Myanmar has ceased to exist at FOX news

[reader]

Trump has renamed Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America. Now Fox news has reverted to calling Myanmar by its old name, Burma.

Massive 7.7 magnitude earthquake rocks Burma

 

[floridarob]

As if their viewers would have a clue to where either is 😝

[Keithambrose]

13 minutes ago, floridarob said:

As if their viewers would have a clue to where either is 😝

Most don't know where Europe is!

[vinapu]

38 minutes ago, floridarob said:

As if their viewers would have a clue to where either is 😝

I'd venture to say that many more people everywhere heard about Burma than Myanmar so for me actually Fox tittle makes sense

[BjornAgain]

4 hours ago, vinapu said:

...for me actually Fox tittle makes sense

Interesting use of 16th Century English. Dotting "I's", however Fox's accuracy rating is hardly what you could call high.

Maybe tittle-tattle would be more appropriate in terms of describing Fox, i.e. Gossip!

However American English does imply "Not at All", which is probably a better way to describe Fox as "...not at all makes sense".

[Raposa]

@reader Fox News is simply conforming to an official US policy that has been in place for decades. That policy has been to not recognise the new name of Myanmar that was imposed by the military junta in 1989. There are several reasons why:

Dispute Over Legitimacy – The country’s name was changed from Burma to Myanmar in 1989 by the military junta that took power in 1988. Many governments, including the U.S., did not recognize the military government as legitimate and refused to acknowledge the name change.

Support for Democracy Movement – The U.S. maintained the name “Burma” in solidarity with the pro-democracy movement, including Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), which initially continued using “Burma” as well.

Lingering Policy and Tradition – Even after Myanmar moved towards partial democratic reforms in the 2010s, the U.S. government continued using “Burma” in official contexts, though some officials and institutions have used “Myanmar” interchangeably. The US also refers to the former capitol Yangon as Rangoon, and the US embassy to Burma is located in Rangoon.

So you can’t really blame this on Fox News or any change in policy from the new administration.

[vinapu]

7 minutes ago, Raposa said:

Fox News is simply conforming to an official US policy that has been in place for decades.

and it's my policy as well , I use name Myanmar only in conversation with boys in futile attempt to sound polite, otherwise I use Burma

[jason1975]

44 minutes ago, Raposa said:

@reader Fox News is simply conforming to an official US policy that has been in place for decades. That policy has been to not recognise the new name of Myanmar that was imposed by the military junta in 1989. There are several reasons why:

Dispute Over Legitimacy – The country’s name was changed from Burma to Myanmar in 1989 by the military junta that took power in 1988. Many governments, including the U.S., did not recognize the military government as legitimate and refused to acknowledge the name change.

Support for Democracy Movement – The U.S. maintained the name “Burma” in solidarity with the pro-democracy movement, including Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), which initially continued using “Burma” as well.

Lingering Policy and Tradition – Even after Myanmar moved towards partial democratic reforms in the 2010s, the U.S. government continued using “Burma” in official contexts, though some officials and institutions have used “Myanmar” interchangeably. The US also refers to the former capitol Yangon as Rangoon, and the US embassy to Burma is located in Rangoon.

So you can’t really blame this on Fox News or any change in policy from the new administration.

So when we talk to our Myanmar guys, should we say Burma or Myanmar? But they always say they are from Myanmar.

[Raposa]

Just now, jason1975 said:

So when we talk to our Myanmar guys, should we say Burma or Myanmar? But they always say they are from Myanmar.

In Burmese the pronunciation of Myanmar and Burma is very similar, and both names for the country has coexisted for a while. However, just say Myanmar.

[PeterRS]

Plenty of countries have changed either their names or names of cities since the end of colonialism. Does Fox News still refer to Bombay as Bombay rather than Mumbai - or the tech hub as Madras instead of Chennai? Do they still call Ghana. the Gold Coast? Or Zimbabwe. Rhodesia? Of course they don't. And I'll bet the US government was none too happy with the last two changes either, but they use the modern names!

When Barack Obama visited Burma in 2012, he used both Burma and Myanmar in public speeches. In one to students at the Uiversity of Yangon, he claimed, "“one of the things that we can do as an international community is make sure that the people of Burma know we’re paying attention to them, we’re listening to them, we care about them.”  He added that the USA was committed to continue to work “very hard to strengthen bilateral relationships so that we can promote progress." Those words certainly came back to haunt him! 

Given that all of the bar boys will have been born after their country's name change, to call their country Burma could be regarded as wrong! But since the two names sound amost similar in one or other form of the Burmese language, it is unlikely offence would be taken if you use Burma. personally I aways use Myanmar with my partner and his famiy and friends. It is nothing like what happened during British colonisation. The British refused to call Burma by its name of Burma. They called Burma a Province of India and Rangoon a "suburb of Madras". Only as their Empire was about to come to an end did the British use Burma from 1937.

[Raposa]

Yes, the inclusion of Burma as a part of India was the ultimate insult to Bamar pride. The Junta in 1989 portrayed renaming of Burma to Myanmar, and the simultaneous changes to many place names (e.g., Rangoon to Yangon, Irrawaddy to Ayeyarwady, Karen to Kayin), as part of a decolonization effort—a symbolic shedding of colonial legacies. However, these reforms were less about resisting colonialism and more about consolidating Bamar ethno-linguistic dominance, a process best described as Bamarisation.

The reforms were unilaterally imposed by the military junta without consultation or participation from the country’s numerous ethnic groups—such as the Shan, Karen, Kachin, Mon, Chin, or Rohingya. These communities already felt marginalized, and the name changes did nothing to reflect their identities or languages. Rather than an inclusive redefinition of national identity, the renaming imposed Bamar linguistic norms on the entire nation. The names adopted in 1989 were derived almost exclusively from the Burmese language, which further embedded Bamar cultural dominance. For instance, Myanmar is a literary form of Bamar, essentially representing the same ethnic identity under a more formal guise. The shift from Burma to Myanmar thus didn’t distance the country from colonial naming conventions—it merely reasserted the hegemony of the Bamar majority in a different form.

[vinapu]

4 hours ago, PeterRS said:

 Does Fox News still refer to Bombay as Bombay rather than Mumbai - or the tech hub as Madras instead of Chennai?

that's the difference between Fox and me as I still use old names, even when talking to my Indian friends and former co-workers. Nobody ever protested. 

 

[paulsf]

Fox started using Myanmar yesterday.