SHAN launches oral history project

No.11 - 8/2007
28 August 2007
General/ History
 
SHAN launches oral history project
 
The Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN) held a meeting on Sunday, 26 August, at the border village of Piangluang, Wiang Haeng district, Chiangmai province, to announce its launching of the oral history on the Shan resistance which will be 50-years old come 21 May 2008.
 
About 100 former freedom fighters who now spend their last days along the Thai-Burma border will be interviewed and their testimonies put on record. The result will be a comprehensive report, tentatively titled The Shan Resistance: As we knew it.
 
Quoting the African saying When an old man dies, a book is lost, Khuensai Jaiyen, SHAN director, told the meeting, "We have already lost thousands of books since 1958, including Sao Noi (regarded as the founding father of the first Shan resistance movement, the Noom Seuk Harn), Gen Gawnzerng (1926-1991), Chao Tzang Yawnghwe (1939-2004) and Sao Seng Suk (1935-2007). If we don't do something about it, even our children and grandchildren will not know why and how you have fought. Everything you have stood for and fought for will be lost forever."
 
The 32-participants of the meeting, the majority of them in the late sixties and seventies, agreed to share their knowledge and life experiences with the project.
 
Oral History, according to Learning to Listen: A manual for Oral History projects published by the Open Society Institute, refers to the spoken memories/ reminiscences, hearsay/ rumor or eyewitness accounts of events that occurred during the lifetime of the speaker. Journalists and political and social scientists use this technique regularly because they feel it can give them information that is not to be found in conventional written documents, official records etc.
 
A colloquium on Mon oral history is due to be held in Bangkok before the end of the year, according to one of its organizers.