She fooled us all. [Archive] - Sawatdee Gay Thailand the oldest and most popular gay forum on Thailand and South East Asia

fountainhall

January 29th, 2017, 09:24

However horrified we may be about the Rohingya's present situation, we should never forget why this has arisen. There is as usual no single reason, but the clearest of them all has to be British colonial rule! The British East India Company annexed the Arakan region in Rakhine State and imported a large number of Muslim workers from present day Bangladesh. When the British took over rule in India and Burma, waves of immigration continued as they were needed to work on the land, in the same way that Indians were imported from colonial India into colonial Malaya.

Finding a solution will be a huge problem. Aung San Suu Kyi now has to face it after the British at the very least east exacerbated it and the generals did nothing about it. The world, led by the Americans, wanted the generals out and democracy restored - because they always come across as viewing democracy as the solution to everything. Was there in fact much on-going official concern expressed by the USA about all the Burmese minorities when the generals were in charge?

Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Prize "for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights." So she is not living up to the terms of that citation.

arsenal

January 29th, 2017, 10:06

Salad is absolutely right. And Fountainhall as the British so often did, we left Burma Democratic and over 60 years ago. Rather piss poor of you to lay that at the door. And are you using that to justify recent events? Because it sounds like you are.
l
For those of you who don't know. Aung Sans' father founded the independence army with help from Japan.

latintopxxx

January 29th, 2017, 10:34

oh geez...what a load of leftie liberal tree hugging crap spewed by fountaintwit...again its all the white mans fault...if i was american I too would have voted for Trump just to stick it to these sandal wearing tree huggers...

sglad

January 29th, 2017, 11:08

Salad is absolutely right.

So I'm salad now? Let me guess: the fruit variety? :(

arsenal

January 29th, 2017, 11:29

Sglad. Bloody predictive text. 😃

fountainhall

January 29th, 2017, 11:38

we left Burma Democratic and over 60 years ago. Rather piss poor of you to lay that at the door. And are you using that to justify recent events? Because it sounds like you are
Democracy - no, although the democratic world certainly seemed vastly more concerned about democracy being restored in Myanmar than they did about solving the Rohingya problem

I'm laying the fact that so many Muslims were moved into Myanmar on the British who thereby created a major problem which it did absolutely nothing to solve prior to their departure. Look back at history. How many times has something like that happened? For example, how many countries still have the 1861 British anti-sodomy law on their statue books just because the British put it there during their colonial rule? Dozens of them! Even Singapore and Malaysia retain the law. And how many of these countries punish homosexuality with major prison terms and even death. Quite a few!

fountainhall

January 29th, 2017, 11:39

Sglad. Bloody predictive text. 
Always nice to have something to blame! :yahoo_mini:

Smiles

January 29th, 2017, 11:44

Trump never pretended to be a freedom fighter or a human rights activist and he didn't receive the Nobel prize for peace.
Give him a chance Bud, he's only been Prez for a week. Expect his Nobel Peace Prize (or perhaps in 'Physics') application to land in Stockholm sometime in late February (in a Tweet).

"I'm gonna be sooooo good with that prize, I'm Sooooo deserving of it. The guys here are gonna sooooo love me for this. You hang it around my neck? It's real gold right? Heavy? You think the Swedes mind if I grab a few pussies during the ceremony?"

fountainhall

January 29th, 2017, 11:50

Expect his Nobel Peace Prize (or perhaps in 'Physics').
No way. His Nobel is already earmarked for Literature (Best Fiction of the Year).

Blueskytoday

January 29th, 2017, 11:57

It takes time to ascertain the actions Pres. Trump will do...after a week,,gee,,meaningless...it takes months to get things moving and acted on..Wait...

fountainhall

January 29th, 2017, 13:00

again its all the white mans fault
And much of what is wrong in the present day world is indeed the white man's fault. Forget the slaughter of entire civilisations by the Spanish in Central and South America, the mass slaughter of native Americans by white settlers claiming their land, forget the massacre of 1 million + in India/Pakistan thanks to totally arbitrary orders drawn up by the British in a matter of weeks.

Think of the Middle East and the utter chaos in that region. Somewhat ironical that Bush and his cronies had as part of their mission, so they said, to introduce democracy into that part of the world. Isn't it the values of democracy that all American administrations spout? Who was it that organised the dismissal of Mohammad Mosaddegh as the first democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran? The CIA with help from the British. The reason? Money - in this case oil. And who put their money behind the corrupt Shah and led to the Iranian revolution in 1979?

Sexually Deviant Latin may regard history as" leftie tree hugging crap". That's his delusion! Facts trump alternative facts!

Oliver

January 29th, 2017, 13:51

Correct....and don't forget Balfour and the Israel problem. After refusing to accept that the indigenous population had any rights to their own land, we scuttled out of Palestine 1948 when the Jewish militias started killing our troops,, leaving those native peoples to be massacred or expelled. That's always been a characteristic of the British Empire; exploit, enslave and run when it gets too hot. We remain Perfidious Albion in that region.

arsenal

January 29th, 2017, 14:12

Fountainhall and Olivier: De Facto President Aung San thanks you both for directing the conversation away from the fact that mass slaughter (perhaps genocide, we don't know) is taking place under her jurisdiction. And indeed arguing that it has nothing to do with her at all but is in fact entirely the fault of Britain. You do have considerable form in this Fountainhall.

fountainhall

January 29th, 2017, 16:38

De Facto President Aung San thanks you both for directing the conversation away from the fact that mass slaughter (perhaps genocide, we don't know) is taking place under her jurisdiction. And indeed arguing that it has nothing to do with her at all but is in fact entirely the fault of Britain. You do have considerable form in this Fountainhall.
Don't you actually read dear arsenal?

However horrified we may be about the Rohingya's present situation . . . Finding a solution will be a huge problem. Aung San Suu Kyi now has to face it
I stand by everything I have contributed to this thread!

arsenal

January 29th, 2017, 17:10

British colonial rule is to blame. That's what you wrote. So if the present UK government starts clearing out the Ugandan Asians it will be Ted Heaths' fault right? Because he let them in.

fountainhall

January 29th, 2017, 17:53

British colonial rule is to blame. That's what you wrote. So if the present UK government starts clearing out the Ugandan Asians it will be Ted Heaths' fault right? Because he let them in.
For creating the situation? Of course it is. What else are you suggesting? The British, Spanish, American, Belgians, Dutch - you name it, all colonial rule was in the interests exclusively of the ruling power who wanted trade, cheap imports and outlets for their manufactured and other goods. And a good deal of colonial rule was pretty hideous. Suggesting otherwise flies in the face of everything history teaches us.

On the other hand, you can apportion blame but everyone has to accept you cannot turn the clock back. (Everyone except Donald Trump, that is, who says he wants to send back the children of Mexican immigrants who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in the USA). Britain did not bring the first Muslims to Burma but it certainly imported hundreds of thousands. It could at least do something to try and help solve the problem if it so wished. But it's a bit like the Alan Turing conundrum. Convict a man who happened to be gay and force him to take his own life. But this one happened to save millions of lives by shortening World War 2. Then accept the argument that, although punished according to the law of the day, he was hard done by and pardon him. But what about the tens of thousands of others who were convicted for precisely the same reason? It's unlikely any of them will be pardoned. No country can go about righting all the wrongs it committed over the centuries. But it can acknowledge it created them in the first place.

arsenal

January 29th, 2017, 18:41

Fountainhall. If If If. had...hadnt...did...didnt...could...couldnt..etc.

scottish-guy

January 29th, 2017, 18:49

Trump is what he is...and you don't get a sense of betrayal

I can think of several other elected dictators of whom people said exactly the same at the time.

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)

4240

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:

4241

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.

fountainhall

January 29th, 2017, 19:08

If If If. had...hadnt...did...didnt...could...couldnt..etc.
You have a stutter?

arsenal

January 29th, 2017, 20:49

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.

sglad

January 30th, 2017, 07:05

...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.

fountainhall

January 30th, 2017, 08:47

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.
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?

Perhaps FH feels that the years since he was born don't count??
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!!

arsenal

January 30th, 2017, 09:37

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.

sglad

January 30th, 2017, 10:54

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!!

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.

sglad

January 30th, 2017, 11:32

Salad is absolutely right. And Fountainhall as the British so often did, we left Burma Democratic and over 60 years ago.

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.

fountainhall

January 30th, 2017, 11:42

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 . . And you are coming perilously close to justifying the Burmese military action.
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!

arsenal

January 30th, 2017, 13:43

Yes. But if there's a civil war in The UK in 60 fucking years it won't be Jack Straws fault now will it.

Sglad: 60s really. American GUs uses Pattaya for r & r.

fountainhall

January 30th, 2017, 14:06

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
No doubt that's true. As we get older most of us probably suffer from the rosy tinted spectacle syndrome. But that's almost always related to ones own life experience and not that of a century or more ago! I have learned far more about the present and the past since I moved to Asia - and not just re Asia. And I realized quite early on that what we were taught in terms of history and brought up to believe was often a load of one-sided bullshit!

fountainhall

January 30th, 2017, 14:24

Yes. But if there's a civil war in The UK in 60 fucking years it won't be Jack Straws fault now will it.

Sglad: 60s really. American GUs uses Pattaya for r & r.
Definitely not. Collective responsibility and all that. It'll be seen to be another of Tony Blair's litany of faults. :))

As for Pattaya, it was the GI's R&R that turned the place into sin city! I&I more like it - intoxication and intercourse!

Oliver

January 30th, 2017, 14:47

The English-speaking world has enjoyed remaining complacent about the effects of imperialism, colonialism and slavery. History may have been one of the subjects that got me into Oxford but it was not until I lived and worked in Brixton -the centre of early West Indian immigration- that I took a serious interest in Black History and Afro-American and West Indian literature. And it took a number of stays in Jamaica to turn interest into knowledge.
And yes, I knew about the Nakba but it was not until I started visiting Palestine each year, experienced the horrors of military occupation personally and was traumatised in 2004 by certain events I witnessed, that I began to understand it.
There's a line in To Kill a Mockingbird about not understanding someone until you've lived in their shoes. Too many of my generation have lived their lives not wishing, and not being brave enough, to take that risk.

arsenal

January 30th, 2017, 15:24

And as bad as it was on ocassions, had the British Empire not existed perhaps the whole of Asia would have fallen under Japanese control for decades. And that would have been immeasurably worse.

fountainhall

January 30th, 2017, 15:55

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.
Having typed my earlier reply in a taxi, there wasn't time to develop my reply in enough detail. Frankly I don't agree. As Oliver has made clear in his post, one's view of history is rarely static. It evolves as you experience life and many of the amazing places and cultures on our planet. I was taught - and believed for years - that the Crusades were a holy Christian enterprise to rescue the heart of Christianity from the infidel Muslims. It was only after the first of my two visits to Istanbul that I began to take an interest in the history of that part of the world and to try and find out what actually happened during those Crusades.

What I discovered totally completely changed my view. Steven Runiciman's three volume History is a good place as any to start despite having been written in the 1950s. But for further balance Amin Maalouf's The Crusades Through Arab Eyes is essential reading. What one discovers is the depth of the animosity between a power-hungry Pope and a weakened Emperor of Byzantium, a motley army of farmers, criminals and vagabonds who raped, ravaged and ransacked their through Europe, the Balkans and the Byzantine Empire on their way to the Holy Land, and who had joined only because the Pope had promised each and every one forgiveness of sins and the keys to heaven. For many a far better bargain than execution or imprisonment The nobles were mostly second or third sons and so unable to inherit their fathers' estates back home. But there was land aplenty to be grabbed in the Holy Land!

The rivers of Muslim and Jewish blood spilled by the Christian invaders when they reached Jerusalem in 1099 was in stark contrast to the peaceful annexation by the Muslim forces some centuries earlier. Move forward to the disaster of the 4th Crusade when Roman Catholic Christians rerouted to Constantinople and pitted themselves against the Byzantine Christians, thereby opening up the Great Schism in the Church that Popes today are still trying to heal.

Or try standing in the square at the centre of Cusco in Peru, the capital city of the Inca Empire. Imagine what it must have been like when Pizarro, an illegitimate adventurer with no education and no inheritance, with a force of less than 180 Spaniards tricked the Inca Emperor Atahualpa, murdered him with the connivance of the Catholic Church and proceeded to massacre the entire population of up to 10 million, aided by the diseases brought from Europe. All for gold.

Use your life to experience, visit and learn about the world sglad. These are the years that shape your thinking, not what you are taught.

fountainhall

January 30th, 2017, 16:29

And as bad as it was on ocassions, had the British Empire not existed perhaps the whole of Asia would have fallen under Japanese control for decades. And that would have been immeasurably worse.
Quite the opposite, I'm sorry say!

Had it not been for the British Empire, the Japanese might have remained a far more docile nation than an aggressive warmonger! Fact is that after the Meiji Restoration Japan decided to develop along the lines of western powers. It saw itself as similar in so many ways to the British - an island nation with an ancient and stable monarchy and much larger mainland rivals. Britain having the world's largest Empire was a further incentive for it to expand in similar fashion.

Incidentally, after World War I Britain was the leader in naval aviation. Japan, an ally of Britain, tried unsuccessfully ten times to gain information about Britain's new aircraft carrier designs. But Britain permitted a Scottish Peer to lead a delegation to Japan in 1921 as advisors. Lord Sempell, who had access to naval design secrets, quickly developed a love of Japan. Soon he was passing this information to his Japanese friends. Churchill covered up Sempill's exploits to avoid a scandal - "Clear him out" he told his aides.

From 1922 another British spy Frederick Rutland started passing secret information and taught the Japanese about carrier landing techniques. Several sources suggest that the Japanese could not have mounted the Pearl Harbour attack as early as December 1941 without this information. Rutland also turned up as a Japanese spy in Honolulu where he provided Japan with information about the disposition of the American fleet.

In a touch of supreme irony, a British MI5 officer is quoted as saying there was no doubt Rutland was a "paid agent of the Japanese." The officer was none other than Anthony Blunt, himself a notorious British spy - but for the Soviets.

And other British spies passed crucial information over to the Japanese. A British colonial serviceman in Malaya named Roberts gave them the plans of the British base in Singapore. With that the Japanese realised a land-based offensive could succeed, something Churchill and his colleagues were convinced was impossible.

But note: I am not saying Britain caused the rise of a militaristic Japan. But it provided the template, and thanks to its spies some of the vital technical information essential to its initial successes.

scottish-guy

January 30th, 2017, 16:42

Fountainhall - you (and Arsenal) are both educating me in this debate, but how come you designate the traitor Lord Sempill as Scottish yet Frederick Rutland (who appears to have been English through and through) is designated as British

fountainhall

January 30th, 2017, 17:23

Oh dear! Big mistake! :blush: Frederick Rutland, naval officer and spy, was born in Weymouth, ENGLAND in 1886. Disgraced, he committed suicide in 1949

arsenal

January 30th, 2017, 19:58

arsenal

January 30th, 2017, 20:15

I do agree that Japan looked at the BE as a workable model but they could just have easily picked any empire from history. It was British help and technology that allowed Japan to start producing aircraft carriers. I think we would have allowed them to take Manchuria and territory as far west as Mongolia if only to hem in the Soviets.

sglad

January 30th, 2017, 21:09

Use your life to experience, visit and learn about the world sglad. These are the years that shape your thinking, not what you are taught.

Thanks for the advice, FH. My grandpa gave me similar advice before my first solo trip after my A levels six years ago. Being the pithy guy that he is he told me to enjoy, live and learn and handed me $200! I think travel and life experience complement and enhance what we've been taught as what we're taught and experiential learning need not be exclusive. After all, good teaching is borne out of experience and lessons learned elsewhere. As you'd agree, education has changed a lot over the years and my elders are as eager to learn from the people of my generation as we are from them. They do not lecture or talk down to us. In that regard, I hope to continue to learn and be flexible in my thinking till I die, not just in my youth. I would also like to share what I've learnt with others and shall try to do so without being pedantic or assuming that other people are interested in what I have to say - skills which require a lot of sensitivity!

latintopxxx

January 31st, 2017, 01:18

difficult to believe that leftie loonies really think that everyone sat in circles holding hands singing kumbaya my lord....before the evil white man showed up and proceeded to slaughter them.
Anyone heard of shaka zulu??? He was as black as can be...still had no problem conquering the neighbouring tribes for hundreds of kilometers.
what about the mongols...
as for the aztecs...didnt they too conquer neigbouring tribes..
Or the maoris...fierce warriors with a spot of canabalism thrown in...
But noooooo....its all the white mans fault..
And as for the poor palestininans...sob..sob...sob...they already have a land...its called Jordan...like hello.
I reckon the Jews should charge them 2000 years back rent....

fountainhall

January 31st, 2017, 09:37

Fountainhall: Your answers are becoming less and less about engaging and more about writing mini lectures. Japan produced the finest army ever assembled and swept through Asia taking Singapore with 80000 Empire troops in a week with less than half that number. So without the British as well as Aus, NZ, Canada etc troops they would have conquered almost unlimited territory and Nanking would have been repeated again and again. So not wrong. And you must know how hated the Japanese are throughout Asia as well as other countries because of their behaviour in WW II.
You know writing long responses is nothing new. I do so because some comments are made with no backing. I try to back up comments with fact. Unfortunately, you again make general statements that are not backed up by the full facts.

1. Japan had the finest army ever assembled? Doubtful. Prior to WWII the Soviet Union and the French were regarded as having the most efficient armed forces, each outnumbering Germany in manpower, tanks, planes etc. The Soviets had the largest, and was eventually to prove its metal. But of course that does not equate to finest. And the French collapsed in weeks and the Soviets nearly collapsed before showing their metal.

2. You base your claim on the ease with which it conquered East Asia. Purely on the basis of speed, that has to be true. The Japanese planning had also been extremely good. But you can in no way compare that conquest with what was going on in Europe and the way the all-powerful German kriegsmaschine was knocking out all before it. Look at who the Japanese were up against. The French in Indo-China? Nope! After the defeat of France control was ceded to the pro-Nazi Vichy government. Hanoi and Saigon were actually handed over to the Japanese in 1940, followed by the whole of Indo-China in mid-1941. Resistance by the end of 1941 was minimal. That left the British colonial outposts of Hong Kong, Malaya and Singapore along with the Dutch in Indonesia. In Europe, the Dutch had also fallen to the Germans. By the time the Japanese reached the archipelago, it was an ally of the Germans and the Dutch had precious little ability to fight anywhere in Indonesia.

As for the British, they remained unconquered in Europe but were fighting for their very existence back home. In Malaya and Singapore the British and its allies were better able to fight, but they were not prepared, did not have full armies and their air equipment was very outdated compared to the Japanese. It was nothing like what they had in Europe. So, yes the Japanese conquered with relative ease and were aided by the secrecy with which they had planned their attacks. Had the British Isles been so poorly defended, though, Hitler would almost certainly have overrun it in weeks with similar ease.

I have omitted The Philippines because I just do not know enough about the American forces there. I'll therefore concede that country!!

The real judge of the quality of the Japanese armed forces surely has to be how the US was able to beat it back to its homeland, a tough, hard-fought affair - not on the ease with which it swept through the poorly defended and unprepared East Asia.

arsenal

January 31st, 2017, 13:44

We'll agree to disagree shall we Fountainhall. But as you partly pointed out. It took the US, Britain, China and quite a few others to defeat Japan.

fountainhall

January 31st, 2017, 14:14

Yes to both.

billyhouston

January 31st, 2017, 20:09

It took the US, Britain, China and quite a few others to defeat Japan.

Please don't forget the Myanmar ethnics, in particular the Kachin and the Shan, who fought alongside the Allies while the Burmese, under Bogyoke Aung San and his Takins, trained in Japan and fought for the Japanese until things did not exactly go in their favour. While I realise that in 1947 Atlee and his government had more pressing things on their agenda, like keeping the UK fed and warm, we British nevertheless betrayed the ethnics, especially the Karen.

arsenal

January 31st, 2017, 22:29

Billyhouston: I did mention "quite a few others."

billyhouston

February 1st, 2017, 09:37

Indeed you did mention 'quite a few others', but I was trying to get things back on track to your original post.

I am not an historian but have taken a particular interest in the history of Rohingya, even though my main interest is in the history of other ethnics in Myanmar. It is claimed that they are 'recent immigrants from Bengal' and, while it is true that they originated in Bengal, I don't regard the early part of the 17th century as 'recent'. The Arakanese used to go into what is now Bengal on slaving expeditions, to exploit the skill of the 'Bengalis' as weavers. Later on these Arakanese found it lucrative to supply 'Bengali' slaves to the VOC (Dutch East India Company) for its plantations in Batavia.

I have been a frequent visitor to Myanmar for more than 15 years, but I have yet to meet a single citizen who has a good word to say about the Rohingya. This saddens me greatly as my ethnic friends, in particular, have suffered greatly at the hands of the Tatmadaw and yet, they depise the Rohingya. I believe that they have fallen for the propaganda of Ne Win who, seeking to 'unify' the country decided upon a common enemy around whom the rest could unite.

I take every opportunity to engage with Myanmar Buddhist monks, on both sides of the border, and discuss with them U Wirathu and Ma Ba Tha. To a man, they refuse to condemn either of these and it makes my blood boil. Recently up at Loi Tai Lang (alternative Loi/Doi and Leng/Lang) I took on a couple of Buddhist Abbots on this subject; they simply did not want to hear about the Rohingya and did not wish to read the academic papers which I offered to provide. On the other hand they wanted me to make available to them papers on the history of other ethnics. They were themselves Shan, but their attitude shames them and me.

Aung San Suu Kyi, of whom I am not a fan, has been reminded several times by her fellow Nobel Laureate the Dalai Lama, the last time very publicly, of her duty to the Rohingya but she has utterly failed to do anything to protect them. She knows that it would be electoral suicide for reasons explained above. Than Shwe kept her locked up for 20 years and couldn't silence her, but allow her to become an MP and, all of a sudden, power is more important than what is right. He must be laughing his socks off since, I have every reason to believe, he continues to pull the strings.....

Then there is the small matter of what is going on in Kachin and Northern Shan. The Tatmadaw is intent on genocide/ethnic cleansing in Kachin. This is another subject upon which Aung San Suu Kyi refuses, in general, to comment. When really pressed, in the United States, all she would say about Kachin was that "both sides should stop fighting". I am sure the Kachin would love to, but they need to defend themselves. It's no use her saying that she cannot control the Army; her duty is to speak up.

werner

February 3rd, 2017, 14:14

This is an interesting and important discussion? BUT HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO "GAY THAILAND"???

arsenal

February 3rd, 2017, 14:35

This is a regular question from you Werner. Put it down as 'associated subjects'.

werner

February 3rd, 2017, 14:51

Arsenal, you are right.
The topic is vaguely related.
And many members, including myself, are interested in the topic.
So why should I complain?

fountainhall

February 3rd, 2017, 16:12

BUT HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO "GAY THAILAND"???
In some sense you can say that anything relates to Gay Thailand! 30 years ago an excellent book was published titled "Who's Had Who - in association with Berk's Rogerage". For those not accustomed to some of the less common words in the English language, to roger means to fuck and have sex with - and Berk's Rogerage refers to the society bible Burke's Peerage!

This is a totally tongue-in-cheek volume that purports to show how you can link two completely opposite people through the others whom they have rogered. I see from amazon that it can still be purchased, but it is inevitably dated and some of the personalities rogered will not be known to younger readers or to those not brought up in Merrie Old England. For example, it finds a rogering link between the actor Humphrey Bogarde and the one-time wife of the Queen's second son, Sarah Duchess of York -

Humphrey Bogarde with
Lauren Bacall (well, she was his wife, after all) to
Frank Sinatra (whose rogering talents covered almost anyone, anywhere), to
Carol White, an English actress to
Warren Beatty, the actor ("if Joan Collins' description of four times-a-night Warren is anything to go by, stamina is the last thing he needs"), then to
Viviane Ventura to
Omar Sharif, the Egyptian actor who fluttered hearts in Dr. Zhivago and other movies, to
Barbra Streisand, considered a rogerer of the first order, to
Elliott Gould to
Vicki Hodge (whose newspaper interview in which she claimed that the Queen's second son was a "kinky devil" and "I have seen the Royal Bum" did not sit well up the Royal Mall) to
Prince Andrew ("Big Andy launched his way round English society with all the priapistic determination of a frying pan: self-consciousness was a game that Andy wasn't playing," and thence to
Sarah Ferguson.

Other links include a section titled "The Queens" with links between Queen Elizabeth I and another great queen, King James VI of Scotland and I of England, in 8 rogers.

The books starts with an interesting proposition -

It is generally thought by Christian philosophers that God is omniscient, knows everything there is to know. A small group of Dutch theologians, however, in the early part of this century (i.e. the 20th) posited a theory called Omniscient Minus One in order to explain the mess that the world is in.

The theory ran like this. What if God knows everything except ONE THING. What if He has a blind spot: there is no-one around as intelligent as Him to put Him right, and He doesn't know He doesn't know it because that is the one thing He doesn't know. The developers of the Omniscient Minus One theory then gave this rather graphic example.

What, for instance, if God has always pushed a red button to send people to Hell, and a blue one to send them to Heaven. And what if the one thing God doesn't know is that He is colour-blind. And sees red for blue and vice-versa.

Chaos.

Having put forward the possibility of Omniscient Minus One, the question immediately arose: what is the Minus One? What is the one thing that God knows absolutely nothing about? Almost as soon as being posed, the question was answered.

God knows absolutely nothing about rogering.
After further explanations, it goes on with the first section about rogers that literally changed the world!

And of course, none the above has absolutely anything to do with Gay Thailand. Or might it . . . ?

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