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Yale tour



Dear Burma readers, 
will someone please send me the full history and position on Yale's tour 
trip to Burma, and "Ms Cole", addresses, emails and activists on Yale 
campus would help, including her Ms Cole fax 
Ms Cole's decision to go to Burma, as I read it, is a full and total 
disgrace of that great liberal institution of learning and public 
advancement. I apologize for my absence on this issue, which I feel 
compelled to respond to.
metta
Yale Class 76, Calhoun College


> Subject: Two opinion articles from soc.culture.burma
> 
> Two opinion pieces by Chao - Tzang Yawnghwe
> 
> Posted by tai <tai@xxxxxxxxx>
> to soc.culture.burma
> 
> YALE'S BURMA TOUR:  A CASE OF THE TAIL
> WAGGING THE DOG?
> 
> Chao - Tzang Yawnghwe
> 
> As one unfamiliar with the inner politics of the prestigious Yale
> University, I am,  like many in a similar position, puzzled by
> Ms. Judy Cole's insistence that there is no politics involved in
> lending Yale's prestige to SLORC's "Visit Myanmar" campaign.
> 
> It cannot be that Ms. Cole is unaware that the "Visit Myanmar"
> campaign is pristinely political . SLORC's aim is to use the
> names ( and pictures ) of distinguished "tourists" to cloak itself
> in a mantle of legitimacy: to impress upon the Burmese (over
> whom it rules at gunpoint) that it possess as much legitimacy as
> Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
> 
> SLORC's second aim is to demoralize the Burmese people by
> sending message that the outside world -- even the cream of the
> West's intellectual community -- is indifferent to both their
> plight and aspirations.
> 
> What puzzles me is Ms. Cole's feigned ignorance of the politics
> involved in visiting Burma and pretence that the visit is purely
> non-political -- that it is merely  "an educational opportunity" as
> it is put.  The visit strikes me as being a case of the tail (Ms.
> Cole) wagging the dog (Yale).
> 
> The point to ponder is why visit Burma this year ?  Why not
> last year or the next ? This also applies to other American
> universities responding to SLORC's campaign, or about to do
> so.  It seems a strange coincidence, and a sad comment on the
> post-cold war psyche, that the global ( and American )
> intellectual community should respond to SLORC's appeal
> while it has , with few exceptions, ignored the plight and the
> voice of the Burmese people -- the party that needs and deserves
> the help of the  "enlightened " community of scholars.
> 
> I am sure Ms. Cole and Yale academics and administrators (
> Yale's powers- that- be) are not unaware of what the political
> outcome of the AYA's visit is, nor are they ignorant of who
> stands to gain most, politically, from this so-called "educational
> opportunity".
> 
> Such being so, there must be other reasons (other than
> ignorance and unawareness) for AYA's determination to go
> ahead with the Alumni tour. Could it be that there is a more
> mundane, trite explanation -- i.e., that there are monetary and
> /or personal gains or benefits involved ?
> 
> If the above is the case, it would seem that Yale's reputation as
> a center of learning and enlightenment is being sold cheaply by
> individuals with vested or monetary interest in going ahead with
> what is in essence a dishonorable venture.
> 
> I hope that those who value Yale's honor and reputation will
> look closely into the matter, and put an end to a venture which
> has only one outcome: the legitimation of gross human rights
> abuse and the reinforcement of those who rule at gunpoint (in
> addition to putting hard dollars into SLORC's pocket).
> 
> --=====================_824874816==_--