Articles by Maung Zarni
We found 313 results.
Cheerleading Is No Revolution: “Democracy in Burma”
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Mar 2012
Cheerleading is no revolution. That society is not going anywhere humanistic. The current discourse of revolutionary changes is nothing but a self-interested spin from vultures and vampires of all stripes and colours, native and foreign.
→ read full articleNeutralising Burma’s Ethnic Rebellions
Dr. Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2011
In his Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Karl Marx wrote: ‘The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.’ Such an assessment is only half-right when it comes to Burma’s internal conflicts, of which ethnicity is of equal importance to class.
→ read full articleDark Economics Fuels Burma’s Perpetual War
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
For the past 200 years at least, Burma has been seen as a strategic venue by outside powers, be they European imperialists such as the French and the British in the 19th Century, or the 20th Century imperial and fascist powers of the US and Japan during the Second World War. These countries have always seen Burma as a commercial backdoor to China and India, a military launching pad, a half-way safe harbour, and a resource brothel.
→ read full articleChange the Burmese Public Can’t Believe In
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Oct 2011
Burma is undergoing top-down changes, we are being told. Norway’s Deputy Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, after his whirlwind trip to the country, told the Financial Times on Oct 11, “I almost left the country thinking they’re moving a little too fast. I never thought I would say that about Myanmar.”
→ read full articleUnderstanding the Changes in Burma
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Oct 2011
All the “dramatic” developments in Burma, including the release of 6,000-plus prisoners, are, as US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell put it, certainly welcome. And yet despite these loud applauses of “changes” in Burma, the Burmese public is finding it very, very difficult to feel hopeful. These changes do not include the change of heart among Burma’s rulers. They are in fact principally related to only two things.
→ read full articleThey Talk the Talk, But Baulk at the Walk
Dr Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Aug 2011
Twenty three years since Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the then freshly minted popular dissident, began her impassioned calls for a resolution to the country’s long-standing problems through dialogue, we seem to have been conditioned like a Pavlovian four-limbed creature.
→ read full articleMeritocracy: A Myth?
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2011
If you are anti-imperialist, ‘Third Worldist’ type – like I unapologetically am – it may warm your heart to know that historically Oxford produced the highest number of folks who gave the rest of the world ‘the British Empire’, which among other things grew opium in India for export to China – as a brilliant economic policy to address the Raj’s trade deficit. (Cambridge was the runner up). Often our own Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is talked about as ‘Oxford-educated’ as if her Oxford education turned her into who she is and what she is made of. As a matter of fact, it was/is her (self-acknowledged) awareness of her parents’ exemplary lives as citizens that was/is her source of inspiration.
→ read full articleThe Intellectual Crisis of Reporting On Burma by the International Crisis Group
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Apr 2011
When European Union policymakers will meet to review the EU Common Policy on Burma, on 12 April, they will be wise to discard the International Crisis Group’s (ICG) recent call for the unconditional embrace of the country’s military dictatorship… The ICG analysts seem to have chosen only evidence that agrees with a pro-trade, pro-aid policy stance, while critically lacking both conceptual and historical understanding of how dictatorships change.
→ read full articleAnti-Sanctions Chorus Out of Tune
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Jan 2011
The emerging anti-sanctions lobby should be understood for what it is – the bald promotion of Western strategic and corporate interests. Ending sanctions now will only further entrench military rule, giving it a veneer of normalcy and acceptability, at the expense of Myanmar’s long-suffering people and the country’s equitable economic development.
→ read full articleWhen Pixels, Bytes and VJs Unite
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Dec 2010
Everyone could hear the collective gasp that filled the auditorium – and no one would forget – the very moment when the first signal transporting Aung San Suu Kyi’s animated face to a large screen in London arrived last week.
→ read full articleWhat Does Aung San Suu Kyi’s Release Mean for Burma?
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
Since the release of a single dissident Aung San Suu Kyi – while holding 2,100 of her fellow dissidents behind bars who are serving up to 90 years imprisonment – the loud calls for lifting sanctions are repeated by some well-known supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi such as East Timor’s Jose Ramos-Horta, as if pouring more foreign direct investment in Burma’s gas and oil sector and increasing trade with the country’s kleptocratic, dysfunctional State would automatically translate into public welfare.
→ read full articleMyanmar Election Was ‘Categorically Anti-Democratic’
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Nov 2010
The constitution also stipulates the commander-in-chief will be above the law, and that the president must have substantial “national security experience”, something which only military officers can claim. Twenty five per cent of parliamentary seats are reserved for the military and any constitutional amendment must have more than 75 per cent of votes, making reform virtually impossible unless, of course, the generals acquiesce. The parliament is required to meet only once a year.
→ read full articleThe Generals’ Election
Maung Zarni – Himal Southasian,
4 Oct 2010
In the run-up to Burma’s fraught polls, some of the junta’s leading cheerleaders are Western governments who are bending over backwards to justify their stance.
→ read full article