By U Thant Myint-U
Mizzima News-July 14
About two thousand years ago, the earliest bronze-age farmers in Myanmar grouped together, built their first urban settlements, and began to connect with the wider world, importing Buddhism and new ideas about government, art, and science, ideas that transformed their societies. A thousand years later, at Bagan, kings and courts worked hard to be part of a dynamic region, synthesizing knowledge and styles from around the country and overseas, creating a sublime city and one of the most impressive little kingdoms of medieval times.
Whenever Myanmar has reached out and been open to the world, Myanmar has prospered intellectually as well as materially. Whenever Myanmar turned inwards, from fear or lack of confidence, the country has faced impoverishment and foreign conquest.
Read more at: http://www.mizzima.com/news-opinion/myanmar%E2%80%99s-need-shared-long-term-vision
First published in: Mizzima News
