Should a Rose Be Called Hnin-zi in English

7/31/2019 Should a Rose Be Called Hnin-zi in English

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Should A Rose Be Called Hnin-zi in English

By Saneitha Nagani

In the Burmese saying, If there is a consensus, a symbol for this e can be called kywe

(buffalo). So, until and unless we have a consensus nobody should be warning anybody for callingthe name of our country Burma. The change of name from The Socialist Republic of the Union of

Burma to The Union of Myanmar was done by the military regime State Law and Order

Restoration Council (most aptly referred to by its Orwellian name as SLORC) in 1989 and was done

without even bothering to seek the consent of the people.

The name of our country is called Burma in English and Myanma Naing-gan in Burmese (there is

no such thing as Myanmarese Im afraid). There are many instances of where the name of a thing in

one language is so different in another language. Deutschland in German is Germany in English,

Allemagne in French and gya-mani naing-gan in Burmese. China calls itself Zhong Guo in Chinese,

China in English and Tayoke-pyi in Burmese. Should we warned the leaders in China for using the

name of our country as Miandian - -means 'distant' while; can mean many things, mostnotably it can be 'lands directly controlled by the emperor. To be sure what was referred to here was

has been made up by me, just check out the official maps the Chinese authorities have published as official

version of the map of China in spite of the fact that Burma and China had demarcated their international

boundaries in 1960 and the boundary re-demarcated and the maps revised and redrawn in 1985. As you

might realise that by using that name Miandian alone (leaving their maps for a while) the Chinese regarded

themselves as the suzerain of our country; and we are their dependent. Offensive it might be would the

Union Election Commission (UEC) have enough courage to warn the Chinese leaders not to use that name? I

guess not. When it comes to China and its people the Burmese military was much obliged to protect the

interests of China and Chinese in our country, both legal and illegal.

How absurd it can be? Daw Suu was not talking in Burmese when she used Burma as the name of our

country. She was talking in English to non-Burmese language speaking audience. It reminded me of this joke

where a grandmother wanting to gave her grandson a good name she found it hard to be pleased with any

ordinary sounding name. She rejected this name for this reason and that name for other reasons and so on.

The one day, she died and the grandson was left without a name. The child became nameless. To a Buddhist

a name is just a convention not a thing with substance. But then again, if someone mentioned the name

and says something about the person with that name it is obvious that the person would be offended. Try

and say that to that person, Oh! Dont get upset, theres no substance in your name. You would be lucky if

you could live to see another day.

We Burmese, or at least a majority of us, has obsession with names . If one happened to have a birth chart

zarta then one would likely adopt the name that was suggested in the birth chart as an auspicious name for a

person born on such a day and at such a time of the day. Some parents would not follow this convention

because of the fact that if the day the person was born can be worked out from the name those who

wanted to put a spell on that person could do so. I knew a person whose name was Than Tun and because he

was successful in the Foreign Service examination he changed his name to Than Tun Aung the word Aung

means triumph or successful. There are many such instances where people changed their names from one to

another for various reasons. My brother had a gender issue with his name; he could not find his name on the

list of placement at men hostels when he started university in Rangoon. His name was on the list of one of the

women hostel. Whenever my parents got letters from the university he was mentioned as your daughter

instead of your son.


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Even though the majority in Burma are Buddhist occult practices such as astrology, soothsaying, worship of

the spirits and so on are still believed and in practice widespread. Just as the people in the West would go to

psychiatrists or other kinds of therapists to consult their general well-being and their mental state of mind,

people in Burma consult their problems with astrologers, soothsayers or nat-ga-daws (someone who was

alleged to have become psychic by possession of his or her body by the nats or spirits).

These occult practice and voodoo magic flourished among the military personnel the most. If and when their

husbands were cheating on them, the wives would go to the astrologer or soothsayers; if they wanted their

husband to be promoted they will do the same. In spite of the Vinaya book of discipline for Sangha (monks)

is very clear on how as monk such practices should be shunned there are some monks who would do

otherwise and they have many following within the military. I remember whenever the military officials from

engineering corps got into trouble they went to a certain Hsayadaw for protection. The Hsayadaw only had to

say a few words to the Chief-of Staff and they would be off the hook; great, isnt it? In spite of the culture and

consciousness of the rank being the most important aspect in their inter-personal relations one should not

be surprised to find a military official of a higher rank kneeling in front of an official much lower in rank just

because that person happened to be higher in rank in an occult society of which the higher ranking officer is

also a member - such as Shwe-yin-tone Gang or Shwe-yin-gyaw Gang. In that regard should any one of us

be surprised when the military regime SLORC, changed the name of our country from Burma to Myanmar.

There could be more than one cynical reason. But as one of the speculation goes, to cheat fate with a ritual act

called yadayar-che-de (something like in Shakespeares play when the three witches told Macbeth that,

Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnan Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him.).

It was said that for SLORC to overcome the prediction that the country was in the course of an inevitable

change, they made that change by changing the name of the country and the names of the towns and streets.

It might seem ludicrous to those in the West. No doubt about it but there is this psyche in the Burmese

people that such a change, thought cosmetic it might seem could in actual fact could rectified the situation

one was in. Is there not a saying that, Faith can move mountains? So, the use of the name Burma and

Myanmar by different Burmese people in different political persuasion should be looked in the context as

well as in terms of cultural literacy.

According to Jean Baudrillard, a French cultural theorist, in any language meaning is always context specific.

Jacques Derrida, however, put it in another way as, there is nothing outside the context. The main point is

that, when it comes to communication practices meaning is always informed by and produced out of different

contexts. If Daw Suu were to use Burma as the name of the country in the context that she was speaking to the

Burmese people in Burmese language then one could say that she was using the countrys name in English and

out of context. Along the same line of thought if Daw Suu were to use Myanmar as the name of the country

to an audience who is a non-Burmese speaking one then she would have been using the name out of context.

Even though high-minded for those in the Union Election Commission (UEC) might sound when they warn Daw

Suu not to use Burma as the name of the country but rather use the constitutionally-decreed name as a

respect to the constitution. When a person or persons could not work their way through a culture or if they

lacked the ability to negotiate between the rules of a culture and what happened in practice then they are

regarded as cultural illiterates. The markers of communication such as words and gestures will be read and

evaluated differently by different people. It was an interesting point to note that when the US Secretary of

State Hillary Clinton visited Burma at the end of last year she was reported to have dodged that controversy by

referring to Burma as this country. One of the defining characteristics of cultural literacy is an ability to

recognise the rules that apply in a context, and to negotiate them.

According to Ferdinand de Saussure meaning was produced through the relation between different t erms in a

language. That is to say that in language meaning is relative rather than substantive it is an arbitrary relation

between a particular 'mark or sound' which means 'something' between itself and something else. So when


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one say the work 'ox' in English it could be 'boeuf' in French. This is borne out by the fact that different

cultures have different words for the same thing or concept. What it actually means is that there is no innate

meaning attached to a languages term, only differences. Myanmar (Naing-gan) is our countrys name in

Burmese (Myanma saga) and Miandian is Chinese, Birmania in Italian, Phama in Thai and so on; no innate

meaning attached to any of these languages, only differences. All meaning is produced through language

system base on the notion of differences rather than identity.

So, whenever one is stuck with the controversy one should bear in mind in what context a person is using the

name of a thing not necessarily the name of the country. I tried my best not to use Myanmar as the name of

my country. I preferred to use Burma as a symbol of my protest against the change of the name without my

consent. It may seems like as they say in Burmese saying, the jumping of a flea may not even stir the dust

(kwe-lei khone-lo phon-ma-hta-bu). I used to annoy a director who was not very fair-minded by making the

tick-tock noise with my ball point pen during meetings. Since I was much junior in rank I could not do much

but like Argentina with the United Kingdom possession of the Falkland Islands; since they could not get it back

by the use of force they made sure that they lodged their protest against the British occupation of the

disputed islands at the United Nations every year. It is the symbolism that is important. Maybe Daw Suu is

right in calling the name of the country Burma instead of Myanmar since the legitimacy of the military regime

that introduced the change is in question. In law (or in life) something that is not right in the beginning cannot

expect to have a right outcome. END

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Should a Rose Be Called Hnin-zi in English