Criticism
Cyclone Nargis hit Burma a few days before the referendum, and the vote was postponed to 24 May in the most severely affected areas — 7 out of 26 townships in Irrawaddy Division and 40 out of 45 townships in Yangon Division. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for the referendum to be postponed in full to concentrate on the "national tragedy," but the government rejected this. The Junta came under heavy criticism for diverting critical resources from survivors toward the referendum, including evicting refugees from shelters such as schools so that these can be used as polling stations. Massive fraud and intimidation was also reported.
On May 6, 2008, the United States Congress passed a condemnation of the Burmese constitution and referendum, by a 413–1 vote (the "no" vote cast by Ron Paul).
Read more about this topic: Burmese Constitutional Referendum, 2008
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“It is ... pathetic to observe the complete lack of imagination on the part of certain employers and men and women of the upper-income levels, equally devoid of experience, equally glib with their criticism ... directed against workers, labor leaders, and other villains and personal devils who are the objects of their dart-throwing. Who doesn’t know the wealthy woman who fulminates against the “idle” workers who just won’t get out and hunt jobs?”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)