Arkansas Blog

Max, you're hilarious! I swear that book came from alternate reality land!

I'm probably missing the point, but I'm pretty sure the names are interchangable. Myanmar is the most recent "official" version of the name. Burma was it's name for a long while before. The official language is Burmese. It's sort of like how Taiwan is sometimes called Chinese Taipei. I wrote a paper on this region a few weeks ago, and I called it Myanmar, although it was rarely referred to as "Burma" in some journal articles. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (the "equivalent" of the European Union for Southeast Asia) refers to the country as Myanmar.

There's still a lot of controversy over the name.

It was called BURMA until the extremely oppressive regime changed it. Many, including myself, still call it BURMA.

I always wondered about how the December Tsunami caused coastal damage all throuhgout the region but Burma had none. But no one seemed to bring up that Burma reported no damage.

The current regime changed the name to Myanmar in 1989. Burma's democracy movement prefers the form 'Burma' because they do not accept the legitimacy of the unelected military regime to change the official name of the country.

Max, I think you are being just a bit picky. This is from the CIA World Factbook:

Government Burma

Country name:
conventional long form: Union of Burma
conventional short form: Burma
local long form: Pyidaungzu Myanma Naingngandaw (translated by the US Government as Union of Myanma and by the Burmese as Union of Myanmar)
local short form: Myanma Naingngandaw
former: Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma
note: since 1989 the military authorities in Burma have promoted the name Myanmar as a conventional name for their state; this decision was not approved by any sitting legislature in Burma, and the US Government did not adopt the name, which is a derivative of the Burmese short-form name Myanma Naingngandaw

Their disaster certainly makes out recent tornado events puny in significance compared to theirs.

So what does the blog which identifies supporters of a certain African-American presidential candidate with the tribal-like term "Obamaist," have to say about how to identify Burma?

Most people abroad call the United States "America." The Irish call Northern Ireland "Ulster." Nearly everybody in Vietnam calls Ho Chi Minh City "Saigon." You rarely hear an Englishman, a Scot or a man from Wales call the United Kingdom anything but "Britain," unless an Englishman calls the whole thing "England." About the time we get used to Myanmar there will be a coup and it will be "Burma" again.

Note to a catty, snipping Max and historian: Old Betsy would be just the one for such an assignment! Here's what a real, big-time historian had to say about her most recent endeavor.

"(I)n Turn Away Thy Son we have the most complex and convincing account of the governor's role in the crisis that I have read."

Dr. Stanley N. Katz
Professor of Public and International Affairs
Woodrow Wilson School
Princeton University

I miss those little signs along the roadside from the '50's, but I don't think I ever saw a single one that ended in 'Myanmar Shave'