A rose by any other name might smell as sweet. But what should we call things we do not find quite so fragrant? For more than 20 years, the Financial Times has stuck with the name Burma even though the government that has long brutalised that country has called it Myanmar since 1989. Now, we are altering our policy. From today, we will refer to Myanmar by its official name.
Why and why now? The arguments are not clear cut. But on balance, there are several reasons for making the switch.
First, the term Burma has become increasingly loaded. Used on our news pages, it strongly implies we do not approve of the government in power. On our editorial pages, we are perfectly at liberty to criticise a government, that even after tentative steps towards reform, lacks legitimacy. But in the rest of the paper, the term undermines our objectivity.