1
Page G
Tuesday profile:
THE CHINA MAIL,
TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 1960,
I like her, I admire her—but I just don't understand her,
U Nu: He cannot deny The day my mother-in-law
[IGH over the steam-
HIG
ing teak forests and muddy swirling rivers this month a gentle mur- mur rose to an eager roar.
At his devotions in Rangoon, a chubby little Buddhist looked up startled as he caught its elamorous message.
'Nineteen millon . Bur. mese, free at last to vote as they pleased, knew whelmingly
them.
ever.
what pleased
U Nu for Burmel Burma for
U Nut
The Rule man restined
wide, white amilie. Now he knew that the astrologers had been right. Now he vuli no longer deny his destiny,
Now the payle's urgent in- vitation had given U No the
his 10-months-ok answer to
dilemn.
It d
que
beve
thing to hand over the Premiership of his guerilla-racked roundry to a enretaker Resverament
farmy
offeers, hoping to enare free and far leeflora.
It hurl been quite another ta
wait and pray.
Gentle touch
But now it was going to be
all right. Despite the dork fears of others, the army did not in- tend to cling illegally to power, Moreover, the people wanted him still. The staggering elec toral victory of U Nu's "clean" And-Fiscist People's Freedom League was proof enough 1 that.
Turning back 10 tils ronTM templation. U Nu knew that the gentle touch had srored again. Humility, neutralisu pas
belief, sionate religions
that same wide disarming smile for all. Tary
fufl rarely
thin ordent Asian Chund who wng
Fr unce pristnesi
hurning the Unta Jack, at who, con
rude about
Marx.
L
his destiny
by
Simon Kavanaugh
U NI.
So he played out a strange wartime role: trusted by his people, a member of the Government under Jap occupa- confidant of Tho tion, yet the anti-Japanese resistance.
Hot drama
U Nu appeared to submit eckly when Japanese officers humiliated him. What did in- dignity matter if Independence could be cajoled from them?
After the foundation of the People's Freedom Anti-Fasciat League in 1944, events moved fost. Four years later U No found himself Premier."
Since then, sublimating
the
hot drama of nationalism, U Nu
gave advice
to a turtle
EV
VERY so often I go travelling with my mother-in-law, Gladys Cooper. I've flown with her in small aeroplanes around the Pacific. I have been driven by her across the High Sierras in a
car which either she didn't understand or which didn't want to understand her.
I have even watched from what I hoped has matured as be prays Burma was a safe distance while she photographed
may maturе.
Sun dreaming of an ascetic's
Ja particularly grizzly bear in close-up.
Hfe, he has, threatened hia Miss Cooper is a great one
times with Cabinet four
ro with a camera, Normally she signation in favour of the con- shoots her subjects from a dis- templative life. They have not tance. She is essentially a back- always taken him too serious-ground girl.
13.
Tempering mysticism with realism, he has been large enough to condone the finane- Ing of trips to Rome for Burm- esé Catholic priests.
The rebels
When the newly-translated Encyclopaedia Burmanic ar- rived at the docks, he and his Cabinet were there to welcome il with a decorated van and a mile-long procession.
He remembered, too, that al- most three-quarters of his people bang coconuts in their houses in tribute to the Nata.
So bufore U No delivered his le selentille lecture on the principles
of soil conservation, The first appeased the Nat.
And his st words were: "May Mount Popa be renovated fito a big green forest full of
to slogan. Kart flowera in order that it may be
a worthy abode for the Nai."
Mr Khrushchev, looking 111 un Barmu, may well prefer to talk of ten and teak. For it was U Nu, when he was still Prime Minister, who said witheringly of Marx that he Tad
ut
Urging his people from slogan he has seen these slogans translated in terms of schools, hospitals, libraries.
As we sit afterwards looking મ the results It is seldom possible to identify the day pure seated at the cafe table, or waving from the water's edge. "I think she will remark, "that must be Cyril Ritchard or James Mason ... No. of course Hot, it's frene Dunne."
Bul от thla particular occasion
clay."
by ROBERT MORLEY
I
she marched right just the sort of house I should go back," she told me, "and find up to the bear and almost like to build for mancif one out what that was all about."
"I know what it was about," looked down its throat.
told her. They don't like We climbed up the little path.
Mexico. It's ng simple Rs that, Besides, wo Immediately a dog started to trespassera in bark,
came out for exercise.'
I don't remember now how the bear came out. But, as usual, I came out rather badly,
RETURN VISIT
Martin
instead of a bathing cap, swem may be eleventh, Fisitor is pre- irelessly with her eyes closed, sented with a souvenir. in the belief that by doing so It's an arbitrary arrangement, she would not be so readily but everyone has the right to
the be arbitrary sometimes, recognised and accosted by
Perhaps the most other guests.
successful Miss Cooper is not a woman day of the whole holiday was the and, day cho caught her sail-fish. who suffers fools gladly, moreover, she believes that there The gentleman who arranged the Is a time and place for every excursion asked whether she would porfer the most comfort- thing.
able boat or the most competent crew.
Lice most theatricals, sho is Battered by recognition, but finds the resulting mall talk
"I can't understand," said Miss
"You're not thinking of going Cooper, "hen anyone could be so in?" I asked. After all, this frightened of a mere bear."
On the way back I kept telling trying. at all
her we would be late for dinner if we didn't hurry, and managed "Just a watchdog," she told to get her past the firing range
And then, without stopping. me, "doing his job,
"I wasn't frightened," I lied. is Mexico, not Bognor Regis
The dug doesn't sound was just obeying instructions. friendly."
'Do not I says on the notice: leave your car, 'Do not ap- proach the bears,"
"If you're going to take any she told me, "It will quite spall my hoilday." UNDER FIRE
Is the innermost shrine
But always there was war in his beloved World Peace Pogo-
the years-old war da, it is written: "This image of the jungle: the Lord Buddha was cost from waged by the rebel groups of the first refined sliver pruduced the White Flag (Stalinist) and natiée of notices," **very
by Burma Corporation (1951) Karen rebels. Limited, by whom the silver wns donated for this purpose." and The schools, hospitals
must
of come too, huises course. But Arst Lord Buddha.
limited knowledge; noi, equiva- lent to one-tenth of a particle of dust beneath the feet of Lord Buddha."
For U Nu, His Lord Buddha And after first am always. hun. the dream of a leftish Burma, rooted h local life and tradition.
Shrine
Looking to East and to Well." the litt man sees inmy mar vels. But looking straight ahead
And, at last, the deep split In U Nu's party between the wanted State "cicans" who
The other week we went on o Buddhism and the "stables"little holiday to Mexico. On the who wanted industrialisation.
whole I think I did a bit belter Rising daily at dawn to pray, Now, to his surprise, the little than usunt. It's true there was the evening when, walking along U Nu (I means "Gentle- Iman has swept the board clean.
the beach, we were fired upon. Natured") sets an ascetic, tee- The Army may have achieved
But it was dusk, and diffi- total, neli-smoking, vegetarian more, but the people prefer his
ouli, surely, for her to detect example..
way. The future shapes towards
my mask of terror, State Buddhism, and dwindling Power for soldiers and the ex- treme left.
He is a politician, bul a seer first. Burma finds no paradox in that. And he does
nut
he sees a better way for Burma. always follow the stars blindly, Working a hig
CASER strange at least he delayed his datgh way, he has fused the stuff of ter's wedding unit the signs history and progress into effective, peculiarly Burocre whole.
to
an were propitious.
When U Nu visited the arid Popa Hills latmich a Lip forestry project, he remembered first, ke any and Burnase, that here was the home of the senior of the 37 Nuts (spirits).
| POCKET CARTOON
by OSBERT LANCASTER
"Well, you wouldn't look so hot if you'd spent the last three weeks posing for å lat of darn-fool cartoonists with a ruddy great bundle In your beak:**
London Buress Service.
TALKING
POINTS
The first article of na
And permitied his Govern- ment to resign, then take office again five minutes later, be- cause petrologers predicted that the omes were favourable for.
new Government.
Violence
The inurmur from the moun- toins and the jungle says there is nothing wrong, either, with
a Prime Minister who shoves
his hend, dons a priest's saftron robes, and retires to a mon- astery for a week to pray.
But it wax violence Chine blasted Nu to blu gentle eminence. He became the first Premier of independent Burma only after a mad act of ass- assination had removed Aung Nan. his predecessor, and most of the Government.
He had intended other con- quests. He had longed secretly
become Burma's
Bernard
to
Shaw.
Born in 1906 at Wakemu, on the Irrawaddy Delta, U Nu was us a youth the despair of his rice merchant father. Hu be came a drunkard, the ne'er-do- weli of his village.
But at 18, he became aware of inner grace. Graduating in Philosophy at Rangoon Univer- alty in 1920, he struggled to write plays and become A schoolmaster.
He then married the daughter of a school board member and returned to University, to study law. As the national struggle fred U Nu's soul, Burme lost a Shaw but gained a lénder..
With his firebrand comrades, U Nu fought a truculent battle with Univeraity authority for hls new-found Socialism.
With them, he emerged into
wider struggle.
the
They berama the shock of tho smouldering
Englishman's political creed troops
must be, that he believeth nationalist révolution.
in the sea.
GEORGE SAVILE, MARQUIS OF HALIFAX,
***
If any ask me what free Government is, aruwer, It is what people think so.
Serving Lord Buddha and Burma, U Nu has somehow pre- Integrity against served h discouraging odds. By 1940 he mattered enough to be impri- asoned by the British in Morida--
Jay Central Jakla
tho
-DURKE.
At Britain's request, he sot off on a goodwill trail to China: cut But the Jeps had already tho.rund.
U Nu, bearing no malice and looks recking
encynics, 110 neither to left ner to riyki,
There is too much to be done ahead.
1
Then, having signally
Sho was about to enter when
Both, she told him blithely, and so it wOB.
At-
We went on board at eight in. Op the rare occasions when she opened her eyes there was the morning and, strapped in a usually some eager matron or small chair at the back of the retired banker from Min- boat, we sat holding a rod for
elbow nespalle at her
to about three hours. in the voice she reserves exclu- It's true she went back the
compUment her
this Ume on
During
nothing sively for all dumb animals, be next day to investigate, but this
triumphs and inquire about whatever happened, except for they crocodiles, golden hamsters, time in daylight and unaccom- the gate
an encounter with a large turtle future plans. or monkeys, she attempted to punied. She found
the whole place And deflect the invidble hound from opon
Her response to such advances which was foolish enough to deserted. its duties.
was, as always, unpredictable, cross our bowe. she Sometimes they would be failed The only explanation
DIVE! DIVE! could think of was that whoever graciously, but firmly, snubbed. to reassure either the dog or
Sometimes they felt 011- The small boy in the stern myself, she pushed the gate fired the shots must have killed
the dog.
couraged to embark on some immediately armed himself with open.
The rest of the trip was com- pointless reminiscence of their a rope and a harpoon and
climax tempted to spear the creature. the sound of rifle shots caused paratively uneventful. Acapulco own, only to have the
over of their lale ruined by Miss Tell him not to," said Miɛ her to pause-I don't say uncer is a lovely spot given
tourists, Cooper abruptly deciding
that Cooper "I am devoted to tainly (that is not a word I ever entirely to American
turtles," care to use when describing my and fe for the most part the audience was at an end.
Very occasionally sho would "We all are the captain Wo hud walked what seemed mother-in-law in action), but revolves around the enormous
seven miles along the pause she did.
swimming pool in the garden of listen delightedly and draw them replied. Very good soup. about
out about themselves their No catch, retorted Miss sands of Acapulco when we For myself, I didn't pause for the hotel
an instant. I took to my heels Beyond lay the ocean, and we families, their plans even ac: Cooper. "Let it go on swimming." Then, unfastening her belt, she came upon a high wall which
standing and ran slap into the surt. spent our days splashing about copting their Invitations to b
the cocktail bofore dinner that night. rose from her chair and, leaning enclosed a large villa by itself on a sinal cliff over- It was some minutes later, as indiscriminately in
Although I atudied their over the side, spoke to the was sitting on the beach other. looking the Pociile.
"Dive" she told it, My mother-in-law, sporting varioum approaches carefully, turtle. "We must find out who tives wringing out my socks, that Miss
was never able to decide what "dive." The turtle obeyed In- "We must enormous hibiscuses on her head here." Miss Cooper urged. It's Cooper reappeared.
and the crisis prompted my mother-in-law' stantly, particular reactions in each case. averted. Why Mr A had been so quickly I considered that our chanco and unmistakably put inhia of catching a fish had been con-
2
3
• Here is the news.”
Aidly
“Let's shake the archaeologiste-do one with five lego.”
I
one or
WD3
SSES place, while Mrs B was allowed riderably worsened, judging by so much rope and never actually the look of fury on the faces invited to go and hang herself of the crew. However, as usual,
The only explanation I can I was wroNXX.
An
**Never mind, Jago - ... I've found him”.
give is that Miss Cooper has a We both caught a
system of her own and that it that morning.
has
snil-Ash
something to do with My mother-in-law usually numbers. Every ninth, or achieves what she sets out to do,
Atom team to repeat death day
Атом
scientists are going to repeat DELIBERATELY the worst accident to occur in a European reactor. They will allow the giant atom-furnace at the Boris Kidric Institute, Vinca, Yugoslavia, to run wild for a short time.
When it last did so-in up details of the accident at October 1968 — aix scien- the time, baa now” agreed tlats received what was to allow the International : thought to be a fatal done Atomic Energy Agency to of radiation.
use the reactor for the ex- The agency
But only one died. The periment. others, including a woman, wants to find out exactly have survived--thanks to how much pediation the six brilliant, now technique of received.
bone-marrow grafting used Such data will be invalu at the Cure Foundation, able to medical research Paris.
into the effects of radiation
How much?
on the human body, and This time, instruments into ways of treating vio will get the full blast of the time. dendly rays. They will be placed at the spots where the six victims често
standing.
The Yugoslav govern ment, which tried to hush
As Mr Sterling Colo, director-general of the agency, put it: Wo are convinced it will be of great value to all mankind."
-{Londen Yegrees Bergion).
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