Photos from Burma’s Civil War

Burma is a country which means its a statistical inevitability that its going to have a civil war, these are some pictures, and even some words talking about those pictures. And also some well placed shilling for the authors book Little Pieces.

Aside from the breathtaking pictures, the article outlines Myanmar's unflattering Guinness world records, like how it is the third largest Opium producer in the world, and how it is second most dangerous place to be a religious minority outside of everything owned by ISIS.

Outside of these Snapple facts, there are the hard truths. Burma was once a colony of Great Britain, who forced the many ethic groups to get along, and so, stop me if you have heard this one before, once Great Britain left, things went from bad to unending violent civil war. "Since 1947 over 30 different ethnic armies have fought the Burmese military for autonomy on some scale." Due to the fact that the conflict has been going on for a little over six decades its no surprise it won't on the news tonight. However, Burma was recently in the news for having their first democratic elections.

And they all lived happily every after, just like every other country with democracy. Which means they have problems involving the legitimacy of this democracy. In reality the less democratic part of the government set up a constitution some years ago in 2008, guaranteeing  the military (the antagonist of this story) at least 25% of the Parliament and requiring over 75% of the vote to change anything significant. What a coincidence.

Finally to put a the sprinkles on top of this shit, so we can call it a cupcake, they have instituted a policy barring any person from running for president if they have children who are foreign citizens. This seems unimportant at first, unless you consider that the most important political figure who could stop this madness just so happens to be ineligible because of that last clause. Maybe someday they will make a clause saying anyone who has a good idea gets thrown in jail immediately, so that the remaining people in power wont be smart enough to breathe properly, then they all suffocate.  

http://www.vice.com/read/burma-is-complicated-so-i-made-a-book

Stuart Young