For those of you, like me, who have grievous little understanding of Myanmar, this presentation provides a history, particularly of British misrule and the major ethnic groups, discusses the interests and actions of the major powers, and reviews the recent fighting and the prospects for Myanmar.
The look of this video is a bit homespun, but don’t let that fool you. Speaker Kevin Kirk developed software in the USSR, Israel, Russia, and Ukraine, has been a member of the Thailand Ministry of Foreign Affairs teaching diplomats,1 and more recently has taught computer science in, as he puts it, most of the unis in Thailand.
I apologize for the lack of a transcript. The talk is informationally dense and moves at a good clip, so please give it the attention it merits. There are some points where the visuals matter, so you’ll miss critical information if you treat this talk like a YouTube interview, and listen while doing other things. For instance, early on, Kirk walks the audience through the major regions of Myanmar and the dominant ethnic groups there. This is an important anchor, so please do watch as well as listen during this part. There are a few other point where he introduces and uses maps, and again, be sure to pay attention to the screen then.
I mentioned a couple of factoids to Lambert, who has been following Myannmar, and they were news to him. So even if you have some knowledge of this topic, I suspect you’ll come out of this presentation feeling better informed.
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1 Thailand was the first country to establish a school for training foreign diplomats, as in ones outside Thailand. The participants were from what we now call Global South countries. As a result, Kirk has a large network among his former students in addition to the vantage he acquired from his years in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.