the Five Books of Moses, a key component of Jewish belief and philosophy. Maybe in the U.S., where there are Reform Jews (so-called liberal Jews who have liberal view of religion), the Mizoram can be converted in
a Reform Jewish Temple, but they conversion will not be recognized in Israel, and apparently many Mizoram tribal people are so devoted to the notion of their Jewish origins, they only want to go to Israel or stay where they are. You won’t find many Mizoram tribal people in the West.
The shutdown: In honor of NN
All these shutdowns stirred up emotional dust storm. Emotion call for victory by any mean.
But when the dust settle, logic emerge. The end does not justify the mean, especially with such vague end.
The shutdown: In honor of NN
Now make up your mind Srithanonchai: were Y2010 Red/Black Shirts children playing with their grenade launchers, assault rifles, bombs and petrol-filled plastic bottles or not?
Was General Khattiya child-playing when he declared that he reports ‘only to Thaksin’ and his mission, publicly declared in a NY Times interview, is to ‘wage an urban civil war’?
And that top Red Shirt leader Arisman was child-playing too, if Srithanonchai is to be believed when he goaded the Red Shirts followers in Y2010: “Just show up each with one glass bottle to fill with gasoline. Fill it up 75cc to 1 liter. If we go to Bangkok with one million people and one million liters of gasoline, rest assured that Bangkok will turn into a sea of fire.”
Have you really ever played with your own children Srithanonchai to understand what ‘children’s stuff’ mean?
90 unarmed Red Shirts protesters were killed by the military. A full judicial inquiry is certainly demanded and an open public hearing is in order. Abhisit, Suthep and Gen. Prayuth all agreed to submit themselves to such an inquiry so they can make an open accounting of what ‘really transpired’. But Thaksin/Yingluck would not have any of it, both brother/sister and their 310-Thaksin-servants-pretending-to-be-lawmakers want an amnesty instead so that the Y2010 could be ‘buried and forgotten’ and to those 90 Red Shirts victims … tsk tsk ‘reconciliation comes first’.
The shutdown: In honor of NN
Vichai, I hope you don’t seriously think that throwing a grenade puts you in a better position to get away than firing a rifle from a distance.
The shutdown: In honor of NN
The best thing about posts on this forum is that occasionally one can learn something new.
The worst thing is that most likes/dislikes seem to be ill-considered knee-jerk reactions.
Thoughts of a pro-government leader
I used to erupt with laughter when I saw your comments, but that has become boredom as they are all the same: either criticizing New Mandala or parroting the most trite “opposition” talking points.
In my view, New Mandala is doing what academics are supposed to do, take a unbiased and analytical look at issues and allow open discussion on them.
Yes, this does tend to ignore the views of “your side”, but even you must admit that those are grossly overrepresented by the country’s two English language papers, which seem to be written at the protest sites.
I would think that any Thasksin fan commentary would receive the same level of negative reviews that you get, but the fact is that there is very little if any ideological Thaksin support in the New Mandala.
In my view New Mandala and commenters are trying to understand and debate issues and arrive at a middle ground, which is likely to alienate both ideological extremes equally.
In fact, many commenters do say that Thaksin should be in jail or banned from Thailand (or Thai politics for life). I suspect that the vast majority of New Mandala authors and commenters are in fact like me anti-Thaksin,
The only reason that Thaksin fanatics don’t consistently rail agains participants here like the yellow short fanatics is that there really aren’t that many Thaksin fanatics in English language discussions.
So, what is it that really offends you so much that you must write dozens of nearly identical rants over many years?
And since I have said that I am anti-Thaksin, I think it is safe to assume that any blind fait Thaksinites here will vote me down, not up.
Beyond bigotry: Unravelling ethnic violence in Rakhine
So Buddha was a Kalar, not even a “Ku la: phru” (I can speak Burmese like a Rakhaing, many of whom, by the way, have some Kalar genes (including Portuguese genes) I, myself, am probably 1/4 Rohingya-Kalar genetically speaking!
There are even remnants of lost Jewish tribes in the Mizoram area who have recently been allowed to immigrate to Israel:
http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/society/131019-lost-tribe-of-jews-in-india-immigrating-to-israel
so how should we call these people in Burmese? Kalar-Jews or what?
The Democrats in Bangkok
[…] Yet a more careful look into electoral results reveals that out of the 23 constituencies the Democrats managed to win over in this election, 10 of them represent a tight race, whereby Democrats candidates beat their Pheu Thai counterparts by less than 5% of the votes. Sripathum University calculates that overall the Democrats actually lost, on a numerical basis, 31% of the votes in Bangkok alone, 14% of which went to Pheu Thai, while 7% went to Chuvit’s Rak Prathet Thai.[i] […]
Reconciliation games
[…] Following Nick Nostitz’s very informative coverage of the opposition to what he calls “reconciliation games,” below is an unofficial translation of the four versions of the important articles of the proposed reconciliation bills. […]
Thailand’s reconciliation proposals
[…] the UDD – beginning with the Court’s request to halt the third reading (see my earlier article here). After the verdict, some Peau Thai members wanted to push ahead with the third reading, while […]
Princess Chulabhorn’s politics
Does her action benefit to the monarch?
The shutdown: In honor of NN
Of course he hopes for more deaths, best thing that police shoots back when being shot at … he wants blood because he needs blood to achieve his vicious goals !!!
Thoughts of a pro-government leader
I am not sure if you give Malaysia and Singapore (where one party has ruled continuously for decades and which have no better scores in civil liberties than Thailand) as positive or negative examples. I agree with you that Thailand under Thaksin was developing into this direction. But would you say that social stability and relative economic success justify the lack of democracy and civil liberties?
You, legitimately, denounce what you call brainwashing by “amaat-controlled” media. But we should not forget the enforced conformity of media and harassment of oppositional publications under Thaksin. Was that any better?