mornin bros
caker peekin in
Mama Cass
she did have a set of lungs too
not many folk songs I like from the 60's but these guys were guud
deCaprio can't sing for shit!
Myanmar background:
Early civilisations in Myanmar included the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu city-states in Upper Burma and the Mon kingdoms in Lower Burma.[9] In the 9th century, the Bamar people entered the upper Irrawaddy valley, and following the establishment of the Pagan Kingdom in the 1050s, the Burmese language, culture, and Theravada Buddhism slowly became dominant in the country. The Pagan Kingdom fell to Mongol invasions, and several warring states emerged. In the 16th century, reunified by the Taungoo dynasty, the country became the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia for a short period.[10] The early 19th-century Konbaung dynasty ruled over an area that included modern Myanmar and briefly controlled Manipur and Assam as well. The British East India Company seized control of the administration of Myanmar after three Anglo-Burmese Wars in the 19th century, and the country became a British colony. After a brief Japanese occupation, Myanmar was reconquered by the Allies and granted independence in 1948. Following a coup d'état in 1962, it became a military dictatorship under the Burma Socialist Programme Party.
For most of its independent years, the country has been engrossed in rampant ethnic strife and its myriad ethnic groups have been involved in one of the world's longest-running ongoing civil wars. During this time, the United Nations and several other organisations have reported consistent and systematic human rights violations in the country.[11] In 2011, the military junta was officially dissolved following a 2010 general election, and a nominally civilian government was installed. This, along with the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and political prisoners, had improved the country's human rights record and foreign relations and has led to the easing of trade and other economic sanctions.[12] There is, however, continuing criticism of the government's treatment of ethnic minorities, its response to the ethnic insurgency, and religious clashes.[13] In the 2015 election, Aung San Suu Kyi's party won a majority in both houses. However, the Burmese military remained a powerful force in politics and, on 1 February 2021, again seized power in a coup d'état.[14]
Myanmar is a member of the East Asia Summit, Non-Aligned Movement, ASEAN, and BIMSTEC, but it is not a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. It is a country rich in jade and gems, oil, natural gas, and other mineral resources. Myanmar is also endowed with renewable energy; it has the highest solar power potential compared to other countries of the Great Mekong Subregion.[15] In 2013, its GDP (nominal) stood at US$56.7 billion and its GDP (PPP) at US$221.5 billion.[16] The income gap in Myanmar is among the widest in the world, as a large proportion of the economy is controlled by supporters of the military government.[17] As of 2020, according to the Human Development Index, Myanmar ranks 147 out of 189 countries in human development.[8]
British Burma (1885–1948)
Main articles: British rule in Burma and Burma Campaign
The landing of British forces in Mandalay after the last of the Anglo-Burmese Wars, which resulted in the abdication of the last Burmese monarch, King Thibaw Min.
British troops firing a mortar on the Mawchi road, July 1944.
In the 18th century Burmese rulers, whose country had not previously been of particular interest to European traders, sought to maintain their traditional influence in the western areas of Assam, Manipur and Arakan. Pressing them, however, was the British East India Company, which was expanding its interests eastwards over the same territory. Over the next sixty years, diplomacy, raids, treaties and compromises, known collectively as the Anglo-Burmese Wars, continued until Britain proclaimed control over most of Burma.[63] With the fall of Mandalay, all of Burma came under British rule, being annexed on 1 January 1886.
Throughout the colonial era, many Indians arrived as soldiers, civil servants, construction workers and traders and, along with the Anglo-Burmese community, dominated commercial and civil life in Burma. Rangoon became the capital of British Burma and an important port between Calcutta and Singapore. Burmese resentment was strong and was vented in violent riots that paralysed Rangoon on occasion all the way until the 1930s.[64] Some of the discontent was caused by a disrespect for Burmese culture and traditions such as the British refusal to remove shoes when they entered pagodas. Buddhist monks became the vanguards of the independence movement. U Wisara, an activist monk, died in prison after a 166-day hunger strike to protest against a rule that forbade him to wear his Buddhist robes while imprisoned.[65]
On 1 April 1937, Burma became a separately administered colony of Great Britain, and Ba Maw became the first Prime Minister and Premier of Burma. Ba Maw was an outspoken advocate for Burmese self-rule, and he opposed the participation of Great Britain, and by extension Burma, in World War II. He resigned from the Legislative Assembly and was arrested for sedition. In 1940, before Japan formally entered the war, Aung San formed the Burma Independence Army in Japan.
As a major battleground, Burma was devastated during World War II by the Japanese invasion. Within months after they entered the war, Japanese troops had advanced on Rangoon, and the British administration had collapsed. A Burmese Executive Administration headed by Ba Maw was established by the Japanese in August 1942. Wingate's British Chindits were formed into long-range penetration groups trained to operate deep behind Japanese lines.[66] A similar American unit, Merrill's Marauders, followed the Chindits into the Burmese jungle in 1943.[67] Beginning in late 1944, allied troops launched a series of offensives that led to the end of Japanese rule in July 1945. The battles were intense with much of Burma laid waste by the fighting. Overall, the Japanese lost some 150,000 men in Burma with 1,700 prisoners taken.[68] Although many Burmese fought initially for the Japanese as part of the Burma Independence Army, many Burmese, mostly from the ethnic minorities, served in the British Burma Army.[69] The Burma National Army and the Arakan National Army fought with the Japanese from 1942 to 1944 but switched allegiance to the Allied side in 1945. Overall, 170,000 to 250,000 Burmese civilians died during World War II.[70]
Following World War II, Aung San negotiated the Panglong Agreement with ethnic leaders that guaranteed the independence of Myanmar as a unified state. Aung Zan Wai, Pe Khin, Bo Hmu Aung, Sir Maung Gyi, Dr. Sein Mya Maung, Myoma U Than Kywe were among the negotiators of the historic Panglong Conference negotiated with Bamar leader General Aung San and other ethnic leaders in 1947. In 1947, Aung San became Deputy Chairman of the Executive Council of Myanmar, a transitional government. But in July 1947, political rivals[71] assassinated Aung San and several cabinet members.[72]
Independence (1948–1962)
Main article: Post-independence Burma, 1948–1962
British governor Hubert Elvin Rance and Sao Shwe Thaik at the flag raising ceremony on 4 January 1948 (Independence Day of Burma).
On 4 January 1948, the nation became an independent republic, under the terms of the Burma Independence Act 1947. The new country was named the Union of Burma, with Sao Shwe Thaik as its first president and U Nu as its first prime minister. Unlike most other former British colonies and overseas territories, Burma did not become a member of the Commonwealth. A bicameral parliament was formed, consisting of a Chamber of Deputies and a Chamber of Nationalities,[73] and multi-party elections were held in 1951–1952, 1956 and 1960.
The geographical area Burma encompasses today can be traced to the Panglong Agreement, which combined Burma Proper, which consisted of Lower Burma and Upper Burma, and the Frontier Areas, which had been administered separately by the British.[74]
Military rule (1962–2011)
On 2 March 1962, the military led by General Ne Win took control of Burma through a coup d'état, and the government has been under direct or indirect control by the military since then. Between 1962 and 1974, Myanmar was ruled by a revolutionary council headed by the general. Almost all aspects of society (business, media, production) were nationalised or brought under government control under the Burmese Way to Socialism,[77] which combined Soviet-style nationalisation and central planning.
A new constitution of the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma was adopted in 1974. Until 1988, the country was ruled as a one-party system, with the general and other military officers resigning and ruling through the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP).[78] During this period, Myanmar became one of the world's most impoverished countries.[79] There were sporadic protests against military rule during the Ne Win years, and these were almost always violently suppressed. On 7 July 1962, the government broke up demonstrations at Rangoon University, killing 15 students.[77] In 1974, the military violently suppressed anti-government protests at the funeral of U Thant. Student protests in 1975, 1976, and 1977 were quickly suppressed by overwhelming force.[78]
Protesters gathering in central Rangoon, 1988.
In 1988, unrest over economic mismanagement and political oppression by the government led to widespread pro-democracy demonstrations throughout the country known as the 8888 Uprising. Security forces killed thousands of demonstrators, and General Saw Maung staged a coup d'état and formed the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). In 1989, SLORC declared martial law after widespread protests. The military government finalised plans for People's Assembly elections on 31 May 1989.[80] SLORC changed the country's official English name from the "Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma" to the "Union of Myanmar" in 18 June 1989 by enacting the adaptation of the expression law.
In May 1990, the government held free elections for the first time in almost 30 years, and the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, won 392 out of a total 492 seats (i.e., 80% of the seats). However, the military junta refused to cede power[81] and continued to rule the nation as SLORC until 1997, and then as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) until its dissolution in March 2011. On 23 June 1997, Myanmar was admitted into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. On 27 March 2006, the military junta, which had moved the national capital from Yangon to a site near Pyinmana in November 2005, officially named the new capital Naypyidaw, meaning "city of the kings".[82]
Protesters in Yangon during the 2007 Saffron Revolution with a banner that reads non-violence: national movement in Burmese. In the background is Shwedagon Pagoda.
Cyclone Nargis in southern Myanmar, May 2008.
In August 2007, an increase in the price of fuel led to the Saffron Revolution led by Buddhist monks that were dealt with harshly by the government.[83] The government cracked down on them on 26 September 2007, with reports of barricades at the Shwedagon Pagoda and monks killed. There were also rumours of disagreement within the Burmese armed forces, but none was confirmed. The military crackdown against unarmed protesters was widely condemned as part of the international reactions to the Saffron Revolution and led to an increase in economic sanctions against the Burmese Government.
In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis caused extensive damage in the densely populated rice-farming delta of the Irrawaddy Division.[84] It was the worst natural disaster in Burmese history with reports of an estimated 200,000 people dead or missing, damages totalled to 10 billion US dollars, and as many as 1 million were left homeless.[85] In the critical days following this disaster, Myanmar's isolationist government was accused of hindering United Nations recovery efforts.[86] Humanitarian aid was requested, but concerns about foreign military or intelligence presence in the country delayed the entry of United States military planes delivering medicine, food, and other supplies.[87]
In early August 2009, a conflict broke out in Shan State in northern Myanmar. For several weeks, junta troops fought against ethnic minorities including the Han Chinese,[88] Wa, and Kachin.[89][90] During 8–12 August, the first days of the conflict, as many as 10,000 Burmese civilians fled to Yunnan in neighbouring China.[89][90][91]
In 1961, U Thant, the Union of Burma's Permanent Representative to the United Nations and former secretary to the prime minister, was elected Secretary-General of the United Nations, a position he held for ten years.[75] Among the Burmese to work at the UN when he was secretary-general was Aung San Suu Kyi (daughter of Aung San), who went on to become winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
When the non-Burman ethnic groups pushed for autonomy or federalism, alongside having a weak civilian government at the centre, the military leadership staged a coup d’état in 1962. Though incorporated in the 1947 Constitution, successive military governments construed the use of the term ‘federalism’ as being anti-national, anti-unity and pro-disintegration.[76]
Civil wars
Main article: Internal conflict in Myanmar
Civil wars have been a constant feature of Myanmar's socio-political landscape since the attainment of independence in 1948. These wars are predominantly struggles for ethnic and sub-national autonomy, with the areas surrounding the ethnically Bamar central districts of the country serving as the primary geographical setting of conflict. Foreign journalists and visitors require a special travel permit to visit the areas in which Myanmar's civil wars continue.[92]
In October 2012, the ongoing conflicts in Myanmar included the Kachin conflict,[93] between the Pro-Christian Kachin Independence Army and the government;[94] a civil war between the Rohingya Muslims and the government and non-government groups in Rakhine State;[95] and a conflict between the Shan,[96] Lahu, and Karen[97][98] minority groups, and the government in the eastern half of the country. In addition, al-Qaeda signalled an intention to become involved in Myanmar. In a video released on 3 September 2014, mainly addressed to India, the militant group's leader Ayman al-Zawahiri said al-Qaeda had not forgotten the Muslims of Myanmar and that the group was doing "what they can to rescue you".[99] In response, the military raised its level of alertness, while the Burmese Muslim Association issued a statement saying Muslims would not tolerate any threat to their motherland.[100]
Armed conflict between ethnic Chinese rebels and the Myanmar Armed Forces resulted in the Kokang offensive in February 2015. The conflict had forced 40,000 to 50,000 civilians to flee their homes and seek shelter on the Chinese side of the border.[101] During the incident, the government of China was accused of giving military assistance to the ethnic Chinese rebels. Burmese officials have been historically "manipulated" and pressured by the Chinese government throughout Burmese modern history to create closer and binding ties with China, creating a Chinese satellite state in Southeast Asia.[102] However, uncertainties exist as clashes between Burmese troops and local insurgent groups continue.
Democratic reforms
Main article: 2011–12 Burmese political reforms
The goal of the Burmese constitutional referendum of 2008, held on 10 May 2008, is the creation of a "discipline-flourishing democracy". As part of the referendum process, the name of the country was changed from the "Union of Myanmar" to the "Republic of the Union of Myanmar", and general elections were held under the new constitution in 2010. Observer accounts of the 2010 election describe the event as mostly peaceful; however, allegations of polling station irregularities were raised, and the United Nations (UN) and a number of Western countries condemned the elections as fraudulent.[103]
U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with Aung San Suu Kyi and her staff at her home in Yangon, 2012
The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party declared victory in the 2010 elections, stating that it had been favoured by 80 per cent of the votes; however, the claim was disputed by numerous pro-democracy opposition groups who asserted that the military regime had engaged in rampant fraud.[104][105] One report documented 77 per cent as the official turnout rate of the election.[104] The military junta was dissolved on 30 March 2011.
Opinions differ whether the transition to liberal democracy is underway. According to some reports, the military's presence continues as the label "disciplined democracy" suggests. This label asserts that the Burmese military is allowing certain civil liberties while clandestinely institutionalising itself further into Burmese politics. Such an assertion assumes that reforms only occurred when the military was able to safeguard its own interests through the transition—here, "transition" does not refer to a transition to a liberal democracy but transition to a quasi-military rule.[106]
Since the 2010 election, the government has embarked on a series of reforms to direct the country towards liberal democracy, a mixed economy, and reconciliation, although doubts persist about the motives that underpin such reforms. The series of reforms includes the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, the establishment of the National Human Rights Commission, the granting of general amnesties for more than 200 political prisoners, new labour laws that permit labour unions and strikes, a relaxation of press censorship, and the regulation of currency practices.[107]
The impact of the post-election reforms has been observed in numerous areas, including ASEAN's approval of Myanmar's bid for the position of ASEAN chair in 2014;[108] the visit by United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in December 2011 for the encouragement of further progress, which was the first visit by a secretary of state in more than fifty years,[109] during which President Bill Clinton met with the Burmese president and former military commander Thein Sein, as well as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi;[110] and the participation of Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD party in the 2012 by-elections, facilitated by the government's abolition of the laws that previously barred the NLD.[111] In the April 2012 by-elections, the NLD won 43 of the 45 available seats; previously an illegal organisation, the NLD had not won a single seat under the new constitution. The 2012 by-elections were also the first time that international representatives were allowed to monitor the voting process in Myanmar.[112]
2015 general elections
General elections were held on 8 November 2015. These were the first openly contested elections held in Myanmar since 1990. The results gave the NLD an absolute majority of seats in both chambers of the national parliament, enough to ensure that its candidate would become president, while NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi is constitutionally barred from the presidency.[113] The new parliament convened on 1 February 2016,[114] and on 15 March 2016, Htin Kyaw was elected as the first non-military president since the military coup of 1962.[115] On 6 April 2016, Aung San Suu Kyi assumed the newly created role of state counsellor, a role akin to a prime minister.
2020 elections and 2021 military coup d'etat
Main article: 2021 Myanmar coup d'état
The NLD won the 2020 Myanmar general election on 8 November in a landslide, again winning supermajorities in both houses. The army alleged fraud and threatened to "take action".[116]
In the early morning of 1 February 2021, the day parliament was set to convene, the Tatmadaw, Myanmar's military, detained State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of the ruling party. The military handed power to military chief Min Aung Hlaing and declared a state of emergency for one year, after which they will have another election.[117]
All background pages posted from wiki, laying groundwork for deeper diggz, needed general overview with timeline, players
BRITISH RULE OF BURMA
British rule in Burma lasted from 1824 to 1948, from the Anglo-Burmese Wars through the creation of Burma as a province of British India to the establishment of an independently
administered colony, and finally independence. After three Anglo-Burma Wars (1825, 1852 and 1885) Burma was conquered and transformed into a British colony. Burma became an official colony on January 1, 1886. The British ruled Burma as a part of India from 1919 until 1937. In 1937, Burma was made a crown colony of Britain. Britain in part used Burma as a buffer zone between India and the rest of Asia.
The British named the country Burma in honor of the Burmans, the dominant ethnic group. Initially the British called it “Further India.” The Burmese called it "myanma naing ngan"—the source of the name Myanmar—or more colloquially as "bama pyi" or "country of Burma." Both these usages persist, and the national anthem still refers to "bama pyi." The British "imperial tongue" stumbled over Myanmar and adopted Burma, reportedly similar to the name Birmania given to the country by Portuguese traders.
Different portions of Burmese territories were annexed at different times. Tenasserim and Arakan were taken in 1826 by the British after their victory in the First Anglo-Burmese War. The delta region including Rangoon (Lower Burma) was annexed in 1852 after the Second Anglo-Burmese War. The annexed territories were designated the minor province (a Chief Commissionership), British Burma, of British India in 1862. Upper Burma fell to the British and the Mandalay-based peacock throne was toppled after the Third Anglo-Burmese War in 1885. The last monarch, the cruel king Thibaw and his queen, were exiled to India: carried out of Mandalay in an oxcart. The following year, the province of Burma in British India was created, becoming a major province (a Lieutenant-Governorship) in 1897. This arrangement lasted until 1937, when Burma began to be administered separately by the Burma Office under the Secretary of State for India and Burma. Burma achieved independence from British rule on 4 January 1948.
Burma is sometimes referred to as the Scottish Colony, due to the heavy role played by Scotsmen in colonising and running the country – one of the most notable being Sir James George Scott, and the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company. George Orwell served in the Indian Imperial Police in Burma for five years, an experience that was the inspiration for his 1934 novel “Burmese Days.”
Divisions of British Burma: The province of Burma, after 1885 was administered as follows: 1) Ministerial Burma (Burma proper); 2) Tenasserim Division (Toungoo, Thaton, Amherst, Salween, Tavoy, and Mergui Districts); 3) Arakan Division (Akyab, Northern Arakan or Arakan Hill Tracts, Kyaukpyu and Sandoway Districts); 4) Pegu Division (Rangoon City, Hanthawaddy, Pegu, Tharrawaddy and Prome Districts); 5) Irrawaddy Division (Bassein, Henzada, Thayetmyo, Maubin, Myaungmya and Pyapon Districts); 6) Scheduled Areas (Frontier Areas); 7) Shan States; 8) Chin Hills; 9) Kachin tracts. The "Frontier Areas", also known as the "Excluded Areas" or the "Scheduled Areas", compose the majority of states within Burma today. They were administered separately by the British, and were united with Burma proper to form Myanmar's geographic composition today. The Frontier Areas were inhabited by ethnic minorities such as the Chin, the Shan, the Kachin and the Karenni. [Source: Wikipedia]
http://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Myanmar/sub5_5a/entry-3007.html
The initial impact of colonialism
The chain of events following the Third Anglo-Burmese War dealt a bitter blow to Myanmar. The loss of independence was painful enough; worse still were the British decisions to eliminate the monarchy—in the process sending Thibaw into exile—and to detach the government from religious affairs, thus depriving the sangha (monkhood) of its traditional status and official patronage. Moreover, the British eliminated the office of the patriarch of the Buddhist clergy. The demise of the monarchy and the monkhood, the twin pillars of the society of Myanmar, was perhaps the most devastating aspect of the colonial period.
Many refused to accept the British victory and resorted to guerrilla warfare against the British army of occupation. The guerrillas were led mainly by former officers of the disbanded royal army, former officials (including village headmen), and royal princes, and they considered themselves to be royal soldiers still fighting the Third Anglo-Burmese War. To the British, however, the war had ended legally with the annexation of the kingdom; those opposing them, therefore, were considered rebels and bandits. For the next five years the British military officers acted as both judge and jury in dealing with captured guerrillas. Villagers who aided the rebels also were sternly punished. British troops carried out mass executions and committed other atrocities.
As the guerrillas fought on, the British adopted a “strategic hamlet” strategy, whereby villages were burned and families who had supplied villages with their headmen were uprooted from their homes and sent away to Lower Burma (which had been under British control since the Second Anglo-Burmese War). Strangers loyal to the colonial government were appointed as headmen for the new villages established by the British. The guerrillas resorted to desperate measures against the new village officials. By 1890, however, with more than 30,000 British and Indian troops engaged in the campaign, the military part of the struggle was over.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Myanmar/The-initial-impact-of-colonialism
Burma Becomes a Colony After the Third Anglo-Burmese War
Britain made Burma a province of India in 1886 with the capital at Rangoon and ushered in a new period of economic growth. Traditional Burmese society was drastically altered by the demise of the monarchy and the separation of religion and state. Though war officially ended after only a couple of weeks, resistance continued in northern Burma until 1890, with the British finally resorting to a systematic destruction of villages and appointment of new officials to finally halt all guerrilla activity. Intermarriage between Europeans and Burmese gave birth to an indigenous Eurasian community known as the Anglo-Burmese who would come to dominate the colonial society, hovering above the Burmese but below the British. After Britain took over Burma, they maintained the sending of tribute to China, putting themselves in a lower status than in their previous relations. It was agreed in the Burmah convention in 1886, that China would recognise Britain's occupation of Upper Burmah while Britain continued the Burmese payment of tribute every ten years to Beijing. [Source: Wikipedia +]
The economic nature of society also changed dramatically. After the opening of the Suez Canal, the demand for Burmese rice grew and vast tracts of land were opened up for cultivation. However, in order to prepare the new land for cultivation, farmers were forced to borrow money from Indian moneylenders called chettiars at high interest rates and were often foreclosed on and evicted losing land and livestock. Most of the jobs also went to indentured Indian labourers, and whole villages became outlawed as they resorted to 'dacoity' (armed robbery). While the Burmese economy grew, all the power and wealth remained in the hands of several British firms and migrants from India. The civil service was largely staffed by Anglo-Burmese and Indians, and Burmese were excluded almost entirely from military service, which was staffed primarily with Indians, Anglo-Burmese, Karens and other Burmese minority groups. Though the country prospered, the Burmese people failed to reap the rewards.(See George Orwell's novel Burmese Days for a fictional account of the British in Burma.) +
Burma was grafted onto India despite the incompatibility of India and the Burmese heartland, which lacked a "Burma lobby" to explain it in Britain. Hugh Tinker wrote in “The Union of Burma”: The British community in Burma was so small and the period of British rule so brief that no comparable Burma connection ever developed. [Hugh Tinker, The Union of Burma, Oxford University Press 1937, ch.XII.]
One British chronicler wrote: “What will our descendants think of us when they read that the British banished the King of Burma, annexed his country, and proceeded to govern it by officials of their own race? Historians will add that we saw no harm in this, though we always resisted such a fate to the death when it threatened our own land. [cited in Maurice Collis:Diaries,1949-1969, Heinemann, 1977]
http://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Myanmar/sub5_5a/entry-3007.html
The religious dilemma
The colonial period was one of relative civil order, but it also was one of great social disintegration. Chief among the reasons for this was the British-imposed separation of the sangha and the state. The British did not wish to touch the issue of religion—given their experience in India that had led to the Indian Mutiny beginning in 1857—and thus they were unwilling to patronize Burmese Buddhism as the monarchy had done.
Under the monarchy, the monkhood and the state had shared a symbiotic relationship. Royal patronage of Burmese Buddhism had included both financial and moral support, which had extended legitimacy and authority to the religious institution. The king had had the right to appoint the patriarch, who exercised supervision and discipline among the ranks of the clergy. In addition, the king had been given the right to attach two royal officials to the patriarch: a commissioner of ecclesiastical lands and an ecclesiastical censor. The duty of the land commissioner had been to see that ecclesiastical lands were exempted from payment of taxes, at the same time ensuring that false and illegal endowments did not escape taxation. The duty of the censor had been to maintain a register of monks, which had given the king indirect control over the clergy. The power to defrock a wayward monk had rested largely with the patriarch, but the same result could be achieved if the king declared the monk to be impure, which was one of the king’s prerogatives. This arrangement was designed to prevent the abuse of the exemptions granted to the clergy.
The British refusal to heed a plea by the clergy and religious elders to continue the traditional relationship between the monkhood and the state resulted in the decline of the sangha and its ability to instill discipline in the clergy. This in turn lowered the prestige of the clergy and contributed to the rise of secular education and of a new class of teachers, depriving the sangha of one of its primary roles. Added to this, the colonial government of India founded secular schools teaching in both English and Burmese and encouraged foreign Christian missions to found schools by offering them financial assistance. Many mission schools were founded; parents were compelled to send their children to these schools, as there were no realistic alternatives. The teachers were missionaries, and the lessons they gave were marked by repeated criticism of Buddhism and its culture. In the government schools the first teachers, British and Indian, were mere civil servants, unable and unwilling to continue the older traditions.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Myanmar/The-initial-impact-of-colonialism
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The colonial economy
Under the monarchy, the economy of Myanmar had been one of redistribution, a concept embedded in local society, religion, and politics. Prices of the most important commodities were set by the state, and in general the mechanism of supply and demand was relatively unimportant. Agrarian self-sufficiency was vital, while trade was only of secondary importance. The British impact on this system proved disastrous, as Burma’s economy became part of the vast export-oriented enterprise of western colonialism. With the British—rather than the people of Burma—as the intended beneficiaries of the new economy, the traditional Burmese economic system collapsed.
The British dream of a golden road to China through Burma could not be realized, but the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 created a much higher international demand for Burma’s rice than had previously existed. The Irrawaddy delta was swiftly cleared of its mangrove forests and in a matter of decades became covered with rice fields. The area of productive rice fields in Lower Burma rose from approximately 60,000 acres (24,000 hectares) to nearly 10,000,000 acres (4,000,000 hectares) between the mid-19th century and the outbreak of World War II, while the price of rice increased rapidly and continuously until the Great Depression of the 1930s. This tremendous increase in production created a significant shift in population from the northern heartland to the delta, shifting as well the basis of wealth and power.
In order to prepare the land for cultivation, however, the farmers had to borrow capital from Indian moneylenders from Madras (Chennai) at exorbitant interest rates. The British banks would not grant mortgage loans on rice land, and the British government had no policy for establishing land-mortgage banks or for making agricultural loans. Prevailing prices were high in the international market, but the local price was kept down by a handful of British firms that controlled wholesale trade and by Indian and Chinese merchants who controlled retail trade. With land values and rice prices soaring, the Indian moneylenders foreclosed mortgages at the earliest opportunity, especially when the Great Depression disrupted trade.
The dispossessed farmers could not find employment even on their lost lands because, with their higher standard of living, they could not compete with the thousands of Indian labourers who went to Burma. Burmese villagers, unemployed and lost in a disintegrating society, sometimes took to petty theft and robbery and were soon characterized by the British as lazy and undisciplined. The level of dysfunction in Burmese society was revealed by the dramatic rise in homicides.
Thus, although the Burmese economy and transportation infrastructure developed rapidly from 1890 to 1900, the majority of Burmese people did not benefit from it. A railway had been built through the entire valley of the Irrawaddy, and hundreds of steamboats plied the length of the river, but the railway and the boats belonged to British companies. Roads had been built by the government, but they were meant for the swift transport of troops. A British company worked the ruby mines until they became nearly exhausted. The extraction of petroleum and timber was monopolized by two British firms. The balance of trade was always in favour of Burma, but that meant little to Burmese people or society.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Myanmar/The-initial-impact-of-colonialism
worried bout their crack infested, gang bangin neighborhoos and staying teachers cause the gov't/union teat so much easier
Why Burma Became a Colony of Britain
George Webb of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs wrote: “Burma's apartness from India was paradoxically among the complex causes of the Third Burmese War. Certainly external strategic considerations, prompted by French expansionism in the region, played a part…Certainly also there was a persistent commercial illusion of a practical trade route along which British goods might flow through Upper Burma to the imagined markets of Chinese Yunnan. This excited the Chambers of Commerce and influenced the annexation. It was a myth, resembling the monomanie du Mékong from which the French suffered. It [Source: George Webb, Royal Society for Asian Affairs, June 16, 1983 //\]
“Such wider motives of strategy or commerce apart, Theebaw's cruelties and follies were enough to make Burma an intolerable adjacent state for an outward looking Indian Empire rising to the zenith of its power and self-respect. Here was one of the casualties of the nineteenth Century, knocked over by a momentum beyond its understanding. By processes familiar to Imperial historians, static Burma and dynamic British India had become provocatively incompatible. When the irresistible force was applied, the object in its path was too fragile to survive. //\
“Burma's tragedy, through every stage of British penetration from 1826 to 1948, was on the one hand to be self-centerd, traditionalist, conservative, desiring only to be left alone; and on the other hand to be so situated as to be exposed to external pressures which she was powerless to repulse. This dilemma has contributed to a national frame of mind well known today for its determined preference for non-involvement and a "Burmese Way" in politics. It was not always so. In the eighteenth century it was not Burma's isolationism but her almost manic imperialism, ruthlessly asserted against her neighbours and in the end suicidally over-extended, that brought her up against the East India Company. The three wars that ensued led by stages to the ultimate surrender in 1885 at Mandalay. Kipling's view of Burma was acquired in the aftermath of that surrender, and must be understood in the light of preceding historical events, today largely forgotten. //\
Theebaw, deposed in 1885, was the last of the Konbaungset dynasty of the Kingdom of Inwa, or Ava. The founder of the line, Alaungpaya, emerged in 1752 as a national resistance leader against the Mons to the south. Within fifty years he and his successors had defeated and in many cases subjugated most of the adjacent peoples, creating in the process an expanded nation-state with frontiers resembling those of modern Burma but in the north-west more extensive. It was an extraordinary explosion of military effort. The historian D.G.E. Hall wrote: “The most glorious moment in their history. . .the exploits of Alaungpaya had given the Burmese an entirely new estimation of themselves. They had become a conquering race and feared no one on earth.” //\
“On the British side, there was at first no wish to tackle Burma, a profoundly mysterious country, alleged to have a huge population, certainly able to raise great armies. For generations, British merchants, like their military and commercial rivals the French, had dealt with the Burmese; but this was peripheral trafficking by outsiders, only tolerated for their wares.
http://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Myanmar/sub5_5a/entry-3007.html
British Administration of Burma
Before the British colonisation the ruling Konbaung Dynasty practised a tightly centralised form of government. The king was the chief executive with final say on all matters but he couldn’t make laws and could only issue administrative edicts. The country had two codes of law, the Rajathat and Dammathat, and the Hluttaw, the center of government, was divided into three branches—fiscal, executive, and judicial. In theory the king was in charge of all of the Hluttaw but none of his orders got put into place until the Hluttaw approved them, thus checking his power. Further dividing the country, provinces were ruled by governors who were all appointed by the Hluttaw, and villages were ruled by hereditary headmen who were approved by the king. [Source: Wikipedia +]
The British controlled their new province through direct rule, making many changes to the previous governmental structure. The monarchy was abolished, King Thibaw sent into exile, and church and state separated. This was particularly harmful because the Buddhist monks were so dependent on the sponsorship of the monarchy. At the same time, the monarchy was given legitimacy by the Buddhist organisation, and the “church” gave the public the opportunity to understand national politics to a greater degree. +
Another way in which the British controlled their new colony directly was through their implementation of a secular education system. The colonial government of India, which was given control of the new colony, founded secular schools teaching in both English and Burmese, while also encouraging Christian missionaries to visit and found schools. In both of these types of schools, Buddhism and traditional Burmese culture were frowned upon in an attempt to rid the Burmese people of a cultural unity separate from the British. +
Finally, in order to control the country on the village level, the British implemented a “strategic hamlet” strategy in which they burned villages and uprooted families who had supplied villages with their headmen, sending them to lower Burma. Once these troublesome or unloyal Burmese were forced out, the British replaced them with strangers they approved of. If the British considered any Burmese to be criminals, they would act as both judge and jury, giving the Burmese no chance to a fair trial.+
G.E. Harvey wrote in his chapter on Burma in the Cambridge History of the British Empire: The real reason for imposing direct administration was that it was the fashion of the age, and modern standards of efficiency were the only standards intelligible to the men who entered Upper Burma. Few of them spoke the language, and those who did, came with preconceptions gained in Lower Burma.
http://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Myanmar/sub5_5a/entry-3007.html
Colonial Economy in Burma
Although Burma was the wealthiest country in Southeast Asia under British rule, as a colony it was seen very much as a backwater. Among its exports, the country produced 75 percent of the world's teak from up-country forests. The British made southern Burma into one of the world’s largest rice exporting regions and also exploited rubies and other products that they sold on the world market. When George Orwell arrived in Burma in 1924, the Irrawaddy Delta was leading Burma's exports of over 3 million tons of rice - half the world's supply.
The British ruthlessly exploited the countries resources and left little in return. The country was very much shaken. The system in which the wealthy patronized the monasteries was broken. The British became the wealthy and elite class. Most Burmans provided labor for the Burmese export economy. The British also brought in lots of Indians to Burma to perform labor, serve as clerks and run businesses. Large Indian communities still remain in Yangon and Mandalay.
The traditional Burmese economy was one of redistribution with the prices of the most important commodities set by the state and supply and demand mostly unimportant. Trade itself was not as important as self-sufficient agriculture, but the country’s position on major trade routes from India to China, meant that it did gain a fair amount of money from foreign trade passing through. Wikipedia +]
With the arrival of the British, the Burmese economy became tied to global market forces and was forced to become a part of the colonial export economy. The British immediately began exploiting the rich soil of the land around the Irawaddy delta and cleared away the dense mangrove forests. Rice, which was in high demand in Europe, especially after the building of the Suez Canal in 1869, was the main crop grown in and exported out of Myanmar. In order to increase the production of rice, many Burmese migrated from the northern heartland to the delta, shifting the population concentration, and changing the basis of wealth and power. In order to prepare land for cultivation, farmers had to borrow capital from Indian moneylenders at high interest rates as the British banks wouldn’t grant mortgages. Instead, the Indian moneylenders gave the mortgage loans out, but foreclosed them quickly as the rice prices and land costs soared. +
At the same time, thousands of Indian labourers migrated to Burma and, because of their willingness to work for less money, quickly displaced the Burmese farmers, who instead began to take part in crime, giving themselves a bad reputation. With this quickly growing economy, came industrialisation to a certain degree, with a railway being built throughout the valley of the Irawaddy, and hundreds of steamboats travelling along it. All of these mechanisms of transportation were owned by the British, however, and this meant that the Burmese had to pay higher rates to transport their goods to market. Thus, although the balance of trade was supposed to be in favour of Burma, the society was changed so fundamentally that many people did not gain from the rapidly growing economy. +
When the British began their imperial take over of Burma, the colony was immediately thrown into a world of exportation in which they had not ever been exposed to before colonisation by the British. This massive move towards foreign trade hurt the Burmese economy initially because suddenly a large amount of their resources were being exported for Britain’s benefit, thereby taking with it the resources needed by the Burmese natives to continue living their lives as they had before colonisation.
An account by a British official describing the conditions of the Burmese people’s livelihoods in 1941 describes the Burmese hardships as they must quickly adapt to foreign trade: “Foreign landlordism and the operations of foreign moneylenders had led to an increasing exportation of a considerable proportion of the country’s resources and to the progressive impoverishment of the agriculturist and of the country as a whole…. The peasant had grown factually poorer and unemployment had increased….The collapse of the Burmese social system led to a decay of the social conscience which, in the circumstances of poverty and unemployment caused a great increase in crime.”
http://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Myanmar/sub5_5a/entry-3007.html
The emergence of nationalism
Those Burmese who attended the new schools established by the colonial government or by missionaries managed to gain admission to the clerical grades of government service, but even in those lower grades they encountered competition from Indians. Because science courses were not available, the professions of engineering and medicine were closed to the Burmese. Those who advanced to the government liberal arts college at Rangoon (Yangon) entered the middle grades of the civil service, while a few went on to London to study law. When these young barristers returned to Burma, they were looked upon by the people as their new leaders. Their sojourn in the liberal atmosphere of London had convinced these new leaders that some measure of political independence could be regained by negotiation.
The new leaders first turned their attention to the national religion, culture, and education. In 1906 they founded the Young Men’s Buddhist Association (YMBA) and through it began establishing a number of schools supported by private donations and government grants-in-aid (the YMBA was not antigovernment). Three years later the British, attempting to pacify the Indian National Congress (a broadly based and increasingly nationalist political party in India), introduced some constitutional reforms in India. Only a few minor changes were made in the Burmese constitution, but these confirmed the young leaders’ faith in British liberalism. In 1920, however, when it was learned that Burma would be excluded from new reforms introduced in India, the barristers led the people in a countrywide protest, which involved a boycott of British goods.
Also in 1920 Rangoon College was raised to the status of a full university by the University Act. However, because the accompanying changes in the school’s administration and curriculum were viewed as elitist and exclusionary of the Burmese population, its students went on strike. Younger schoolchildren followed suit, and the general public and the Buddhist clergy gave full support to the movement. The strikers camped in the courtyards of monasteries, reviving memories of days when education was the concern of the monks. The University Act eventually was amended and the strike settled, but many strikers initially refused to go back to mission and government schools. The YMBA schools, now calling themselves “national” schools, opened their doors to the strikers.
Constitutional reforms were finally granted in 1923, but the delay had split the leaders, some of whom, like the masses, were beginning to doubt whether political freedom could be attained by peaceful protest. At the University of Rangoon itself, students began to resent their British professors. A radical student group began organizing protests, which came to be known as the Thakin movement. The name for this movement was purposely ironic: the Burmese word thakin (“master”) was the term that the Burmese were required to use when addressing the British.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Myanmar/The-emergence-of-nationalism
Late in 1930 Burmese peasants, under the leadership of Saya San, rose in rebellion. Armed only with swords and sticks, they resisted British and Indian troops for two years. The young Thakins, though not involved in the rebellion, won the trust of the villagers and emerged as leaders in place of the British-educated Burmese elite. In 1936 university students again went on strike, and two of their leaders, Thakin Nu (later called U Nu) and Aung San, joined the Thakin movement. In 1937 the British government separated Burma from India and granted it its own constitution, independent of that of India; the masses interpreted this as proof that the British planned to exclude Burma from the next phase of Indian reform.
World War II and after
When World War II erupted in Europe in 1939, the Burmese leaders wanted to bargain with the government before giving their support to the British. A warrant was issued for the arrest of Aung San, but he escaped to China, where he attempted to solicit support from radical groups. Assistance came instead from the Japanese government. Aung San returned to Burma in secret, recruited 29 young men, and took them to Japan, where these “Thirty Comrades” (including Ne Win, who later became head of state) received military training. The Japanese promised independence for Burma; hence, when Japanese troops reached Bangkok (Thailand) in December 1941, Aung San announced the formation of the Burma Independence Army (BIA). The Japanese advanced into Burma and by the end of 1942 had occupied the country. They subsequently disbanded the BIA and formed a smaller Burma Defense Army, with Aung San still as commander. Meanwhile, Thailand was given territory in the Shan states for its support of Japan’s wartime efforts; those lands were returned to Burma in the postwar period, however.
Ba Maw, the first prime minister under the 1937 constitution and later the leader of the opposition, was appointed head of state by the Japanese, with a cabinet including Aung San and Thakin Nu. In 1943, when the tide of battle started to turn against them, the Japanese declared Burma a fully sovereign state. The Burmese government, however, was still a mere facade, with the Japanese army ruling. Meanwhile, Aung San had contacted Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Allied commander in Southeast Asia, as early as October 1943 to offer his cooperation, and in March 1945 Aung San and his army—renamed the Burma National Army (BNA)—joined the British side.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Myanmar/The-emergence-of-nationalism
During the war Aung San and the Thakins formed a coalition of political parties called the Anti-Fascist Organization—renamed the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL) after the war—which had wide popular support. After the defeat of the Japanese in Burma in May 1945, the British military administration and members of the prewar government who had returned from exile demanded that Aung San be tried as a traitor. Mountbatten, however, recognized the extent of Aung San’s hold on the BNA and on the general populace, and he hastily sent the more conciliatory Sir Hubert Rance to head the administration. Rance regained for the British the trust of Aung San and the general public. When the war ended, the military administration was withdrawn, and Rance was replaced by the former civilian governor, who formed a cabinet consisting of older and more conservative politicians. The new administration arrested Aung San and charged him with treason. Surprised and angered, the Burmese people prepared for rebellion, but the British government in London wisely reinstated Rance, who had proven himself a sensitive and successful administrator in Burma, as governor.
Rance formed a new cabinet, including Aung San, and discussions for a peaceful transfer of power began. These were concluded in London in January 1947, when the British agreed to Burma’s independence. By June the Burmese had decided to leave the British Commonwealth of Nations.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Myanmar/The-emergence-of-nationalism
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#267
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It's all guud
tudes be tudes