Southeast Asia Southeast Asian Highlights l l l

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asian Highlights l l l l l Physically fragmented Culturally complex: Languages & Religions Colonial legacy = instability “Balkanization” Tropical & Equatorial Climates (Af & Am) Tectonically active Fertile volcanic and alluvial areas Plantation agriculture Forestry Intense population pressure

Buddhism l l Theravada: Teachings of the Elders from the Buddha’s original lessons (orthodoxy? ) Mahayana: The Great Vehicle for a variety of schools of Buddhism

Both follow the Noble Eightfold Path 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Right View Right Resolve Right Speech Right Actions Right Occupation Right Effort Right Mindfulness Right Concentration Suffering comes from desire and attachment. An end to attachment leads to enlightenment, the only permanent condition.

Wat Carolina

Burma (Myanmar)

Burma (Myanmar) Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Laureate

Things to know about Suu Kyi l l l Her father, Aung San, founded the modern Burmese Army and negotiated Burma’s independence from Britain in 1947, then he was assassinated. She has been an outspoken dissident, detained under house arrest for decades by the junta She received numerous humanitarian awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, while held incommunicado The junta had a change of heart, released Suu Kyi, and allowed elections in 2011. She was elected to the Burmese Parliament and will run for President in 2015

Burma’s military junta leader, 1992 -2011 General Than Shwe, The Great Father NPR 2007

Under Shwe’s leadership, the junta l l l l l Cut Burma off from the rest of the world for decades Created jungle gulags and rural slave camps Forbade free speech and all dissent Killed 100 s of protesting Buddhist monks in 2007 Held Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for decades Violently suppressed the Rohingya, a national group in internal exile, and the Karen, a Buddhist/Animist/Christian minority Refused international aid after Typhoon Nargis, causing the death by disease and starvation of thousands Pillaged the resource wealth of Burma Moved the capital inland to Nay-Pyi-Daw, spent billions to reproduce Yangon on a greenfield site

Ban-Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General (L), and General Shwe (R), 2009

Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon 33 stories, said to be over 1, 000 years old, rebuilt after an 1871 earthquake

Myanmar’s new forward capital, Nay-Pyi-Daw, “seat of kings, ” a 2009 copy of Yangon’s Shwedagon Pagoda

The Rohingya and the Karen two persecuted Burmese minorities l l l The Rohingya practice Sunni Islam and are more closely related to the Bengalis of eastern Bangladesh and India ~800, 000 in Burma but perhaps 100, 000 have fled to refugee camps in Bangladesh because of persecution under Shwe’s Junta The Karen are a Sino-Tibetan speaking people, whose territorial extent is in eastern Burma with some in Thailand They are considered militants by the Burmese and Thai governments against whom they’ve fought since the 1940 s Many are Theravada Buddhists who combine ancient animist beliefs and many are Christians, dating to the British occupation

The Saffron Revolution, 2007 l Buddhist monks, students, & women non-violently protested oppression of the junta through the spring and summer The military cracked down in September after protests escalated when the price of fuel (all state-owned) was artificially raised by the junta. More expensive fuel=more expensive food. 15, 000 monks marched and Suu Kyi appeared briefly Monks and other protesters were arrested and people were killed The military began to raid monasteries, killing many monks l You. Tube 5 minutes l l

Shan woman

Yangon

Burma’s Cyclone Nargis Photographed by James Delano May 2008

Thailand (Siam)

Bangkok, Rush Hour

Bangkok

DISPATCH FROM SOUTHEAST ASIA Sex-slave trade flourishes in Thailand 'I am but one brick in that long … wall of female exploitation and misery'

Cambodia (Kampuchea)

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

The Killing Fields: Genocide in Cambodia

Phnom Penh High School was transformed into the Khmer Rouge headquarters, S-21, in 1975. Thousands were tortured and executed in former classrooms.

Pol Pot

Who? l l l l Saloth Sar, Cambodian child of privilege, educated in Paris, France, where he joined the French Communist Party, then he flunked out. He returned to Cambodia and taught and organized a the Communist Party, which he headed in 1963. He was protected by Vietnamese communists for two years at a remote outpost on the Vietnam/Cambodian border. He traveled to China and was inspired by Mao’s Cultural Revolution of 1967. In the Cambodian forests he nurtured his hatreds of the Vietnamese, the Americans, the French, etc. , then emerged with a following known as the Khmer Rouge to rebuild colonialized Kampuchean society as an agrarian communist state. By 1970 he had adopted the nom de guerre: Pol Pot Political Potency. By 1979 25% of Cambodians were dead.

l Pot declared "Year Zero" and began a radical program to create an idealized agrarian communist society. He crushed social institutions such as banking and religion and emptied cities of their inhabitants. l Intellectuals and anyone else seen as standing in the way of the new social order were mercilessly killed, while many of those who escaped execution died from overwork and starvation.

Cambodia (Kampuchea) Frontline World

Laos

That Luang marsh at Vientiane

Tonle Sap

Laos

Laos l l l Still a communist country H’mong, trained and backed by the U. S. CIA, then 50 -75, 000 abandoned General Vang Pao (1929 -2011) 1951, 1970 s, 2008 l Still fighting “North Vietnam” in the Laotian forest 33 years after Saigon fell l H’mong Hip Hop

Vietnam

Tunnel Rats (Billy Bang) http: //www. jazzonthetube. com/page/857. html

“And Lyndon Johnson told the nation have no fear of escalation I am trying everyone to please. thought it isn’t really war we’re sending fifty thousand more to help save Viet Nam from the Vietnamese. ” Tom Paxton, early 1960 s

Marble Mountain, overlooks US Air Base at Da Nang

What’s left of the US Base at Da Nang

Hue

The Battle for Hue

Hanoi Hilton

Ho Chi Minh born Ngyuen Sinh Cung 1890 -1969 Leader of Democratic Republic of Vietnam (N. VN) 1945 -69

Ho Chi Minh’s (Enlightened One) Odyssey l l l l l Raised in Vietnam, father a Confucian scholar 1912 came to U. S. , worked in Harlem & Boston as a baker, influenced by Marcus Garvey 1913 lived in London baking 1919 -23 lived in France, embraced Communism & was a founding member of the Parti Communiste Francais; worked for independence of Vietnam 1923 Moscow, then to China with Lenin, then Mao After wanderings in Russia, China, Thailand other places, he returned to Vietnam to lead the Independence movement in 1941 Led the defeat of the French in 1954 at Dienbienphu Led the Viet Cong through the US war in Vietnam US defeated in April 29, 1975 with the fall of Saigon to the Vietcong

Ho Chi Minh Trail is a web

Hall of Reunification, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

H’mong Children

The Battle for Hue The Vietnam War with Marvin Gaye Any war with Edwin Starr (WAR: what is it good for? Absolutely NOTHIN’ (say it over and over again) Vietnam War Memorial