Talk:Myanmar

Important notice: Prior discussion has determined that there is no clear consensus on whether the article should be named "Burma" or "Myanmar". Discussion of the country's name should be posted to the subpage Talk:Burma/Myanmar.

Extensive prior discussion

Has reached no concensus. Therefore there is no point in having an ugly macro marring the page asking for *more* discussion about whether to call Burma Burma or Myanmar. My own view would be to describe the state as Myanmar and the nation as Burma and divide discussion appropriately, but as Burma is the current default both on Wiki and in the English language and there is *extensive* discussion of the naming dispute *within* the page, this macro serves no purpose and has been removed. - jowfair. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.37.112.44 (talk) 02:20, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Article too long

Dear contributers,

It seems that well, you cannot avoid politics when it comes to any topic on Myanmar - I find that there is extreme politicization of any article which contains either Myanmar/Burma, in the name. In one article, I found that the related material was only one line long, while "extra" material, i.e., political related, was two paragraphs long. I am not against the writing of truthful information, but, there is a place for everything, and a format, instead of propping up posters of your opinion everywhere. These things, instead of helping the common wikipedia user on Myanmar/Burma, has, on the contrary, made the whole issue worse, and nobody ends up knowing anything definite about the country.

The main thing at hand is that, we need to make the main article (Myanmar or Burma, call it what ever you want, but as a native of that land, I prefer Myanmar) more professional and presentable. When you try the edit button, you'll see that its nearly 120kb long - one cannot get a quick info guide about the place - you are getting a whole crash course on the whole country on this page alone.

So, might I suggest that we just write some brief paragraphs, and divert about half the existing text to new articles? I dare not do it, since half the users will start jumping on me for doing it. User:Uthantofburma —Preceding comment was added at 14:41, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

What?

I Thought that Rangoon was the capital of Myanmar! Oh well,did they change it? Fila934 (talk) 07:23, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

• Yup. New government, new name, and new capital. -BaronGrackle (talk) 15:17, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
• Nope, "Rangoon" much like "Bombay" or "Burma" is an outdated and incorrect term. --Tocino 17:34, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Instead of "outdated", shouldn't we say that the traditional term is either closer to the Burmese spelling, or, more likely, based on a dialect from western Burma which the early British were more familiar with? And I don't see anybody changing Madrid to Mathreeth, or Paris to Paree. Are we so worried about being politically correct towards a dictatorship that we have to change our own language in a way that is not appreciated by many Burmese? (I have been told by Burmese that the change to "Myanmar" etc. is simply a ploy of the junta to have a brand new start for everything and distance itself from the 1990 election won by the "Union of BURMA").Jakob37 (talk) 14:24, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure you'll find people that will state ploys on both sides. Either way, it is recognized by the UN as "Myanmar" and I gave an official UK geographic names resource that states reference to "Union of Myanmar". Rarelibra (talk) 14:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the junta moved away from Yangonas it has been the center of many protests since colonial times. Rds865 (talk) 18:38, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Blatant pro-Burmese propoganda in this article

Extracted from the "Religion" section:

"Myanmar enjoys religious tolerance and since the ancient times, there has been full freedom of worship for followers of different religions. So different religions can be practiced in Myanmar. The religious edifices and religious orders have been in existence and religious festivals can be held on a grand scale."

See http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2007/90131.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.193.173.189 (talk) 23:34, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by pro-Burmese propaganda? The stupid government's accused of every bloody thing - yes, it commits horrific acts of brutality - but as a native, I do not find religious persecution in both the towns and in the villages. It might exist in the border areas, but the average Burmese is extremely tolerant of difference in religion. From my experience, they're way better than many Americans when it comes to religious tolerance. Do you believe 100% of what the state department says? I have only one line: where are the WMDs which were supposed to have been documented??? Where where where???

Wikipedia has somehow become a tool of advocacy by many parties - and in Myanmar's hyperactive rumour mill, many facts get tangled. And nobody seems to be talking about the Christian missions' attempts to win converts by opening Christians-only free clinics in rural Karen state. Freedom of religion is the freedom of practice one's religion - not to evangelize - and because evangelists are complaining about the place, religion's nolonger free?

Its way more better for religion than many countries I have been to - it's the truth, and if you don't like it, then, too bad. You care to complain about this single line - when the whole article's already made a good job of the people? You see the white spot on the black board.

But well, I guess wikipedia's okay to remove things which you don't like, and try to justify it with the world's most professional liars department. —Preceding unsigned 18:22, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

You mean things you don't like, such as when autosigning bots try to attribute your own writings here to you, and you remove the attribution, as in 2008-03-23T13:26:35 ? Just asking...you seem to know a lot about professional lying? I'm not even a party to this dispute but find such tactics to be counter to the spirit of transparency and accountability that I thought Wikipedia was based on. User:scbomber 15:50, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Opening a Christian only clinic is not a good method of winning converts. the Karen people were looked down upon before they were Christians. Also, I believe there is a saying "to be Burmese is to be Buddhist." Surely no one denies the crack down on monks, so perhaps one could argue that the government persecutes everyone. Rds865 (talk) 19:21, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Flag and coa in the infobox

Why is there no interwiki link to the Flag of Myanmar and the Coat of arms of Burma in the infobox? —Preceding unsigned comment added by SelfQ (talk • contribs) 16:43, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

It's fixed now. It had to do with the common name being Burma/Myanmar. Technically the infobox code didn't know what to do with that entry; so it did not link. —MJCdetroit ^(yak) 20:09, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Oops, I apologize for the copy not move

I know this is quite old and outdated at this point, but I apologize anyway for an older edit from the improper unrecognized name Burma to the proper recognized Myanmar as the poster who scolded me was correct as I now see/notice that it was a copy and not a move. That "copy" page was supposed to be a /sandbox page, not a real page. Again I apologize....Lostinlodos (talk) 16:37, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Forced display

I forced the Burmese characters in this article to display correctly in every browser, not just Firefox, with the new {{lang-my-Mymr}} I created. Enjoy! ☺ Taric25 (talk) 19:18, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

US involvement

The section is more about opiate trade, and not about the alleged involvement in Burma by the US and needs some fixing. Rds865 (talk) 18:55, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

WWII

there is a little information about that time, and what there is, is confusing. It says that the American-Kachin Rangers fought for the occupiers? Certainly at this time Japan had occupied Burma? There is no mention of the Burma road. There is no mention of the Japanese occupation, and the formation of the Anti-Fascist Organization. Also the BIA was replaced with the BDA, and then the BNA and when it joined the Allies it was the PBF. Rds865 (talk) 19:36, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Burma in the Dutch Empire

Hello everyone! There is a discussion at Talk:Dutch Empire#Request For Comment: Map, because user Red4tribe has made a map of the Dutch Empire (Image:Dutch Empire 4.png) that includes significative parts of Burma. Would you like to comment? Thank you. The Ogre (talk) 15:21, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

New Map http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dutch_Empire_new.PNG http://www.colonialvoyage.com/ square=tradingpost (Red4tribe (talk) 16:33, 26 April 2008 (UTC))

Still OR, POV and unsourced (yours is not not a credible source). Please discuss stuff at Talk:Dutch Empire#Request For Comment: Map. This was just a request for comment, not a discussion. Thank you. The Ogre (talk) 16:38, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

http://www.colonialvoyage.com/
http://www.colonialvoyage.com/biblioDAfrica.html (credible source) (Red4tribe (talk) 16:47, 26 April 2008 (UTC))

Both of your links show only links between Portugese and Burma which is true. Burmese port city Syrium (Than Lyin) was held by Portugese explorer Philip de Brito. But the links doesn't show anything with Dutch and Myanmar connection. Can you explain us which paragraph or sentences that you are referring to?