Cronyism 101 Taught by the Master: Indonesia's Suharto

Brendan I. Koerner reports in the 26 March 2004 edition of Slate:

How Did Suharto Steal $35 Billion? - Cronyism 101

Mohamed Suharto has received a dubious honor from Transparency International, which named the former Indonesian president the most corrupt world leader of the past 20 years. With his family's takings estimated at between $15 billion and $35 billion, Suharto topped such notorious kleptocrats as Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines ($5 billion to $10 billion) and Nigeria's Sani Abacha ($2 billion to $5 billion). How did the longtime Indonesian strongman amass his wealth?

Sssh! I'm working with Madame Abacha (and the Bank of Equatorial Guinea) to recapture a big percentage of her husband's ill-gotten wealth. Unfortunately, Ibu Tien Suharto ("Madame Ten Percent") failed to outlive her husband.

Through a system that his political opponents called KKN, the Indonesian acronym for "corruption, collusion, nepotism" [korupsi, kolusi, nepotisme]. Suharto handed control of state-run monopolies to family members and friends, who in turn kicked back millions in tribute payments. Those payments were usually cloaked as charitable donations to the dozens of foundations overseen by Suharto. Known as yayasans, these organizations were supposed to assist with the constructions of rural schools and hospitals but instead functioned as Suharto's personal piggy banks. Doling out millions to one of the foundations was simply part of the cost of doing business in Indonesia during much of Suharto's 32-year reign. Financial institutions were ordered to contribute a portion of their annual profits to a yayasan, for example, and wealthy Indonesians were expected to "tithe" a certain percentage of their salaries.

Australians to Help Monitor Indonesian Elections

CANBERRA (AP): Australia will send a delegation of lawmakers to monitor next week's elections in Indonesia, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on Tuesday....

"Australia has committed up to A$15 million ($US11 million) to support the Indonesian government in running this election," Downer said.

Indonesians go to the polls on April 5 to elect a 550-seat legislature....

With nearly 17,000 islands to cover, Indonesian election officials have had to transport ballot papers to remote areas by air force planes, boat, and in some cases, donkeys.

Morobe Field Diary, October 1976: Two Canoe Experiences

I paddled the kaunsil out to the [M.V.] Sago when we were loading ready to leave Kela and some people waiting for me to cross their path said, in reference to me, masta kanaka, i.e. a 'native' whiteman with all the paradox in Tok Pisin that it has in English--maybe more. That is the story I'll leave behind when I go, I suppose. A story about oneself is the means to immortality here--along with children--not publication. My singsinging at the church assembly gave another chapter of the story to many people there. Maybe it's the kind of story this country needs more of.

Today I decided to paddle out and dump some junk left over from a coconut tree that was cluttering up the beach in front of my house and attracting dog piss. First I loaded the heavy stuff, climbed in overloading one end and swamped the bugger. Then I redistributed along the length and climbed in again to discover the outrigger was overloaded and submerged so I could only go in circles. Shit, plenty room for pitfalls in these uncomplicated-looking canoes. Then I paddled my weaving, meandering way out past the reef. The uneven drag of an outrigger canoe still gets me. I can get where I want to go but not without a good deal of worry and no grace at all.

Morobe Field Diary, October 1976: Singsing Toktok

The comforts of the village are not to be decried when compared to what I have just been thru. The past week I've lived under the same inadequate roof with about 2 dozen men, women & children without adequate bathing facilities and a latrine in the bush that no one dared venture into at nite for fear of snakes. You had to save your shits for the day time and piss on the beach (10 feet away) at nite. We didn't have a floor so we had to shake out sand before laying out our mats at nite.

The compensation for all this was the sam (< Jabim) (= Nu. bada Eng. 'festival, market'). I performed in a war singsing (mock) when our guys singsinged our way down the beach before maybe 1000 people encamped in about the same style we were (but most with floors). During the day there were other singsings, people to meet, stores to spend money carefully reserved for the occasion, church meetings. But most of all, at least for the younger people it was singsing time. There was almost always one going on somewhere until the Saturday of the major meeting word went out that singsings were prohibited until the meetings were over. People who joined the Numbamis from town were disappointed but they managed to squeeze one in between the end of the meetings on Sunday and the time the [M.V.] Sago came to carry them to town.

After my initial frolic I had had enough of being stared at and sat out the rest of the singsings, especially after I burnt my foot, broke the blister singsinging and then tore off the skin & washed it in methylated spirits (for starting Coleman lamps) & had difficulty walking on it for several days. I began to suffer from lack of privacy and quiet after about 3 days and it got acute before we left the sam. All the time I was hearing Numbami spoken around me. It wasn't the language so much as the vast quantity of it. If the culture is aperture-oriented [referring to the fact that the names of body parts with holes all end in awa 'hole' (> -owa), as in tanganowa 'ear', nisinowa 'nose', etc.], it's mainly concentrated on the oral one. Everyone was in a festive mood and the time not actually spent singsinging was often spent singing the lyrics & beating the drums.

When I was informed we wouldn't go back directly but that we would stop at Kela (with whom we helped host part of the visiting delegates) for a post-celebration singsing and feast, I was in a foul, foul mood. Constant noise is something I don't endure well in any culture. It's odd how my feelings toward the people I was with changed. At first, and usually, I felt the greatest affection for them all and consider them a remarkable bunch in general. But, after being worn down a bit, I began to dwell on all their bad points: their compulsive talkativeness (with some notable & much appreciated exceptions), their demandingness, the persistence of some in addressing me as bumewe 'masta, whiteman, foreigner' rather than by name. [And here I was doing the same to "them"!]

When compared to the Kelas, who were unfamiliar with me, the Numbamis interact with me much more naturally--sometimes I'm even allowed to blend into the woodwork. One time, I was even forgotten when food was served out and didn't get the first plate as I almost invariably do. Believe me, for two or three days I was doing my best to blend into the woodwork. What happened at Kela (Kila, Keila) was that they said they wanted to buy the #1 favorite Nu. singsing--the baluga, a slow, somewhat stately, and very impressive singsing that the Numbamis perform very well. It's a favorite of mine too. The Numbamis bought it (for the price of a feast--and no ordinary meal either) from the Garainas (some of whom performed it at the Lae Show and of which I have photos). They, in turn, sold the rights to perform it to the Ya (also Kela speaking) people (who were said to perform it badly) and now the Kelas bought it for vast quantities of taro and two pigs--enough for all of us and the people left back in the village too. It's kind of like a royalties payment so that performances will be official and, supposedly, of better quality than just a singsing nating ['nothing singsing'].

Funny thing about the sam--a meeting of the Yabim district--where Yabim should be the lingua franca if any--is that all the program was in Tok Pisin. Yabim was only unofficially the lingua franca of the older set.

Buruma's Pessimistic Assessment of China

Traveling in China, one easily picks up the rank smell of political decay. I left Beijing more convinced than ever that Communist Party rule would end, but without any better sense of how this might happen. The peaceful revolutions in Taiwan, South Korea, and Eastern Europe give no firm clues. Circumstances are not the same. I do not share the optimism of those who cling to the hope that the Chinese, in their infinite subtlety, will find a slow, gentle road to the Fifth Modernization [= Democracy], shepherded by the Communist Party. The KMT [Kuomintang = Nationalist Party] did it in Taiwan, but the Chinese Communist Party is not the KMT. Whatever it is that brings this rotting regime to an end, one can only hope it will be peaceful. But hope is not the same as expectation.

SOURCE: Bad Elements: Chinese Rebels from Los Angeles to Beijing, by Ian Buruma (Vintage, 2001), p. 337

Wei Jingsheng's Epiphany

If the world of intellectuals can be divided, as Isaiah Berlin once argued, between foxes, who know many things, and hedgehogs, who know one big thing, Wei [Jingsheng] is clearly a hedgehog. The one conviction he guards like a precious jewel, and about which he is lucid, always serious, and willing to stake his life, he had already expressed clearly in his 1978 manifesto on the Democracy Wall in Beijing. It goes to the heart of the Chinese problem. "History," he wrote, "shows that there must be a limit to the amount of trust conferred upon any individual. Anyone seeking the unconditional trust of the people is a person of unbridled ambition. The important thing is to select the right sort of person to put one's trust in, and even more important is how such a person is to be supervised in carrying out the will of the majority. We can trust only those representatives who are supervised by us and responsible to us. Such representatives should be chosen by us and not thrust upon us."

Wei Jingsheng was twenty-nine when he wrote that. Memories of Mao worship and its millions upon millions of victims, humiliated, maimed, and tortured to death, were still raw. The statement is as simple as it is true. And Wei has stuck to it. He is often accused of being out of touch with developments in China, of not recognizing the changes that economic reforms, carried out while he was in prison, have brought. But if one believes, as Wei does, that only political change which guarantees the right to criticize and to vote will do, such reforms are beside the point, for they fail to address the main problem. He argues, simply, bluntly, doggedly, at times megalomaniacally, that without democracy--not "socialist" democracy or "people's" democracy--the Chinese cycle of violence, followed by tyranny, will never be broken.

The way a former Maoist fanatic arrived at this conclusion has been described by Wei himself, as well as by his perhaps too admiring biographer, the German journalist Jürgen Kremb. That he was once a fanatic is clear from his own account: He had wrecked "bourgeois" homes, dragged out "rightists" for public interrogations, and spouted devotional Maoist maxims ever since he was a child, when his father made him learn a new page of Mao's writings every day. Wei was among the first wave of middle school students to become a Red Guard but also, it seems, among the first to have doubts. Some of the stages of Wei's intellectual journey from total belief in communism to total disbelief have taken on an almost mythical status. Most poignant, perhaps, is Wei's glimpse of the naked girl.

To make it easier for the young to spread revolutionary terror all over China, Red Guards were allowed to travel by train free of charge. Wei hopped on a train sometime in 1966, bound for the northwest. When the train pulled into the city of Lanzhou, he was shocked to see children swarming outside the window begging for food. A middle-aged man, sharing his compartment, said they were probably children of landlords, "rightists," and other "bad elements," and deserved to starve.

The barren northwestern landscape became more desolate by the mile after the train left Lanzhou. It stopped at a windswept little station so insignificant that it did not even have a platform. Again, the crying and whimpering of beggars drew Wei's attention. He leaned out of the window. One girl, of about seventeen, her face covered in soot and her long hair caked with dirt, raised her arms, begging for something to eat. She appeared to be dressed in a filthy rag. The middle-aged man sniggered and said girls like that would do anything you fancied for a few crumbs of food. Suddenly Wei pulled back from the window in shock. What looked like a rag was nothing of the kind. The girl was covered in nothing but her own matted hair. Wei was overcome by a wave of disgust--with the obscene, sniggering man, the starving, naked girl, the stench of urine and excrement, the simmering violence among the Red Guards, and the bony arms outside clawing the ground for scraps of food. And he asked himself: Was this the "fruit" of socialism?

There were more shocks to challenge the official version of reality in China. On a trip to the far west, he saw families living in holes in the ground, sharing one warm garment against the freezing winds; he met "rightist" intellectuals there who had been banished in 1957 to do hard labor without a chance of ever going home. In the early 1970s, Wei met his first girlfriend, Ping Ni, the daughter of a high-ranking Tibetan Communist living in Beijing. Her family story was enough to drive away any illusions he might still have had.

Ping's father was a staunch Maoist, even during the bloody suppression of the Tibetan revolt in 1959. But someone had to be blamed for the escape to India in that year of the Dalai Lama and a hundred thousand followers. So one night in the spring of 1960, when Ping Ni was six years old, there was a knock on the door. Her father was taken away to spend the next twenty years in prison. Six years later, the Red Guards came for her mother, who, in full sight of her daughter, slit her veins with a razor. With blood spurting from her wrists, she was dragged downstairs by the teenage revolutionaries and bundled into a truck. Ping Ni's last sight of her mother was of her legs kicking before the door was slammed and the truck drove off into the dark.

Wei came to the dangerous, and for him almost fatal, conclusion that "a foremost characteristic of the Communist Party is lying, very effective lying, lying all the time and about everything. It is not easy for ordinary folks to see through this. As the youngest of the [Red Guard] leadership, I saw it clearly, all the cruelties, which totally destroyed my previously conceived impressions of the Communist Party."

This in itself did not make him an original thinker. Many intelligent Chinese had reached similar conclusions. More unusual was his view that communism was absolutely incompatible with democracy, and there was nothing to gain from making concessions to the Party. This is what drove him to the Democracy Wall.

SOURCE: Bad Elements: Chinese Rebels from Los Angeles to Beijing, by Ian Buruma (Vintage, 2001), pp. 96-98

Sumo Results: Haru Basho, 2004

Mongolian Yokozuna Asashoryu ['morning green dragon'] clinched his second perfect 15-0 record in a row, while his countryman and Takasago stablemate Asasekiryu ['morning red dragon'] ended up in a 3-way tie for 2nd place with the two Ozeki, Kaio and Chiyotaikai. For further commentary, see Tom's post at That's News to Me. Here's a sample:

Finally, the yusho match. At the tachiai (start of the bout, or, perhaps better, "face-off"), Chiyotaikai started out with a furious tsuppari (slapping/arm thrusts to the upper body & face), driving Asashoryu back. Chiyo apparently thought he was on the verge of driving Asa back out of the dohyo (ring), or perhaps he merely thought tsuppari was his best/only chance of beating Asa, as he seemed to overcommit himself to that. Asa got in control of himself, side-stepped Chiyo's thrusts, and pushed him down to the dirt to claim his second consecutive zensho yusho [all-win tournament-win], the first time that's been down since Takanohana in 1994 (I think I already mentioned that, but it was in the preview, I think). Prior to Takanohana was Chiyonofuji (Chiyotaikai's stable head, FYI) in 1985. I believe the record for most consecutive bouts won is up in the 69 by Futabayama in 1936 and in the post-war era, 53 by Chiyonofuji (assuming this is accurate). Standing at 30 right now, Asa has a long way to go, but we shall see....

UPDATE: The champions list for all divisions is here. In addition to Asa the Mongolian winning the top division, Mongolian Hakuho wins juryo, the second-highest dvision, Bulgarian Kotooshu wins makushita, the third-highest division, and Minaminoshima (lit. "southern island) from Tonga wins sandanme, the fourth-highest division. Unsurprisingly, Asasekiryu took the Shukun-sho (Outstanding Performace Award) and the not-always-awarded Gino-sho (Technique Prize). All in all, not a bad basho for the gaikokujin [foreigners].

Hungarian szumo fans can check for detailed results at this page. And Japanese sports trivia fans can amuse themselves with this quiz, where we learn that the rank "yokozuna" did not appear on the banzuke until 1890, even though certain wrestlers were licensed to wear the yokozuna ('cross-rope') belt and perform the solo ring-entering ceremony now performed by those of yokozuna ('grand champion') rank for a hundred years before that. The "yokozuna" ceremony was invented by referee and promoter Yoshida Zenzaemon in order to make sumo worthy of performance before the Shogun Tokugawa Ienari in 1791, and the "yokozuna" rank was not recognized by the Sumo Association until 1909.

SOURCE: "The Invention of the Yokozuna and the Championship System, or, Futahaguro's Revenge," by Lee A. Thompson, in Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan, ed. by Stephen Vlastos (U. of California Press, 1998), pp. 174-187

'The English Are a Very Strange Tribe'

In 1936 another white man turned up in Phekhon, in the company of some Indians from Loikaw. He invited two of the grandmothers and some of their friends from the village who wore neck-rings, along with their husbands, to come to England. They had no idea what the purpose of the invitation was, and the Italian priest was vehemently against their going away. Nevertheless, they were all excited and eager for the journey. They were to be taken around Europe by a circus called Bertram Mills and exhibited as freaks. Since we did not have the concept of a 'freak', and since, anyway, we took our tradition of women wearing the rings for granted, they and their relatives were unlikely to be offended by the idea.

They were flown to Rangoon from Loikaw, and shipped to France to be shown to the French public as a test of their popularity before they eventually arrived in England. Not long before the Second World War broke out they returned to Phekhon, richer with English money. They showed us photographs of places they had visited, but could never remember the names....

The grandmothers told me that one of the photographs was taken in front of the English chief's house, in a big village called London. They said that in this big village they didn't have to climb the stairs, but the stairs carried them up and down. They liked the moving stairs, because they hated walking in the shoes that had been provided for them - since all their lives they had gone barefoot.

They suffered from the cold of England. Nor did they understand what spirits the English were appeasing in always having to drink tea at a certain time, although they loved the cakes that went with this ceremony. 'The English are a very strange tribe,' said Grandma Mu Tha. 'They paid money just to look at us - they paid us for not working. They are very rich, but they cannot afford to drink rice-wine. Their trees are unable to grow leaves during the rainy season. They say, "Hello," "How are you" and "Goodbye" all the time to one another. They never ask, "Have you eaten your meal?" or "When will you take your bath?" when they see you.' Grandma Mu Tha gave up trying to account for these strange habits, which afforded her great amusement. If we had had the notion of 'freaks', I suppose she would have put the whole English race into that category.

SOURCE: From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey, by Pascal Khoo Thwe (HarperCollins, 2002), pp. 28-29

How Padre Carlo Came to Phekhon, Burma

My tribe were mostly animists, although some were Buddhists, who worshipped the Nats. These nature spirits are not peculiar to the Burmans, who had received them into Burmese Buddhism, but are part of popular religion in most of South-East Asia.... But my grandfather, and later his wife, were converted to Catholicism.

It was an unusual conversion, brought about involuntarily by an Italian missionary, Padre Carlo, who was on his way to China. He had no intention of winning Phekhon for the Church, and was simply passing through. My grandfather was out on a hunting trip, and came upon this strange being, who he decided was either a wild beast or a khimakha (an ogre in the style of the Tibetan yeti, that looks like a cross between a bear and an ape and is tall as a tree). So he captured him and brought him home. Padre Carlo was chained in a pigsty for the night, where his wailings and lamentations could be heard throughout the village. He made signs that he wished to eat, and accepted some cooked rice. This made the villagers suspect that he might, after all, be a human being, and that therefore he had rights, including traditional hospitality. (Some doubts about his humanity lingered, due to the fact that he had no toes. The Padaung had never before seen shoes.) He was persuaded to stay in the village for the rest of his life, and in due course converted the whole village to Catholicism, except for my grandfather. He finally consented to join the new religion only after he lost a wrestling match with the priest, whom he had challenged about the power of his god. The Christian God was obviously potent, because my grandfather was taller and more powerfully built than the priest, who was anyway suffering from malaria at the time.

SOURCE: From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey, by Pascal Khoo Thwe (HarperCollins, 2002), p. 25

Seoul, Ville géante, cités radieuses

Korean Studies Review has posted a review by James E. Hoare of Seoul, Ville géante, cités radieuses, by Valérie Gelézeau (CNRS, 2003), which reminds us again how much Korea followed Japanese models of modernization long after the end of the colonial period.

Journalists who write about Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, often dwell on the supposedly "Stalinist" characteristics of its high-rise apartment blocks, and their reduction of human beings to ant-like creatures. To the writers, these blocks are clearly a bad thing. Yet some three hundred kilometers further down the Korean peninsula, in the South Korean capital of Seoul, tower blocks seem even more domineering. Clustered together in miniature cities within the greater conurbation, they have become the preferred dwelling place of the affluent and successful. South Koreans boast of their tower blocks and the urban infrastructure of elevated roadways, underpasses and bridges that go with them, comparing Seoul's Yoido Island to Manhattan. There is nothing negative about this assessment of such buildings....

In this fascinating book, the French geographer Valérie Gelézeau examines how this came to be.... She traces the origins of the modern dwelling complexes to the industrial complexes established in the Japanese colonial period, but argues that the real take-off for high-rise buildings was only practical with improvements in water pressure and the reliability of electricity supplies, for central heating and elevators, that had to wait until the economic transformation of South Korea under President Park Chung-hee began to take effect. It was thus only in the late 1970s that the widespread use of buildings over four-six stories became possible. Before then, the typical Seoul "high-rise" was about five stories, with no elevator and with a water tank on the roof. In a society where few people owned their own cars, there was little or no need for parking places. Some of these low high-rises survive, now updated, with the water tank used only for emergencies, and where possible, with parking spaces for the explosion in car ownership since the mid-1980s. In general, however, the mighty blocks that now dominate so much of the city have replaced these early efforts....

Gelézeau also sees the development of the high-rises as an important part of Park's commitment to modernize South Korea. Perhaps drawing on his experience of Japan's Manchukuo experiment, Park equated the traditional with the countryside and the countryside with the backward. Not only should people move off the land, but they should also change the way that they lived. And the new blocks with their "Western"-style bathrooms and kitchens were a potent symbol of that modernity. But as so often happens when one probes into developments in Korea, the inspiration for the new blocks that began to appear from the mid-1970s came from Japan rather than from the West, despite the Western-sounding nyu t'aun (New Town) appellation that the Chamsil first mega-complex received. The chaebol [conglomerates called zaibatsu in Japanese] built their blocks following what had become the standard modern Japanese layout, "LDK" - that is, a set of bedrooms around a "living, dining, kitchen" area....

While her contacts praised the apartments for their comfort and safety, some at least look back positively on older styles of housing because there was more contact with neighbours. People clearly miss the friendly greetings of the old communities. Indeed, one of the most striking aspects of the world that Gelézeau describes is how isolated people seem from each other. Community, and even family, life hardly exists. The staff charged with looking after the buildings complain that the residents will not sort their rubbish or take responsibility for the communal areas. Yet these blocks are not the bleak social housing that has given high-rise buildings such a bad name in Europe, but the acme of middle-class living ...

Morobe Field Diary, October 1976: Stages of Language Learning

I believe I'm at a point now where things I had to concentrate on to hear several months ago I can hear 'at a glance' now. A lot of the language worked its way into my subconscious or spontaneous memory/capacity while I was in Mosbi [Port Moresby, the capital]. It is as if my subconscious is where my conscious was two or three months ago. Analysis is a language production device, I think, only or mostly for the conscious mind. Rote formula thinking handles a hell of a lot of the production at the level of daily transactions.

The local stages of language learning are:

A. 'Ulongoni wai/Yu harim pinis/You know the language', i.e. you can carry out basic exchanges of betel-nut, food, going and coming and the like. By these rules it's true that people learn Numbami in a month.

B. 'Unenela i/Yu winim mipela/You know it better than we do', i.e. you know some pretty esoteric vocabulary: the archaic/nonborrowed word for 'to buy', words like 'thump', 'saliva', 'spouse of one's cross-sibling' [= sibling of the opposite sex]; words people seldom use because the things they designate are seldom talked about or because the native vocabulary has been replaced by borrowings.

There is no evidence that ability to tell a good story (or tell a story well) is considered a language ability.

Morobe Field Diary, October 1976: Fieldwork Progress

Oct. 13-16 I added about 50 words a day to my dictionary. That puts my major entries at over 1000. (I tend to have rather more minor/subentries than I will in the final product--all the parts & life cycle of a coconut under coconut etc.). People have been very cooperative. I'm going to have to collect some tapes before boredom sets in again.

Diseases seem to be partly seasonal here. August was fever time; people have depleted my cold tablet supply now and a lot of people seem to be plagued with carbuncles though they may be off and on the year throughout. The only thing that can be done for them is lancing to drain off the pus. Some get to be several inches in diameter and so painful that walking is difficult if they are on the leg (as they frequently are).

I've gained a bit more insight into the possible causes of the kaunsil's election. Not only does he have well-placed & educated children and a good (Yabim) education himself but he has an extensive network of relatives thruout the village and controls with his wife very large land holdings (from a coconut plantation all the way to the waterfall; all the mtnside his garden is on--about a hundred meter wide swath all the way up (& over?) the ridge; another garden just across the river and one off this end of the village). Phillip, his relative, was elected first, but relieved shortly & his opponent in the last election was S. (Daniel), his cross-cousin.

Today had every prospect of being a good workday (though it's Sunday--or maybe since it is Sunday & everyone is around): one guy volunteered to give me vocabulary, the kaunsil promised a tape. Then last nite the kaunsil's oldest sister came by and reported an illness that wasn't apparent but which blocks her wind passages so she can hardly breathe at times [asthma?]. Then this morning she had a bad attack of it and the whole village is waiting to see whether she'll pull thru or not.

Later in the day, people dispersed, I got to elicit some vocabulary and hear a good deal of conversation (half was in Tok P. because some ausländer Sepiks were involved) and, in the evening, the kaunsil gave me my first text--a really perfect specimen. It is about sago palm food [starch] producing and begins with the different kinds of sago palms--which are distinguished only by their thorns, or lack of them--then, separated by a heading, continues with the whole process, from tree-cutting to division of the food [starch]. It is vocabulary rich, discourse structure rich, clear, slow, intonation contours mostly unambiguous and thus well punctuated--which, in a language with more than one inflected verb to a [simple] sentence [or clause], is very important for defining [complete] sentences. I now have my hands full transcribing but the tape is so good that I'll be able to transcribe easily words I'm unfamiliar with. (It only goes from 1-70 on the cassette.)

Etymologically, Myanmar = Burma

In 1989, Burma's military government changed the name of the country to Myanmar. The reason, it said, was that the British colonial power had named it 'Burma' after the main ethnic group in the country, the Burmese, who inhabit the central plains. 'Myanmar', it was argued, included the Burmese and all other 'ethnic races', including the Shan, the Karen, the Mon, the Kachin and more than 100 other nationalities. This is, however, historically and linguistically highly dubious. The once-British colony has always been called Burma in English and bama or myanma in Burmese. [The Japanese designation biruma would thus appear to have come from the English spelling.]

The best explanation of the difference between bama and myanma is to be found in the Hobson-Jobson Dictionary, which remains a very useful source of information. 'The name [Burma] is taken from Mran-ma, the national name of the Burmese people, which they themselves generally pronounce Bam-ma, unless speaking formally and emphatically.'

Both names have been used interchangeably throughout history, with Burma being more colloquial and Myanmar more formal. Burma and Myanmar (and Burmese and Myanmar) mean exactly the same thing, and it is hard to argue that the term 'Myanmar' would include any more people within the present union than the name 'Burma'.

There is no term in the language that includes both the Burmans and the minority peoples, since no country with the borders of present-day Burma existed before the arrival of the British in the nineteenth century. Burma, with its present boundaries, is a colonial creation rife with internal contractions and divisions.

SOURCE: "Myanmar/Burma," by Bertil Lintner, in Ethnicity in Asia, ed. by Colin Mackerras (RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), p. 174

Burma: Broken Heaven, Broken Earth

Canadian essayist, novelist, and poet Karen Connelly wrote about Burma in the Asia Observer:

There is only one other person staying at the hotel above the river. She is an artist from Spain. On the evening before her departure, we dine together. She has a pressing need to explain herself.

"I'm an idealist like you. I really am. I grew up in Spain, you know. I remember what it was like, during Franco's time. My parents were always telling me not to get involved in the politics, it was very dangerous. Really, I am an idealist, and I think it's terrible that these people are so badly off."

"I don't think badly off really explains it. They are poverty-stricken, malnourished. And oppressed. Hungry for many things."

"Do you really think they are? Really? Is it really possible to be hungry in the tropics? There is so much fruit everywhere. When I was in the north, there were two children sitting outside my restaurant with empty bowls, so of course I gave them some of my food. But someone else would have fed them if I hadn't. They wouldn't have gone to bed hungry."

I swallow a sip of my water, bottled water.

She continues, "A doctor I met up there said that he has never seen the infant mortality rate so high. I agree, that is really awful. But in a way, it's a natural form of birth control."

I want to ask this elegant, beautiful woman if she is on the pill. She was educated at one of the most expensive art schools in London. Has she ever had a baby, and watched her baby die, slowly, of diarrhoea? Dysentery? Malaria? Food poisoning? Those are the common killers of babies born in Burma, ailments often complicated by malnutrition. I finish my glass of water. The food has come but my appetite has left me.

"And they are always smiling! I really don't believe they're so miserable. They're always so happy."

Surely she will hear the exasperation in my voice. "But that's part of being Buddhist. Many people, especially the poor, accept the conditions of their lives, and they revel in whatever life is around them. The Burmese are a deeply hospitable people, too: that's why smile at us."

"They look so happy. There seemed to be a lot of people with bad eye diseases in the north, and even they laughed a lot."

Awkward pause. What can I say?

"I really am idealist, but if democracy came all at once to Burma, this country would disintegrate! It can't come too quickly."

"But the people of Burma already voted in a democratic government. There were elections in 1990. The NLD, Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, won by a landslide. The military refused to hand over power." Surely she must know these little details from her guidebook.

"Well, voting for freedom is one thing, but living with it is another. If it comes too quickly, Myanmar will disintegrate!"

How can she not see? She is a painter; her vocation is in her eyes. "But the country already is disintegrating. Nothing works here. The currency is a farce, corruption is rife, the military makes deals with druglords, and the overwhelming majority of people cannot afford to live on what they make because inflation is so high. Even the electricity doesn’t work. People die after operations because the hospitals cannot afford proper sterilization equipment!"

She looks at me squarely, condescendingly. "Journalists exaggerate the situation."

"I haven’t been talking to journalists. I’ve been talking to Burmese people. Students, doctors, artists, market women."

But the doubt remains plain on her face, tightening her lips. "I know how bad it is. But if democracy comes too quickly ..." Her voice trails off. She begins to eat. I move my food around with a fork.

Strange, the fork. Lately I’ve been eating Burmese-style, with my hands. There is something intensely pleasurable about touching the food one puts in one’s mouth. Messy, but fun.

The Spanish artist looks up from her curried chicken with an alarming intensity and asks, "What are you trying to do for the Burmese people?"

This question takes me by surprise. I think for a moment, but can’t decide how to reply. I feel acute embarrassment. Flustered, I say, "Nothing."

"But you must be trying to do something."

I raise my eyebrows, searching. "Um. No. I'm not."

"Why did you come here then? You said you would never come here only as a tourist, so what are you doing here then, if not trying to accomplish something?"

"I'm just talking and listening."

"But aren't you trying to accomplish the freedom of these people?"

I laugh out loud; her statement is so lofty. I am embarrassed and uncomfortable that we are sitting at this table in Burma, talking about the Burmese, while the waiters stand at the dining room doors like sleepy sentinels. They might understand everything we’re saying. Or nothing, which is worse. I want to apologize to them. I want to flee. "I don't pretend anything like that. It's too presumptuous. It sounds silly. Only they can accomplish their own freedom. I am … hanging around."

"But you've been going on about how terrible the government is here, and how much all these people you've met have suffered, and how powerful this place is for you. Don't you want to do anything? You must be trying to do something. Why don't you just say it?"

"I just want to write about what I see here. That's all. That will do whatever it can do. All things considered, that will be very little."

Now it is her turn to sip water. Oh, let the meal be done, let this be over. In other circumstances--in a gallery in Madrid, for example, drinking sangria in a bar in Segovia, I know I would like her. It is foolish as well as fraudulent for me to stand on the moral high ground, though the natural birth control comment was appalling. But we all say appalling things sometimes. It’s the nature of being white, or powerful, or simply human. I have Gorky to temper me: By then I could see that all people are more or less guilty before the god of absolute truth, and that no one is as guilty before mankind as the self-righteous. The sharpening edge of defensiveness in her voice comes from a guilt which has nothing to do with me. I want to say, "It's unnecessary, please don't feel that way," but I just listen to what she says next with a small, pained smile on my face.

"I really feel that I have done a lot for them. I have tried to talk and smile as much as possible. You know, I’ve tried to let them know that foreigners are not threatening, not awful people. And it's absolute hell up in the north where there are no other tourists. The locals won't leave you alone for a second. It's hard work, to be up there, wandering around, trying to get to places they won't let you get to, and all the people are mobbed around you, and there's no other white people. I kept calm the whole time, never lost my temper, always just smiled as much as possible."

I smile myself. The news is coming on. Out of respect, or perhaps out of curiosity to catch more fragments of our conversation, one of the dining room attendants turns down the volume. Conversation wanes in the presence of the silent news; we turn, along with the young Burmese waiters, to watch images of a fine mango crop on screen, box after box of the small, sweet spheres lined up and glowing like orange gems. Surely it is impossible to be hungry in the land of a million mangoes. Now come the obligatory scenes of a military leader inspecting a new factory. Then a whole troop of soldiers marching on some road somewhere in the jungle. Shot after shot of automatic weapons, belts heavy with ammunition. They are very serious, very thin young men, every jaw bone a study in angles, clenched muscle. The Spanish woman turns away from the television and talks more about the difficulties of being a tourist. I nod slowly, suddenly tired. White-shirted waiters come, take away our plates. With great concern, the younger one asks, in Burmese, why I have eaten so little. "I am not hungry." He is aghast, despite my attempts to reassure him. When the table is cleared and the poor waiter becalmed, the Spanish artist and the Canadian writer stand up. "Perhaps we will meet again some day in Madrid." Perhaps. We exchange Buenas noches.

Oddly enough, as I get ready for bed, I think about the Basque country, Euskadi: northern Spain, but not Spain exactly. And so very far from Burma, another world, another lifetime. But every country shares history, just as every human being does. If I know one thing, it is the ultimate meaninglessness of borders. A decade ago, I lived with a woman, also a painter, who was still a child when the tyrant Franco was pronounced dead. As soon as this news came, the children of Euskadi were turned loose from school. The most vivid memory of Maru’s childhood was made that day, when she ran through the village streets with her classmates, crying joy.

Four share lead at Spring Basho

OSAKA (AP) Grand champion Asashoryu defeated Kakizoe on Wednesday to remain unbeaten and tied for the lead with familiar company at the Spring Grand Sumo Tournament....

Asashoryu, who won the New Year tourney with a perfect 15-0 record, is tied for the lead with Chiyotaikai, Kaio and compatriot Asasekiryu.

UPDATE: After Day 12, "Asashoryu, who won the New Year tourney with a perfect 15-0 record, is tied for the lead with Chiyotaikai and Asasekiryu. On Wednesday, Asasekiryu, Kaio, Chiyotaikai and Asashoryu all won marking the first time in sumo history that four wrestlers were chasing the title with perfect records on the 11th day." The blog That's News to Me has more.

Lingering Guilt from the Mao Era

A common cliché about the difference between East and West is that Oriental cultures are driven by shame whereas the Judeo-Christian West is driven by guilt. In the West, God sees our sins even if no one else does, so we feel guilty. By contrast in the East, which has no God, it is only when the neighbors notice that one needs to worry, and then one feels shame. This has always seemed to me a rickety distinction. What troubles [exiled dissidents] Su [Xiaokang], Xie [Xuanjun], Wang Chaohua, who once tormented her father [during the Cultural Revolution], and many other refugees from China's dictatorship sounds more like guilt than shame--with or without the all-seeing eye of God. And the guilt goes deeper and back further in time than the events of 1989 [at Tiananmen]. Su said: "All of us who went through the Cultural Revolution feel guilty--of beating our teachers, denouncing our parents, that sort of thing. At least we intellectuals can talk about it. Ordinary Chinese have it all bottled up.

So why was it, I asked, that Su [unlike some of his cohorts] ended up rejecting Christianity after all? His response was a melancholy echo of a distress I would come across often among the survivors of the Maoist era. He said that since people of his generation lost their faith in Maoism, they felt like plants cut off at the roots. It had become impossible to believe in any religion or any ideology, he added: "I tried hard, but I can't believe in anything at all."

SOURCE: Bad Elements: Chinese Rebels from Los Angeles to Beijing, by Ian Buruma (Vintage, 2001), p. 58

Religious Blogospheres

If the Jewish blogosphere is jBlog, and the Catholic blogosphere is St. Blog's Parish, what does the Mormon blogosphere call itself? Over at the Mormon blog Times and Seasons, the Bloggernacle Choir seems to be carrying the day.

Korea Between Empires, 1895-1919

Korean Studies Review recently posted a review by Michael Finch of Korea Between Empires, 1895-1919, by Andre Schmid (Columbia U. Press, 2002), which reminds us how much Korea followed Japanese models of modernization before, during, and after it was colonized by Japan.

In his introduction Schmid discusses the major themes to be covered in the book: namely, the role of newspapers in defining the nation, Korea's disengagement from its traditional orientation toward China, the centrality of 'capitalist modernity' to both Korean nationalism and Japanese colonialist thought, the importance of Sin Ch'aeho's "ethnic definition of the nation" as minjok, (p. 16) and the way in which the parameters and frameworks of nationalist discourse in Korean newspapers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries continue to influence the debate on Korean nationalism today.

The opening chapter, "The Universal Winds of Civilization," examines the concept of munmyông kaehwa ("civilization and enlightenment"). Schmid's choice of the year 1895 as a starting point for his study is significant in that this year saw the defeat of China in the Sino-Japanese War and China's official renunciation of its suzerain status over Korea in the Treaty of Shimonoseki (17 April 1895)....

Along with the rise of Korean nationalism came a rising sense of East Asian racial solidarity as defined by the term Pan-Asianism, which saw East Asia as united by the common threat of Western imperialist intrusion into the region. In this world view, held by many of the reformists including the Protestant reformer Yun Ch'iho, Japan was cast in the role of defender of the East and was even supported by the Hwangsông sinmun during the Russo-Japanese War--although as the Korean capital was effectively under the control of Japan during this period, it may to some extent have been coerced into adopting this pro-Japanese line. With the signing of the Japanese-Korean Treaty of Protection in 1905, however, all illusion evaporated. As Schmid makes clear in this chapter, a naivety toward Japanese intentions appears to have been a major weakness of the proponents of munmyông kaehwa, many of whom owed an intellectual debt to Japanese reformist thinkers such as Fukuzawa Yukichi. The ambivalent attitude of the Hwangsông sinmun toward Japan made it a target for the pro-Japanese organization, the Ilchinhoe on the one hand, and anti-Japanese nationalists on the other. The Taehan maeil sinbo, on the other hand, under the ownership of Ernest Bethell, a British citizen protected by extraterritoriality, was exempt from Japanese censorship and was consequently able to adopt a more consistent anti-Japanese stance in its editorials.

Chapter 3 "Engaging a Civilizing Japan" examines the extensive intellectual interaction between Korea and Japan that underlay the developing confrontation of Japanese colonial expansion and rising Korean nationalism. Although munmyông kaehwa had its roots in the West, Japan was its mediator in East Asia. As Schmid points out, "'The West and Japan' emerged as standard expressions for the top rungs of the civilizing hierarchy." (p. 107) It was from Japan that the early reformers who had initiated the Kapsin Coup (1884) drew inspiration and support, and it was to Japan that increasing numbers of Korean students went for a 'modern' education. As evidence of the strong link between the reformist movement in Japan and Korea, Schmid brings our attention to the similarities between Yu Kilchun's Sôyu kyônmun and Fukuzawa Yukichi's Seiyô jiji (Conditions of the West) and the fact that Yu's seminal work was also subsidized and published by Fukuzawa. (pp. 110-111)

The wholesale acceptance of the values of munmyông kaehwa in Korea during this period also gave rise to the anomaly of Korean reformers espousing colonial expansion as evidence of superior civilization and enlightenment. Although these reformers were not unaware that Korea might itself fall prey to the colonial expansion of another power, in general they exhorted their fellow countrymen to participate in the reform project so that Korea would escape this fate and be counted amongst the civilized nations of the world. It was only after the signing of the Treaty of Protection that solidarity with other colonized countries such as India began to be expressed.

Piracy on the Rise

This week's Regions of Mind blog cites, among many other stimulating posts, a Progressive Policy Institute study on rising rates of piracy.

A quarter of all world pirate attacks last year took place in Indonesian waters. This region is naturally hospitable to pirates and difficult to patrol since (1) it features shallow waters dotted by lots of little islands and narrow channels, and (2) it is the hinge of the shipping lanes bringing Asian consumer goods to Europe, and Persian Gulf oil to Japan and China. Budget stresses since the financial crisis, meanwhile, have cut Indonesia's navy budget by about two-thirds. Last fall, an Indonesian navy spokesman noted that the country needs about 400 boats to patrol national waters, but has only 117 at the moment; and only 40 of these are seaworthy.

In second place was Bangladesh, with 58 pirate attacks; Nigeria was third with 39. Somalia had 18 attacks, but despite the lower number of attacks, Somali waters may be the world's least-policed and most dangerous. The IMO [International Maritime Organization] has a permanent warning to shipmasters to avoid the area altogether if possible, and especially not to anchor within 50 miles of the coast.

Former South Korean President's Daughter Heads Political Party

The Marmot blogs the election of Park Keun-hye as head of South Korea's opposition ("progressive conservative"!) Grand National Party.

Park, as you know, is the daughter of later dictator Park Chung-hee, father of modern South Korea. Park also served as First Lady after her mother, Yuk Yeong-su, was shot and killed during an assassination attempt on Park in 1974. She has been the recipient of much popular sympathy, first after the death of her very popular mother, and then following the successful assassination of her dad in 1979. Her base of support can be found in her home region of Daegu, where many still have fond feelings toward late President Park, and like her dad, she possesses a squeaky clean image as far as corruption is concerned, although like her dad, I'm not quite sure if that's deserved.

Fellow SK blogger Oranckay adds:

Anyway, the good news/bad news about Park is that as the daughter of the president of the developmental dictatorship she does not generally (fingers crossed!) have to work very hard to please conservatives with red-labeling and petty attacks. Her credentials are in order and she she'll never have her ideological inclinations questioned. On the other hand, she is not known for mental stability and much of an attention span.

Fortunately, the chance of a military coup is far smaller than it was in 1961--at least in the South.