Imagine the US inviting the Queen of England to a formal state visit. Yet, the monarch wouldn’t be allowed to see Washington; she would be received at the fanciest McDonald’s branch in New York City.
This is exactly what happened to President Obama, the first American ruler to visit Myanmar. Between November 17 and 20, 2012, he visited Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar.
In the latter, he was received at Yangon, the old capital, and not at Naypyidaw, the current one. This wasn’t the only oddity of the visit. American media made a fuzz of President Obama using for the first time the official name of the country, Myanmar.
Until now, the US Government preferred the British imperial name, Burma, which is an awful transliteration of Bamar, the main ethnic group in the country.
American media wrongly reported that Myanmar was the name given to the country by the military dictatorship. In fact, they reverted to the literary form of the country’s name in Burmese, renouncing to the doubtful British heritage.
Calling Myanmar “Burma,” is like calling the USA “WASP” (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant). The USA performed the parallel of the Queen of England referring to the USA as “New England.” Embarrassingly amateurish.
President Obama in Yangon Embarrassingly Amateurish
President Obama in Yangon
Thwarted War
For many years now, Western media and governments like to portrait Myanmar as pure evil. Western Democracies—especially the USA—have based their economies on military industries.
Without an eternal war, Western economies would collapse. This explains the incredible chain of wars—that the USA is involved in since WWII. The main ones were lost by America.
Korea remained divided. Vietnam was unified under communism after a heroic victory over the Western Empire. Afghanistan defeated the Soviet attack, and probably will survive the American one as well.
Iraq seems on the verge of being split between Shi’as and Kurds. I concede to the critics that the USA won in Grenada.
Yet, when you read Western sources, everything is upside down. “Heroic Western soldiers won again,” are the eternal headlines. Control the headlines, and you control the population. After all, no government could be ratified over a politic of war and violence.
Reality contradicts the political wishes of the Western elites. A Western government can’t censor a book like Nineteen Eighty-Four and survive the event unscathed.
Orwell described a society oppressed by The Party. It is a world of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, and public mind control. The book definitely takes place in England.
The political system is called English Socialism (Ingsoc) and is under control of the privileged Inner Party elite, which persecutes all individualism and independent thinking as thoughtcrimes.
The Ministry of Truth (Minitrue) is responsible for propaganda and historical revisionism; in other words, it constantly rewrites history so that it will fit current reality.
What can evil do? One technique is aiming the problematic content at someone else. Nineteen Eighty-Four was clearly written about England and takes place mainly in London.
This is not an assumption. Orwell was explicit about this. It resembles the modern reality of Western surveillance-states. Yet, in 2006, a small book was published in the USA.
It was named Finding George Orwell in Burma, and was written by Emma Larkin. The author made an outrageous claim. She said that three of Orwell’s books, namely Nineteen Eighty-Four, Animal Farm, and Burmese Days, were a trilogy describing Myanmar, a gentle country constantly vilified by the West.
I commented above on the first book; the second is an imaginary tale taking place in a farm and describing the evils of Communism. It obviously cannot describe Myanmar—which was never Communist—and one of the animals in the book is a quite obvious and humorous description of Joseph Stalin.
Only the third book is related to Myanmar and portrays a wonderful place. Ms. Larkin tied together all the undesired material—undesired to the ruling elites—and threw it at Myanmar, a country these elites despise. This was long-term propaganda; eventually Obama recognized defeat.
My first two years in exile were spent in Southeast Asia, where I visited Myanmar in several opportunities and locations. Invariably, the people there looked happier than anybody I met later in the USA, where I visited ten states from Florida to California. It was pretty obvious that despite Western media claims there wasn’t an oppressive government there.
Simply, it was difficult to spot any signs of a central government. The few officials I met were kind, moved without weapons, and were invariably worried about finding a proper cup of chai. Reality fits the idyllic descriptions of Orwell.
Yet, an American invasion of Myanmar was constantly in the news. Surprisingly, even the nationalistic, pro-American Bangkok Post opposed it, despite Thailand probably having profited from such a war.
The superb network of Thai highways is the result of the Vietnam War; the main highways in the country run along the roads that connected seven American airbases.
ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations which includes Myanmar, opposed the war during all this time, acting as a buffer between the USA and Myanmar.
At the peak of the tensions, Myanmar moved its capital to Naypyidaw, where Americans cannot perform a ground attack. However, this wasn’t the decisive factor that stopped the war.
Despite the differences in the government types, Myanmar and China are close allies. Few remember now that Myanmar was the first country to recognize the independence of China, and that it helped the Communists with the transfer of goods and weapons through the Burma Road.
Moreover, a country rich in minerals, Myanmar is an important supplier of China. While traveling in Southern China it is impossible to ignore the innumerable jade shops, selling this attractive stone brought from Myanmar. With the impressive raising in China’s international influence, its allies became safe; the USA cannot attack Myanmar.
Burma Road
Bagan | Myanmar
Obama Walks to Canossa
What we saw here was not a normal visit. Before it, President Obama stopped sanctions against Myanmar. Once there, he uttered the forbidden word “Myanmar,” despite not visiting the country’s capital.
Moreover, he praised Myanmar’s policies, which had only slightly changed in recent years, and asked to perform a future visit. In fact, it was a recognition of America’s evils towards Myanmar during the last generation.
In 1076, Pope Gregory VII attempted to enact reforms to the kings’ investiture process, but was met by much resistance from the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV. Henry renounced Gregory as pope; in return, Gregory excommunicated and deposed Henry, in the Lenten synod of 1076, at Rome. He stated that one year from that day the excommunication would become permanent and irrevocable.
In fear of an attack by the threatened emperor, the pope hid in Canossa. Henry reached Canossa in the guise of a penitent, and begged for forgiveness and reinstatement in the church.
After three days of waiting at the castle gates, while wearing only his penitent hair shirt and fasting, he was admitted and forgiven. This unconditional surrender is known as the Way to Canossa. Obama performed his first Little Canossa towards China. More such events are expected.
Mr. Tov Roy is one of the frequent contributors for The 4th Media.
For those who’ve been reading Mr. Roy’s valuable articles:
The short note below is from Mr. Roy who’s asking The 4th Media to share with the world about his own “exiled but now violently held by Bolivian government” situation, according to his claim. We don’t have any other information about his present situation other than what he’s shared with us. However, The 4th Media decided to post, together with his articles, his note as it is to let our readers informed of Mr. Roy’s situation anyway:
Mr. Roy’s own words:
I have been recognized a political prisoner of the Bolivian government.
[However,] I am [now] held in Bolivia violently and against my will by the government of Evo Morales.
I beg you to help me make this public.
Roy Tov, tovroy@aol.com
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