After the UK ambassador cut off his recitation of a pro-colonial Kipling poem in a Maynmar temple, UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson said, “No? Good stuff.”
The foreign secretary has been accused of “incredible insensitivity” after it emerged he recited part of a colonial-era Rudyard Kipling poem in front of local dignitaries while on an official visit to Myanmar in January. Boris Johnson was inside the Shwedagon Pagoda, the most sacred Buddhist site in the capital Yangon, when he started uttering the opening verse to The Road to Mandalay, including the line: “The temple bells they say/ Come you back you English soldier.”
Kipling’s poem captures the nostalgia of a retired serviceman looking back on his colonial service and a Burmese girl he kissed. Britain colonised Myanmar from 1824 to 1948 and fought three wars in the 19th century, suppressing widespread resistance.
Johnson’s impromptu recital was so embarrassing that the UK ambassador to Myanmar, Andrew Patrick, was forced to stop him. —The Guardian
Post was last modified on 1 Oct 2017 1:38 pm
The choreographer daughter is doing a thing.
No interior yet. Getting there. Gotta start somewhere. Low-poly background detail for a medieval theater…
This is manageable. Far better than some semesters.
Creating textures for background buildings in a medieval theater simulation project. I can always improve…
Nothing in this stack is pressing, but they do include rough drafts of final papers,…
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I was sure it was going to be “The White Man’s Burden,” then read the article and discovered that it was a kinder, gentler Kipling poem with only a FEW old racist terms.