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Re: Help Needed: Burma Info Needed
- Subject: Re: Help Needed: Burma Info Needed
- From: strider@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 11 Jun 1994 01:24:00
Howard,
Sorry about not responding earlier but I was away for awhile. My first
reaction to Mr. Cumming's claim is that he should be spend some time in
Rangoon's Insein prison. Not for
his warped view of human rights in Burma (and warped it is), but for the
factual inaccuracies he put in his guide to Burma. He should not compound
his apparent ignorance of Burmese history by making further mistakes on
the human rights situation. If he were comparing the human rights
situation in Burma to Rwanda or Bosnia, I would admit that those places
are worse (in Rwanda by far and somewhat worse in Bosnia).
I would add that at present, buying the Lonely Planet guideto Burma would
be a mistake until someone thoroughly reworks it.
I am not trying to make personal attacks alone. The current LP on Burma
is just not up to speed in comparison to the other books on Burma
(compare it to the "Thailand, Indochina & Burma Handbook" that is
published in the US by Prentice-Hall (or at least used to be)). It is
also not as good as LP's books on Vietnam or Thailand.
I don't have time right now to lay out all of the stinkers in LP's
Myanmar(Burma)" guidebook but as an example of what is wrong with it,
I'll point to one serious mistake right at the beginning. In the "Facts
about the country" section (page 12), LP asserts that "the people [of
Burma] can be divided into three groups: the Burmese, the Mons and the
Thais." The facts just don't bear this out. LP is apparently grouping
the Karens, the Shans, the Kachins and 130+ other ethnic groupings into
these three major groupings. Worse, I think LP is implying that these
other groups are "Thais." It just ain't so. Cummings, et. al. seem to
know Thailand fairly well and appear to have made the flawed induction
that if the Karens and other hilltribes found in Thailand are also found
in Burma, they should be called Thais.
I won't lay into Cummings (yet) for the Myanmar (Burma) title but at the
least, it should be inverted as Burma (Myanmar).
Give me a bit of time and I'll be happy to join this conversation. One
other thing. I saw somewhere an advertisement for some kind of trekking
tour that either Cummings or Wheeler were organizing in Burma. If they
are part of this conversation (or someone can contact them), could we
have some details about what they are doing there.
One more thing. Although I don't think the current LP on Burma is very
good, I don't think it is worth the time to bash the book if Wheeler
and/or Cummings aren't listening. It would be far more constructive if
we could engage the people at LP in a substantive conversation about
their guide rather than just trash it. If they are willing to improve it
(or at least talk about it), I'm willing to spend the time telling them
where I think they got it wrong (and right).
Yours,
Strider