Burma: Objective Freedom.

MYANMAR politics & government; POLITICAL autonomy; NATIONALISM; POLITICAL leadership; AUTONOMY & independence movements; SOCIAL history

This article describes the socio-political conditions in Burma during the freedom movement. In the midst of the war, when Burma was still the bastion of the Japanese position in Southeast Asia, two men of seemingly opposed views met for a secret meeting, from the Japanese. One was Major General Aung San, commander of the Japanese-sponsored Burma Defense Army; the other was Thakin Soe, the leftist political leader of Burma's energetic anti-Japanese forces. As a result of this meeting the most virile elements of Burmese nationalism were fused, and the British government was confronted with a challenge infinitely more direct and forceful than that of pre-war days.