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By Tony Waters 27 March 2020

Miss Burma (2017) by Charmaine Craig is a historical novel that tells the story of Burma from the perspective of a Karen family that was part of Rangoons elite after World War II. The book describes the Karen perspective on mid-20th-century wars in Burma, beginning with the Japanese invasion in 1942 and continuing today. Resonating particularly well is the focus on the betrayals that underlay ceasefire and peace negotiations conducted in the name of liberal democracy starting in the 1940s. This is a reminder that the post-2015 peace industry is not really new to Yangon. As with the various militaries involved in the conflict, the peace negotiators have failures going back to World War II.

Miss Burma describes the backdrop to the violence and peace negotiations in a Burma continually buffeted by foreign influence from Britain, the Japanese invaders and, after World War II, the manipulations of CIA agents. And behind it all is the eerie presence of Burmese strongman Ne Win, who in the course of the novel appears as a brutal interrogator in Insein Prison, a military commander, a manipulator of Rangoons high life, and ultimately the powerful cruel dictator.

In such contexts, the novels protagonists maneuver, are imprisoned, flee, and negotiate peace agreements and ceasefires. They do this knowing that at any moment they can be shot, their body weighted down with chains, and tossed out of a helicopter into the sea. The promises of liberal democracy, seemingly embraced by Karen and Burmese leaders and manipulated by foreigners, are in strange tension with torture, high society, Insein Prison, Miss Burma pageants, movie stardom and exile to remote Karen command posts.

On its surface, Miss Burma is a straightforward story of a prominent Karen family from Rangoon. The family begins as a marriage between a Rangoon Jew, Saw Benson, and a Karen bride, Naw Khin. A daughter, Louisa Benson, is born in 1941. Louisa will go on to win the first Miss Burma pageant in 1956, and in the mid-1960s marries Karen rebel leader Saw Lin Htin (fictionalized as General Lynton in Miss Burma).

Miss Burma really begins in 1938 with the Rangoon romance and marriage of Louisas parents. After betrayal during World War II to pro-Japanese forces, the family escapes to the countryside, and is saved by sympathetic Karen villagers who adopt the Jewish father, and even dramatically rescue him after capture and torture by Japanese soldiers. Following the war, Saw Benson does well in business by mobilizing his Karen family and comrades into a trading and manufacturing company. They become prominent in Rangoons elite Karen circles, at the same time as the Karen become focused on the British betrayal of promises to establish an independent Karenistan.

This leads to the near disintegration of the Union of Burma during the Civil War of 1949-1950 in which the Burmese Communist Party captures the north, the Mujahadin take Arakan, and Karen forces capture Mandalay and advance as far south as Insein. The government under Prime Minister U Nu and army commander Ne Win beat back the invasion at the Battle of Insein, an event still central to the memory of Burmese and Karen alike (though peculiarly missing from the English Wikipedia). Saw Benson ends up imprisoned in Insein Prison as a result.

In the process, readers learn about the elite world of post-independence Rangoon and more betrayals, death, and the ever-present specter of its jailor, General Ne Win. Meanwhile, the Americans play both sides, just as the British did. The CIA is represented by a fictionalized William Young (code-named Hatchet) who supplies the Karen rebels with logistical support, even as the US State Department represented by Ambassador William Sebald supplies the Burmese government with weapons to defeat the Karen and communist insurgencies.

As for Louisa, despite the kidnapping, torture and imprisonment of her parents, she competes in the first Miss Burma pageants, winning as a 15-year-old in 1956 and a 17-year-old in 1958. In the small incestuous world of elite Rangoon, she begins a glamorous but imbecilic film career, and becomes a favorite of Katie Ne Win. Indeed it is rumored that she is a mistress to the dictator himself!

At the height of Louisas movie career, General Ne Win leads his coup of 1962, and Louisa is called on to make propaganda films. In an improbable turn of events, she falls in love with General Lynton of the Karen National Army, a force also sponsored by the CIA. In this context, Western governments entice him into engaging in yet another Rangoon-based peace process with Prime Minister Ne Win in 1962-1963. This is a dangerous game for the Karen military leaders, who are required to go deep into enemy territory to negotiate.

Louisa and Gen. Lynton marry in 1964 and slip into the underground Karen maquis. Lynton is betrayed at a follow-up meeting during the peace process by Ne Wins negotiators. He is ambushed, killed, and his body dumped from a helicopter into the sea. Louisa returns to the maquis to lead his brigade in Karen State for a short time. There she negotiates a truce with other Karen groups. For her trouble her troops are (again) betrayed, and she leaves for the United States to join her father, who has already resettled there through his CIA connections. And that is the anti-climatic end to the novel.

But it is not the end of the story, as we learn from interviews given and articles written by the author Charmaine Craig when Miss Burma was published. Louisa herself receives a marriage proposal from an American and becomes the mother of Miss Burmas author. For indeed, the characters in the novel, while fictionalized, are very much based on historical figures, including the main protagonists, the dictator Ne Win, William Young, Ambassador Sebald, and General Lin Htin/Lynton. Most intriguingly, the Battle of Insein is a real event tooone which is so important in Myanmar history that Aung Zaw in 2009 called it The Battle that Never Ended because it still underpins the ongoing conflict between Naypitaw and the Karen National Union.

And this ongoing Battle of Insein is the real reason expats working in Yangons peace industry today should read Miss Burma. Because indeed, the war with the Karen in eastern Myanmar continues to vex the country. And if the reader revisits the very first page of the novel, there is a quote from an older novel, Graham Greenes The Quiet American (1955). Greenes book explains why the underlying thesis of Miss Burma is not only about Myanmar, but also about the West. While The Quiet American is specifically about the failure of French policy in its Indochina colony, writing in the early 1950s Greene points to Britains retreat from Burma as the best lesson for not only the French, but the Americans as well.

Look at the history of Burma. We go and invade the country: the local tribes support us: we are victorious: but like you Americans we werent colonialists in those days. Oh no, we made peace with the king [Ne Win] and we handed him back his province and left our [Karen] allies to be crucified and sawn in two. They were innocent. They thought wed stay. But we were liberals and we didnt want a bad conscience.

The Americans, British and other Westerners generating policy for Myanmar today are of course still liberals like Greene described, seeking to project their ideas about democracy and free market capitalism into Myanmar. The World Bank, Joint Peace Fund, International Monetary Fund and Western bankers still seek to salve liberal consciences marred by British colonialism and Americas wars in Southeast Asia. The message of Miss Burma, of course, is that the liberal ceasefires, peace negotiations and development projects designed in the West have been tried before, with the only result that peace was again made with the new King Ne Win and his successors from the military and maybe the NLD. And while the West may well blame the current Kings corruption for the failure of their liberal experiments, the costs are ultimately borne by those betrayed.

Tony Waters is Director of the Institute of Religion, Culture and Peace at Payap University in Chiang Mai, Thailand. He works with Burmese, Karen and other students in the universitys PhD program in Peacebuilding. He is also a professor of Sociology at California State University, Chico, and author of academic books and articles. He can be reached at[emailprotected].

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Reading MyanmarMiss Burma and the Liberal Conscience - The Irrawaddy News Magazine

Lets start by being charitable and assuming that Liberals in Ottawa, seized by the ravages of the coronavirus and the threat it represents to Canadas future health and prosperity, legitimately believed they needed draconian powers to tax, spend and borrow without the hindrance of approval by Parliament.

Lets guess that, notwithstanding the spirit of co-operation that has broken out among elected representatives of all parties, Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus government feared good fellowship would wane as the crisis aged, patience dwindled and the darker side of human nature poked its nasty snout into national affairs.

Sure, OK, the Tories, the New Democrats and the separatists were ready to grant Trudeau unprecedented leeway to deal quickly with a fast-moving threat, for now. But what if they changed their minds, and the prime minister, down the road, found himself unable to act as quickly as he felt necessary without having to explain himself or justify his actions? So the Liberals slipped a few last-minute clauses into an agreement with the other parties enabling the government to hold onto powers that Conservative MP Scott Reid called it a Henry VIII bill in reference to the unlimited powers of a feudal monarch. If agreed, as Reid noted, it would have stripped Parliament of its normal powers between now and the end of next year, twenty-one months in the future, and long after the health crisis is likely to have come to an end.

Conservative MP Scott Reid called it a 'Henry VIII bill' in reference to the unlimited powers of a feudal monarch

Trudeau, as he does, insisted the government had nothing but the best interests of the country in mind. We recognize that this pandemic is moving extremely quickly and it is an exceptional situation that requires extreme flexibility and rapidity of response by governments to be able to help Canadians and react to a situation that weve seen is moving quickly every single day, he said. Talks were continuing to both get that flexibility to be able to get measures out the door and keep in place our democratic institutions and the values that are so important to us all.

Confronted by fierce opposition, the Liberals dropped a demand for unlimited ability to raise or lower taxes at their whim until the end of 2021, though the Tories remained upset at a provision granting Finance Minister Bill Morneau bottomless borrowing authority. When the deal was eventually concluded, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer noted it included several provisions allowing for checks on the original unfettered powers Liberals sought.

Even if we suspend normal levels of skepticism for the duration of this outbreak, however, one has to wonder what Trudeau was thinking. Hed been having a fairly good crisis until now, shouldering his duties as husband and father to a virus-stricken family while appearing daily to outline government measures and offer what reassurances were possible. Then, boom! He uses the situation to demand a level of one-man rule Canadian minds could only boggle at. Not just for a few weeks until things turned back towards normality, but until the end of next year.

There are lots of reasons to tremble at what this government might get up to with that sort of spending and taxing capacity. From Day One of the Liberals 2015 victory theyve ignored their own pledges about budget prudence and spending sensibility. Theyve made no effort to contain their ballooning deficits or swelling debt loads. Theyve blown past every self-imposed benchmark on restraint and quit bothering to even pretend they have a target date for returning the budget to balance.

If Morneau has shown us anything during his tenure as finance minister, its that he can be talked into just about any new outlay with a minimum of effort. Hes become expert at verbal gobbledygook, speaking with ease while saying nothing, leaving the most persistent interviewers grappling for any hint of his actual thoughts. Putting trust into the tandem of Trudeau and Morneau to practice discipline without Parliament or the press there to bear witness to their activities would be nothing short of irrational. Had the opposition parties given their consent, they should have been hauled up on charges of betraying their role and responsibilities as elected representatives.

There are lots of reasons to tremble at what this government might get up to with that sort of spending and taxing capacity

To put the most cynical interpretation on the situation would note that Trudeaus government is in a minority situation and requires support from at least one other party to stay in office. Obtaining the ability to tax, borrow and spend at will, free even of the minimal restraints placed on elected majorities, well past any date at which the virus is likely to be brought under control, would pretty much free the Liberals of any fear of being brought down. New Democrats love unrestrained spending. It would be difficult to find a spending program of which leader Jagmeet Singh disapproved. Even plans that benefitted arch foes in the corporate or business communities might be accommodated providing adequate billions were directed to long-held NDP priorities.

When Pierre Trudeau found himself reduced to a minority in 1972, having seen his majority reduced to a two-seat cushion over the Conservatives, he discovered that by placating the NDP and opening the bank vaults he could buy a lifeline for himself and his government. Two years later he won back his majority while the NDP tanked. Unfortunately, Trudeau never reined in spending, setting off the deficit spiral that climaxed in the 1995 debt crisis.

Is that what this Trudeau was up to? Or was his power grab just another example of the poor judgment he has shown at regular intervals throughout his life? Thanks to some healthy screeching from opposition benches, we might not have to find out.

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Kelly McParland: Was the Liberals' attempted power grab really about the coronavirus? - National Post

By Sage NaumannGuest Commentary

In uncertain times such as these, it is quite easy to become perplexed by the actions of those at the top. Schools closed, the legislature paused, and local mom and pop shops such as restaurants and nail salons ordered to halt most if not all of their business. Few Coloradans know somebody personally afflicted by COVID-19, let alone somebody that has perished from it. Regrettably, while this virus poses a great threat to all Coloradans, it seems many of us have backed into the same partisan corners we are used to occupying during times of peace and quiet.

Our president our governors have extraordinary power allocated to their offices in times of emergency for a reason. Without a doubt, there will be ample time to dissect each action these chief executives take and properly determine errors in their judgment, but that time is not now. Without a doubt, if the governor broadly oversteps his bounds, there will be Republican legislators, commentators, and pundits ready to call him out, but until that happens, conservatives must be willing to give leniency to a leader who is working with minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour information.

The same mercy should be allotted to President Donald Trump. Both him, Gov. Polis, and leaders across this nation are operating under the same uncertain circumstances. With each passing moment, the situation may change and warrant further action in an effort to preserve life, the primary responsibility of government.

While modern medicine and advances in health care have made emergencies such as this a rarity, they are not without precedent. In October of 1918, Colorado Gov. Julius Gunter called upon local leaders to stop the spread of influenza by closing theaters, churches, schools, and other places where people assemble, until the epidemic has run its course. That sounds quite familiar.

Underlying this outrage over emergency actions related to COVID-19 is a cultural mistrust of government that has emerged from repeated exercises of power that tested the boundaries of our institutions and the individual. This does not justify such outrage, but it does give proper explanation for how an unknown enemy albeit one with no national flag nor philosophy can only further divide the people. Perhaps an enemy that isnt so easy to identif such as an invisible virus sets this situation apart from others of national security. With no ability to shoot back, we seem to be aiming at each other.

Im not suggesting that those who oppose heavy-handed government action give our leaders carte blanche authority over our lives; Im simply suggesting that we pick our battles wisely. After all, if our leaders chose instead to do nothing, their critics would no doubt place the burden of the dead upon their shoulders.

On the other hand, government officials at every level must give thought to how they can again gain the support of the people who apparently place little faith in their actions during a time of crisis.

In my personal correspondence with Gov. Polis the de facto leader of the party my opposite its apparent that he takes no pleasure in exercising powers that will knowingly strangle the economy of the state he leads and leave government coffers significantly lighter than previously projected. I will support my governor, and the team that he leads, if for no other reason than to quickly return to a time where our antlers may lock again in a battle over the public health insurance option, gun control, or vaping.

While it is increasingly easy to play armchair governor in modern times, I encourage all to consider how they might respond to a growing pandemic if they were in a place of power. While the governor may not have had our votes or our support for his programs, policies, and principles, he must have our support during this time of crisis. As it is said, there but for the grace of God go I.

Sage Naumann is the communications director for the Colorado Senate Republicans and resides with his wife, Sara, in Brighton. You can follow him on Twitter @sagenaumann.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

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Naumann: As conservatives and liberals, we must give the governor - and the president - a chance - Getaka.co.in

Minister of Finance Bill Morneau attends a news conference with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa, on March 11, 2020.

BLAIR GABLE/Reuters

That was a big oops. The Liberal governments explanation for putting a 21-month blank cheque into emergency legislation was essentially that officials and aides wanted to give Finance Minister Bill Morneau flexibility in a crisis, and got carried away. Nobody caught the grab for additional powers. An accident. Oops!

So Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had to start out his daily press conference pledging that he will stick with the whole democracy thing even in a time of crisis. Mr. Trudeau has for days been explaining he didnt need to invoke the Emergencies Act for more powers, but by Tuesday, his government had so overreached that he had to profess his unwavering commitment to democracy.

The original version of the legislation, before the opposition cried foul, allowed for Mr. Morneau to tax, borrow or spend without any parliamentary approval, until the end of 2021. It dispensed with even the basic safeguard in the Emergencies Act, including limited parliamentary oversight and shorter time limits, such as 90 days, on emergency powers. It was so offside, the government withdrew the most offending part at the 11th hour around 11 p.m. Monday night and on Tuesday entered negotiations with the opposition about other sections.

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The uncomfortable thing is that this grasping move betrays a panicky uncertainty among the people making economic policy in Ottawa.

They are so unsure about what is needed to stabilize the economy that they tried to obtain the power to borrow, tax, and spend as they see fit, at the stroke of a pen, for nearly two years.

The desire to be able to move quickly is understandable. Every week seems to bring the coronavirus crisis and its economic impact to a new scale. Yet this move is a byproduct of the way the Liberal government has handled the economic package that is supposed to reassure Canadians.

The first tranche announced last week was big, for normal times $27-billion in spending and $55-billion in temporary tax deferrals but not so big that it got ahead of the rising wave of fears and really reassured the public. The U.S. Congress is working on a US$2-trillion bill, and though the two packages and economies are not exactly comparable, the scale isnt, either.

It seems likely that finance officials wanted all those extra powers because theyre not only worried about the unpredictability of the future, theyre uncertain about the adequacy of what they have already done. The economic package in the legislation going before Parliament doesnt put Canada firmly ahead of the curve.

The 10-per-cent wage subsidy is so small, it seems like the government didnt believe in the idea. And perhaps wage subsidies are not the right choice but small ones will probably not keep a lot of people on payrolls. The emergency benefit of $900 every two weeks is not enough for those who dont get some other sum, like the enhanced Canada Child Benefit. The feds might add sums later, but it is important to reassure quickly.

Some things, like industrial bailouts, might take a little more time. But for big things, its not impossible to recall Parliament, as they did Tuesday. In the meantime, the Finance Minister needs a little flexibility. But not a Constitution made of Play-Doh.

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The Liberals note they sent a draft of the bill to the opposition in advance, and the offending provisions will be fixed. No harm, no foul. And lets accept mistakes will be made in a rush job. But this one betrayed a reckless disregard for parliamentary checks and balances. It was a big mistake.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer took the sensible position that his party was willing to pass the package of economic supports, but not the most egregious overreaches for new powers without oversight. He was not wrong. Conservative backbencher Scott Reid defied his own party by showing up at the House of Commons when only a small rump of MPs from each party was supposed to attend, because he objected to the process, and that the bill wont even have after-the-fact monitoring by a parliamentary committee. He was not wrong, either. Instead of mustering multiparty co-operation in a crisis, the Liberals triggered tense negotiations.

The partisan bickering wasnt reassuring. Neither was the panicky grab for spending powers. Mr. Trudeaus Liberals had worked to reassure the public, and then we saw them sweat.

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The panicky legislative power grab at Liberal crisis central isnt reassuring - The Globe and Mail

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Last week, The Washington Times had an inspirational moment. On Thursday, it wrapped this venerable newspaper in a red-inked wrapper and presented readers with an evocative question. In the top half of the wrapper the editors asked boldly:

Tired of being

Lectured,

Mocked,

Lied to?

Now whom do you think The Times we call it the Good Times was alluding to? I think we all know. The question was directed at attendees at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, better known as CPAC. Thousands of conservatives were pouring into the area, and the Good Times wanted to greet them in style.

We have all had the same experience every time we step out of the door of our residences. It can be from an Uber driver, from an impudent high school snot who just discovered global warming, from a card carrying left-wing mesmerizer. All such know-it-alls have all the answers to any problem one might present to them. Doubtless, they already have the answer to the coronavirus crisis. His name is Donald Trump.

The left-wingers regularly lecture us, mock us and, of course, lie to us. Their behavior, however, rarely ever stings, because long ago we saw through their hysteria.

Another reason is that they never listen to us anyway. This has been true for many years, ever since liberalism died and the progressives replaced them. There was a day when leading liberals and leading conservatives got together to exchange views. Back in the 1960s Bill Buckley, the leading conservative polemicist of his day and the editor in chief of National Review, would regularly sit down with such figures as The New York Times executive editor Abe Rosenthal to discuss the drift of things in America. It is impossible to convene such social gatherings today.

I know. I tried to convene similar dinners in Washington. It was back in the 1980s. I succeeded for a couple of years on a couple of occasions. Then the liberals simply failed to show up. We went on with our dinners they are called The Saturday Evening Club and I continued to invite liberals. The last Saturday Evening Club attended by a liberal was in 1994 and the liberal was Sen. Pat Moynihan. I had known him for years and often learned from him. After his death it was hopeless.

Frankly, I think that the problem was generational. Pat and I, though a generation apart, shared the same broad values: Tolerance, trust, respect, curiosity and similar goals. Not always the same goals but at least similar goals. Pat admired the mixed economy. I was for free markets. Either way the country would survive. There are no such shared values extant between the likes of me and the socialist Bernie Sanders, who claims he is introducing a revolution to our shores. He does not want America to survive but to be replaced, and he is the frontrunner in the Democratic field.

Last Thursday, I shared my copy of The Washington Times with an attendee from the CPAC meeting, the distinguished political historian Professor Paul Kengor from Grove City College. He immediately grasped the meaning of the newspapers red wrapper. He followed up with a story of an experience that he had just endured at lunch. He was eating sushi at a public restaurant. The seating was rather tight. The table next to him had two women, one from a diversity-training program, the other from a corporation that had hired the first womans services. Paul said, they could not have been more than a foot or two from him. He could hear every word they uttered but they did not care.

It presented no problem for them or for what they wanted to discuss. They gabbled on about white males, about pushing white males aside for minority hiring programs, about women replacing men in the workplace. Paul who is white and a male not transgendered but the real thing said nothing.

America has broken down into two different countries. One lectures us, mocks us and lies to us. It is about to experience four more years of us.

R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is the author most recently of The Death of Liberalism, published by Thomas Nelson Inc.

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Liberals persist in lecturing, mocking and lying to conservatives - Washington Times