Posted in politics on 29 Sep 2007
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Myanmar and The Fine Art of Political Correctnessing
What do you call that country in South East Asia where the streets are filled with monks in red, protesting 45 years of military rule?
Do you call it “Burma” and reveal yourself as a post-colonial, pseudo-imperialist aggressor who deep down thinks that it would have been better if the Brits had been allowed to stay in power, but since they weren’t, the least we can do is use their name: “Burma” it is.
Or do you say “Myanmar”, to demonstrate your respect for the peoples of the world, acknowledging that naming something is to exert power over it, and that it should be every people’s right to be their own “Adams” and name themselves: “Myanmar” it is.
The development in the newspapers over the past few weeks has been interesting: in the beginning, it was “Burma” — of course: that’s the name we all know. Eventually, there were more and more “Myanmar”s. At first, I thought it was a major city or something, but then I realised that it was actually the “correct” name of the country. By saying “Burma”, I would actually reveal myself as an imperialist pig. OK, so I translate it mentally to “Myanmar”, and everytyhing is fine.
Or is it? Whose Adam’s right to name is it that I’m acknowledging? Not that I’m an expert in South-East Asian politics, but here’s what I’ve gathered:
- “Burma” is the westernized version of “Bama Pyi” (Pyi = country), the everyday word for the country, now and in the past.
- “Myanmar” is the short form of “Myanmar Naingngandaw”, the etymology of which is uncertain, but which has been used as an official name in elevated style since the twelfth century.
- In everyday language, the difference between the two is smaller than the written names might indicate: “bama” v.s “myama”.
- The military see themselves as heirs of the empires of the three great Burmese warrior kingdoms: in the eleventh, the sixteenth, and the eighteenth centuries.
- It was the military government who in 1989 changed the official name to the more lofty Myanmar.
- The opposition has never acknowledged the new name, since they don’t recognize the military as rightful rulers, and hence not their right to rename the country.
So we can ask again: what are we actually doing by succumbing to PC-ness and translate to Myanmar? Who are we actually showing respect?
Sources: Genesis 2. 19–20; Wikipedia.org: Burma (redirects to “Myanmar”); weekendavisen.dk
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Posted in computers, linux on 16 Sep 2007
I use KDE, the most usable Linux desktop environment. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I love KDE, but I couldn’t live without it either.
Except on those certain days, that is. When I want to look up something in a help file. This is one of those days.
Frankly, and no offense, but the help system in KDE is disastrous. I should have known by now — I’ve virtually stopped even considering pressing Shift-F1 a long time ago. Mainly because it annoys me no end.
(Edit: In fact, it’s so long ago that I’d forgotten it’s ctrl-F1. Shift happens, as they say.)
I will pass lightly over the fact that many programs don’t have proper documentation. Disclaimers such as “under …
Posted in aesthetics, announcements on 10 Sep 2007
Posted in software on 8 Sep 2007
Can you tell me what is strange with this picture, which shows the browsers that have been used to view the pages on this site during the three days since I moved?
If you say: “That Firefox has almost 50%, and more than IE”, you’re part right. On the other hand: it is not surprising, is it? After all my plugging for it here, one would really have to be a n00b to use IE, right?
It is not either that “Lynx” is represented, with a whopping 0.6%. Lynx is a text-based browser, quintessentially retro, which is fine for a site like this one and great …
Posted in community, music on 7 Sep 2007
“Well I really wasn’t such a Johnny Ace fan,
But I felt bad all the same”
I don’t think any death in the classical world could have touched me as much as this one, without there being any specific reason for being touched, since I wasn’t really into this particular kind of popular hawling of opera into the marketplace. Strange.
Perhaps it’s just that he was a great singer with an obvious presence and something as old-fashioned as love for what he was doing.
Damn, he’s gone now. I miss him already.
Luciano Pavarotti, 1935–2007
Posted in announcements, dylan, music, reviews on 5 Sep 2007
“Agora: Journal for Metaphysical Speculation” — sounds exciting, right? If one is not thrilled by the prospects of 450 pages of metaphysical speculation, it may make it more interesting to know that well over 300 of them are about Bob Dylan. . .
Agora is a scholarly journal of philosophy, which in my early university days was a major source of inspiration. It was therefore a great honour to be asked to write an article for it for an upcoming special issue about Dylan. Now it’s out, and apparently it is sold out already, at least in the Oslo area.
I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but it looks good, with articles about the lyrical project in the Basement …
Posted in announcements, general on 4 Sep 2007
The blog has been down for a while. How long, I don’t know, and that’s embarrassingly revealing of my recent neglect of the site. In any case, I decided to move the whole thing to my own webspace, and it seems that the transition has worked out nicely.
Not that I was dissatisfied with the former home. From the day that I registered dylanchords.com and left the old, catchy hem.passagen.se/obrecht/backpages/chords, and until I decided to take down the site, around Christmas 2005 because of the threats from the recording/publishing industry, the site has been hosted nicely from a secret location in Gothenburg — may thanks, Oskar! — and the blog remained there until today.
But since I already had this other …
