Word: myanmar
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...course, that is putting a high-minded gloss on the behavior, as if the auditorium of one's mind were always resounding to symposiums on Wittgenstein or on human rights in Myanmar. Caught me talking to myself? Just another oral presentation of apodictic obiter dicta on the solo stage! Thomas Jefferson dines alone! Shakespeare's soliloquies elevated talking to oneself to the highest art; on the other hand, Hamlet may not have been traveling with a full seabag either...
This scene and others like it are the product of a new offensive by Burma's military government, which began with a "Visit Myanmar Year" in late 1996. The military junta of Burma--now officially known as Myanmar--hit upon a way to exploit further the country it has controlled since 1962: Western tourism. This government rules despite a popular election in 1990 in which the National League for Democracy, headed by Nobel Peace Laureate Aung Sun Suu Kyi, won 82 percent of the seats in the national assembly...
...real coup for Burma's military rulers would be to garner independent interest in travel to Burma. Burma's military government would like nothing better than for a Let's Go Myanmar! guidebook to help them dress their country up for excited tourists...
...editors of Let's Go! have acted responsibly in the past by refusing to include Burma in the Let's Go! series, and explaining why it is not included. A break from this tradition--a decision to offer a Let's Go Myanmar! in the upcoming year--would play into the hands of a dictatorship trying to market itself into survival despite the wishes of the people...
...Burma! to pack in my suitcase. But as long as my travel there would buttress a cruel regime that does not enjoy popular support, I hope never to see a Let's Go guidebook to the country. As long as Burma remains unfree, let's not go Myanmar...