Last night I dreamt I went to Mandalay again

Of late, Burma (Myanamar) has not made the news much.  Its military government has softened to a praetorian one, not unlike Turkey of the 1980s.  It tore up a contract with the Chinese government to build a controversial hydroelectric dam in the north of the country that would have directed 90% of the generated energy to China (Laos on the other hand recently took out a loan from Beijing that is almost the same size as Laotian annual GDP to build a high-speed railway that will benefit overwhelmingly Chinese commercial interests to be linked to Bangkok and eventually such a line extending to Singapore).  Most important of all in the eyes of the West it released Aung San Suu Kyi  and even allowed her to travel abroad and return to Rangoon (Yangon).  Visits followed by David Cameron and the US Secretary of State and Western sanctions were eased.  Suu Kyi could even become the country's president in 2015, based in the new capital/military stronghold of Naypyidaw (not far from the last royal capital of Burma in Mandalay).
This though does not mean Burma is peaceful.  There is the constant low-level insurgency of the Mons and the Shans fighting for their independent homeland.  Under the current government, devolution is not possible to peel off the moderate elements in these groups.  Again there is the parallel with Turkey and the Kurds.  There exists a more striking link with Burma as it currently stands and Anatolia.  Communal violence has forced 140,000 Muslims to flee their homes.  Suu Kyi equivocated when pressed on this issue, saying "the fear is not just on the side of the Muslims, but on the side of the Buddhists as well."  This is despite Muslims comprising barely 4 per cent of the national population and they have been singled out since the riots in Rakhine state in 2012.  Equating the fears of a 80 per cent majority with those of a small and beleaguered minority is quite insensitive, particularly when the Rohingya Muslims, the main victims of persecution, are not even allowed to become citizens (an issue on which Suu Kyi also equivocated).
Back in the first half of the ninth century AD, in the Byzantine Empire, under the Logothete of the Course (chief minister) Theoctistus, a patrician and a eunuch, in conjunction with the Empress Theodora (not the famous one of Justinian the Great 300 years earlier), educational standards were improved to far ahead of the West, an excellent financial policy filled the treasury to bursting, Crete was recovered for the Empire and a Byzantine fleet sacked Damietta in Egypt.  This power couple restored pride to their population and began the resurgence of Byzantium that would last for another 200 years.
Where they stand condemned though is in their treatment of Paulicians, a Christian sect in the Anatolian heartland, who rejected all church hierarchy and most of its institutions and practices.  In Constantinople, a decree was signed and promulgated through the regions, demanding renunciation of the divergent parts of their belief and a return to the Orthodox fold on pain of death.  Many chose to risk the wrath of the state than sacrifice their beliefs.  A vast military expedition was sent out to put the order into effect, leading to a massacre - even by exaggerated medieval reporting, the 100,000 reported dead is staggering.  As John Julis Norwich wrote, in his A Short History of Byzantium (1998 reprint), "Left to themselves, these devout, disciplined men and women would have constituted a formidable bulwark against Saracen attacks; instead they were driven into the arms of the Caliphate." (pp. 140-1).
No-one is suggesting that the Muslims in Burma will join forces with the enemies of the country because of their being killed, assaulted and displaced.  Even a long-standing democracy in the form of India has suffered deadly anti-Muslim riots, in Gujarat state in particular (whose former governor is now a favourite to become India's next prime minister).  Yet when Suu Kyi was asked the question, "Do you condemn the anti-Muslim violence," she temporised, replying, "I condemn any movement that is based on hatred and extremism."  That Suu Kyi is a politician and must respond to the views of the electorate is not an adequate excuse, as on certain issues, politicians must show a lead, especially a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.  She became a symbol of courage and humanity with her willingness to stand against crushing autocracy and repression.  Not for the sake of herself but also of her nation must she not repeat the mistakes of history.