Today’s New York Times report from Myanmar (or Burma, if you prefer) is in large measure the same old sad story of a country wracked by poverty and disease while its dictatorial elite has fun and makes money. The angle this time, at least in the lede, is the contrast between the ongoing rush for Myanmar’s natural gas reserves and the domestic penury of petrol and electricity. The article then opens onto a number of other topics; no scoops here, but a useful reminder of a situation that many have found easy to forget. It’s also a timely reminder, considering the imminent passage of the US-India nuclear deal, of the way great-power strategic considerations still trump more ethical goals; for all their differences in other areas, India and China are both big supporters of the Myanmar regime.

Also timely, considering our recent discussion of “citizen journalism” by means of camera-phone, is the article’s mention of video footage of the wedding of the Myanmar leader’s daughter that was smuggled out and posted by The Irrawaddy, a publication and website run largely by Burmese and based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Senior General Than Shwe has been the head guy in Myanmar for the past 14 years and apparently has given himself the airs of traditional Buddhist royalty, as several examples in the Times story attest. The wedding of his daughter Thandar Shwe to a mid-ranking government official involved a ceremony costing a reported $300,000 and, perhaps more egregiously, $50 million in houses and cars as gifts. Recently posted online, the video gives Burmese a specific target of outrage in the spirit of the great Bob Marley line, “Dem belly full but we hungry,” although how much it wil be seen within Myanmar is unclear.

I took a look at Irrawaddy.org and was extremely impressed by the coverage, analysis and professional values of the website; it can’t be all that easy reporting on a largely closed society and excavating the ties of its leadership with neighboring powers. Perhaps someone more versed on the subject can give more advanced commentary.

Meanwhile, watch the wedding video and what is striking is not so much the six fat ropes of diamonds that the bride wears, nor the train of her dress or the devoted attention of the dinner guests, but rather the sense of emptiness that the whole thing conveys. It seems to be held in an oversize function hall where the trappings of luxury have been grafted onto ultimately ordinary surroundings. The guests, the dinner tables, all look small and lonely and despite the lifting of bottles of Champagne it doesn’t seem like anyone (including the betrothed) is having much fun. The cheesy music only compounds the sense of tawdriness, even sadness, that suffuses the scene. Of course you don’t need to look as far as a paranoid dictatorship to find sensory evidence of the absolute, mind-numbing banality of power, but settings like this one display the phenomenon in its full, melancholy glory. The staging expresses the dialectic that binds the construction of power and spiritual decay, and supplies an updated, self-contained meaning to the term puppet regime. Continue reading →

The latest nationally recognized incident of excessive use of force by the LAPD police in Los Angeles (the third this week) came Tuesday night right here on the UCLA campus’ main library. Apparently UCLA has a policy by which they do random ID checks at the library after 11 p.m. That’s all good, since it is for the benefit of student safety. That’s what started this incident:

According to a campus police report, the incident began when community service officers, who serve as guards at the library, began their nightly routine of checking to make sure everyone using the library after 11 p.m. is a student or otherwise authorized to be there…

When [Mostafa] Tabatabainejad, 23, refused to provide his ID to the community service officer, the officer told him he would have to show it or leave the library, the report said.

After repeated requests, the officer left and returned with campus police, who asked Tabatabainejad to leave “multiple times,” according to a statement by the UCLA Police Department.

“He continued to refuse,” the statement said. “As the officers attempted to escort him out, he went limp and continued to refuse to cooperate with officers or leave the building.”

Witnesses disputed that account, saying that when campus police arrived, Tabatabainejad had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack. When an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, the witnesses said, Tabatabainejad told the officer to let go, yelling “Get off me” several times.

“Tabatabainejad encouraged library patrons to join his resistance,” police said. “The officers deemed it necessary to use the Taser.”

Officers stunned Tabatabainejad, causing him to fall to the floor. [Link]

Continue reading →

Via DesiPundit, I came across a string of news articles and posts on Tenzin Tsundue, a talented activist poet and essayist of Tibetan extraction; in 2001 he won the Picador Outlook Non-Fiction essay prize for this moving piece of work. Tsundue was also born on Indian soil, and is therefore Indian in somewhat the same sense as I consider myself American. But with a difference: Tsundue’s people, the many thousands of Tibetans who have taken refuge in India, are effectively denationalized. They aren’t full Indian citizens (though legally they ought to be), and they can’t go back to a home country that doesn’t exist anymore.

In 2002, Tsundue got attention in the Indian and international media when he took advantage of a construction ladder and climbed the outside of a fourteen story building (Express Towers) directly facing the Oberoi Towers in Nariman Point, Mumbai. The Chinese Premier was in town, and when he and his delegation arrived at their posh, high-rise hotel, they were undoubtedly chagrined to see Tsundue in the building directly across, unfurling a 30 foot “Free Tibet” banner stitched together entirely out of Chinese flags. (More details)

One of the interesting comments Tsundue made at that time was in response to the danger he faced as hotel security officials were threatening to drop a materials lift above his head on him, when he refused to come down: “‘I did not worry about the threat being carried out, knowing that I was in India and not in China,’ he said.”

Telling words; are they true? The Indian government has recently placed a restraining order on Tsundue in connection with Hu Jintao’s coming visit to India (see Nitin Pai’s outraged post on this). Tsundue has been ordered not to leave Dharmsala during the Chinese Premier’s visit — on threat of deportation to Tibet! It’s understandable that the Indian government would want to protect the Chinese delegation from intrusive protesters, but I think Tsundue ought to have the right to go to Delhi and express his opposition to the Chinese occupation, especially since we know that Tsundue and other Tibetans will do so peacefully. India may be worlds away from China on matters of personal freedom and respect for human rights, but as this case shows, it’s still far from perfect.

One other thing: Nitin points out that the Indian news-media has yet to pick up this story. I did find something on “Telugu Portal,” but otherwise it’s mainly newspapers in places like Malaysia that are covering the story. [Update: There has been some coverage.] Continue reading →