Myanmar or Burma?

About a week and a half ago, I was driving back from a visit with my girlfriend in DC, when I found myself listening to NPR for the very first time. It was the local DC NPR not national, but still, I think that counts as the first. Well, what caught my attention was a caller asked the host (some guy named Kojo or Kojak or something) whether we should call the cyclone-ravished country Myanmar, which is what the current government chose, or Burma, which is what exiled nationals call it. Well Kojo didn’t really have much of an answer for this so I turned off the radio and started listening to my iPod.

The funny thing is, is I could not get this question out of my head. I got home, hopped on the internet and checked out a bunch of different web news sites to see what they all had to say. The majority, which wasn’t an overwhelming one, had called the country Burma in their news stories. President Bush called it Burma. Now the reason this is even a topic at all is because the current government in that tiny country is not exactly a friendly one to outsiders. Everyone probably knows by now it was very difficult to send aid to the thousands injured or displaced, because the government wasn’t too keen on letting aid workers into their country.

My take on the whole thing: You HAVE to call the country Myanmar. Whether it is a government we like or dislike, approve of or disapprove of, we have to respect that is their government and it is their right to call themselves whatever they want. You see, this is exactly the problem with our foreign policy. Our government feels that it is our right, our duty even, to go about the globe making sure everyone thinks exactly the same as us. I call bullshit. We cannot build relationships if we continually ignore the wishes of the other side. Give and take. I don’t think the higher ups in our government learned that in 2nd grade.

What do you think?

Tags: Burma, government, Myanmar, NPR, politics, radio