Our friend Erick, anthropologist extraordinaire, has sent me a lot of good stuff in recent weeks on events in Burma and Tibet. Due to my own harried schedule and general ineptitude, though, I let posting on them fall through the cracks. I’m finally getting to it, and, (un)fortunately, I didn’t have to edit out too many–most of them are still quite relevant. Check ‘em out below. And thank you, Erick!
BURMA
The Agence France-Presse joins the Associated Press, Reuters, Time Magazine, the New York Times, and the International Herald Tribune in writing a feature about the efforts of the Buddhist sangha to help those affected by Cyclone Nargis.
openDemocracy’s Wylie Bradford refutes the argument that U.S. and E.U. sanctions adversely affected those Burmese in the heavily Nargis-hit Irawaddy Delta region.
The Times of India reports that India will repair Shwedagon Pagoda, which was damaged during Cyclone Nargis.
The Irrawaddy offers a deeply unsettling piece entitled “Nargis: A Cash Cow for the Regime?”
A guest contributor to the New Mandala blog wonders, “Is the junta done for?”
Brian McCarten writes for the Asia Times Online about how the junta’s insistence on controlling aid and food stocks could be seen as a desperate “hedge to remain in power.”
The Irawaddy interviews Zarni, the Burmese activist who founded the Free Burma Coalition and led the boycott that resulted in Pepsi cutting all ties with the junta in 1997.
The Financial Times sends reporters into the Irawaddy Delta to report on the devastation wrought by Cyclone Nargis.
The Irrawaddy on the abandoned capital of Rangoon in the aftermath of the cyclone.
Researcher Sreeram Chaulia writes about “the problem with dictators and disasters” for the Asia Times Online.
The Irrawaddy reports on agriculture experts’ warnings that the Irrawaddy delta’s rice-growing region faces long-term damage from the effects of Cyclone Nargis.
The Rule of Lords blog asks a geopolitical question: “Where are Burma’s neighbors?”
The Irrawaddy‘s Kyi Wai offers her “cyclone diary.”
truthout on the number of orphans created by Cyclone Nargis.
The Democratic Voice of Burma on reports that the junta is selling food and other basic relief supplies to victims of Cyclone Nargis.
Himāl Southasian offers their assessment of Burma post-Saffron Revolution.
Erick points us to several pieces that analyze the implications of the cyclone for Burmese politics: this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one.
Three pieces about the junta’s corrupt constitutional referendum: one from Burma Digest, and the other two–this one and this one–from the Far Eastern Economic Review.
The Irrawaddy on “the need for people power rather than (just) compromises among the elite” for a political transition in Burma.
This piece from the Far Eastern Economic Review calls for the cyclone tragedy to be used to jump-start national renewal and a reform of the army. (Erick writes, “It’s worth pointing out, though, that Aceh and Sri Lanka pose contrasting examples of how a natural disaster can succeed or fail, respectively, in fostering political change.”)
TIBET
Agam over at Agam’s Gecko features an interesting (and censored) piece by Hong Kong lawyer Paul Harris looking at whether or not Tibet is legally entitled to self-determination under international law. Make sure you check this one out.
With all of the Chinese government’s specious claims about His Holiness the Dalai Lama masterminding violence from abroad, this Far Eastern Economic Review piece seems useful: it examines the gulf between Tibetans in Tibet and Tibetans in exile.
Two more pieces–this one and this one–on the declining appeal of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s “Middle Way” approach to China among some Tibetans. (I previously blogged about discontent with the Dalai Lama’s leadership among some Tibetans here.)
In the vein of the articles just mentioned above, Erick also sends several reflections on what he terms “the moral demands of non-violent resistance and Buddhism by Tibetans in exile”: this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one.
In a post at his blog Islam, Muslims, and an Anthropologist, Gabriele Marranci, an anthropologist of Islam, examines violence against Muslims in the March protests in Tibet. As Erick says, “this is a disturbing dimension few journalists have explored.”
Erick sends a number of “dated” but certainly interesting pieces from openDemocracy, including this one, this one (“Wasserstrom is particularly good in showing the uncomfortable parallels between the rhetoric of progress at the end of a gun in Tibet and Iraq”), this one (“particularly enlightening”), this one (“Fitzherbert points to the important new development–a pan-Tibetan nationalism that hardly existed, and was in fact resisted, previously”), this one, this one, and this one (authored by Donald S. Lopez, Jr.).
This article in Himāl Southasian looks at the protests in Tibet, and, in Erick’s words, shows “how they indicate the changing nature of protests organization, strategy and technology, as well as the enduring centrality of the idea and person of the Dalai Lama as icon to those protests.”
Himāl Southasian also reflects on developments in Tibet and Nepal.
The Tibetan Government-in-Exile on just how many Tibetans were killed following the Chinese government’s crackdown on demonstrations across Tibet between March 10 and April 25: they say 203.
Willy Lam writes about the Chinese government’s intensified war against “splittism” for the Asia Times Online.
Our friend Erick, anthropologist extraordinaire, has sent me a lot of good stuff in recent weeks on events in Burma and Tibet. Due to my own harried schedule and general ineptitude, though, I let posting on them fall through the cracks. I’m finally getting to it, and, (un)fortunately, I didn’t have to edit out too many–most of them are still quite relevant. Check ‘em out below. And thank you, Erick!
