{"id":8261,"date":"2010-11-08T00:00:55","date_gmt":"2010-11-07T23:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=8261"},"modified":"2010-11-07T17:41:40","modified_gmt":"2010-11-07T16:41:40","slug":"civil-society-and-its-grateful-children-a-poem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2010\/11\/civil-society-and-its-grateful-children-a-poem\/","title":{"rendered":"Civil Society and Its Pragmatically Grateful Children (A POEM)"},"content":{"rendered":"

A gift to Burmese voters<\/em><\/p>\n

Brother, leave your revolution behind, and junk your jailed comrades.<\/p>\n

Icons are best dead.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0So, forget about (Aung San) Suu Kyi the Lady.<\/p>\n

Ideals are for idiots.\u00a0 Resistance is futile.\u00a0 And another world is not possible.<\/p>\n

Get it?<\/p>\n

Our Generals\u2019 Elections are good for you.<\/p>\n

How dare our ASEAN neighbors call them a \u201ctravesty\u201d (the Indonesians)<\/p>\n

And a \u201cfarce\u201d (the Fillipinoes)!<\/p>\n

Politics is bad for your health, but projects feed your babies.<\/p>\n

Hone your (project) management skills, sell your soul and go commercial.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t forget to keep your receipts, or file \u2018reports for donors\u2019.<\/p>\n

Dissidents are out.\u00a0 Development is in.<\/p>\n

Civil Society is good for you, and for \u201csocially responsible\u201d Big Business.<\/p>\n

So, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride<\/p>\n

As the Free Market prepares to penetrate your \u2018virgin\u2019 economy<\/p>\n

While \u201cScums of the Earth\u201d look on,<\/p>\n

(That is, dishonest diplomats, cynical UN careerists, dull developmentalists, sinister humanitarians, rational policy ideologues, and our local pragmatic proxies),<\/p>\n

In their cozy Conradian \u2018Outposts of Progress\u2019<\/p>\n

With bottles of political snake-oil in their hands,<\/p>\n

And certified Voodoo Expertise of In-Human Development in their heads<\/p>\n

Waiting to discharge their \u201cInternational Class Burden\u201d<\/p>\n

Of saving us Kipling\u2019s half-childlike Natives<\/p>\n

From our real \u201cThree Diseases\u201d of Poverty, Conflict and Oppression<\/p>\n

All singing the chorus of their cure-all mantra:<\/p>\n

\u201cMiddle Class the Savior is coming.<\/p>\n

Middle Class the Savior is coming.<\/p>\n

To save you, it is C-O-M-I-N-G!\u201d<\/p>\n

We now know there is no society as we, the natives, know it<\/p>\n

But only their manufactured \u2018Civil Society\u2019, born via project-assisted delivery<\/p>\n

Sirs! Madams!<\/p>\n

Thank you for your Snake Oil, and for your Voodoo Midwifery.<\/p>\n

Now we welcome you to our brave new world of Myanmar\u2019s Civil Society.<\/p>\n

_______________<\/em><\/p>\n

Zarni, Bangkok, 7 Nov 2010, on the morning of a national mourning day called \u201cThe Generals\u2019 Election\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A gift to Burmese voters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}