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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #30 on: 03:39:09, 02-10-2007 » |
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George Monbiot has waded into the Burma Crisis, with a piece in the Guardian suggesting that blaming China is just a displacement activity to avoid confronting the actual problem: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2181658,00.html |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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George Garnett
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« Reply #31 on: 10:23:56, 02-10-2007 » |
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There is something odd emerging about "the West's" response to what is beginning to look, sadly, like a failed uprising against a particularly unpleasant military government. The condemnations of the crackdown have mostly come from 'the right' with 'the left' strangely quiet - or so it appears to me from reading as much as I can from a wide range of sources in recent days. Am I missing something? I can understand, without necessarily sharing, some mistrust on the left of the aims of Aung San Suu Kyi and her party but that hardly explains why there has not been more outright condemnation of the military junta's activities. This http://socialistworld.net/eng/2004/10/25burmab.html struck me as about the best leftist commentary on the situation that I could turn up but it's a bit of a lone voice. |
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« Last Edit: 10:33:28, 02-10-2007 by George Garnett »
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richard barrett
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« Reply #32 on: 10:54:04, 02-10-2007 » |
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There was also the article in Counterpunch I linked to yesterday. |
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #33 on: 11:21:23, 02-10-2007 » |
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with 'the left' strangely quiet - or so it appears to me from reading as much as I can from a wide range of sources in recent days. Am I missing something?
I suppose I don't read very widely on the "right", so perhaps I hadn't noticed this... do you think it could have to do with the Junta being - by their own claims, at least - a "left-wing" regime? Ne Win's original prescription for his country after 1962 was officially entitled "The Burmese Way To Socialism". It tolerated Buddhism provided that the element of selflessness was promoted (an argument, incidentally, that Buddhist monks had used to convince Lenin not to shut their monasteries down in 1917. Once Stalin came to power the monks were quickly liquidated.) |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #34 on: 19:26:15, 02-10-2007 » |
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This seems to be the latest from the BBC. Estimates are only going as far as 40 deaths, and there are no mentions of the thousands reported on the Daily Mail site. I suppose we can only hope that it isn't true, and that it won't come true. Gambari has met with General Than Shwe and Aung San Suu Kyi again. I'm assuming that he hasn't talked (or been allowed to talk) to any of the monks. Talking of the monks, they seem to be continuing to refuse alms from the military indicating that they have not given up. Given the numbers of their orders now imprisoned, this seems to be rather brave. India is encouraging the military to speed up the progress (?) towards democracy, which is something I suppose... Meanwhile, Israel has just admitted that it's bombed Syria, Gordon Brown's visited Iraq (and been accused of 'playing politics'... one is tempted to say something like 'OF COURSE HE IS! HE'S A POLITICIAN! IT'S HIS JOB! IF YOU WERE IN HIS POSITION YOU'D BE DOING EXACTLY THE SAME THING! WHY IS THIS NEWS?'), post offices are being shut down and the Portuguese police chief in charge of the Madeleine McCann case has been dismissed from the inquiry (because that will make a real difference). Oh yes, and you can have the Bible sent to your mobile, should you wish.There's a report here on the hardship faced by ordinary Burmese over the last forty years. Sobering reading. "The army", he said, "will never run out of bullets".
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #35 on: 21:35:11, 02-10-2007 » |
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Paul Reynolds talks about a 'recipe' for overthrowing an oppressive regime here and how the current situation in Burma has, up until now, failed to do this. In case you haven't got enough news from Burma, The Irawaddy News Magazine is another site giving headlines and opinions (though it should be said that I don't know how impartial it is). Be aware that there are some disturbing images on the front page. If anyone's interested in an article on Global Government Hypocrisy on Burma, click here. Apologies to anyone suffering from 'Burma fatigue'. |
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #36 on: 12:37:12, 04-10-2007 » |
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #37 on: 13:01:17, 04-10-2007 » |
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It's provided politicians elsewhere with a welcome diversion from their own problems to talk tosh about democracy and human rights in Burma, confident in the expectation that they will not have to do anything in Burma. Meantime the High Court today has had to subpoena the MOD to provide evidence about the suspicious death of an Iraqi Hotel Receptionist at the hands of UK "human-rights-loving" squaddies... after total intransigence from the MOD in providing this evidence voluntarily. When the highest levels of Government in Britain won't cooperate on trial evidence in a human rights case, the credibility with which Mr Miliband and Mr Brown talk so lucidly about human rights in Burma seems fatally flawed. Britain is also planning to compulsorily repatriate Burmese asylum-seekers who have fled the Rangoon junta. If the Burmese people are to get any help more than empty jabber, it's clearly not going to come from Britain  |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #38 on: 15:15:23, 04-10-2007 » |
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Britain is also planning to compulsorily repatriate Burmese asylum-seekers who have fled the Rangoon junta.
Oh good grief. |
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #39 on: 12:31:09, 05-10-2007 » |
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Britain is also planning to compulsorily repatriate Burmese asylum-seekers who have fled the Rangoon junta.
Oh good grief. And this is probably how they're going to do it. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article3028727.eceTraditional British values, anyone? |
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #40 on: 12:52:09, 05-10-2007 » |
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Thanks, PW. In the context of Burmese brutality, that report clearly shows that whatever Brown may say in public, in private he endorses exactly the same methodology. BTW, again in the context of Burmese, it's worth looking at the way China manages such things Most unusual to find this kind of material on Sky, considering who owns it. http://youtube.com/watch?v=x6M7NzTrrzs |
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« Last Edit: 13:04:32, 05-10-2007 by Reiner Torheit »
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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