Explores the life of Dr. Maung Maung (1925-94), scholar, soldier, nationalist, internationalist, parliamentarian, public servant, and pioneer amongst post-colonial journalists in Southeast Asia. His life spanned seven decades of political, economic and social turbulence in the country he loved and served, Myanmar.
The Political Handbook of the World provides timely, thorough, and accurate political information, with more in-depth coverage of current political controversies than any other reference guide. The updated 2015 edition will continue to be the most authoritative source for finding complete facts and analysis on each country’s governmental and political makeup. Compiling in one place more than 200 entries on countries and territories throughout the world, this volume is renowned for its extensive coverage of all major and minor political parties and groups in each political system. It also provides names of key ambassadors and international memberships of each country, plus detailed profiles of more than 30 intergovernmental organizations and UN agencies. And this annual update includes coverage of current events, issues, crises, and controversies from the course of this year.
Patrick Yay was born in Burma during a time when the people of Myanmar felt helpless and frightened while living under the rule of a brutal military junta regime. While growing up, Yay had a few seemingly simple wishes: to be valued and respected, to have rights and freedom of choice, and to be treated as a human being. Unfortunately there appeared to be only one way he could achieve his greatest desires and that was to escape his native land. In a compelling retelling of his younger life experiences, Yay leads others through his childhood and several years beyond as he matured and began attending medical school. While detailing the many difficulties he endured under an unethical administration of senior doctors, Yay provides a penetrating look into his growing frustrations instigated by the corrupt Ne Win military regime. But it was not until his younger brother’s arrest and imprisonment during the U Thant funeral in Rangoon that Yay felt he had no choice but to begin planning an escape that would not come without sacrifices. Agony to Agony shares the fascinating story of a Burmese man as he attempted to pursue his dreams and escape a country held captive by ruthless dictators.
This work compiles selected speeches, letters, and statements by the father of Burmese independence, Aung San. The editor's introduction offers an overview of this remarkable man's life, thought, and achievements. The documents included here provide insight into the politics of Aung San—an eminently pragmatic leader focused on attaining both national unity and social harmony—through his own words.
This book, conceived in Rangoon, nourished and delivered at the Yale Law School, attempts to study the customary laws of Burma in the context of the country's legal system. Customary laws govern the affairs of the family mainly while codes and precedents designed and developed on the imported British common law system enjoy exclusive control and authority over the remaining legal relationships in society. This volume looks at the legal system in outline and the customary law of the Bur mese family in some detail. The customary laws of other indigenous groups, such as the Shans, the Kachins, the Chins, the Kayah, the Mon and the Arakanese, also need to be studied, restated and appraised, for though the laws are similar there are shades of differences, and in build ing the Union of Burma it is important to build strongly on the simi larities while giving due respect to the differences. It is, therefore, hoped, that this volume will launch a series of studies on the customary laws of the peoples of Burma in a large context and with high aim. There are many needs for continuing research in the field of custom ary law. One is to discover the customs of the people as they really are, not just what they are presumed to be in early legal treatises or in later judicial decisions.
The Female Voice of Myanmar seeks to offer a female perspective on the history and political evolution of Myanmar. It delves into the lives and works of four of Myanmar's remarkable women who set aside their lives to answer the call of their country: Khin Myo Chit, who spoke about latent sexual politics in pre-Independent Burma; Ludu Daw Amar, who as the editor of the leftist Ludu Daily, was deemed anti-establishment and was witness to the socialist government's abortive efforts at ethnic reconciliation; Ma Thida, whose writing bears testimony to the impact the authoritative military rule had on the individual psyche; and Aung San Suu Kyi, who has re-articulated Burmese nationalism. This book breaks new ground in exploring their writing, both published and hitherto unexamined, some in English and much in Burmese, while the intimate biographical sketches offer a glimpse into the Burmese home and the shifting feminine image.
Burma is a country where, as one senior UN official puts it, “just to turn your head can mean imprisonment or death.” Aung San Suu Kyi is one of the world’s foremost inspirational revolutionary leaders. Considered to be Burma’s best hope for freedom, she has waged a war of steadfast nonviolent opposition to the country’s vicious militant regime. Because of her resistance to the brutality of the Burmese government, she has been under house arrest since 1989. She has endured failing health, vilification through the Burmese media, and cruel imprisonment in one of the world’s most dreadful and inhumane jails. Suu Kyi has fought every hardship the junta could put her through, yet she has never once wavered from her position, never once advocated violence, and persevered in her message of peaceful resistance at all costs, earning her the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, placing her among the likes of such renowned champions of peace as Gandhi, King, and Mandela. She is a truly heroic revolutionary. In Perfect Hostage, the most thorough biography of Suu Kyi to date, Justin Wintle tells both the story of the Burmese people and the story of an ordinary person who became a hero.
"Robert Taylor, one of the most prominent scholars in Myanmar studies, has written an illuminating study of Ne Win, the most enigmatic and controversial of the first generation of post-independence Southeast Asian leaders, and how he steered a then largely unknown country, Burma (now Myanmar), through the Cold War years. This book, by perhaps the only foreign political analyst to live in Burma under Ne Win, is a significant contribution to the historiography of Myanmar and its unnoticed role in the Cold War in Asia." -- Associate Professor Ang Cheng Guan, Head of Graduate Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. "This book fills a major gap in the literature on Myanmar by providing the first scholarly account of the life of General Ne Win, its enigmatic ruler for over 25 years. It will be of interest not only to professional Myanmar watchers, who have long awaited a detailed and comprehensive study of this important historical figure, but to anyone who wants to learn more about this troubled Southeast Asian country, where Ne Win’s legacy is still being felt today." -- Andrew Selth, Adjunct Associate Professor, Griffith Asia Institute. "The Colonel Ne Win of World War II and General Ne Win of post-independent Myanmar was not the same as Chairman Ne Win of the BSPP. Nor was the context of those days similar to the context by which he is normally judged today. The present work (and Taylor’s scholarship in general) is acutely aware of such anachronistic projections backward, made to commensurate with certain desired academic and political consequences. Taylor examines Ne Win’s life and career in the context of when it occurred. This book returns Ne Win to the period to which he belonged." -- Michael Aung-Thwin, Professor of South East Asian History, University of Hawaii. "It is difficult to imagine that this study of Ne Win, the dominant figure in the politics of Burma through most of the second half of the twentieth century, will ever be surpassed. Immensely detailed, insightful, and impressively understanding, this is an outstanding work of scholarship." Ian Brown, Emeritus Professor of the Economic History of South East Asia, School of Oriental and African Studies (London).