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Gen. Aung San, on French national T



Subject: Re: Gen. Aung San, on French national TV: Soros's critique: capitalism vs democracy (fwd)

dawn star (Euro-Burmanet) wrote:
> 
> dawn star (Euro-Burmanet) wrote:
> 
> Two items: First, tonight i was pleasantly awakened from the monotony of
> French discourse (virtually always the same thing) by the great General
> Aung San sitting beside an Englishman as he spoke glowingly about
> emerging Burmese independence. So tonight fellow friends of Burma, be
> heartened to know that during a primetime television show on modern
> history (the subject was the Americanization of postwar Paris, 1946-48,
> after american GIs marched shoulder to shoulder down the Champs Elysees,
> and France danced the gitterbug while French factories shutdown to buy
> american goods under the Marshall Plan, French film maker Alain Corneau
> recently returned from Burma spoke of the sham of Burmese tourism, and
> the Burmese economic boom when one learns that these trucks here were
> "requisitioned" (stolen) by the Burmese army, and these workers here are
> "forced workers", he actually said 'labour forcé'.
> 
> We must get him on the side of Free Burma now, and it can be done.
> 
> In the documentary film, Gen Aung San returned and  spoke again  to the
> French nation tonight for at least a minute of uninterrupted dignity.
> Too bad the French interviewer seemed to stumble on the facts of the
> current plight, again a sort of typical non-engagement with history, a
> contradiction since here it was a documentary-with-invited-guest-program
> on history, and while the French grappled with their love/hate over
> american mass culture ( the coca-cola vs red wine debate) in a land
> where the Big Mac is King, they lost the significance of the real.
> Sometimes it really makes me think that the French are a hopelessly
> irresponsible  bunch of frogs... No wonder TOTAL is advertising every
> night on the national motor race across the african deserts, the
> Paris-Dakar, in every home for two weeks - and the French prefer not to
> care or to engage. No they can bury their icons, like Andre Malraux in
> the Pantheon which they did when they transfered his ashes weeks ago in
> an outpour of irrelevant nationalism, in a search for heros of the past.
> Like I said to a french friend today, when he spoke of a television
> program on the chinese extraction of organs from political prisoners
> -when they are still living -who are left to die: "The French absorb the
> news of the world with even less passion and fervor than with which they
> watch publicity, and they go out and buy soap.At least they do
> something, even if only to wash their conscience clean of any
> responsibility for action."
> 
> But it was good to see General Aung San, unmovingly calling forth the
> future with cool assuredness. That makes me feel good, that today we
> moved closer to victory and the great General was there...even if the
> French want only more soap..
> 
> And now this on the Soros declaration:
> > More on the article by George Soros that is now circulating around the
> > world.
> >
> > >  The following, which summarizes Soros's comments in a
> > > recent issue of the Swedish newspaper, DAGENS NYHETER ("Daily News", I
> > > think).  It was included in a conglomeration of Eastern European news
> > >  put together by a guy at the Center for
> > > Defense Information (a reliable, critical, "think tank"); the article by
> > > Paul Goble was distributed by the successor organization to Radio Free
> > > Europe.  Goble is an ex-CIA senior analyst, and for a while was part of
> > > an effort by ex-CIA Russian institutes to put out a private-issue
> > > newsletter.  They found that it was very popular as long as it was
> > > freely available on the Net, but has pretty well collapsed once they
> > > started to charge for it.
> > >
> > > ======================================================================
> > > Eastern Europe: Analysis From Washington--Capitalism Versus Democracy
> > > By Paul Goble
> > >
> > > Washington, 16 January 1997 (RFE/RL) - Challenging one of the most
> > > widely-held beliefs of the post-Cold War world, billionaire financier
> > > George Soros argued on Wednesday that capitalism may in fact subvert
> > > democracy rather than support it.
> > >
> > > For the last decade at least, conventional wisdom in the West has been
> > > just the opposite. Western writers have regularly insisted that free market
> > > capitalism is a necessary -- if not always sufficient -- condition for
> > > the creation and maintenance of a democratic society.
> > >
> > > They have based their argument on the fact that capitalism tends to
> > > decentralize power and thus create the possibility for the establishment
> > > of
> > > a civil society out of which a democracy can arise.
> > >
> > > Such a perspective, of course, is of more than academic interest. It has
> > > led many Western countries to conclude that if they succeed in promoting
> > > free markets in post-communist countries, these states would almost
> > > magically become democratic without the need for specific intervention
> > > directed to that end.
> > >
> > > But developments in many of these countries have called that happy
> > > assumption into question. In some of these states, moves toward free
> > > market
> > > capitalism have not led to democracy but rather toward greater
> > > authoritariansim. And in others, moves toward democracy appear unrelated
> > > to
> > > the pace of economic reform.
> > >
> > > This lack of correspondence between expectations and reality has already
> > > led a number of people to question the assumptions underlying the
> > > prevailing view. But because of his prominence and special role in the
> > > region, Soros seems likely to set off a much broader debate on these
> > > issues.
> > >
> > > As that discussion begins, it is important to keep in mind both what
> > > Soros
> > > has said and what he has not.
> > >
> > > On the one hand, Soros has advanced an argument far broader than a
> > > simple
> > > rejection of the conventional view  aboout the prospects for
> > > post-communist
> > > countries.
> > >
> > > Writing in the Stockholm newspaper :Dagens Nyheter," Soros has called
> > > into
> > > question not only the role of free market capitalism in promoting
> > > democracy
> > > in formerly communist countries but also the role of capitalism in
> > > existing
> > > democratic societies.
> > >
> > > He suggested that "the unrestrained intensification of laissez-faire
> > > capitalism and market values spreading through life is threatening the
> > > future of our open and democratic societies."
> > >
> > > Among the threats now emanating from the free market capitalism, he
> > > said,
> > > were "exaggerated individualism, too much competition, and too little
> > > cooperation."
> > >
> > > As a result, Soros said, ever more people have taken the view that
> > > everyone
> > > "should be left to look after themselves," an idea that subverted
> > > community
> > > both within countries and among them.
> > >
> > > But on the other hand, Soros has in fact made a claim less broad than
> > > the
> > > one he appears to be making.
> > >
> > > He argues against the "unrestrained" intensification of market forces,
> > > not
> > > market forces as such. And thus his attack on capitalism is less a call
> > > to
> > > arms against it as a system than an appeal for seeing democracy as an
> > > independent value and for using democratic procedures to limit the
> > > otherwise untrammeled forces of the market itself.
> > >
> > > Soros' suggestion that the West must adopt programs designed to promote
> > > democratic institutions directly rather than rely on the forces of the
> > > market to do so for them is likely to prove to be his most influential
> > > argument.
> > >
> > > But it too needs to be put in context.  Twenty years ago, most Western
> > > policy analysts argued that democratic societies were likely to continue
> > > to
> > > move in the direction of a combination of free markets and an ever
> > > larger
> > > state sector.
> > >
> > > That assumption was challenged by a number of Western and especially
> > > American theorists, and their intellectual victory coincided with the
> > > collapse of communism in Europe. And as a result, the new anti-statist
> > > perspective has guided much thinking and policy toward the former
> > > communist
> > > states.
> > >
> > > In his article, Soros is thus not saying something quite as new and
> > > radical
> > > as he or some may believe.
> > >
> > > Instead, he is suggesting that Western countries should return to an
> > > earlier perspective which he and others may see as offering a way out of
> > > the current political and economic difficulties of the countries in the
> > > former Soviet bloc.


metta
dawn star
Euro-Burmanet (Paris)
http://www-uvi.eunet.fr/euro-burma/
> > >
> > > =====================