Search

Abstract:This article attempts to demonstrate the interdependent operation of the term dobama("our Burma") and its opposite, thudo-bama("their Burma"), in the minds of members of the Dobama-asiayoun("Our Burma Party"). From the party's very beginning in 1930 to the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League's struggle against Japanese rule and subsequently for independence from the British from 1944 to 1947, Dobama party members, known as "thahkins," avoided being identified as thudo-bama, meaning "the Burmese of their (the British or Japanese) side" or "the Burmese people who collaborated with the colonial regime." Instead, they invariably identified themselves as dobama, or "our Burmese." The thahkins preferred to define themselves in negative rather than positive terms. In other words, they chose to identify themselves by describing what they were not rather than what they were, and by attacking their imagined enemies, the thudo-bama, rather than attempting a clear definition of dobama.

Robert A. Scalapino, Seizaburo Sato, Jusuf Wanandi and Sung-joo Han, eds, Asian Security Issues, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkley, 1988. IV, 391pp. $US20.Donald S. Lopez, Jr., ed., Buddhist Hermeneutics, Kuroda Institute, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1988. viii, 298 pp. Preface, introduction, index. Cloth: US$35.00Joseph M. Kitagawa, On Understanding Japanese Religion, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1987. xxxi, 343 pp. Preface, appendix, glossary, index. Cloth: US$47 Paper: US$14.95William R. LaFleur, ed., Dogen Studies, Studies in East Asian Buddhism No. 2, The Kuroda Institute, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1985. 165 pp. Glossary. Paper: US$19.00T.P. Kasulis, Zen Action Zen Person, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1981. xiv, 177 pp. Glossary, index. Cloth: US$12.95Phil Billingsley, Bandits in Republican China, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1988. xviii, 375pp. Acknowledgments, preface, introduction, appendixes, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth: US$42.50Emily Honig and Gail Hershatter, Personal Voices: Chinese Women in the 1980s, Stanford University Press, California, 1988. vii, 387pp. Introduction, bibliography, index. Cloth: US$ 42.50. Paper: US$ 12.95.Yang Zhong Mei, Hu Yaobang: A Chinese Biography, trans. William Wycoff, ed., Timothy Cheek, foreword by Rudolf Wagner, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, 1988. xxiv, 208 pp. Prefaces, notes, appendix, index. Cloth: US $29.95.P.A. Herbert, Examine the Honest, Appraise the Able: Contemporary Assessments of Civil Service Selection in Early Tang China, Faculty of Asian Studies Monographs: New Series, no. 10, Australian National University, Canberra, 1988. x, 450 pp. Preface, introduction, charts, appendixes, index. Paper: $25.00.Theodore Friend, The Blue-eyed Enemy: Japan against the West in Java and Luzon, 1942-1945, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1988. xx, 325 pp. Preface, introduction, illustrations, tables, map, index. Cloth: US $45.00Robert M. March, The Japanese Negotiator, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1988, distributed by Collins Publishers, $29.95.Leith Morton, Divided Self: A Biography of Arishima Takeo, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1988. xi, 237pp. Introduction, notes, bibliography, index. Paper: $19.95Hane Mikiso, ed., Reflections on the Way to the Gallows: Rebel Women in Prewar Japan, University of California Press, Pantheon Books, 1988. 274pp. Acknowledgments, introduction, notes, index.Atul Kohli, ed., India's Democracy: An Analysis of Changing State-Society Relations, The Centre of International Studies, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, Princeton University Press, 1988 xiv, 334 pp. Preface, introduction, tables, figures, index. Cloth: $84.50Parmanand, Political Development in South Asia. New Delhi, Sterling Publishers Private Ltd., 1988, viii, 288 pp. Preface, bibliography, index. Cloth: npg.Satish Chandra, ed., The Indian Ocean: Explorations in History, Commerce and Politics, Sage, New Delhi, 1987, 334 pp. Preface, introduction, index. £stg20.Franklin A. Presler, Religion Under Bureaucracy. Policy and Administration for Hindu Temples in South India, Cambridge University South Asian Studies No.38, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987. x, 179 pp. Preface, introduction, bibliography, index. Cloth: $90.00Melanie Beresford, Vietnam: Politics, Economics and Society, Pinter Publishers, London, 1988. xx, 242 pp. Preface, acknowledgments, Vietnamese terms, abbreviations and glossary, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth: £22.50. Paper: £8.95.Ian Brown and Rajeswary Ampalavanar, Malaysia, Volume 12, World Bibliographical Series, Clio Press, Oxford, 1986. xxxv, 402 pp. Introduction, abbreviations, glossary, index of authors, titles and subjects, maps. Cloth: £39.95.J. Noorduyn, Bima en Sumbawa: bijdragen tot de geschiedenis van de sultanaten Bima en Sumbawa door A. Ligtvoet en G.P. Rouffaer, Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 129, Foris Publications, Dordrecht, 1987. xii, 187 pp. Foreword, illustrations, index. Paper: Dfl. 30.Snit Smuckarn and Kennon Breazeale, A Culture in Search of Survival: The Phuan of Thailand and Laos, Monograph Series 31, Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1988. pp. ix, 279. Introduction, acknowledgments, maps, tables, figures, references, index. Paper: npg.A. Terry Rambo, Kathleen Gillogly, and Kark L. Hutterer, eds, Ethnic Diversity and the Control of Natural Resources in Southeast Asia, Michigan Papers on South and Southeast Asia, Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, No. 32, University of Michigan, 1988. xii, 229 pp. Preface, introduction, maps, figures, tables, appendix. Cloth: US$26.95; Paper: US$14.95.Glenn Anthony May, A Past Recovered, New Day Publishers, Quezon City, 1987. x, 257 pp. Introduction, Index. Paper: US$11.75. The Cellar Book Shop, Detroit, Michigan, Worldwide Distributors Outside the Philippines.Chin Kin Wah, ed., Defence Spending in Southeast Asia, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 1987. ix, 326 pp. Introduction, appendixes. Paper: npg [I]J. Soedjati Djiwandono and Yong Mun Cheong, eds, Soldiers and Stability in Southeast Asia, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 1988. xi, 354 pp. Paper: S$38.00. [II]Ian J. White, Bahasa Tetanggaku. A Notional-Functional Course in Bahasa Indonesia. Stage One. Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1988. Coursebook 116 pp., Workbook 116pp. Two Cassettes. npg.Janet W. Salaff, State and Family in Singapore: Restructuring an Industrial Society, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1988. xvi, 303 pp. Illustrations, tables, index. Cloth: US$37.50.Khin Yi, The Dobama Movement in Burma (1930-1938), Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1988. xvii, 140p. Foreword, introduction, bibliography, tables, illustrations, appendixes. Paper: npg.Krishna Sen, ed., Histories and Stories: Cinema in New Order Indonesia, Monash University, 1988. 62pp. Introduction, photographs. Paper: npg.J.H. Drabble, The Emergence of the Modern Malayan Economy: The Impact of Foreign Trade in the Nineteenth Century, Working Paper 54, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1989.Nancy Eberhardt, ed, Gender, Power, and the Construction of the Moral Order: Studies from the Thai Periphery, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Monograph 4, 1988. Introduction, bibliography, 100 pp.Pira Sudham, Monsoon Country, Shire Books, Bangkok, 1988,. 236 pp. Paper: npgPatrick J.N. Tuck, French Catholic Missionaries and the Politics of Imperialism in Vietnam, 1857-1915: A Documentary Survey, Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, 1987. 352pp. Introduction, appendixes, biographical notes, maps. Npg.