LONGS: I love you, Golden Mile

Laos' lost crater, Indonesia's unlikely friends

January 31, 2020

(Singapore’s gorgeous Golden Mile Complex, c/o Wikicommons)

Hello friends!

This is a biggie because I forgot to do it fortnightly! Usually, there’s something for everyone, but today there really, really is. 

Given developments this month we are, once again, heavy on the Myanmar/ASSK takes. We’re also suspiciously light on the Malaysia/Philippines/Indonesia ones. But they’re often over-represented so we can deal with that for a month.

As always, readers on the free list and those who have been forwarded this from others are more than welcome to join us on the premium list for $60 annual/$6 monthly:

And while you’ve got the card out and feeling full of goodwill, check out Frontier Myanmar’s brand new membership program. The publication is an invaluable resource for me with insight into the country you don’t find elsewhere. At the very least, get on their newsletter! 

Asean and Timorese nationals under 30 are eligible for a free annual membership, so if that’s you: hit that reply!

And on with the show.

This is the kind of story we’ve read a thousand times on Myanmar since 2017. But, it’s the most comprehensive, I think, and a great resource/background before another full year of Myanmar dominating regional news. 

It turns out the enemy of your enemy is not automatically your friend. Aung San Suu Kyi stood against the military dictatorship in Myanmar, and she fought against many of the human rights abuses the dictatorship perpetrated against its citizens. But that never made her a liberal or someone who believed in universal human rights.

Her background, and her family’s background following her father, Gen. Aung San, is in the anti-British, Burmese independence movement. The strongest current underpinning that independence movement was Burmese ethnic and Theravada Buddhist nationalism. She had views, shared with her father, about how such a state should be governed. They, unlike most of the pro-independence revolutionaries who became the country’s military establishment, preferred a democratic socialist system to a socialist dictatorship. But they were never in much doubt about what they saw as the proper nature of the state as culturally Burmese and Theravada Buddhist.

🇸🇬 Is Singapore's 'perfect' economy coming apart? (Asia Nikkei Review)

Singapore’s jobs numbers have been looking iffy for a while and recession is talked about as an inevitability. But the crash is more than headlines, it’s hundreds of dollars short between income and spending and thousands living in poverty. This is a great read and if you want to go further let me suggest This Is What Inequality Looks Like.

The roots of Singapore's current problems, Yeoh believes, were planted in the 1990s, when its politics lurched rightward. In line with the prevailing neoliberal thinking, the government moved toward a more market-based approach to the pricing and ownership of HDB flats. Many citizens bought houses, taking advantage of a government scheme that allows citizens to use the savings in their Central Provident Fund -- a compulsory pension scheme -- to do so. Property prices were booming, so in theory this meant that they would have a valuable asset in retirement, which they could sell or borrow against.

🇲🇲 Myanmar is the master of its own destiny (Frontier Myanmar)

There’s a lot to be said about Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Myanmar this month. Much of the analysis has defined Myanmar as a client state and the visit, as our friends at Frontier Myanmar put it, collecting on an ‘IOU.’ It’s not that simple, but regardless many in the country are unhappy with the direction the relationship is heading.

The suggestion, too, that Myanmar has been “lost” to China, that it needs to “choose” between China and any other country, or that it should scale back its relationship with China, is unhelpful.

The countries share a 2,000-plus-kilometre border and longstanding cultural ties. China is Myanmar’s single most important economic partner and offers significant opportunities. The relationship is complex, and there is plenty of baggage, but it’s indispensable.

Equally unhelpful, though, is the idea that the fallout from the Rohingya crisis shows that Myanmar can only rely on China for support.

Myanmar has prided itself on a neutral, balanced foreign policy since independence, and it should seek to continue this. Its international relations should not be a zero-sum game.

Maung Zarni, one of the founders of FORSEA, writes in the Washington Post of his experience and response to the testimony and comments made by Aung San Suu Kyi at the ICJ in this damning piece.

Aung San Suu Kyi has now publicly flung open the floodgates of militant nationalism — a version as virulent as the anti-British nationalism of her father’s formative era in the 1930s and 1940s. This resistance to foreign rule often led to communal violence, since some ethnic nationalists viewed other groups as the beneficiaries of colonization.

As the International Criminal Court proceeds with its own separate investigation into Myanmar’s crimes against the Rohingya, it is imperative that the prosecutor name Aung San Suu Kyi, along with the generals, as partners in crime. The international community must stand firm in holding her to account.

Love this one from Abby Seiff — a Jstor byline is quite the flex! This looks more at the US experience of refugee policy due to its role in the wars, but some of the background here is fascinating. Also helps that Abby is a brilliant writer, who ably connects events which could be outliers into a much wider history.

In some ways, the barbarism of the Khmer Rouge was truly unique; in others, it is painfully familiar. Globally, there are nearly 71 million forcibly displaced peoples, the highest figure in history, and one that rises by the year. In China, an estimated tenth of the Muslim Uyghur minority has been rounded up into euphemistically named “re-education camps,” in which torture and rape appear to be widespread. In Bangladesh refugee camps, one million Muslim Rohingya, who fled a rampaging military campaign in their native Myanmar, desperately await a path home. Refugees fleeing ISIS in Iraq and Syria carry with them stories of carnage. In El Salvador, drug cartels have terrorized communities and made the country the world’s deadliest.

As with the Khmer Rouge, some of the underlying instability can be traced back to U.S. policies. Unlike in 1980, however, there is scant government effort to bring those most impacted by these conflicts or crimes under U.S. care. The hundreds of thousands of Central Americans fleeing brutal violence have been met with the harshest border control in American history. U.S. wars and U.S. military actions in the Middle East continue to contribute to the unparalleled displacement of people, but the country has accepted just a tiny fraction of the total number of refugees. With climate change making larger swathes of the world unlivable by the year, hundreds of millions more will have to move. Again, this past year, the refugee quota was set at 30,000—the lowest ceiling since the passage of the Refugee Act in 1980. And again, on November 1, 2019, the White House announced that in 2020, that figure will drop to 18,000.

When it comes to Australia and Timor-Leste, what really happened and what became part of Australia’s mythologising? This is all a bit before my time (1997, the Year of Spice World?) so it’s a fascinating read filling many gaps. 

In my opinion, the government privately changed its collective mind during the course of incidents perpetrated in East Timor between late February and June, most notably the massacre of civilians in the town of Liquica at the hands of pro-integration militia. Part of this change was due to an increasingly horrified reaction among the Australian public to those incidents.

Given the level of violence and intimidation against pro-independence supporters, it would have been hard to see a vote against independence as being other than as a result of coercion. Under those circumstances, any other outcome would have lacked international credibility and denied Indonesia the very purpose of the referendum—diplomatic legitimacy. As a consequence, in Australia and elsewhere the policy would be seen as a failure.

This headline is a bit much for me, but the discussion within the actual piece is interesting. Vietnam has often been seen as a roadmap for North Korea to ~come in from the cold, could the same apply for Iran? I think this is going to be one of those additions that occasionally see a flurry of reply emails so if you’re thinking that please know I don’t endorse all links, I just read widely!

Geopolitics is an obvious factor in U.S.-Vietnamese relations. Hanoi has no wish to see China’s regional influence grow unchecked. While officially neutral, Vietnam has endorsed the Trump administration’s vision of “a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

This cooperation has increased notwithstanding the U.S. government’s candid criticism of Vietnam in its annual human-rights reports. Yet in contrast with Iran, Vietnam has no nuclear weapons or ballistic missile programs. Hanoi hasn’t sponsored terrorists or proxy militias, nor has it threatened to wipe other countries off the map.

Abhishek Agrawal is a tech entrepreneur from India, who has added Mandarin to his language arsenal to better get to know neighbours in Singapore. Love it! I think there’s probably room for a discussion about why he felt he had to and all that, but enjoy a heartwarmer while you can is my advice. 

At school, supportive laboratory mates helped him adapt to Singapore, and expanded his palate to local food like chilli crab. “For six months I’d lived on prata and curry. I didn’t know there was chicken rice and other local dishes.”

Still, Abhishek felt on the fringe in some ways. For instance: Local traditions like lion dance and Chinese opera performances he’d witnessed in his HDB estate puzzled him.

“Sometimes, in group discussions, friends would speak Mandarin with each other and I couldn’t catch head or tail of it,” he added.

But rather than feeling sorry for himself, Abhishek saw this as a barrier to break through. “Feelings don’t yield results, your effort does,” he said, ever the practical engineer.

Oh my God, what?! I’m going to borrow Anne Helen Peterson’s ‘just trust me’. Really, just trust me. 

“I still remember, my first movie was ‘Harry Potter.’ I kept watching the same movie every day, sometimes like two times a day,” said Bella, who has since opened her own shop selling beauty products and fresh-pressed juice in Savannakhet, a former French colonial outpost 220 miles southeast of Vientiane.

“I kept doing like that for two years,” she added, “and suddenly I realized, ‘Whoa! I can speak English!’ ”

That includes the ability to knock out a well-crafted R.

When you’re barred from moving around, the government does nothing to make your corner of the country safer for you and conditions in one of the world’s largest refugee camps have become stagnant, what options are left? For some Rohingya men who have tried to flee only to be turned back — trying again is all you can do. 

Too Aung’s story is typical of many young Muslims in Rakhine who, denied any legal routes to escape the poverty and discrimination they endure in their villages or camps for internally displaced persons, put their fate in the hands of smugglers in exchange for thousands of dollars.

Once in transit, they risk physical abuse from smugglers eager to extort more money from their parents, and also a high likelihood of arrest, after which they are speedily prosecuted and imprisoned – in most cases for two years – and portrayed in the Myanmar media as illegal immigrants for travelling within the country of their birth.

I am filthy about this stuff, but I’ve organised my thoughts properly and will bring it next week. In the meantime, Kirsten Han nails it as always. She’s ended up the target of a POFMA notice anyway. 

All these statements and analyses touched on sensitive issues — questioning the competence of the elites, tapping people’s anxieties about immigration and jobs — and at a time when many Singaporeans suspect that the government will call general elections well before April 2021, the month by which they must be held. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who has been in power since 2004, has indicated that this race will be his last, and the ruling party seems intent on securing another strong mandate.

But never mind politics, the P.A.P. has claimed, or the fact that Pofma has only been invoked against government opponents so far. That’s merely a “coincidence.”

The South Korea on the screen is very different to the South Korea many Vietnamese women leave home for. Vietnamese women who move to marry Korean men face discrimination or even mental and physical abuse. High profile cases in recent months have prompted a government investigation, but beliefs are deeply ingrained. 

Over the past few decades, as more Koreans have moved to cities like Seoul, rural communities and governments have struggled to find ways to repopulate the countryside. Experts say women in particular see rural lifestyles as unattractive, leading to a gender imbalance that fuels the demand for foreign brides.

A popular solution for men in the countryside is to pay for a foreign woman to migrate to Korea in a deal that usually involves paying a local or foreign marriage broker about 14.2 million won (US$12,000) for a Vietnamese bride.

This is a great complement to last year’s one on marriage customs in Timor-Leste last year from Sophie Raynor and the New Naratif gang. From researcher Annie Yuan Cih Wu, this one looks at how Timorese love-birds and their family fund the ceremonies and gifts by working in Australia and what impact that has on the marriage rate. 

Australia’s Seasonal Worker Program has played host to more than 2,000 workers from East Timor (and many more from other Pacific nations) since it began 2014.

Working in Australia for only six months, most send back to Timor between US$4,000 and US$8,000.

The Philippines’ media has done a phenomenal job covering conflicts arising from land wars in recent years, but I often find as an outsider there’s a lot of assumed knowledge that I don’t quite have. This NYT feature looks at the broader overall story, who is fighting and for what. One thing that strikes me, beyond the hideousness of the cases, is how verbosely this is written (and I don’t mean that in a rude way!) compared to how domestic press covers it. It’s a phenomenal read and the photos are excellent.

Weeks later, a truckload of government soldiers arrived at the plantation, or hacienda, in fatigues, bearing assault rifles. They warned the farmers that participating in the play was tantamount to pledging allegiance to the guerrillas.

“When people continue to agitate for what Duterte promised them, he turns against them,” says Dioscoro Andrino, a local farmer. “They look at us like we are the enemy.”

This isn’t really a long-read, but it is just about the most fascinating thing I’ve learnt this month. ‘Sawaddee’ isn’t the traditional Thai greeting I thought it was, instead it was decreed by Plaek Phibunsongkhram. I didn’t know too much about the former politician/dictator and this from Coconuts Bangkok sent me into a Wikipedia spiral. 

Science! Around 800,000 years ago a meteorite smashed into the earth flinging tektites — that is, little glassy things — around the planet. So where’d the freaking meteor go? If it’s that big it’d be hard to miss! Laos, duh! 

“We calculated that they were ejected from the crater and landed at about 450 meters per second, fast enough to shatter them upon impact,” said Vanpheng Sihavong, a geoscientist at the Ministry of Energy and Mines in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and a member of the research team.

The scientists also examined quartz grains in some of the boulders and observed that they were fractured, often considered a smoking gun of an impact.

“We think we’ve found that,” Dr. Sieh said.

One of the most valuable, interesting things I’ve ever learnt about in the region is AIDA. I’ve been totally blessed to be able to get to know some of the men, survivors of terrorism or religious leaders, in Jakarta over the years. This one from AP takes a look at what the organisation is doing further out east in Bali where Ni Luh Erniati, who lost her husband in the 2002 attack, works alongside reformed terrorists. 

More quietly, over the past several years, there has been a growing alliance of former terrorists and victims brought together under the guidance of a group founded by the victim of a terrorist attack. Since 2013, 49 victims and six former extremists have reconciled through the Alliance for a Peaceful Indonesia, or AIDA. They have visited around 150 schools in parts of Indonesia known as hotbeds for extremist recruiters, sharing their stories with more than 8,000 students.

I loooove Golden Mile Complex in Singapore! I’m no good at taking snaps, so I love this one photo essay/love letter from VICE. 

Despite its seedy reputation, worn-down interiors, and all-around ugly architecture, Singapore's Golden Mile Complex remains one of my favourite places to spend an afternoon. Sure, not everyone enjoys a stroll among occult stores, massage parlours, and Thai discos, but I find every corner of this high-rise commercial building fascinating. Built in the early 70s, it is known among the locals as “Little Thailand” — and for good reason. Almost everything that is authentically Thai can be found here, which explains why it’s a hub for Thai expats living in Singapore.

Game on, Margielyn Didal. The 20-year-old Filipina skater is ranked 12th among women street skaters in the whole dang world and she’s ready to take them all on at the Olympics this year. She’s cleaned up in the Asian and Southeast Asian Games in recent years and now hopes to bring home the Philippines’ first ever gold Olympic medal. She’s also a force for social good and I love her.

“In the Philippines, I’ve seen a lot of kids hanging out in the street, doing bad things,” she says. “A lot of kids are homeless and [suffer] misfortune, and I want to help them because I grew up in the streets.”

Didal wants to use skating to help get kids off the streets. She plans to set up a skate coaching clinic and skatepark and to continue her involvement with programmes to feed the poor. Her philosophy is simple: build the skateparks and they will come – and she is patiently waiting for it to happen.

We think we can save the Mekong Delta, but it’s ‘now on its deathbed’ writes Nguyen Dang Anh Thi for VNExpress. The extent of the damage caused by human activity is enormous and it’s destroying Vietnam and other countries reliant on it. Decades of damming are coming home to roost now and we may never get it back. This one comes via Michael Tatarski and his Vietnam Weekly.

Buying electricity from, having stakes in or constructing the dams that are destroying the Mekong means we’re destroying the delta ourselves. If Vietnam ever finds itself doing so, all the preaching about protecting the delta that we’ve done would end up being nothing but empty words.

My friend said many residents of the delta were already leaving region. People were either moving to the cities, or outside Vietnam altogether. He sorely misses the time when the Mekong was a benevolent, life-giving entity that bestowed its subjects with more food than they could imagine.

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