[Tlc] Roxanna Brown

[Fernquest Jon]

Dear List Members;
 
I see Roxanna Brown's sudden arrest and death as a shameful failure of the US government to protect its citizens while living and working abroad. This might be the greatest case against the government's negligence. I am a US national who has worked for over a decade overseas in South Korea, Thailand, and Burma and was deeply disturbed by what happened to Roxanna.
 
Making sure that no harm comes to US citizens is an important part of State Department policy and work.
Here a scholar who has advanced American interests in a peaceful way through teaching and scholarship in a foreign country, her whole life, at no expense to the American government, a much more praiseworthy and preferable way to advance American interests than the use of force and warfare, was treated without any respect at all, as though she was an enemy of state. (the so-called "green zone" of Bagdad might be an apt negative metaphor of what she did not have, see Naomi Klein: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2004/09/0080197)
 
I think the best way to honour her (and to pursue the avenue for redress mentioned above) would be through a retrospective of her work, to make people aware of the contribution that she did make to her field and to the foreign country she lived in, both in a more popular form, published in the media, and a more scholarly form, published in a journal. This would have to be done by someone intimately familiar with her work. I saw her name several times recently in a book devoted to ceramics finds near Mae Sot at the TCDC library at the Emporium. These loose ends need to be brought together. 
 
When Donald Stadtner told me of her death, I immediately ran up to breaking news at the Bangkok Post and helped write the news item. We talked about what more could be done afterwards. I'm glad to have found a group of people who care about this issue. 
 
I only met Roxanna once, at the Mon conference at Chulalongkorn last year, but it has become clear after her death, that she has been an example to be emulated by other Americans and westerners, even though they may not realise it yet.  
 
Sincerely,
Jon Fernquest
Educational Services, Bangkok Post,
http://readbangkokpost.com/
 
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