the citizen-viewer

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“Never before has this happened,” said Anthony Bykerk, the secretary general of the International Society of Olympic Historians, of the protests surrounding the Olympic torch. “This is the first time that the torch relay has ever been an element of protest — it’s usually a very big celebration.”

While protests and political agendas have often come to the forefront during and leading up to Olympics, said Bykerk, the events of the past couple of days — and the San Francisco incident — are especially troubling.

“This is worse because now they are protesting against the torch relay, which has nothing to do with politics but is supposed to be a symbol of unity — not used as protest,” said Bykerk. “If these people want to protest against the human rights question in Tibet, they should have done it 50 years ago.”

…lazy citizen-viewer lets Mitch Benn do the work.

SaveDarfur.org

A citizen-viewer asks why the term “Burma” is used in this space rather than “Myanmar”, the name adopted by the current regime in 1989. Since this question comes up frequently, here’s the answer — with the caveat that the whole question is only symbolic.

First, some background.

It may well be more common among people in Burma to call their country, in writing, something like Myanmar. There is also a long history of Burmese calling the country, in speech, something that sounds more like “Burma” (or Bamar), possibly because the Burmans are by far the largest ethnic group (and they would be even more dominant if you exclude the Shan, who really should have their own country).

Although the derivation of “Myanmar” is unclear, one possibility is that Myanmar and Burma are simply variant pronunciation of the same name. In neighboring countries — at least in Thailand and Cambodia — Burma has been known for ages as “Bama” or something close to that, just as Cambodians know Thailand as “Siem” (and used that term long before the British started calling it “Siam”).

Then the SLORC comes along via a 1962 coup d’etat and renames Burma “Myanmar”, probably in part to appeal to the dominant Burman ethnic group and presumably to gain sympathy among foreigners by making an anti-imperialist move.

Funny thing, though — the movement that actually won independence for Burma, led by Suu Kyi’s dad and others, and then became the government (and a relatively legitimate one), didn’t bother to make this change, though there was ample opportunity (1948-62). In contrast, the ostensibly anti-imperialist SLORC (under its new name, SPDC) is busily turning Burma into a far-flung province of China.

Like the SLORC, the Khmer Rouge tried to gain legitimacy by insisting on a new proper name, in that case Kampuchea, saying that it was the name in local usage.

In the case of Burma, the NLD and its allies won elections in 1990 by a landslide — about 90% — only to have the SLORC annull the results and declare martial law, which persists today. The closest thing to a legitimate representation of the Burmese people’s collective will, the NLD and the government-in-exile, agree that the country’s name is still Burma.

Let’s imagine that sections of the US military, supported by countless highly paid Blackwater contractors, overthrow the government in Washington. Many members of Congress who oppose the coup are rounded up and killed. Election results are anulled, and when the population rises up, heavily armed troops massacre thousands and imprison tens of thousands more. The new regime announces that the country shall henceforth have a new name, let’s say, “Karlrovia”. Surviving members of Congress, as a government-in-exile, continue to call their country “the United States of America”.

Should citizen-viewers the world over switch right over to “Karlrovia”? Would the now enslaved former Americans like to be called Karlrovians? Would you call them Karlrovians? If your answer is yes, then you should certainly call Burma “Myanmar”.

The point is that it doesn’t matter what the SPDC wants us to call Burma. Burma is the name until it is changed by a legitimate government. It is the SPDC alone that has prevented Burma from having a legitimate government. All they have to do is turn the government back over to the people, and then the people can freely decide what they want their country’s name to be.

In the meantime, it’s probably safe to assume that most Burmese people are far more interested in having us foreigners help them in their aspirations for freedom than in having us call their country by one name or another.

Please support the uprising in Burma by making a donation to givetoburma.org.

Givetoburma.org is run by people who have channels to get money into Burma to support basic needs for the brave protesters such as food, drinking water, medicine and robes.

This is the fastest and most effective way for citizen-viewers to help. Do it now.

Citizen-viewer KT writes regarding the situation in Burma:

The latest - strategically brilliant - monk-led demonstrations could possibly actually bring about change in Burma. If the monks can maintain their impetus, the junta will be forced to make some sort of move, either towards conciliation and compromise or by a repeat of their 1988 tactics. People here on the border are the most optimistic I’ve seen ever since I got here.

So far the protests have been gaining momentum daily, and the generals seem to be just hoping people’ll get bored and go away. They have arrested the main student leaders, but are afraid to touch the monks. However the possibility of another 88 mass bloodbath is high. This, aside from the cost in lives, would likely set back the opportunity for change another 19 years.

Pressure needs to be applied to the generals to negotiate: release political prisoners including the leaders of the 88 Generation Student Group and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, lower fuel prices, hold tripartite dialogue, vanish.

I’m not quite sure what can be done from NZ or wherever you are, but please do something, either to show your support for the people in Burma protesting, and/or to let the generals know that brute repression is unacceptable.

Here’s a few vague ideas:

- Media. I assume there’s very little about events in Burma in NZ. Those of you with access to media sources, can you make sure Burma is being adequately reported and analysed?

- Most Burmese are avid listeners to BBC world service, DVB and VOA Burmese language services. Do something that makes the international media showing solidarity for the protestors. If anyone is contemplating burning effigies of General Than Shwe or some such, make sure you tell BBC, DVB and VOA Burmese language services about it.

- There is a nascent boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympics movement to try to stop China’s support for the regime. Pressure here could be very effective.

- Monks make great stencil images. Use dark orange spraypaint.

- A sharply worded letter from the Anarchist Alliance of Aotearoa to General Than Shwe is likely to cause him a few restless nights. Perhaps those of you with entree to government circles might suggest that they send one too.

- If you’re in touch with senior figures in the UN, US State Department, Bavarian Illuminati or CAC, tell them that now’s a good time to DO SOMETHING USEFUL to justify their bloated salaries.

At 10:44 AM 9/11/01 -0400, Rich wrote:

I saw both towers collapse from my rooftop, the second one just a few minutes ago. Battery Park is all dust and smoke and I could see the cloud spread along the ground and puff up between buildings a mile away. I’m afraid this will change a lot of things. There must have been tens of thousands of people in those buildings. It’s beyond belief. I have to get to work right away. Don’t try to call for now because all the circuits are busy.
love to all of you,
Rich

The second building was hit 18 minutes after the first, but the second collapsed first, maybe 30-40 minutes after it was hit. The first one took more than an hour to collapse. There hasn’t been much information, but I’m afraid that a lot of people didn’t make it out. From my view, hundreds of people must have been killed immediately, and then the fire and smoke filled large parts of the tops of the buildings. Maybe people below that were able to get out, but people above would have had a hard time. The damage was tremendous. When the second one collapsed, the top just fell straight down and crushed the rest of the building at least down to the 30th floor or so. And then there were all the people on the planes, and the other planes like the one that crashed in Pennsylvania and the one that hit the Pentagon. One of the art directors here was on the Boston plane that hit the WTC.

I was on my rooftop because after I heard the second crash, I turned on the radio and they said the towers were hit. So I went up to see it. What an awful thing.

From Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane, June 28.

Marty Moss-Coane: Do you think though that there’s anything that can be done to promote unity in Iraq, or is it frankly too late?

Ambassador Michael Bell: It’s too late. And I know that that’s difficult for us in the West to accept, because we were brought up with an—I think particularly in the United States—with a belief system that says, you know we can solve it, there’s got to be a way, somehow we will find that way, we just have to to think better, we just have to coordinate better and we will find it. I think, you know I’ve spent thirty-plus years dealing with the Middle East and sometimes there just is no solution. And it’s hard to accept, but that’s the reality.

He’s captured something that the citizen-viewers have been slowly coming to grips with.

Bell has served as Canada’s ambassador to Egypt, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and he chaired the donor committee of the International Reconstruction Fund Facility for Iraq.

Listen to the interview on WHYY’s Radio Times

Read Bell’s opinion piece from the Toronto Globe & Mail

Now that Paul Wolfowitz has accepted the obvious and finished dragging the World Bank through a humiliating pretense that he’s not leaving for any particular reason (for example abusing his position to financially reward his girlfriend), it’s finally time for President to pick a new head of the Bank.

Time to clean house, you might think. A new direction, a different approach. At least, time to pick someone who really knows the Bank’s business and doesn’t arrive with the kind of ideological baggage that made Wolfowitz such a juicy target. Someone who isn’t a recycled, discredited neocon hack.

And that’s how it’s being played in the papers, as Bush has presented us with Robert Zoellick.

Take your pick of the lead stories about the selection and you’ll see a similar laudatory tone, puffed up by a sense of deep relief that the Wolfowitz debacle is finally ending. Zoellick’s single most appealing characteristic is that he’s not Wolfowitz.

Reuters describes him as a consensus builder, a “top foreign policy advisor to Bush” who “has wide-ranging interests and expertise and has studied and commented on events in Europe, Asia and Latin America.” Wow, sounds like a winner!

The Minneapolis Strib fairly enthuses: “The selection of Zoellick appeared far less controversial than when Bush chose Wolfowitz, then the No. 2 official at the Pentagon. His role in the Iraq war upset Europeans and others.”

The problem is that it’s not clear that he’s not Wolfowitz. A long-time Bush loyalist and White House insider? Check. A man whose intellect is admired but who is known for his arrogance? Check.

But the darkest shadow on Zoellick’s prospects at the World Bank is that he joined Wolfowitz and others in writing to President Clinton in 1998 the famous letter generated by the Project for the New American Century:

The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.

We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your Administration’s attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam’s regime from power. We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.

We urge you to act decisively. If you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country.

Sure looks like more of the same.