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Post by haplotype on Oct 8, 2007 10:08:18 GMT -5
It doesn't matter where the negative press is coming from on Suu Kyi, The important thing is that I have access to it here in the West - information which you said is being systematically deleted in the West. Just as Burmese have had access to anti-junta information on the net, except for a few days last week. Wikipedia did delete her son's dropping out from Georgetown University, and it took considerable digging to find the old version. Our so-called "free media" is, after all, run by journalists and editors with their biases, agendas. Can a pro-junta journalist expect any media outlet in the West to publish their views today? en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aung_San_Suu_Kyi&oldid=159602587As opposed to how you started out saying "Why don't you think she herself personally is not a saint?" It turns out you do acknowledge negative information about her. That can be changed if Western nations will allow civilians to participate in the global economy.
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cm
Junior Member
Posts: 68
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Post by cm on Oct 8, 2007 10:44:43 GMT -5
I don't think it would be better. I think it would be equally worse. It's a 3rd world country and it's proven that democracies and 3rd world countries mix poorly. So, if the choice is being poor and free OR being poor and oppressed, which one do you think is better? When you are hungry and you are selling your daughter for sex to feed the family, I don't think you have time to worry about 'freedom'.
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Post by waywardwolf on Oct 8, 2007 16:45:22 GMT -5
I deleted my last comment because it wasn't worth it, a typical anarchist argument of an irrelevant question. Questions should be asked to learn something so..
To those who argue against democracy in Burma, is it because you don't think they're capable of making politcal decisions and the country would fall apart? Or that in this day and age freedom isn't worth the death caused by fighting for it? I'm having a hard time figuring out why juancarlos is having to argue this.. would anyone make these points to someone you wanted to like you, say a girl/boy friend or is this an internet argument alone? You have to admit, watching the monks rally in peaceful protest and than get shot for it, most people aren't saying, "I hope they stop this and just leave well enough alone." Granted most people don't have a mind for politics, I can't stand them myself, but if you met with one of these monks, would you tell them to just leave the Burmese government be?
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Post by waywardwolf on Oct 8, 2007 17:29:17 GMT -5
^Mmm.. Well, I would certainly agree that just because it's a democracy it wouldn't be better, but I couldn't make any predictions about how it would change for better or worse.
edit: removed yet more anarchical malarky.
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Post by haplotype on Oct 8, 2007 18:46:54 GMT -5
The Western World assumes by knee-jerk reflex that Buddhist monks are peaceful democrats. But anti-government insurgents in the Middle East also espouse the same principle of religious devoutness. Will Burma really become a freer, more tolerant place when monks take over, or will they just be a gang of Taliban thugs in orange robes? Westerners have been brainwashed to believe that Tibetans are "peaceful", but the reality is that Tibet before the Chinese invasion was a bloodthirsty place where monks from different sects fought each other all the time, women had no property rights, and polyandry was practiced -- i.e. 12-y.o. girls were sold to families and had multiple husbands. This left most women unmarried for life, condemned to a life of poverty, while those "lucky" enough to marry had to serve multiple men. Tibetans never bathed, and their lifestyles had many parallels with Afghanistan under the Taliban -- people underwent savage punishments for minor infractions, girls were not allowed to go to school, and the vast majority of the population was illiterate. Over the course of history, Tibetans repeatedly conquered parts of Han China, in alliance with the Mongols.
Next to Burma, there are countries such as Nepal or Bhutan that have just as undemocratic systems of government, yet they strangely escape Western criticism. While Burma has some semblance of modern government and progress-oriented values, Nepal and Bhutan are openly royalist, anti-progress societies where only people born to certain castes are deemed worthy of education or health care. It is in Nepal, not Burma, where 9-y.o. girls are designated as state-sponsored sex godesses; yet Western criticism is virtually non-existent. Bhutan and Nepal have populations of unwelcome refugees that are treated no better than minorities in Burma, yet nobody cares about them.
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Post by waywardwolf on Oct 8, 2007 19:05:34 GMT -5
The Western World assumes by knee-jerk reflex that Buddhist monks are peaceful democrats. Uh... I assumed they were peaceful because they demonstrated peacefully, even after they were shot at, urging people not to follow them or commit violent acts towards the Burmese government.
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Post by haplotype on Oct 8, 2007 19:13:38 GMT -5
Uh... I assumed they were peaceful because they demonstrated peacefully, even after they were shot at, urging people not to follow them or commit violent acts towards the Burmese government. Even Western media acknowledged that monk demonstrations were not necessarily peaceful. In some cities, monks set fire to shopping districts. Most of the monks were disenfranchised teenagers; older, more mature monks stayed away from the protests.
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Post by waywardwolf on Oct 8, 2007 19:39:43 GMT -5
At the risk of exposing my ignorance, I haven't heard that. Could you point me in that direction? No videos if you could help it, I've got a 26kbps connection.
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Post by jericho on Oct 9, 2007 3:42:59 GMT -5
Why does everyone assume Suu Kyi is some sort of saint, though? She got famous only because she married an Oxford professor who used his influence to portray her as a Burmese Gandhi. Her father started out founding the Communist Party of Burma, was on his way to get help from China, but Japanese intelligence agents convinced him to convert to fascism, so he went to Japan to get military training, and helped the Japanese conquer Burma. When the Japanese started losing, he became an "independence fighter". If her dad wasn't assassinated, would Burma have been any less authoritarian? Or would he have become the Kim Il Sung of Southeast Asia? Suu Kyi's supporters are basically following her father's personality cult. The people in Rangoon adore her. I was in Bogyoke market and she was there, we had to get away because there was an enormous gathering of people who wanted to see her. The MPs weren't too far behind to get people to disperse. 'Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.'
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Post by juancarlos on Oct 9, 2007 4:47:42 GMT -5
So, if the choice is being poor and free OR being poor and oppressed, which one do you think is better? When you are hungry and you are selling your daughter for sex to feed the family, I don't think you have time to worry about 'freedom'. Well, which is worse: a. being hungry; OR b. being hungry and not knowing if a military junta's gonna take me to jail the next day to execute me.
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Post by juancarlos on Oct 9, 2007 4:49:54 GMT -5
Uh... I assumed they were peaceful because they demonstrated peacefully, even after they were shot at, urging people not to follow them or commit violent acts towards the Burmese government. Even Western media acknowledged that monk demonstrations were not necessarily peaceful. In some cities, monks set fire to shopping districts. Most of the monks were disenfranchised teenagers; older, more mature monks stayed away from the protests. Oh yes, please provide your credible sources. I'm dying to know. And enough of making outrageous assumptions (i.e. "most of the Mariel immigrants turned out to be common criminals") that turn out to be completely false.
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Post by haplotype on Oct 9, 2007 4:57:08 GMT -5
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Post by juancarlos on Oct 9, 2007 5:06:05 GMT -5
Your second article simply says: Fires burn on the streets of Yangon, Myanmar, on Sept. 26 as demonstrators and Buddhist monks in cinnamon robes take to the streets. It does not say that the Buddhist monks caused the fires. Lol. So, who do you think is more evil: Suu Kyi or the military junta?
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Post by waywardwolf on Oct 9, 2007 5:50:54 GMT -5
Yeah, the second article doesn't say the monks started the fires. I actually did hear of the first article, which I found surprising, but not disconcerting. However, what I did not hear of, and did find rather disconcerting was the third article.. Not so much the quote you laid out, but the paragraph it came from.
By 12:30 p.m., hundreds of monks, students, and other Rangoon residents approached the police, stood in the road and began to pray. Then the soldiers and police began pulling monks from the crowd, targeting the leaders, striking both monks and ordinary people with canes. Several smoke bombs exploded and the riot police charged. The monks and others fought back with sticks and rocks. Many others ran, perhaps four or five of them bleeding from minor head wounds. A car was set alight — by the soldiers, some protesters claimed — and then there was the unmistakable crack of live ammunition: the soldiers were shooting into the air.
"They are not Buddhists," cried one student, who clutched half a brick in his hand, running from the smoke. "They are not humans. We were praying peacefully and they beat us. They beat the monks, even the old ones." An 80-year-old monk stood with the student, bleeding from a baton gash on his shaven head. “
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Post by haplotype on Oct 9, 2007 5:51:39 GMT -5
sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20070926/tap-myanmar-protest-monks-2a5be5e.html"After tolerating more than a week of protests, police opened fire and baton-charged protesters who had begun to gather at the Shwedagon Pagoda in the blazing noon sunshine.... The report said security forces had used loudspeakers to ask the crowd to disperse but that the protesters had hurled stones and sticks at them, tried to steal their weapons, and set fire to two military motorcycles." Myanmar junta seizes monks' weapons www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1008Myanmar1008.htmlwww.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1665607,00.html?xid=feed-cnn-topics "One monk raised his hands to the heavens and shouted, "The rain is coming! The soldiers will be struck by lightning!" But, a woman retorted, "Lightning is not enough. They deserve more." A cheer goes up with each subsequent clap of thunder. A pause came upon the battle. The monks regrouped at a nearby monastery to march downtown. But first came a chilling display of the people's anger — and the monks' moral influence. A man on a motorcycle rode up. Motorcycles have been banned in Rangoon for years, ever since — the story goes — the paranoid generals fear being shot by assassins riding one of them. Most people on motorcycles are therefore assumed to be spies. Thus sensing an enemy, the mob pounced. The man was pulled off his bike and set upon by students and people armed with wooden sticks. "Beat him!" they cried. "Kill him!" Quickly, the monks intervened and ushered him away to the safety of a nearby monastery. The mob, however, set upon his motorbike with clubs and rocks, smashing it to bits. " www.newagebd.com/2007/sep/07/inat.html"Local and security officials had come to the Aletaik monastery early Thursday to apologise for the violence, but the monks set four of their cars on fire and took about 20 people hostage, residents said. Five of the hostages were released after about five hours, and the others were freed 45 minutes later, residents said by telephone. Outside the gates to the monastery, which is home to about 700 monks, hundreds of people had gathered to applaud their anti-government action, residents said. Young monks finally decided to end the standoff, opening the gates out of concern for the health of a senior abbot, who needed to receive food and medicine, one resident said. The monks flipped over the last two cars belonging to the officials and forced their captives to exit by foot through a back door, he added."
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