Fountainhall. If If If. had...hadnt...did...didnt...could...couldnt..etc.
Fountainhall. If If If. had...hadnt...did...didnt...could...couldnt..etc.
I can think of several other elected dictators of whom people said exactly the same at the time.Originally Posted by sglad
Having now issued diktats to prevent immigration to the USA by a number of predominantly Moslem countries, how long will it be till Trump targets Moslems within the USA and we start to see deportations using the "potential terrorist" excuse (which holds no water whatsoever when you examine the facts)
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The simple fact of the matter is that Americans have elected a racist as their 45th President.
Meanwhile the UK has an unelected racist foisted upon us as Prime Minister and one who has been promoted well above her ability. She sent these vans out in the UK just a couple of years ago:
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No wonder she claims to have a "special relationship" (which actually exists only in the minds of Brits - at least the Americans are under no such delusions) and are happy to hold hands.
christianpfc (January 30th, 2017)
You have a stutter?
Well I believe it's you Fountainhall who trots out the same reasons for ALL the ills currently in Asia. British Empire. It's as if the last 70 years don't count.
Perhaps FH feels that the years since he was born don't count?? Some people like to live in the good old days or the bad old days mentally and like to use that as a frame of reference when looking at history even though they never lived in that period. Could be the way they were educated to analyse history by their teachers as well as viewpoints passed down from their own elders.
Nonsense. When have we discussed the British and Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia etc . . . ? We haven't! Way over the top there arsenal.
And tell me where I have blamed the British Empire for ALL the ills in the parts of Asia it colonised? I haven't but along with other colonial powers it certainly was responsible for dreadful actions. You cannot argue with facts. Who was responsible for the partition of India with over a million killed? One direct on-going effect was the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War that killed over 3 million. Who was responsible for forcing the Chinese to accept opium and initiating wars with millions killed? Can you honestly state that had nothing to do with the Chinese attitudes to the 1997 question? You cannot because the Opium War and the "unequal treaties" were a stain that the Chinese were determined to eradicate. Do you deny that policy in present day China is a direct result of the rape and settlement by other countries of parts of the country in the 19th century and a determination that this will never ever happen again?
What I wonder does that mean? Of course post colonial events count? Look at Zimbabwe and the decades of disasters under that dictatorship? Look at the mess that is still unravelling in what used to be the Belgian colonies in Africa. Yet what has happened since the end of colonial rule in Singapore is amazing by any count even though it's not democratic in the western sense. A good deal of what has happened elsewhere since colonial rule has been equally positive. A lot, though, remains a sore that has not yet healed.
My perspective on history in Asia is exclusively formed from the decades I have lived here - for the simple reason that when I was taught history and geography, Asia did not form part of the curriculum and covered little more than a couple of lessons! When I was offered a job in Hong Kong at the start of my time here, I could not have shown you Hong Kong on the map. What I new of Asia was virtually nothing! Not even that Thailand was a country for sex tourism!!
Last edited by fountainhall; January 30th, 2017 at 09:00.
christianpfc (January 30th, 2017), monsoon (February 2nd, 2017)
Fountainhall. You know as well as I do that governments often have to choose what they believe to be the least worst option as no good choice exists. Your criticism does not reflect this. A tendency to simplify highly complex issues looked at from a 21st century perspective is your usual anti-British route.
And you are coming perilously close to justifying the Burmese military action.
That's OK because you couldn't have known what was going to happen back then because Thailand only became a sex tourist-heaven only in the 70s and 80s if I'm not mistaken. We all grow and learn.
Burma had the best infrastructure at the time of its independence and if they hadn't fucked it up since then, Yangon would be the capital of Southeast Asia today, not Singapore, a tiny island with no natural resources whatsoever. This is something that has been repeatedly drummed into us since we were kids ie not to take things for granted. Colonialism brought us both good and bad but it's what we do after - what our leaders and peoples do NOW - that is going to make or break us; what we've achieved thus far can easily be taken away. So we innovate, work, innovate, work, reinvent ourselves, rinse and repeat. Every day we are reminded of this: in school through history, geography, civics education and social studies; through national service and through day-to-day media messages. Very different from the approach that my Thai friends went through where they seem to be stuck (for want of a better word) in a certain glorious period in the past.
The Burmese example is different from Palestine in that America and Israel are still very much the aggressors and provocateurs in the problem. The Palestinians on the other hand are not helping themselves with internal in-fighting and acts of terror that bring about disproportionate response from the Israelis.
A note on the 'Lady': typically the liberal West anointed someone who is most like them to act as their proxy in "liberating" the country. Plummy accent, Oxford-educated (she got a third class 555), white husband but demure, soft-spoken and always wearing her Burmese sarong just to remind everyone how Burmese and Asian she is while satisfying the West at the same time of their own Orientalist fetishes. She counts among her friends that other con woman, Hillary Clinton. Suu Kyi has about as much in common with the average Burmese as the silver-spooned Trump has with as a jobless factory worker in the Russ Belt.
Last edited by sglad; January 30th, 2017 at 11:51.
You seem to read into my posts what is not there! Yes of course governments have to make choices - and the options are often unenviable. But you seem to confuse the past with the present. I have never and would never advocate military action in Myanmar. That would be ridiculous. But it is equally ridiculous in my view to turn a blind eye to history, the more so when specific events in history have helped shape present problems.
Stalin was roundly condemned for a variety of very legitimate reasons. One was the forced movement of millions of peoples away from their native lands to far flung parts of the Soviet Empire. Those chickens are slowly coming home to roost. What then is the difference between Stalin and the British authorities of the day forcibly moving hundreds of thousands of Muslims from Bengal to what is now Myanmar - apart from the Soviet model resulting in people now wanting to return to their homelands and the Burmese not wanting the Muslims who were forced upon them by an outside power?
Of course it is also not possible for governments to know all the results of any one action when they have little clue what will happen in 10 years time let alone 100 and more. But that can not wipe the slate clean and in many cases absolve them of responsibility.
What better example than this which admittedly takes a little jab at a recent U.K. Government decision, Home Secretary Jack Straw has subsequently admitted that when he advocated the adoption of the EU directive re free movements of people, he expected the maximum number of immigrants to be around 12,000 per year! He sure got that prediction wrong by a monstrous margin! He readily admits it and takes responsibility - even though now powerless to do anything about it retroactively. Ironically the British people took that into their own hands with its seeming to be the main reason for Brexit!
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