Drowning: Can the Burmese People Rescue Themselves?

By George Packer
Issue: Aug 25

When George Packer first visited Burma in 1987 on a one-week visa - the maximum amount of time allowed - it was still called Burma. The country's official name became Myanmar in 1989. There were other changes. The junta is now called the State Peace and Development council and it is led by Senior General Than Shwe. You're gonna want to pronounce it "tawn shway."

Burma is in bad shape, but the people you're talking to are probably already aware. There was a recent monk uprising that became violent (September 2007), as well as a devastating cyclone (May 2008). So tell them instead that for the past two decades America has imposed sanctions on Burma. George Packer says he met many people in Rangoon who would rather America take a more active role. In fact, he met one man who delivered a note to the U.S. embassy that read, "bombard Burma."

Packer paints the Burmese as uniquely gentle and intellectually curious - "[t]he tradition of reading groups in Burma goes back to the nineteen-twenties." The article closes with the following visual: Hnin Se, a writer who was at one point imprisoned, is standing in the rain and serving cylcone victims three scoops of rice.