That’s very possible. I usually take the position that if you’re a civilian leader with very little actual power and a military faction is carrying out a genocide in your name, you shouldn’t give it legitimacy - you should either publicly come out against it or abdicate and flee. Regardless of democratic progress you’re hoping to be able to make in your country, taking a unified stance against genocide is something everyone should do. It’s related to how Hitler used the lack of an international response to the Armenian Genocide to justify why Germany wouldn’t get punished for the Holocaust.
If people are going to be discussing Aung San Suu Kyi, they could at least take a bare modicum of time, and get the name of her country right. The correct name is Burma. Anybody who uses any other name is linguistically kowtowing to dictators.
For generations, the country was called Burma, after the dominant Burman ethnic group. But in 1989, one year after the ruling junta brutally suppressed a pro-democracy uprising, military leaders suddenly changed its name to Myanmar.
Per your own link:
In the Burmese language, “Myanmar” is simply the more formal version of “Burma.” The country’s name was changed only in English.
So in other words, the article’s title is misleading. They are the same thing. Unless I’m missing something. It would be like someone refusing to call the USA “America”, and insisting it be called “The United States”. As an American I wouldn’t care, they’re all valid.
Wait, I thought the full name of the country was Myanmar Alsoknownasburma.
FWIW, the White House calls it Burma:
I know nothing about Burmese politics, but am I wrong to be concerned about a democracy, even a deeply flawed and fragile one, being overturned by cries of “rigged election” so soon after Trump pulled his big stunt?
Is there any evidence that the election was rigged or compromised in any way, or is this just going to be the new geopolitical norm?
No evidence the election is rigged, but a bit more background on Burmese politics would be useful here. Also, claims of rigged elections (whether or not such rigging has occurred) is a pretty common feature of elections around the world, so this is hardly a new or uncommon norm. It is uncommon in Western governments but not as uncommon elsewhere.
They never really had a fully functional democracy to begin with. They were taking steps towards that direction but didn’t quite get there. The country has been ruled by its military almost exclusively until 10 years ago when they finally allowed a fairly limited democracy after decades of sanctions and international outcry.
And even then, the military held onto a large portion of power, including the power to essentially veto anything it didn’t like. They also figured that no single political party would get popular enough to be even a modest threat. They were wrong about this in the last election and decided they needed to take action to avoid any possible threat.
It’s basically a big mess over there. If you are a fan of liberal, Western democracy, there’s almost nothing to like. While it’s possible the democratic state they had could have moved in that direction, it did not appear likely - the civilian government was totally complicit in the ethnic cleansing. So, it came down to wondering which was the lesser evil. Those from more Western democracies are more or less on the side of democracy, even if flawed.
I guess I still come down on that side mostly, but there aren’t any outright good guys in this situation.
Kudos to their gutsy UN ambassador:
The road to democracy
is long and painful
But that road
is worth traveling.
Myanmar Save
It’s the Tiananmen response. The problem now is that the stakes are raised: killing people is something that won’t be forgotten and there will be those who want justice for years to come. The military leadership is fully cognizant of this, which is why, from their vantage point, they have to stay in power using any means necessary, including mass slaughter.
The military was already still in power as the military-written and -implemented constitution ensureed such a thing. What the current issue seems to be is the particular military person at the top wanted to stay at the top.
If Trump were in office do you think he’d have congratulated Myanmar on their successful coup?
I wouldn’t have been terribly surprised if he had. He’s always had an affinity for military strongmen.
I’ll always remember the 8888 Uprising in August and September of 1988. I was living in northern Thailand’s Mae Hong Son province at the time, which borders Myanmar’s Shan State. Lots of Myanmar nationals came over the border. (I think they were still calling the country Burma at the time.) The temples seemed full of them, many bearing horrible scars, but if you asked them, they insisted they were just visiting. (Mae Hong Son is Shan-majority, with ethnic Thais in the minority.)
Also of relevance to your post is that Mae Hong Son borders on Burma’s Shan State. The Shan language is related to Thai.
The Thai term for Shan is Thai Yai, literally “Big Thai.”