References
Schrank, Delphine. 2015. The Rebel of Rangoon: A Tale of Defiance and Deliverance in Burma. New York: Nation Books.
Review by Michael Beach
The pro-democracy struggles in Burma lasted decades. This book looks closely at a handful of specific people who participated during the 1980s through the first decade of the 2000s. Their names are Nway, Nigel, Grandpa, and Aung San Suu Kyi. The last of these was the face of the movement who had popular support in several national level elections. Aung was very visible and attracted international news attention. The others were unknown to the world, or even the larger movement seeking to topple the autocratic powers that led to many of the problems that are common to that style of government. Delphine Schrank shares specific stories of four specific revolutionaries and how each of their experiences were at time parallel, and other times were entwined. Each had their personal losses caused by violence in the process. Several suffered through prison time as political prisoners.
While sharing their stories, the author is able to move their individual stories along while sharing the larger narrative. Major events are depicted from the perspective of historical fact as documented in news stories and official documents. The individuals followed also have their own narrow experience during each of those major events. For example, there was a migration of sorts of many of the revolutionaries temporarily left Rangoon, or the Insein Prison system to gather just over the river in Dala. “In Dala, the only structures built to last, aside from an orphanage and a school, were the pagodas” (Schrank 2015, 131). The pagodas Schrank describes as tourist traps designed to give visitors a place to leave Rangoon during the day, spend some money for the ambiance, then retreat back across the river to their respective hotels. For the revolutionaries, Schrank says, Dala became a ‘city of exiles’ that evolved into a ‘city of wraiths’.
Each of the characters (real people, not created by the author) shared specific tactics used for communication, and their shifting support of each other or the larger movement. At times several were accused of using their position for personal benefit, and the author shows that this may be true to some degree, yet they also participated with personal sacrifice. The book is a look at real humans who act like real humans in a large political struggle with individual experience.
Schrank, Delphine. 2015. The Rebel of Rangoon: A Tale of Defiance and Deliverance in Burma. New York: Nation Books.
Review by Michael Beach
The pro-democracy struggles in Burma lasted decades. This book looks closely at a handful of specific people who participated during the 1980s through the first decade of the 2000s. Their names are Nway, Nigel, Grandpa, and Aung San Suu Kyi. The last of these was the face of the movement who had popular support in several national level elections. Aung was very visible and attracted international news attention. The others were unknown to the world, or even the larger movement seeking to topple the autocratic powers that led to many of the problems that are common to that style of government. Delphine Schrank shares specific stories of four specific revolutionaries and how each of their experiences were at time parallel, and other times were entwined. Each had their personal losses caused by violence in the process. Several suffered through prison time as political prisoners.
While sharing their stories, the author is able to move their individual stories along while sharing the larger narrative. Major events are depicted from the perspective of historical fact as documented in news stories and official documents. The individuals followed also have their own narrow experience during each of those major events. For example, there was a migration of sorts of many of the revolutionaries temporarily left Rangoon, or the Insein Prison system to gather just over the river in Dala. “In Dala, the only structures built to last, aside from an orphanage and a school, were the pagodas” (Schrank 2015, 131). The pagodas Schrank describes as tourist traps designed to give visitors a place to leave Rangoon during the day, spend some money for the ambiance, then retreat back across the river to their respective hotels. For the revolutionaries, Schrank says, Dala became a ‘city of exiles’ that evolved into a ‘city of wraiths’.
Each of the characters (real people, not created by the author) shared specific tactics used for communication, and their shifting support of each other or the larger movement. At times several were accused of using their position for personal benefit, and the author shows that this may be true to some degree, yet they also participated with personal sacrifice. The book is a look at real humans who act like real humans in a large political struggle with individual experience.
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