Cold War propaganda war
of translations into Burmese
The journalist U Thaung in his 1995 book A Journalist, a General, and an Army in Burma (Bangkok: White Lotus) describes a propaganda war in Burma between the United States, the Soviet Union, and China during the COld War that involved the translation of works into Burmese:
"Americans poured in more money than the Russians. The Russians only helped the hand-picked believers. The American money was grabbed by anyone ready to sell for a price...The book 'I Choose Freedom', written by a Russian diplomat and translated into Burmese, was the first Cold War book to appear in Burma. The printing of that book was believed to be financed by the American Embassy. The book was a success and penetrated the Burmese political climate...[the book] revealed the Russian dictatorial system and was a bombshell in the political arena full of elements that idolized the Soviet Union...This initial book was supposedly followed by more books on the Soviet Union sponsored by the United States embassy.
"Then the Americans broadened the way with American cultural books. They started with translations of American classics and, later on, the American officials would finance anyone who wanted to translate any American book...The financial system was an open secret in the Burmese literary field. Publishing houses could bill for translation fees, the cost of paper, the printing charges, cover art expenses, and so on, for a book that was a translation of an American novel. Their duty was to provide 300 copies to the Embassy out of a normal circulation of 3,000 to 5,000, which they were to sell as regular genuine publication in the book shops...the outcome of the booming business was corruption...speedy translations done by amateurs and fourth-class writers and signed by prominent writers, were plentiful on the market."
The Soviet Union and China eventually entered this propaganda war and this lead to laws restricting this sort of publication:
"Novels written in Chinese, printed in Burmese characters and produced in China, were sold cheaply on Burmese book stalls. I thought it was a dangerous trend for the Burmese press as well as the Burmese public. The Burmese printing industry suffered financial loss. For the Burmese public it was more dangerous to come under Chinese influence. I wrote a strong condemnation of the books in the Burmese language produced in foreign countries. The government accepted my advocacy and made a rule banning the importing of of books in the Burmese language, printed outside Burma... This ban affected the missionary organizations that imported Burmese-language Bibles that were printed outside Burma"(U Thaung (1995) "A Journalist, a General, and an Army in Burma" Bangkok: White Lotus, pp. 22-26).
Even when I lived in Burma in the late 1990's it was common for people to buy old out-of-date magazines in English to read just so they could practice their English, the content was almost irrelevant for them. One could imagine Burmese cultural-intellectual space flooded by foreign ideas from American missionaries, Russian and Chinese communists, and then later on in the U Nu era, to counter-act all of this, the government and army started publishing magazines too in an attempt at "psychological warfare" . As Dr. Mary Callahan mentions in passing:
"Ba Than and Aung Gyi [high ranking military officers] moved quickly into the commercial magazine market, launching their Myawaddy Magazine in 1952 'to provide balance' in a market dominated by anti-government publications. According to Aung Gyi the most popular magazine of the time was Shumawa, which contained many cartoons and articles penned by leftist and authors who criticised the Tatmadaw."
In this "psychological warfare" the military tried to undermine the "leftist" magazine by subsidizing Myawaddy, hiring leftist writers, and sporting covers with "prettier girls" (Callahan, Mary P. (2004) "Making Enemies: and State Building in Burma," p. 183)
All these claims, of course, have to be more rigorously verified. Memoirs can hardly stand on their own as historical evidence.
"Americans poured in more money than the Russians. The Russians only helped the hand-picked believers. The American money was grabbed by anyone ready to sell for a price...The book 'I Choose Freedom', written by a Russian diplomat and translated into Burmese, was the first Cold War book to appear in Burma. The printing of that book was believed to be financed by the American Embassy. The book was a success and penetrated the Burmese political climate...[the book] revealed the Russian dictatorial system and was a bombshell in the political arena full of elements that idolized the Soviet Union...This initial book was supposedly followed by more books on the Soviet Union sponsored by the United States embassy.
"Then the Americans broadened the way with American cultural books. They started with translations of American classics and, later on, the American officials would finance anyone who wanted to translate any American book...The financial system was an open secret in the Burmese literary field. Publishing houses could bill for translation fees, the cost of paper, the printing charges, cover art expenses, and so on, for a book that was a translation of an American novel. Their duty was to provide 300 copies to the Embassy out of a normal circulation of 3,000 to 5,000, which they were to sell as regular genuine publication in the book shops...the outcome of the booming business was corruption...speedy translations done by amateurs and fourth-class writers and signed by prominent writers, were plentiful on the market."
The Soviet Union and China eventually entered this propaganda war and this lead to laws restricting this sort of publication:
"Novels written in Chinese, printed in Burmese characters and produced in China, were sold cheaply on Burmese book stalls. I thought it was a dangerous trend for the Burmese press as well as the Burmese public. The Burmese printing industry suffered financial loss. For the Burmese public it was more dangerous to come under Chinese influence. I wrote a strong condemnation of the books in the Burmese language produced in foreign countries. The government accepted my advocacy and made a rule banning the importing of of books in the Burmese language, printed outside Burma... This ban affected the missionary organizations that imported Burmese-language Bibles that were printed outside Burma"(U Thaung (1995) "A Journalist, a General, and an Army in Burma" Bangkok: White Lotus, pp. 22-26).
Even when I lived in Burma in the late 1990's it was common for people to buy old out-of-date magazines in English to read just so they could practice their English, the content was almost irrelevant for them. One could imagine Burmese cultural-intellectual space flooded by foreign ideas from American missionaries, Russian and Chinese communists, and then later on in the U Nu era, to counter-act all of this, the government and army started publishing magazines too in an attempt at "psychological warfare" . As Dr. Mary Callahan mentions in passing:
"Ba Than and Aung Gyi [high ranking military officers] moved quickly into the commercial magazine market, launching their Myawaddy Magazine in 1952 'to provide balance' in a market dominated by anti-government publications. According to Aung Gyi the most popular magazine of the time was Shumawa, which contained many cartoons and articles penned by leftist and authors who criticised the Tatmadaw."
In this "psychological warfare" the military tried to undermine the "leftist" magazine by subsidizing Myawaddy, hiring leftist writers, and sporting covers with "prettier girls" (Callahan, Mary P. (2004) "Making Enemies: and State Building in Burma," p. 183)
All these claims, of course, have to be more rigorously verified. Memoirs can hardly stand on their own as historical evidence.
posted by Jon Fernquest at 5:16 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home