“
Millard! Who's the prime minister?"
"Winston Churchill," he said. "Have you gone daft?"
"What's the capital of Burma?"
"Lord, I've no idea. Rangoon?"
"Good! When's your birthday?"
"Will you quit shouting and let me bleed in peace!
”
”
Ransom Riggs (Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #1))
“
Bursts of gold on lavender melting into saffron. It's the time of day when the sky looks like it has been spray-painted by a graffiti artist.
”
”
Mia Kirshner (I Live Here)
“
It is not power that corrupts but fear.
”
”
Aung San Suu Kyi
“
To view the opposition as dangerous is to misunderstand the basic concepts of democracy. To oppress the opposition is to assault the very foundation of democracy.
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”
Aung San Suu Kyi (Letters from Burma)
“
People wonder why so many writers come to live in Paris. I’ve been living ten years in Paris and the answer seems simple to me: because it’s the best place to pick ideas. Just like Italy, Spain.. or Iran are the best places to pick saffron. If you want to pick opium poppies you go to Burma or South-East Asia. And if you want to pick novel ideas, you go to Paris.
”
”
Roman Payne (Crepuscule)
“
My top priority is for people to understand that they have the power to change things themselves.
”
”
Aung San Suu Kyi
“
There is a special charm to journeys undertaken before daybreak in hot lands: the air is soft and cool and the coming of dawn reveals a landscape fresh from the night dew.
”
”
Aung San Suu Kyi (Letters from Burma)
“
Actually, the Burmese don't refer to her by name. They just call her "The Lady." It's like Voldemort in Harry Potter, "He Who Must Not Be Named.
”
”
Guy Delisle (Burma Chronicles)
“
Some of the most relaxing weekends I have ever enjoyed were those I spent quietly with a sense of all work to date completed, and an absorbing mystery.
”
”
Aung San Suu Kyi (Letters from Burma)
“
In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people – the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me.
”
”
George Orwell (Shooting an Elephant)
“
My mother used to say that rain here pours like a blessing, like a thick veil that parts to reveal the bride's face. But nearly every day, when this rain parted, it revealed a long line of soldiers, like you, like death, marching toward us, and we would scatter with a practiced silence and hide.
”
”
Mia Kirshner (I Live Here)
“
Central Intelligence cutting Meo opium fields! China Lobby copping poppies in Burma! How long this Addict government support our oil-burner matter-habit
”
”
Allen Ginsberg (The Fall of America: Poems of These States 1965-1971)
“
In one of her letters she writes: Some have questioned the appropriateness of talking about such matters as metta (loving-kindness) and thissa (truth) in the political context. But politics is about people and what we had seen … proved that love and truth can move people more strongly than any form of coercion.
”
”
Aung San Suu Kyi (Letters From Burma)
“
When I was young and had no sense
In far-off Mandalay
I lost my heart to a Burmese girl
As lovely as the day.
Her skin was gold, her hair was jet,
her teeth were ivory;
I said, "For twenty silver pieces,
Maiden, sleep with me."
She looked at me, so pure, so sad,
The loveliest thing alive,
And in her lisping, virgin voice,
Stood out for twenty-five.
”
”
George Orwell
“
An earthquake is such fun when it is over.
”
”
George Orwell (Burmese Days)
“
My message to the international community is that our silence and complicity especially on the situation in Gaza shames us all. It is almost like the behaviour of the military junta in Burma
”
”
Desmond Tutu
“
He showed me how...See, he says he's going up through Laos, then into Burma, and then some other country, I forget, and then India and Iran and Turkey, and then Greece, and the rest is easy. That's what he said. The rest is easy, he said.
”
”
Tim O'Brien (Going After Cacciato)
“
It was part of war; men died, more would die, that was past, and what mattered now was the business in hand; those who lived would get on with it. Whatever sorrow was felt, there was no point in talking or brooding about it, much less in making, for form’s sake, a parade of it. Better and healthier to forget it, and look to tomorrow.
The celebrated British stiff upper lip, the resolve to conceal emotion which is not only embarrassing and useless, but harmful, is just plain commons sense
”
”
George MacDonald Fraser (Quartered Safe Out Here: A Harrowing Tale of World War II)
“
As for the sanctimony of people who seem blind to the fact that mass murder is still an annual event, look at Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, Tibet, Burma and elsewhere-the truer shout is not "Never again" but "Again and again.
”
”
Paul Theroux (Ghost Train to the Eastern Star)
“
Like the crocodile, he strikes always at the weakest spot.
”
”
George Orwell (Burmese Days)
“
But if the world measures a refugee according to the worst story, we will always excuse human suffering, saying it is not yet as bad as someone else's.
”
”
Victoria Armour-Hileman
“
We spent time on Burma and the need for the military regime there to understand that they shouldn't fear the voices of people. And yet they do.
”
”
George W. Bush
“
Dr. Gordon S. Seagrave, the famous “Burma Surgeon.
”
”
Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man)
“
I can take a book in my hands and voyage across the world. China, Burma, Jamaica—the very sound of the words is an enchantment bringing me sights and sounds, and odors that my senses have never savored.
”
”
D.E. Stevenson (The Young Clementina)
“
Beauty could not love you back. People were not what they seemed and certainly not what they said. Madness was contagious. Memory served melancholy. The medieval was not so bad. Gravity was a form of nostalgia. There could be virtue in satirizing virtue. Dwight Eisenhower and Werner von Braun had the exact same mouths. No one loved a loser until he completely lost. The capital of Burma was Rangoon.
”
”
Lorrie Moore (A Gate at the Stairs)
“
The energy you drew on so extravagantly when you were a kid, the energy you thought would never exhaust itself -- that slipped away somewhere between eighteen and twenty-four, to be replaced by something much duller, something as bogus as coke high: purpose, maybe, or goals, or whatever rah-rah Junior Chamber of Commerce word you wanted to use. It was no big deal; it didn't go all at once with a bang. And maybe, Richie thought, that's the scary part. How you don't stop being a kid all at once, with a big explosive bang, like one of that clown's trick balloons with the Burma-Shave slogans on the sides. The kid in you just leaked out, like the air out of a tire. And one day you looked in the mirror and there was a grownup looking back at you. You could go on wearing blue-jeans, you could keep going to Springsteen and Seger concerts, you could dye your hair, but that was a grownup's face in the mirror just the same. It all happened while you were asleep, maybe, like a visit from a Tooth Fairy.
”
”
Stephen King (It)
“
A little while, we are in eternity; before we find ourselves there, let us do much for Christ.
”
”
Ann Hasseltine Judson (Ann Judson: A Missionary Life for Burma)
“
He undertook to overtake
The road was on a bend
From now on the Undertaker
Is his only friend
”
”
Neil Gaiman (American Gods)
“
It astonished me later to find how the readers found Warrender’s war record so convincing and full when I had said so little – one real war veteran of Burma wrote to say how realistic he found it – but since then I’ve come to learn for myself how little one needs, in the art of writing, to convey the lot, and how a lot of words, on the other hand, can convey so little.
”
”
Muriel Spark (Loitering With Intent)
“
Remember what your grandfather said about the earth's being round at school and flat at home. He was a wise man and taught you what you need to know in Burma. It is the same in politics. Learn the arguments for socialism in the textbooks parrot them pass your exams. Never never argue. But keep within your own head and heart what you and everyone really knows that in the real world it is a system of incompetence and corruption and a project for ruining the country.
”
”
Pascal Khoo Thwe (From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey)
“
We stepped carefully, so softly, over thorny plants. The dust had turned to mud, splattering our shoes, socks, and legs. By the time we reached the boat, our clothes were clinging to our flesh and stained with the bloody remains of mosquitoes.
”
”
Mia Kirshner (I Live Here)
“
[A]ll that mystical jabber about expecting the unexpected is just so much toffee. Expect the unexpected, Edie was told by a sour veteran sergeant in Burma, and the expected will walk up to you and blow your expectations out through the back of your head. Expect the expected, just don’t forget the rest.
”
”
Nick Harkaway (Angelmaker)
“
Seeds of destruction take root in the human heart, and even among those who long for peace, they call to our darker instincts and urge us to violence.:
”
”
Victoria Armour-Hileman (Singing to the Dead: A Missioner's Life among Refugees from Burma)
“
Seriously, just have the gonads to quote yourself! ^__^
”
”
T.F. Rhoden
“
I wasn't talking about the weather," said Abe. "Although it's the hottest, most humid, most miserable goddamn hellhole I've ever been in. Worse than Burma in '43. Worse than Singapore in typhoon weather. Jesus, it's worse than Washington in August.
”
”
Dan Simmons (Song of Kali)
“
I seemed to be walking on and on forever through a peaceful, languid garden of rice paddies. This was no longer the territory of savages, but of an ancient and high civilization. Here and there farmers were plowing their fields, using water buffaloes. As a buffalo started to move, snowy herons would fly down and perch on its back and horns. But they flew away again in fright whenever a buffalo reached the edge of the field the farmer turned his plow.
Once, as I was walking along, a moist wind began to blow and the sky quickly filled with black clouds. Herons were tossing in the wind like downy feathers. Soon the rain came. Rainfall in Burma is violent. Before I knew it, I was shut in by a thick spray. I could hardly breathe--I felt as if I were swimming.
After a while the rain stopped and the sky cleared. All at once the landscape brightened and a vast rainbow hung across the sky. The mist was gone, as if a curtain had been lifted. And there, under the rainbow, the farmers were singing and plowing again.
”
”
Michio Takeyama (Harp of Burma (Tuttle Classics))
“
If God's love encompasses the whole world and if everyone who does not believe in him will perish, then surely this question needs to be asked: When, after two thousand years, does God's plan kick in for the billion people he 'so loves' in China? Or for the 840 million in India? Or the millions in Japan, Afghanistan, Siberia, Egypt, Burma ·.. and on and on?
Why would a God who 'so loved the world' reveal his message only to a tiny minority of the people on earth, leaving the majority in ignorance? Is it possible to believe that the Father of all Mankind would select as his Chosen People a small Middle Eastern nation, Israel, reveal His will exclusively to them, fight alongside them in their battles to survive, and only after their failure to reach out to any other group, update His plan for the world's salvation by sending His 'only begotten son,' not to the world but, once again, exclusively to Israel?
”
”
Charles Templeton (Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith)
“
It became such a recurring experience during this period when I was twenty -- to be starving and afraid of running out of money -- as I wandered from Brussels to Burma and everywhere in between for months on end, that I later came to see it as a part of my training as a cook. I came to see hunger as being as important a part of a stage as knife skills. Because so much starving on that trip led to such an enormous amount of time fantasizing about food, each craving became fanatically particular. Hunger was not general, ever, for just something, anything, to eat. My hunger grew so specific I could name every corner and fold of it. Salty, warm, brothy, starchy, fatty, sweet, clean and crunchy, crisp and water, and so on.
”
”
Gabrielle Hamilton (Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef)
“
A little sacrifice for the cause of Christ is not worth naming; and I feel it a privilege, of which I am entirely undeserving, to have had it in my power to sacrifice my all for him who hesitated not to lay down his life for sinners.
”
”
Sharon James (My Heart in His Hands: Ann Judson of Burma)
“
No, when the herd wanted to take refuge in an idea, it preferred to be blind to that idea’s opposite.
”
”
Charmaine Craig (Miss Burma: A Novel)
“
Early railway journeys took him to Ceylon, Thailand, and Burma; he would later describe his wanderlust as the “peripatetics of a Jewish prince”.
”
”
V.O. Blum (DownMind)
“
Eight hundred people, possibly, are murdered every year in Burma, they matter nothing; but the murder of a white man is a monstrosity, a sacrilege.
”
”
George Orwell
“
The United States is today one of only three countries not to have officially adopted the French metric system. The other two are Liberia and Myanmar (Burma).
”
”
Bee Wilson (Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat)
“
Ouch, my butthole hurts, but I really need to have a look at that firestation.
”
”
Guy Delisle (Burma Chronicles)
“
After winning his second term, Obama made trips to Burma and Cambodia—two nations long run by brutal, tyrannical regimes. People who cared about human rights were appalled by the action.
”
”
Matt Margolis (The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama)
“
Well, we have to do something. There are all sorts of rumours about soldiers coming up."
"These people are full of rumours. They love rumours." Paterson stood watching the bridge. "Their whole life is a rumour.
”
”
H.E. Bates
“
Simple. Judaism had its day, and if the Jews had been smart, when Christianity came along they’d have joined up. Christianity has had its day, and if you were intelligent you’d both join the newest religion. Islam!” He bowed low and said, “Soon all Africa will be Islamic. And all Black America. I see India giving up Hinduism while Burma and Thailand surrender Buddhism. Gentlemen, I represent the religion of the future. I offer you salvation.
”
”
James A. Michener (The Source)
“
Japan held some 132,000 POWs from America, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Holland, and Australia. Of those, nearly 36,000 died, more than one in every four.*1 Americans fared particularly badly; of the 34,648 Americans held by Japan, 12,935—more than 37 percent—died.*2 By comparison, only 1 percent of Americans held by the Nazis and Italians died. Japan murdered thousands of POWs on death marches, and worked thousands of others to death in slavery, including some 16,000 POWs who died alongside as many as 100,000 Asian laborers forced to build the Burma-Siam Railway. Thousands of other POWs were beaten, burned, stabbed, or clubbed to death, shot, beheaded, killed during medical experiments, or eaten alive in ritual acts of cannibalism. And as a result of being fed grossly inadequate and befouled food and water, thousands more died of starvation and easily preventable diseases. Of the 2,500 POWs at Borneo’s Sandakan camp, only 6, all escapees, made it to September 1945 alive. Left out of the numbing statistics are untold numbers of men who were captured and killed on the spot or dragged to places like Kwajalein, to be murdered without the world ever learning their fate.
”
”
Laura Hillenbrand (Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption)
“
All European food in Burma is more or less disgusting—the bread is spongy stuff leavened with palm-toddy and tasting like a penny bun gone wrong, the butter comes out of a tin, and so does the milk, unless it is the grey watery catlap of the dudh-wallah.
”
”
George Orwell (Burmese Days)
“
When I was a kid growing up, the message “Jesus is the Answer” was ubiquitous— painted on barns, outcroppings of rock, or as the final installment of a Burma Shave sign. The message, however, is distinctly unbiblical. The message should be “Jesus is the Assignment.
”
”
Robin Meyers (Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus)
“
Amitav Ghosh’s multigenerational saga The Glass Palace, set in colonial Burma, India, and Malaya, tells the story of Rajkumar, once a poor Indian boy, who becomes a wealthy teak trader in Burma, and lovely Dolly, former child-maid to the queen and second princess of Burma.
”
”
Nancy Pearl (Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason)
“
Paterson was not a member of the club. [..] When Paterson wanted to swim he took a towel and swam in the river naked and his Burmese boy stood on the bank with his bath-robe and waited to rub him down. 'I like to swim in water, not people,' was a remark of Paterson's that for a long time went round the club.
”
”
H.E. Bates (The Jacaranda Tree)
“
After a year or two, the long term expats won’t see the beggars the same way. After a year or two, the cheeky young monks won’t make them smile. After a year or two, the newest restaurant opening won’t pull them in. To preserve they will withdraw and settle. They will come to accept the limits of it all. The hype won’t bother them. The promise won’t motivate them. They will have accepted their odd expat life, their awkward place in the chimera that is Myanmar today.
”
”
Craig Hodges
“
In 1897, still in his early twenties, Hoover was hired by a large and venerable British mining company, Bewick, Moreing and Co., and for the next decade travelled the world ceaselessly as its chief engineer and troubleshooter – to Burma, China, Australia, India, Egypt and wherever else its mineralogical interests demanded. In six years, Hoover circled the globe five times. He lived through the Boxer Rebellion in China, hacked through the jungles of Borneo, rode camels across the red emptiness of Western Australia, rubbed shoulders with Wyatt Earp and Jack London in a Klondike saloon, camped beside the Great Pyramids of Egypt.
”
”
Bill Bryson (One Summer: America 1927 (Bryson Book 2))
“
The energy you drew on so extravagantly when you were a kid, the energy you thought would never exhaust itself—that slipped away somewhere between eighteen and twenty-four, to be replaced by something much duller, something as bogus as a coke high: purpose, maybe, or goals, or whatever rah-rah Junior Chamber of Commerce word you wanted to use. It was no big deal; it didn’t go all at once, with a bang. And maybe, Richie thought, that’s the scary part. How you don’t stop being a kid all at once, with a big explosive bang, like one of that clown’s trick balloons with the Burma-Shave slogans on the sides. The kid in you just leaked out, like the air out of a tire. And one day you looked in the mirror and there was a grownup looking back at you. You could go on wearing bluejeans, you could keep going to Springsteen and Seger concerts, you could dye your hair, but that was a grownup’s face in the mirror just the same. It all happened while you were asleep, maybe, like a visit from the Tooth Fairy.
”
”
Stephen King (It)
“
I didn't know then that the sweet life could be like honeysuckle smothering a barbed-wire fence.
”
”
Anne Lovett (Rubies from Burma)
“
Generosity, altruism, and courage are the backbone of any struggle against tyranny.
”
”
ko ko thett (Picking Off New Shoots Will Not Stop the Spring: Witness poems and essays from Burma/Myanmar (1988-2021))
“
The past closer, more comparable, a way to justify present action.
”
”
Thant Myint-U (The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma)
“
Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull. Nineteen Eighty-Four MYAUNGMYA
”
”
Emma Larkin (Finding George Orwell in Burma)
“
Lack of courage keeps us from understanding others’ perspectives.
”
”
Charmaine Craig (Miss Burma: A Novel)
“
Mpelelezi wa Tume ya Dunia kutoka Israeli Daniel Yehuda Ben-Asher Ebenezer, Mhebrania aliyeishi Givat Ram, Jerusalem, na mke wake mrembo Hadara na mtoto wake mzuri Navah Ebenezer, alikuwa Ukanda wa Gaza siku alipopigiwa simu na Kiongozi wa Kanda ya Asia-Australia ya Tume ya Dunia U Nanda – kutoka Copenhagen kuhusiana na wito wa haraka wa kuonana na Rais wa Tume ya Dunia. Yehuda aliondoka usiku kwenda Yangon, Myama, ambapo alionana na U Nanda na kupewa maelekezo yote ya kikazi aliyotakiwa kuyafuata. Mbali na maelekezo yote ya kikazi aliyotakiwa kuyafuata, Nanda alimkabidhi Yehuda kachero wa Kolonia Santita Mandi Dickson Santana (bila kujua kama Mandi ni kachero wa Kolonia Santita) ili amsindikize mpaka stendi ya mabasi ya Maubin, nje ya Yangon. Baada ya hapo Yehuda alisafiri mpaka Copenhagen ambapo yeye na wenzake walikabidhiwa Operation Devil Cross, ya kung’oa mizizi ya Kolonia Santita duniani kote. Yehuda alifanya kosa kubwa kuonana na kachero wa Kolonia Santita Mandi Santana! Kwa sababu hiyo, sauti na picha ya Yehuda vilichukuliwa, watu wengi walikufa katika miji ya Copenhagen na Mexico City.
”
”
Enock Maregesi
“
By using these informal informers, the MI have become incredibly effective, he said. The reason the system works so well is very simple: it is hard to tell who is an informer and who is not. The
”
”
Emma Larkin (Finding George Orwell in Burma)
“
The reusi of Thailand are similar to the vijjadharas (weizza) of Burma, the eysey of Cambodia, the yogis of Tibet, the siddhas of India, the immortals of China, the sufis of Islam, the hermits of Europe, the mystics of Christianity, and the shamans of the Americas and Africa. These groups represent the mystical (not the dogmatic or orthodox) traditions within their respective religions.
”
”
Bob Haddad (Thai Massage & Thai Healing Arts: Practice, Culture and Spirituality)
“
But no you were going over the lecture on Saint Augustine and you were saying God loves each of us as if there were only one of us. Well you were saying it with a good amount of mocking but I have seen from the start that you are a very sweet and immensely gentle being. And maybe you were thinking what I have come to. That sometimes it is necessary to go without human love so God’s love can touch us more completely.
”
”
Charmaine Craig (Miss Burma: A Novel)
“
Without ever leaving her hide-out in Milledgeville, Georgia, Flannery O’Connor knew all there was to know about the two-lane, dirt and blacktop Southern roads of the 1950s—with their junkyards and tourist courts, gravel pits and pine trees that pressed at the edges of the road. She knew the slogans of the Burma Shave signs, knew the names of barbecue joints and the chicken baskets on their menus. She also knew a backwoods American cadence and vocabulary you’d think was limited to cops, truckers, runaway teens, and patrons of the Teardrop Inn where at midnight somebody could always be counted on to go out to a pickup truck and come back with a shotgun. She was a virtuoso mimic, and she assimilated whole populations of American sounds and voices, and then offered them back to us from time to time in her small fictional detonations, one of which she named, in 1953, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.
”
”
William Caverlee (Amid the Swirling Ghosts: And Other Essays)
“
From the experience of state militias during the American Revolution, to the Spanish-American War; from the legendary Merrill’s Marauders, the highly skilled and toughened American jungle fighters who served in the Burma-India theater in World War II, to the members of the OSS (the Office of Strategic Services), who on specific assignments fought alongside native guerrilla forces, the Americans had a long and honorable guerrilla-fighting tradition. Where and why this was forgotten in Vietnam remains a mystery.
”
”
Tom Mangold (The Tunnels of Cu Chi: A Harrowing Account of America's Tunnel Rats in the Underground Battlefields of Vietnam)
“
- I'll throw the world at your feet, girl.
He began to stroke my bare shoulder with his hand, following the movement of his fingers.
- I'll show you places you never dreamed of.
He leaned down and kissed the piece of skin he was stroking.
"I want you to see the sunrise in Burma when we fly a balloon."
His lips rolled down my neck.
- Let you get drunk at night in Tokyo, watching the colorful lights of the city.
I closed my eyes as Nacho's lips stroked my ear.
- You'll love me on a board off the coast of Australia. I will show you the whole world.
”
”
Blanka Lipińska (Kolejne 365 dni (365 dni, #3))
“
Half of India’s revenues went out of India, mainly to England. Indian taxes paid not only for the British Indian Army in India, which was ostensibly maintaining India’s security, but also for a wide variety of foreign colonial expeditions in furtherance of the greater glory of the British empire, from Burma to Mesopotamia. In 1922, for instance, 64 per cent of the total revenue of the Government of India was devoted to paying for British Indian troops despatched abroad. No other army in the world, as Durant observed at the time, consumed so large a proportion of public revenues.
”
”
Shashi Tharoor (An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India)
“
the trouble seems rooted in the nature of beauty itself, a surprisingly elusive quality and rarely one you can buy outright. It flees in the face of too much effort. It rewards casualness, and most of all it deigns to arrive by whim, by accident. On my travels, I became a devotee of found art: a shaft of light on a dilapidated 1914 gun factory, an abandoned billboard whose layers have worn into a beguiling pentimento collage of Coca-Cola, Chevrolet, and Burma Shave, cut-rate pensions whose faded cushions perfectly match, in that unplanned way, the fluttering sun-blanched curtains.
”
”
Lionel Shriver (We Need to Talk About Kevin)
“
a big war is coming. Bigger than the one they were starting when I left. It’ll go hard on England, but I expect we’ll survive. I missed the other war, she said. I mean to be present for this one. Samuel and I had never really thought about war. Why, she said, the signs are all over Africa. India too, I expect. First there’s a road built to where you keep your goods. Then your trees are hauled off to make ships and captain’s furniture. Then your land is planted with something you can’t eat. Then you’re forced to work it. That’s happening all over Africa, she said. Burma too, I expect.
”
”
Alice Walker (The Color Purple)
“
A sergeant despatch rider came up and handed me a message, which read, 'The war in Europe is over.' I called out to the sergeant, 'I've got a message here. The war in Europe is over.' He said, 'Very good, sir,' saluted, turned to some men nearby, and said, 'The war in Europe is over. Five-minute break.
”
”
Julian Thompson (Forgotten Voices of Burma: A New History of the Second World War's Forgotten Conflict in the Words of Those Who Were There)
“
Their crime was their existence, Louisa had obliquely understood, and she had heeded Mama’s plea that they must not make a noise, taking each blow soundlessly, keeping her tears on the inside, until the lake of her grief had become so wide it had seemed almost inviting, a thing into which she could escape.
”
”
Charmaine Craig (Miss Burma)
“
had read a description of this ability to act so well in public in Czeslaw Milosz’s book The Captive Mind, in which he describes life in 1950s Poland under the authoritarian influences of Nazism and Stalinism. He writes that in such circumstances people must, of necessity, become actors and actresses. ‘One does not perform on a theatre stage,’ says Milosz, ‘but in the street, office, factory, meeting hall, or even the room one lives in. Such acting is a highly-developed craft that places a premium upon mental alertness. Before it leaves the lips every word must be evaluated as to its consequences. A smile that appears at the wrong moment, a glance that is not all it should be can occasion dangerous suspicions and accusations.
”
”
Emma Larkin (Finding George Orwell in Burma)
“
Mapema, kabla ndege haijaondoka na baada ya kuagana na maafisa waliomsindikiza, Nanda aliingia katika ndege na kutafuta namba ya kiti chake. Alivyoiona, alishtuka. Msichana mrembo alikaa kando ya kiti (cha Nanda) akiongea na simu, mara ya mwisho kabla ya kuondoka. Alivyofika, Nanda hakujizuia kuchangamka – alitupa tabasamu. Alivyoliona, kupitia miwani myeusi, binti alitabasamu pia, meno yake yakimchanganya kamishna. Alimsalimia Nanda, harakaharaka, na kurudi katika simu huku Nanda akikaa (vizuri) na kumsubiri. Alivyokata simu, alitoa miwani na kumwomba radhi Kamishna Nanda. Nanda akamwambia asijali, huku akitabasamu. Alikuwa na safari ya Bama kupitia Tailandi, kwa ndege ya Shirika la Ndege la Skandinavia na Maxair kutokea Bangkok; sawa kabisa na safari ya kamishna.
”
”
Enock Maregesi (Kolonia Santita)
“
Life was good until the purges came. After that, there was nothing to do except flee into the jungle, high up, where it was so thick only wild things grew. When the purges stopped Black Spot and his friends and cousin went quietly to the town of Nyang Shwe, where they were not known. They procured black-market identity cards of dead people with good reputations. After that they lived two ways: in the open life of the dead, and in the hidden life of the living.
”
”
Amy Tan (Saving Fish from Drowning)
“
One young man asked how to behave should he encounter a homosexual. “Point out that this is a new experience for you,” Dr. Song said, “as there are no such individuals where you are from. Then treat him as you would any visiting Juche scholar from foreign lands like Burma or Ukraine or Cuba.” Dr. Song then got practical. He said it was okay to wear shoes indoors. Women were free to smoke in America and should not be confronted. Disciplining other people’s children in America was not okay. He drew for them on a piece of paper the shape of a football. With great discomfort, Dr. Song touched on American standards of personal hygiene, and then he delivered a mini-lecture on the subject of smiling. He concluded with dogs, noting how Americans were very sentimental, with a particular softness toward canines. You must never hurt a dog in America, he said. They are considered part of the family and are given names, just like people. Dogs also have their own beds and toys and doctors and houses, which should not be referred to as warrens.
”
”
Adam Johnson (The Orphan Master's Son)
“
Richie had felt a mad, exhilarating kind of energy growing in the room […] He thought he recognized the feeling from childhood, when he had felt it every day and had come to take it merely as a matter of course. He supposed that, if he had ever thought about that deep-running aquifer of energy as a kid, he would have simply dismissed it as a fact of life, something that would always be there, like the color of his eyes or his disgusting hammertoes. Well, that hadn’t turned out to be true. The energy you drew on so extravagantly when you were a kid, the energy you thought would never exhaust itself- that slipped away somewhere between eighteen and twenty-four, to be replaced by something much duller, something as bogus as a coke-high: purpose, maybe, or goals, or whatever rah-rah Junior Chamber of Commerce word you wanted to use.
It was no big deal; it didn’t go all at once, with a bang. And maybe, Richie thought, that’s the scary part. How you don’t stop being a kid all at once, with a big explosive bang, like one of that clown’s trick balloons with the Burma-Shave slogans on the side. The kind in you just leaked out, like the air out of a tire. And one day you looked in the mirror and there was a grown-up looking back at you. You could go on wearing blue jeans, you could keep going to Springsteen and Seger concerts, you gould dye your hair, but that was a grown-ups face in the mirror just the same.
”
”
Stephen King (It)
“
The eyes from Burma, from Tonkin, watch these women at their hundred perseverances—stare out of blued orbits, through headaches no Alasils can ease. Italian P/Ws curse underneath the mail sacks that are puffing, echo-clanking in now each hour, in seasonal swell, clogging the snowy trainloads like mushrooms, as if the trains have been all night underground, passing through the country of the dead. If these Eyeties sing now and then you can bet it’s not “Giovinezza” but something probably from Rigoletto or La Bohème—indeed the Post Office is considering issuing a list of Nonacceptable Songs, with ukulele chords as an aid to ready identification. Their cheer and songfulness, this lot, is genuine up to a point—but as the days pile up, as this orgy of Christmas greeting grows daily beyond healthy limits, with no containment in sight before Boxing Day, they settle, themselves, for being more professionally Italian, rolling the odd eye at the lady evacuees, finding techniques of balancing the sack with one hand whilst the other goes playing “dead”—cioé, conditionally alive—where the crowds thicken most feminine, directionless . . . well, most promising. Life has to go on. Both kinds of prisoner recognize that, but there’s no mano morto for the Englishmen back from CBI, no leap from dead to living at mere permission from a likely haunch or thigh—no play, for God’s sake, about life-and-death! They want no more adventures: only the old dutch fussing over the old stove or warming the old bed, cricketers in the wintertime, they want the semi-detached Sunday dead-leaf somnolence of a dried garden.
”
”
Thomas Pynchon (Gravity's Rainbow)
“
In its rampage over the east, Japan had brought atrocity and death on a scale that staggers the imagination. In the midst of it were the prisoners of war. Japan held some 132,000 POWs from America, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Holland, and Australia. Of those, nearly 36,000 died, more than one in every four.* Americans fared particularly badly; of the 34,648 Americans held by Japan, 12,935—more than 37 percent—died.* By comparison, only 1 percent of Americans held by the Nazis and Italians died. Japan murdered thousands of POWs on death marches, and worked thousands of others to death in slavery, including some 16,000 POWs who died alongside as many as 100,000 Asian laborers forced to build the Burma-Siam Railway. Thousands of other POWs were beaten, burned, stabbed, or clubbed to death, shot, beheaded, killed during medical experiments, or eaten alive in ritual acts of cannibalism. And as a result of being fed grossly inadequate and befouled food and water, thousands more died of starvation and easily preventable diseases. Of the 2,500 POWs at Borneo’s Sandakan camp, only 6, all escapees, made it to September 1945 alive. Left out of the numbing statistics are untold numbers of men who were captured and killed on the spot or dragged to places like Kwajalein, to be murdered without the world ever learning their fate. In accordance with the kill-all order, the Japanese massacred all 5,000 Korean captives on Tinian, all of the POWs on Ballale, Wake, and Tarawa, and all but 11 POWs at Palawan. They were evidently about to murder all the other POWs and civilian internees in their custody when the atomic bomb brought their empire crashing down. On the morning of September 2, 1945, Japan signed its formal surrender. The Second World War was over.
”
”
Laura Hillenbrand (Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption)
“
Ywa was neither man nor woman, and was not in a human form. Ywa was the creator of the world and a force for good. To balance Ywa there was also a force for evil, called Mu Kaw Lee. Ywa created three sons in human form. The eldest was a Karen, the second a Burman, and the youngest was a white man. To the Karen son Ywa gave a golden book, to the Burman a silver book, and to the white man Ywa gave a book bound in normal paper. When the rains began and the Karen son went to plant his rice field, he placed the golden book nearby, on a tree stump. But his youngest brother, the white man, had grown jealous and coveted his beautiful golden book. When the Karen man wasn’t looking the white man came along and took it, replacing it with his own. Then the white man built a boat and escaped to a far-off country. He carried his prize with him–the golden book that contained the teachings Ywa had given to his eldest son. After a long day working under the heavy rain, the Karen man went to fetch his golden book. The book that the white man had left in its place had fallen apart in the rain, and there was nothing left. A chicken had been scratching around the stump searching for food, and all the Karen man found was chicken scratch marks. He concluded that the golden book had been replaced by the scratch marks, and that those must embody the message that Ywa had left him. And so the Karen man taught himself to read and write in chicken scratch. Over time, he learned the truth about the golden book being stolen, but by then it was too late–chicken scratch had become the official language of the Karen. The Karen man wrote down the story of how the golden book was stolen, and the word of Ywa lost, in a new book. He called this book Li Hsaw Weh–‘the book of chicken scratch teachings’. Centuries later the first white missionaries came to Burma. Many Karen believed that this was the younger brother returning, bringing the golden book in the form of the Bible, and so they welcomed them. Many Karen believe this story absolutely, and that one day the younger brother–a white man–will come again to help save our people.
”
”
Zoya Phan (Little Daughter: A Memoir of Survival in Burma and the West)
“
1.
Dari balik tingkap ini aku sengaja mengintaimu, memasang kamera pada jalusi untuk melihatmu mencumbui malam. Seperti gerimis yang baru saja turun, menggiringmu melewati teras rumah tetangga lalu sengaja menggeletakkan tubuhnya di atas sofa abu abu yang dulu engkau beli dari pesta Sri Ratu. Tangan tangan hujan tidak meronai pipimu dengan warna merah jambu melainkan coklat tua agar senada dengan jaket yang dikenakannya.
Walau, ia hanya seorang penjaga yang membawa suar kemana mana. Namun ia juga adalah samudra tak bernama yang tak urung menelikung tubuhmu dengan kata luas tak terperi. Sebagaimana kata kata rayuan yang diucapkannya bergema bersama lantunan tembang tembang lawas yang ia rekam sepekan sebelumnya dari sebuah aplikasi di internet.
Ia tak menyembunyikan tangannya yang sibuk menggali harta karun jauh ke dalam lubukmu. Membiarkan pikiranmu terbang melayang ke pelataran Sukuh, ke atas puncak arca garuda di Cetha dan lalu melayap jauh hingga ke Khajuraho. Menangkap semburat lidah api yang asyik menyigi setiap detail relief candi yang akan membuat nafas kalian tersengal sengal. Memanggil awan dan memetakan semua rencana perjalanan wisata mimpi kalian ke Thailand, Bhutan, Nepal, Burma, India, Sri Lanka, Maladewa hingga ke China.
Pada lukisan Lee Man Fong engkau menjelmakan dirimu menjadi seorang gadis Bali yang bertelanjang dada. Bersimpuh di bawah pohon sambil memantrakan puja. Sementara aku terjatuh dan terjerembab berungkali dari loteng ini dengan kaki yang goyah dan juga patah. Tak sekali kali berani beranjak hanya untuk sejenak menghela nafas.
Karena lelaki pembawa suar itu telah menaikkan tubuhmu ke atas kereta berkuda dan menjelmakan dirimu menjadi seorang permaisuri. Seperti paduka Sri Ranggah Rajasa yang menyunting Ken Dedes di balik kejayaan Singosari. Ia sungguh lelaki pemberani yang tak gentar mengajakmu menari. Menjelajahi gunung, lembah, kebun dan persawahan di bawah naungan pohon pohon banyan di pinggiran jalan. Melewati sekumpulan bocah yang tengah bermain gundu, gobak sodor dan sunda manda.
Engkau tak menghiraukan mereka dengan bising lagu dangdut di balik suara desahanmu. Menancapkan lembing pada setiap cubitan bibir yang bernafsu menyadap getah dari busung dadamu. Tajam gigi taring dan juga geraham yang menerakan sebuah marka rahasia di atas jenjang lehermu. Sedang mataku terantuk gelap yang berjatuhan di bawah pintu palka yang merapuh ini, saat layar mulai terkembang dan lelaki keturunan nelayan itu menggeser lunas perahumu di atas lidah ombaknya.
”
”
Titon Rahmawan
“
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay:
Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay ?
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!
'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,
An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat - jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen,
An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot,
An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot:
Bloomin' idol made o' mud
Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd
Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud!
On the road to Mandalay...
When the mist was on the rice-fields an' the sun was droppin' slow,
She'd git 'er little banjo an' she'd sing "Kulla-lo-lo!
With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' 'er cheek agin my cheek
We useter watch the steamers an' the hathis pilin' teak.
Elephints a-pilin' teak
In the sludgy, squdgy creek,
Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was 'arf afraid to speak!
On the road to Mandalay...
But that's all shove be'ind me - long ago an' fur away
An' there ain't no 'busses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay;
An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells:
"If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else."
No! you won't 'eed nothin' else
But them spicy garlic smells,
An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple-bells;
On the road to Mandalay...
I am sick o' wastin' leather on these gritty pavin'-stones,
An' the blasted English drizzle wakes the fever in my bones;
Tho' I walks with fifty 'ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand,
An' they talks a lot o' lovin', but wot do they understand?
Beefy face an' grubby 'and -
Law! wot do they understand?
I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!
On the road to Mandalay...
Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin', an' it's there that I would be
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea;
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay,
With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay!
O the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay !
”
”
Rudyard Kipling (Mandalay)
“
robbery by European nations of each other's territories has never been a sin, is not a sin to-day. To the several cabinets the several political establishments of the world are clotheslines; and a large part of the official duty of these cabinets is to keep an eye on each other's wash and grab what they can of it as opportunity offers. All the territorial possessions of all the political establishments in the earth—including America, of course—consist of pilferings from other people's wash. No tribe, howsoever insignificant, and no nation, howsoever mighty, occupies a foot of land that was not stolen. When the English, the French, and the Spaniards reached America, the Indian tribes had been raiding each other's territorial clothes-lines for ages, and every acre of ground in the continent had been stolen and re-stolen 500 times. The English, the French, and the Spaniards went to work and stole it all over again; and when that was satisfactorily accomplished they went diligently to work and stole it from each other. In Europe and Asia and Africa every acre of ground has been stolen several millions of times. A crime persevered in a thousand centuries ceases to be a crime, and becomes a virtue. This is the law of custom, and custom supersedes all other forms of law. Christian governments are as frank to-day, as open and above-board, in discussing projects for raiding each other's clothes-lines as ever they were before the Golden Rule came smiling into this inhospitable world and couldn't get a night's lodging anywhere. In 150 years England has beneficently retired garment after garment from the Indian lines, until there is hardly a rag of the original wash left dangling anywhere. In 800 years an obscure tribe of Muscovite savages has risen to the dazzling position of Land-Robber-in-Chief; she found a quarter of the world hanging out to dry on a hundred parallels of latitude, and she scooped in the whole wash. She keeps a sharp eye on a multitude of little lines that stretch along the northern boundaries of India, and every now and then she snatches a hip-rag or a pair of pyjamas. It is England's prospective property, and Russia knows it; but Russia cares nothing for that. In fact, in our day land-robbery, claim-jumping, is become a European governmental frenzy. Some have been hard at it in the borders of China, in Burma, in Siam, and the islands of the sea; and all have been at it in Africa. Africa has been as coolly divided up and portioned out among the gang as if they had bought it and paid for it. And now straightway they are beginning the old game again—to steal each other's grabbings. Germany found a vast slice of Central Africa with the English flag and the English missionary and the English trader scattered all over it, but with certain formalities neglected—no signs up, "Keep off the grass," "Trespassers-forbidden," etc.—and she stepped in with a cold calm smile and put up the signs herself, and swept those English pioneers promptly out of the country. There is a tremendous point there. It can be put into the form of a maxim: Get your formalities right—never mind about the moralities. It was an impudent thing; but England had to put up with it. Now, in the case of Madagascar, the formalities had originally been observed, but by neglect they had fallen into desuetude ages ago. England should have snatched Madagascar from the French clothes-line. Without an effort she could have saved those harmless natives from the calamity of French civilization, and she did not do it. Now it is too late. The signs of the times show plainly enough what is going to happen. All the savage lands in the world are going to be brought under subjection to the Christian governments of Europe. I am
”
”
Mark Twain (Following the Equator)
“
If you can't change it don't worry about it.
”
”
David Barrett
“
Poppies in Afghanistan: The Taliban
and the Heroin Trade
Harvesting opium in Afghanistan
Ghaffar Baig/ Reuters/Corbis
Most Americans knew little about Afghanistan or
the Taliban prior to September 11, 2001, but those
who follow the heroin trade have focused on
Afghanistan for decades. Afghanistan has long been
a major area of opium production, but the “golden
triangle” of Southeast Asia (Burma, Laos, and
Thailand) historically dominated opium production.
By 1999, though, Afghanistan had become the
undisputed world leader in opium production
despite being an Islamic state ruled by the Taliban,
which publicly opposed opium use. In 1999, the
Taliban representative to the United States, Abdul
Hakeem Mujahid, said, “We are against poppy
cultivation, narcotics production and drugs, but we
cannot fight our own people” (Bartolet & Levine,
2001, p. 85). Even before 9/11, the United States
accused the Taliban of profiting from opium and
heroin production, and using those profits to fund
terrorist activities. Under pressure from the United
Nations, the Taliban announced bans on poppy
cultivation in 1997, 1998, and 2000, but there was
little evidence of any decreased production. In 2001,
though, a ban was put into place that apparently
really did reduce poppy production. Cynics have
pointed out that the Taliban was simply trying to
increase prices by temporarily cutting the supply;
whatever the reason, when the Taliban lost control
of Afghanistan, the poppy made a comeback. In this
war-ravaged and economically depressed nation,
growing opium is one of the few ways that farmers
can make a living. Afghan President Hamid Karzai
has urged his people to declare jihad (holy war) on
drug production, but opium farming still accounts
for nearly half of the domestic economy, and
Afghanistan supplies nearly 80% of the world’s
heroin (Office of National Drug Control Policy,
2013). In recent years, opium production has
declined in Afghanistan, but a close relationship
between heroin traffickers and the insurgency
continues to create difficulties for that country’s
reconstruction process (Office of National Drug
Control Policy, 2013).
”
”
Stephen A. Maisto (Drug Use and Abuse)
“
The construction of the Death Railway was one of the greatest war crimes of the twentieth century. It was said that one man died for every sleeper laid. Certainly over sixteen thousand of us British, Australian, Dutch, American and Canadian prisoners died on the railway – murdered by the ambitions of the Japanese Imperial Army to complete the lifeline to their forces in Burma by December 1943. Up to a hundred thousand native slaves, Thais, Indians, Malayans and Tamils also died in atrocious circumstances. Even Japanese engineers
”
”
Alistair Urquhart (The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacific)
“
positions and made new knife rests, which are mobile imitations of the wiring pattern that would allow us easy exit and entry into the position. These defended localities were now a very tough proposition for anyone trying to intrude.
”
”
Michael Lowry (Fighting Through to Kohima: A Memoir of War in India and Burma)
“
It was apparent that both the Wazirs and the Mahsuds were building up a large lashkar (a gathering of hostile forces); the numbers were reported as about 1,000 armed men. This was the first occasion that I heard the word ‘Jihud’ mentioned; there are a number of interpretations given to it; in its simplest form it could be a holy war declared by Muslims on the unbelievers of Islam.
”
”
Michael Lowry (Fighting Through to Kohima: A Memoir of War in India and Burma)
“
Sometimes at first light, while we were ‘standing to’, sections of our Machine Gun Platoon would open up on their fixed lines of defensive fire; this had a prophylactic effect to deter an enemy. It was often unkindly said, in jest, that the machine gunners were heating up their shaving water or maybe it was for their early morning tea. In any event, their shafts of short bursts of staccato firing were powerfully reassuring.
”
”
Michael Lowry (Fighting Through to Kohima: A Memoir of War in India and Burma)
“
On 25 June a bulldozer, known as the Yellow Monster, arrived to help us improve the track systems as we advanced; it probably did the work in a day that 100 men with picks and shovels might do in a week. At all events, it saved us a great deal of hard work.
”
”
Michael Lowry (Fighting Through to Kohima: A Memoir of War in India and Burma)
“
Contrary to the general picture of the decline of Asia and the rise of the West, the Chinese economy was buoyant in the eighteenth century, developing its own local variations and with trade links across Southeast Asia. Silk, porcelain and tea from China continued to be in great demand in Europe (and in the American colonies) even though in 1760 the Chinese confined all Western traders to the port city of Canton. Tribute-paying neighbours as near as Burma, Nepal and Vietnam (and as far away as Java) upheld Beijing’s solipsistic view that the Chinese emperor, presiding over the central kingdom of the world, had the right to rule ‘all under heaven.
”
”
Pankaj Mishra (From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia)
“
David Steinberg does in his book Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know, to
”
”
David Bockino (Greetings from Myanmar)
“
The Chinese sometimes arrived poor. Some started by just selling noodles on the street. But they work hard and move up. Most, though, came with many advantages, with money and contacts or easy access to loans through their own banks and networks, but the problem is not the, the problem is that we don't have a level playing field.
”
”
Thant Myint-U (Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia)
Ron Parker (BURMA - WW2 FRONTLINE STORIES)
“
We Burmese people are totally content,' he replied, hazing calmly into my eyes. 'Do you know why? Because we have nothing left. We have been squeezed and squeezed and squeezed until there is nothing left.
”
”
Emma Larkin (Finding George Orwell in Burma)
“
irritatingly moralistic. Democratic globalism sees as the engine of history not the will to power but the will to freedom. And while it has been attacked as a dreamy, idealistic innovation, its inspiration comes from the Truman Doctrine of 1947, the Kennedy inaugural of 1961, and Reagan’s “evil empire” speech of 1983. They all sought to recast a struggle for power between two geopolitical titans into a struggle between freedom and unfreedom, and yes, good and evil. Which is why the Truman Doctrine was heavily criticized by realists like Hans Morgenthau and George Kennan—and Reagan was vilified by the entire foreign policy establishment for the sin of ideologizing the Cold War by injecting a moral overlay. That was then. Today, post-9/11, we find ourselves in a similar existential struggle but with a different enemy: not Soviet communism, but Arab-Islamic totalitarianism, both secular and religious. Bush and Blair are similarly attacked for naïvely and crudely casting this struggle as one of freedom versus unfreedom, good versus evil. Now, given the way not just freedom but human decency were suppressed in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the two major battles of this new war, you would have to give Bush and Blair’s moral claims the decided advantage of being obviously true. Nonetheless, something can be true and still be dangerous. Many people are deeply uneasy with the Bush-Blair doctrine—many conservatives in particular. When Blair declares in his address to Congress: “The spread of freedom is … our last line of defense and our first line of attack,” they see a dangerously expansive, aggressively utopian foreign policy. In short, they see Woodrow Wilson. Now, to a conservative, Woodrow Wilson is fightin’ words. Yes, this vision is expansive and perhaps utopian. But it ain’t Wilsonian. Wilson envisioned the spread of democratic values through as-yet-to-be invented international institutions. He could be forgiven for that. In 1918, there was no way to know how utterly corrupt and useless those international institutions would turn out to be. Eight decades of bitter experience later—with Libya chairing the UN Commission on Human Rights—there is no way not to know. Democratic globalism is not Wilsonian. Its attractiveness is precisely that it shares realism’s insights about the centrality of power. Its attractiveness is precisely that it has appropriate contempt for the fictional legalisms of liberal internationalism. Moreover, democratic globalism is an improvement over realism. What it can teach realism is that the spread of democracy is not just an end but a means, an indispensable means for securing American interests. The reason is simple. Democracies are inherently more friendly to the United States, less belligerent to their neighbors and generally more inclined to peace. Realists are right that to protect your interests you often have to go around the world bashing bad guys over the head. But that technique, no matter how satisfying, has its limits. At some point, you have to implant something, something organic and self-developing. And that something is democracy. But where? V. DEMOCRATIC REALISM The danger of democratic globalism is its universalism, its open-ended commitment to human freedom, its temptation to plant the flag of democracy everywhere. It must learn to say no. And indeed, it does say no. But when it says no to Liberia, or Congo, or Burma, or countenances alliances with authoritarian rulers in places like Pakistan
”
”
Charles Krauthammer (Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes, and Politics)
“
work. Ultimately, his time in Burma would cost him the loss of seven children, numerous colleagues, and almost perpetual painful bodily maladies. Judson would not consider leaving, however. He said, “Life is short. Millions of Burmese are perishing. I am almost the only person on earth who has attained their language to communicate salvation.”5
”
”
J.D. Greear (Breaking the Islam Code: Understanding the Soul Questions of Every Muslim)
David Rooney (Burma Victory: Imphal, Kohima and the Chindits - March 1944 to May 1945 (Osprey Digital Generals))
“
Aung San spent the rest of 1940 in the Japanese capital, learning Japanese and apparently getting swept away in all the fascist euphoria surrounding him. “What we want is a strong state administration as exemplified in Germany and Japan. There shall be one nation, one state, one party, one leader . . . there shall be no nonsense of individualism. Everyone must submit to the state which is supreme over the individual . . . ,” he wrote in those heady days of the Rising Sun.8 He spoke Japanese, wore a kimono, and even took a Japanese name. He then sneaked back into Burma, landing secretly at Bassein. He changed into a longyi and then took the train unnoticed to Rangoon. He made contact with his old colleagues. Within weeks, in small batches and with the help of Suzuki’s secret agents in Rangoon, Aung San and his new select team traveled by sea to the Japanese-controlled island of Hainan, in the South China Sea. There were thirty in all—the Thirty Comrades—and they would soon be immortalized in nationalist mythology. Aung San at twenty-five was one of the three oldest. He took Teza meaning “Fire” as his nom de guerre. The other two took the names Setkya (A Magic Weapon) and Ne Win (the Bright Sun). All thirty prefixed their names with the title Bo. “Bo” meant an officer and had come to be the way all Europeans in Burma were referred to, signifying their ruling status. The Burmese were now to have their own “bo” for the first time since 1885. But six months of harsh Japanese military training still lay ahead. It wasn’t easy, and at one point some of the younger men were close to calling it quits. Aung San, Setkya, and Ne Win received special training, as they were intended for senior positions. But all had to pass through the same grueling physical tests, saluting the Japanese flag and learning to sing Japanese songs. They heard tales of combat and listened to Suzuki boasting of how he had killed women and children in Siberia.9 It was a bonding experience that would shape Burmese politics for decades to come.
”
”
Thant Myint-U (The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma)
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Independence Army (BIA) under Colonel Suzuki’s enthusiastic supervision. Suzuki himself had taken the Burmese nom de guerre Bo Mogyo, meaning “the Thunderbolt,” an astute choice that played on the (allegedly) old local prophecy that “the umbrella” (meaning “the British”) would eventually be struck down by “the thunderbolt.” Tokyo had yet to decide its Burma policy as both the
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Thant Myint-U (The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma)