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This interview was originally made on 8 December 2017. U Than Htay made some interesting comments about the colonial and Japanese occupation of Burma.
Please feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
Peter Church -
Dr Than Oo, born 1928, prominent educator, former DG of Basic Education, the key player in raising the literacy rate in Burma in the 1960's and for the re-establishing of the teaching of English to primary school children after a gap of many years, former Chairman of the Academy of Arts and Science.
This interview was first published back on 5 March 2018. As many of you only became listeners in recent times and may not have heard this interview, I hope you will find this interview of an extraordinary man inspiring.Please feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
Peter Church -
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This was the second interview I made for Myanmar Oral History back on 4 December, 2017. Many of you have signed up in recent years and I hope you will find some of these earlier interviews of interest.
Please feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
Peter Church -
U K Ba Thaung (1931-2022) - interesting stories of his relationship with General Ne Win, including observations regarding the death of General Aung San and the involvement U Saw and more personal first hand observations of General Ne Win's many unusual superstitions and remedies such as bathing in buffalo blood and his methods to increase his virility.
I was fortunate to interview Kenneth twice before he passed away on 22 May, 2022 at the age of 91. We must ensure the life stories of elderly Myanma are recorded in some way or they will be lost forever when they pass away.Please feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
Peter Church -
U Kenneth Ba Thaung (1931-2022), his life and career as a military officer including discussing his relationship with General Ne Win and his career running the Pearl and Fishery corporation, as Commissioner of Salt, the establishment of Polo 9 cigarette company and the 7 1/2 years he spent in Insein Prison.
I was fortunate to interview Kenneth twice before he passed away on 22 May, 2022 at the age of 91. We must ensure the life stories of elderly Myanma are recorded in some way or they will be lost forever when they pass away.Please feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
Peter Church -
General Ne Win (1910 -2002) was a Burmese politician and military commander who served as Prime Minister of Burma from 1958 to 1960 and 1962 to 1974, and also as President of Burma from 1962 to 1981. He was the country's military dictator during the Socialist period from 1962 to 1988.
I wonder how many of those listening to this podcast know that the name "Ne Win" was a nom de guerre used by Ne Win during WW2 to protect his identity. His birth name was Shu Maung.
In this episode I have only dealt with his early life up to the start of WW2 in Burma. I will shortly re-publish two interviews with my friend, U Kenneth Ba Thaung who sadly passed away last year at the age of 91. Kenneth had a close involvement with General Ne Win and provides some fascinating insights into Ne Win's personality.
I am again indebted to the leading Asian scholar, Professor Robert Taylor for giving me permission to read some extracts from his biography on the life of General Ne Win entitled General Ne Win: A political biography published in 2015 by the Institute of South East Asian Studies and which can be purchased as an ebook or as a soft cover book - https://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg/publication/2076Please feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
Peter Church -
Dr. Maung Maung was not only a giant in terms of his legal scholarship - being awarded two doctorates from prestigious international universities - but was also a thorough gentleman and patriot in the important years of Burma's pre and post independence. He was heavily criticized by some for being too close to General Ne Win, but others saw him as a loyal servant of the State and who tried to be a positive influence on General Ne Win. Towards the end of his life he spent time at Singapore's Institute of South East Asian Studies (ISEAS) providing an oral history of his life and views. I am indebted to the leading Asian scholar, Professor Robert Taylor for giving me permission to read some extracts from his biography of him - Dr. Maung Maung : Gentleman, Scholar and Patriot published in 2008 by ISEAS and which can be purchased from ISEAS in an ebook or printed format - https://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg/publication/909.
Dr. Maung Maung has the distinction of, not just being appointed the 7th President of Myanmar, but also the President with the shortest term. He was appointed on 18 August, 1988 but was removed one month later by a military coup on 19 September, 1988. Myanmar was then without a President until 2011 when U Thein Sein was appointed.
Please note an error I made in referring to U Thant as the first Secretary General of the UN; he was in fact the fourth holding the role from 1961 to 1971.Please feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
Peter Church -
Charles Haswell Campagnac (1886 to 1970) wrote much of his autobiography before he died and we have his grand daughter, Sandra and other members of his family to thank for pulling all of his notes together and producing The Autobiography of a Wanderer in England and Burma published in 2011 and available at Amazon and other ebook stores.
Charles Campagnac's role as a barrister, a Councillor of Rangoon's Municipal Council (including time as Mayor) and as a Member of the Legislative Council provides us with a detailed understanding of life in Burma including the years before, during and after WW2.
This episode 8 deals with Charles Campagnac's views on the plight of the Anglo Burman community post WW2.Please feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
Peter Church -
Charles Haswell Campagnac (1886 to 1970) wrote much of his autobiography before he died and we have his grand daughter, Sandra and other members of his family to thank for pulling all of his notes together and producing The Autobiography of a Wanderer in England and Burma published in 2011 and available at Amazon and other ebook stores.
Charles Campagnac's role as a barrister, a Councillor of Rangoon's Municipal Council (including time as Mayor) and as a Member of the Legislative Council provides us with a detailed understanding of life in Burma including the years before, during and after WW2.
This episode 7 deals with Charles Campagnac's experiences on the reoccupation of Burma after the war.Please feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
Peter Church -
Charles Haswell Campagnac (1886 to 1970) wrote much of his autobiography before he died and we have his grand daughter, Sandra and other members of his family to thank for pulling all of his notes together and producing The Autobiography of a Wanderer in England and Burma published in 2011 and available at Amazon and other ebook stores.
Charles Campagnac's role as a barrister, a Councillor of Rangoon's Municipal Council (including time as Mayor) and as a Member of the Legislative Council provides us with a detailed understanding of life in Burma including the years before, during and after WW2.
This episode 6 deals with the Campagnac's experiences in India having fled from the Japanese occupation of Burma.Please feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
Peter Church -
Guy Slater was born in Lahore (then India) in 1941, the eldest son an Englishman who worked for the Indian Civil Service (as did several earlier generations of the family). Following India becoming independent in 1947 his father became a diplomat and was posted at one time to Burma. On leaving school Guy spent 8 months in Rangoon between school and university with his parents during which time EM Law-Yone, the legendary founder of the Rangoon Nation ( https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/apr/03/wendy-law-yone-burma-rangoon-nation) offered him a job as a "cub reporter".
During his time at the Rangoon Nation he became a close friend of Marike Barrington, the daughter of Mr. James Barrington who was head of Burma's Foreign Office and had previously served as Ambassador to both the US and the UN and was succeeded at the UN by the famous figure of U Thant.
The podcast covers Guy's short time as a "cub reporter" in Yangon and his career back in England in the theatre and TV and his continued involvement with Myanmar through his role as a Trustee of Prospect Burma (https://prospectburma.org/).Please feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
Peter Church -
Charles Haswell Campagnac (1886 to 1970) wrote much of his autobiography before he died and we have his grand daughter, Sandra and other members of his family to thank for pulling all of his notes together and producing The Autobiography of a Wanderer in England and Burma published in 2011 and available at Amazon and other ebook stores.
Charles Campagnac's role as a barrister, a Councillor of Rangoon's Municipal Council (including time as Mayor) and as a Member of the Legislative Council provides us with a detailed understanding of life in Burma including the years before, during and after WW2.
This episode 5 deals with the horrors of war which befell Burma during WW2.Please feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
Peter Church -
Charles Haswell Campagnac (1886 to 1970) wrote much of his autobiography before he died and we have his grand daughter, Sandra and other members of his family to thank for pulling all of his notes together and producing The Autobiography of a Wanderer in England and Burma published in 2011 and available at Amazon and other ebook stores.
Charles Campagnac's role as a barrister, a Councillor of Rangoon's Municipal Council (including time as Mayor) and as a Member of the Legislative Council provides us with a detailed understanding of life in Burma including the years before, during and after WW2.
This episode 4 of his life story deals with his views on the use of the death penalty in Burma in the 1920s, the difference between Anglo Burmans and Anglo Indians and his election to Rangoon Municipal CouncilPlease feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
Peter Church -
Charles Haswell Campagnac (1886 to 1970) wrote much of his autobiography before he died and we have his grand daughter, Sandra and other members of his family to thank for pulling all of his notes together and producing The Autobiography of a Wanderer in England and Burma published in 2011 and available at Amazon and other ebook stores.
Charles Campagnac's role as a barrister, a Councillor of Rangoon's Municipal Council (including time as Mayor) and as a Member of the Legislative Council provides us with a detailed understanding of life in Burma including the years before, during and after WW2.
This episode 3 of his life story deals with some of the colourful characters he met outside his practice as a barrister.Please feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
Peter Church -
Charles Haswell Campagnac (1886 to 1970) wrote much of his autobiography before he died and we have his grand daughter, Sandra and other members of his family to thank for pulling all of his notes together and producing The Autobiography of a Wanderer in England and Burma published in 2011 and available at Amazon and other ebook stores.
Charles Campagnac's role as a barrister, a Councillor of Rangoon's Municipal Council (including time as Mayor) and as a Member of the Legislative Council provides us with a detailed understanding of life in Burma including the years before, during and after WW2.
This episode 2 of his life story covers his involvement as a barrister in the famous case of the newspaper publisher of The Rangoon Times, Mr. Channing Arnold who was prosecuted in 1913 for defamation of two British civil servants.Please feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
Peter Church -
Charles Haswell Campagnac (1886 to 1970) wrote much of his autobiography before he died and we have his grand daughter, Sandra and other members of his family to thank for pulling all of his notes together and producing The Autobiography of a Wanderer in England and Burma published in 2011 and available at Amazon and other ebook stores.
Charles Campagnac's role as a barrister, a Councillor of Rangoon's Municipal Council (including time as Mayor) and as a Member of the Legislative Council provides us with a detailed understanding of life in Burma including the years before, during and after WW2.
This episode deals with some of the stories from his early years as a barrister commencing on his return to Rangoon in 1909 at the age of 23.Please feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
Peter Church -
Sithu (a very prestigious award for bravery and gallantry) Colonel Raymond Campagnac was born in August 1921 and passed away in November, 1989. He was Anglo Burmese as were both his parents.
His daughter Sandra Campagnac - Carney has written a biography of his life entitled Burma's Son (published in 2020 by Blue Mist Publication and available in several ebook shops). I was made aware of his remarkable life by another of my podcast subjects, Sithu Captain Kyaw Thein Lwin - see Episodes 31 to 34. He believes the enormous contribution of the Anglo Burmese to Burma in general and specifically to the success of the Allied Forces in Burma during WW2 and in fighting for Burma's independence have largely been overlooked or forgotten. Sandra's biography of her father goes some way in remedying that.Please feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
Peter Church -
With significant assistance from Professor John Ingleson and Dr Ian Black (then both at the University of New South Wales) I published the first edition of A Short History of South East Asia in the late 1990s. The current 6th edition was published in 2017 by Wiley and, if you are interested, is available for purchase on all the major ebook sites.
The abolition of the monarchy in 1885 (including the physical removal of King Thibaw to Calcutta) leaving the Burmese without a social and religious structure and then being subject to direct rule by the British. This compared to the ethnic minorities whose social and leadership structures were left in place with them being subject to indirect rule by the British.The entering into of the Panglong Agreement on 12 February 1947 by the Burmese, Shan, Chin and Kachin (but not the Karen) and which provided for a Federal Government following independence which took place on 4 January, 1948. There were provisions for the ethnic groups to be able to withdraw from the Federation after 10 years if they were not satisfied with the situation. General Aung San was instrumental in persuading the ethnic groups to sign the Panglong Agreement. He had their trust. Sadly he and some of his key colleagues were assassinated in April 1947 and there was no one of his stature or influence to ensure the terms of the Agreement were followed.General Ne Win was concerned that the ethnic groups were going to withdraw from the Union pursuant to the Panglong Agreement and launched a coup on 2 March 1962. Not only did he effectively "tear up" the Agreement but he ordered the killing and jailing of many hereditary ethnic leaders.Needless to say, since the 1962 coup, most ethnic groups have not trusted the military and some like the Karen have never trusted them. The 1 February 2021 coup reinforces their multi decade lack of trust in the military.A key difference between the 1962 and 2021 coups is that the Burmese population by and large went along submissively with the 1962 as they hoped it would bring stability and improve the economy - although General Ne Win failed spectacularly with the economy- whereas most Burmese (and particularly young Burmese) having tasted quasi democracy, have solidly rejected the 2021 coup.
The catalyst for writing the book was a 1980 speech by the late Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore to the People's Action Party (the political party he founded) and in which he said "to understand the present and anticipate the future, one must know enough of the past, enough to have a sense of the history of a people". In my opinion these few words are profound and apply to every country in the world, including Myanmar.
I propose to read the Myanmar chapter from the book over a few podcasts and hope by the end we will know enough of Myanmar's history to "understand the present and anticipate the future"?
This reading covers the period from the early 2000s to the publication of the 6th edition of the book in 2017.
My conclusion as to why Myanmar is where it is today is a combination of a number of factors:Those listening to my podcast may well have other reasons as to why Myanmar is where it is today. However, looking forward, the most important question to answer is how we get from where the country is today to a bright, prosperous and peaceful future for the country and its diverse ethnicities.
Please feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
Peter Church -
With significant assistance from Professor John Ingleson and Dr Ian Black (then both at the University of New South Wales) I published the first edition of A Short History of South East Asia in the late 1990s. The current 6th edition was published in 2017 by Wiley and, if you are interested, is available for purchase on all the major ebook sites.
The catalyst for writing the book was a 1980 speech by the late Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore to the People's Action Party (the political party he founded) and in which he said "to understand the present and anticipate the future, one must know enough of the past, enough to have a sense of the history of a people". In my opinion these few words are profound and apply to every country in the world, including Myanmar.
I propose to read the Myanmar chapter from the book over a few podcasts and hope by the end we will know enough of Myanmar's history to "understand the present and anticipate the future"?
This reading covers the period from the 1970s to the early 2000s.Please feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
Peter Church -
With significant assistance from Professor John Ingleson and Dr Ian Black (then both at the University of New South Wales) I published the first edition of A Short History of South East Asia in the late 1990s. The current 6th edition was published in 2017 by Wiley and, if you are interested, is available for purchase on all the major ebook sites.
The catalyst for writing the book was a 1980 speech by the late Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore to the People's Action Party (the political party he founded) and in which he said "to understand the present and anticipate the future, one must know enough of the past, enough to have a sense of the history of a people". In my opinion these few words are profound and apply to every country in the world, including Myanmar.
I propose to read the Myanmar chapter from the book over a few podcasts and hope by the end we will know enough of Myanmar's history to "understand the present and anticipate the future"?
This reading covers the period of Japanese occupation during WW2 and the early years of independence to the late 1960s.Please feel free to contact me with suggested interviewees at [email protected].
Thank you for listening .
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