Comments on: Justin Wintle’s response to Robert Taylor

By: Samantha Goat

Samantha Goat — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 01:28:48 +0000

Welcome to the deep dark night of self-imposed ignorance, Kulap!

By: Justin Wintle

Justin Wintle — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:49:35 +0000

Burmese Songkok — my heart goes out to you in your Bangkok wanderings. I cannot nor would not presume to speak for Professor Taylor, but our exchange is a bit more than mere ‘academic musings’ I hope you will allow. Indeed I am not an academic. I write about your country out of genuine concern and anxiety, and just wish I could do more to help. It is important I think, in this era of fast-track globalisation, for people outside Burma to maintain awareness of what goes on inside Burma alive at every opportunity. I am a historian, not an activist, but I know where my sympathies lie, and by expressing my sympathies I hope to have some impact — however minimal — on my own and other governments’ policies. There is I fear no quick fix, but when the military regime does disintegrate, as one day it surely must, then there will be no shortage of willing and modestly informed hands to help repair the damage done to all your people by Than Shwe and his murderous crew. I know compassion from afar is a small thing, but it is compassiomn nonetheless, and a corollary of metta, loving kindness. All this apart, cheers to you for quoting those wonderful lines by Mesrs. Campbell and Connelly. JW

By: Burmese Songkok

Burmese Songkok — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 07:41:57 +0000

I like it when two white boys argue over who is right and who is wrong in their academic musings. Unlike Prof. Taylor, I can’t even go back to the land of my birth. Instead, I wander around the streets of Bangkok in drunken stupor, daydreaming of going home and ever whispering the words of James Campbell and Reginald Connelly to anyone that will lend an ear:

“Show me the way to go home
I’m tired and I want to go to bed
I had a little drink about an hour ago
And it got right to my head
Where ever I may roam
On land or sea or foam
You will always hear me singing this song
Show me the way to go home”

By: Kulap

Kulap — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 20:41:21 +0000

What a gasbag.

I won’t even glance at his book.

By: Grasshopper

Grasshopper — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 11:14:08 +0000

Justin, Professor Taylor: Shouldn’t this have taken place at Kyauktada long ago in the European Club? The bad flaw is that we are arguing over this while young people in Burma/Myanmar are subjected to histories of essentialist bilge. The bad flaw is that on decolonization in 1948, 11 months later the UDHR was adopted yet there was no responsibility directed toward Britain to leave Burma/Myanmar in a suitable state for issues of identity to be non-existent. The bad flaw is that your fellow Oxonian’s and elites in British society, like Viscount Cranbourne, a shareholder in Premier Oil, have the audacity to preach civilized conduct and the virtues of human rights; yet privately have perpetuated, justified the extortion of the socio-economic futures of people in the Burma/Myanmar region whilst maintaining a neo-colonialist image for the Junta to exploit and extend its monist tentacles.

But really the most overt bad flaw (because we can take responsibility for it) is that people with considerable vocabularies spend time justifying foreign policy exceptionalism with conceptions of liberal morality conveniently enough to maintain their own status in cosmopolitanism. The very same cosmopolitanism which can pass off any thesis proposal, concerning peoples who are potentially able to take responsibility of their regions future AND perhaps forgive the incredible arrogance of those fore-father colonizers, as simply one of many ‘interesting’ propositions. The only way is engagement, and after the last 20 years of deliberation such as this, we only have ourselves to blame.

Spend the years of learning squandering
Courage for the years of wandering
Through a world politely turning
From the loutishness of learning

By: Suriyon Raiwa

Suriyon Raiwa — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 09:59:55 +0000

Thanks for this, Mr Wintle.

Your comment, with reference to THE STATE IN BURMA, that the “account of the regime instituted by General Ne Win in 1962 is curiously bloodless” is very much on the mark, and the tone of such a concluding chapter would be curious even if the Socialist Period in Burma had not been a socio-economic failure. When the book first appeared, there were stories in academic circles about Prof Taylor’s having be pressured to add that last chapter, allegedly by his publisher and implicitly against his will. Unclear how accurate those stories were, but your point does make one await the new chapter or chapters due to appear in THE STATE IN MYANMAR with some interest.

Might I urge you to contribute to New Mandala more often?