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Abstract
Communities: From Tribalism to Globalism
Author:
Toe Zaw Latt
Reviewed by Ye
Myint Htun
[ Political Dept. - ABSDO Melbourne ]
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“Explore the ontological roots
of national unity in modern Burma. How might a genuine national
reconciliation process in Burma achieved?”
Problematising Modern Burma:
The modern state of Burma is in deep economic,
social and political crisis. It has been ruled by successive
military regimes since 19621 and has the notorious status
of being one of the world’s least developed countries2.
The United Nations regards the Burmese state as one of the
world’s worst human rights violators of the democratic
opposition movement led by Nobel Peace Laureate, Daw Aung
San Suu Kyi and ethic minority peoples3. Burma has a large-scale
and growing problem with illegal drug production, trafficking
and problems with ethnic insurgency dating back to pre-colonial
times4. Burmese refugees from most of the cultural and linguistic
minority groups have been present at a range of borders with
neighbouring countries from 1982 onwards5. Its economic decline
has been rapid but steady6, and more than 4% of the Burmese
population is thought to be HIV positive7.
Amid complex cultural, linguistic and
religious diversity, modern Burma faces two major challenges.
Firstly, in achieving national reconciliation with the major
opposition ethnic groups. Secondly, in achieving the restoration
of democracy as the preferred method for achieving national
unity. To achieve national reconciliation through a democratic
process, Burma must redefine its national identity and reconsider
its strategy towards achieving national unity. This requires
a fundamental rethinking of the Burmese nation-state in ways
that recognise and nurture its fragile cultural, linguistic
and religious diversity. Thus, consideration of the ontological
origins of the Burmese nation-state, and the patterns of social
and political meaning that have given rise to it, is a useful
starting point in addressing these central questions.
Key notions of modern Burmese nationalism,
both within a contemporary military context and among the
democratic forces in opposition to them, have grappled with
the competing and conflicting interests between Burma’s
complex diversity. In this paper I will explore competing
notions of national unity in modern Burma, by examining the
formation and evolution of the “Burmese community”
in its historical, genealogical, social and political contexts.
Benedict Anderson writes that in developing
an understanding of nationalism, things would be “made
easier if one treated it as if it belonged with ‘kinship’
and ‘religion’, rather than with ‘liberalism’
or ‘fascism’8. Anderson’s comments are particularly
relevant in a discussion of Burmese nationalism and national
unity. Specific attention will be given to the ontological
roots of Burmese nationalism- in relation to traditional kinship
systems, social organisation and action in pre-colonial and
colonial contexts, and the role of religion throughout. I
will argue that Burmese nationalism, often mistaken as an
ideology, is the product of the interplay of a complex range
of localised social and historical forces. I will then go
on to examine how a new sense of ‘Burmese community’
can be constituted amid a genuine national reconciliation
process.
A Method of Analysis
The Oxford Australian Dictionary defines
ontology, a branch of metaphysics, as the study of the “nature
of being”9. Paul James writes that the methodological
approach provided by an ontological study of nationalism comes
out of the tradition of historical materialism, but is informed
by other methods; anthropological description, reflexive sociology
and post-structuralism. An ontological study of nationalism
examines how generalisations of social practise, and patterns
of social meaning are created from empirical knowledge of
history. It gives attention to how particular kinds of knowledge
are produced about the historical events, processes, ideas
and social practises that bring about nationalism, and give
rise to the nation-state. The method I will use has four levels,
and starts with empirical analysis, a kind of investigation
that privileges the lived and communicated experience of people
over time. It asks the question, what is and has been the
shared experiences in the formation of the Burmese nation-state?
My current attempt at an ontological study
of Burmese nationalism will utilise elements of a further,
neo-Marxist approach called conjunctural analysis. This method
acknowledges the imperfection of traditional Marxist social
theory, which says that social practise is fundamentally determined
by the modes of production in a society, but widens it by
acknowledging an analysis of other modes of practise- like
the modes of exchange, communication, association, integration
and enquiry- as significant determinants of social meaning
and practise10. Conjunctural analysis is useful in the study
of nationalism because it is a method that orders and makes
sense of empirical evidence and helps us asks the question,
how is Burmese nationalism conceived and communicated throughout
various level of social life and society?
Taking an ontological study of Burmese
nationalism to a third level of integrational analysis entails
some attention to the inter-relationship of the varying modes
of social integration and differentiation. This method is
used to explain how it is possible to explain a phenomenon
like the nation-state and nationalism, in terms of “face
to face metaphors of blood and place, ties of genealogy, kinship
and ethnicity, when the objective ‘reality’ of all
nation-states is that they are disembodied community of abstracted
strangers”11. For example, an analysis of this kind asks
the question how have various levels of Burmese social action
given rise to nationalism and overlapped among the various
cultural, religious, social, political, economic and genealogical
‘communities’ it constitutes?
At the fourth, most abstract level of
categorical analysis, Burmese nationalism in it’s embodied,
temporal and spatial categories will be explored. For example,
at this level generalisations can be made about the dominant
modes of being and to speak of Burmese nationalism as being
formed in a hierarchy of tribal, traditional, modern and post-modern
forces.
The Myth of a Unified Burma
Bitter and often bloody rivalries between sovereign kingdoms
and tribal groups, kinship relations driven by notions of
biological authenticity, village factionalism/, pre-Buddhist
traditions and beliefs, as well as the early introduction
and development of the Buddhist religion in Burma, have conspired
with the forces of history in creating modern Burma. But what
is this thing called Burma? We know it is a country between
Thailand to the east, China to the north and India and Bangladesh
to the South. A country of 50 million Burmese people. But
Burma is more than the land that falls between its borders,
and more than the shared values, culture and language of the
50 million people. We know this because civil wars are fought
in the name of Burma, military dictatorships have come to
political dominance in fear of Burma’s disintegration.
Burma, as nation-state is an “imagined
political community”12. Paul James writes that, “…(u)nderstanding
the nation-state has gained a renewed urgency as across the
world we watch grotesque and continuing wars, bloody conflicts
fought either in the name of national independence or of national
integrity. Everywhere the call of the nation continues to
be invoked… Enough has been written about the immediacy
of…national conflict to suggest however that it is sometimes
important to step back from the fray and to reflect comparatively,
historically and theoretically.”13. In this paper, I
hope to stand back and reflect upon how notions of the nation-state
have been invoked in particular ways in imagining Burma- comparatively,
historically and theoretically.
Burma’s earliest recorded history
can be traced to the Pagan period dating from 1044-77 AD.
This was more than 400 years after historians suggest that
the first Tibeto-Burman peoples migrated from Tibet in a southerly
direction, into the northern-most part of Burma14. A smaller
Arakan kingdom was strategically located in the Bay of Bengal,
which had traded with other coastal kingdoms around the Indian
Ocean, and had been significantly influenced by Hindu culture
and traditions. The Mon-Khmer people, from lower Burma, occupied
much of Southeast Asia, and the Shan, who are distantly related
to them, occupied the river valleys in the far Northeastern
part of Burma. It is widely believed that the first ethnic
Karen and Chin settlers appeared after the Burman, Arakan,
Mon and Shan kingdoms in the central regions of Burma around
800-900 AD15.
Burma’s early history is not characterised
by a sense of shared belonging to an imagined Burmese community.
On the contrary, it is marked by inter-ethnic rivalry and
conflict, amid repeated attempts at the expansion of the larger
empires, like the Burman, Mon, Shan, and Arakan kingdoms,
by conquering or making strategic alliances with the more
numerous village-based tribes with the Chin, Kachin, Wa and
Karen ethnic groupings16. The size of the competing kingdoms
varied greatly depending on the number of new territories
that were conquered and tribal alliances that were established
and maintained17. As one of the primary concerns for kingdoms
throughout Asia was acquiring more people to work- expand
armies, build temples, palaces and irrigation- the victors
of the many inter-ethnic conflicts often returned not only
with a loot of gold and gems, but thousands of captives who
were forced to join local workforces in and around the conquering
capitals18. It is this practise that resulted in the early
cultural diversity within the Burmese kingdoms and which resulted
in the first, hazy imaginings of the Burmese nation that have
remained so.
Thinking “Burma’:
It is interesting to note that the English-language
term ‘Burman’, refers to the ethnic group, while
‘Burmese’ refers to the language that the dominant
ethnic majority, the Burman people, speak as well as to all
citizens of the modern nation of Burma. For the purpose of
this paper the term ‘Burmese’ will refer to the
language and culture of the dominant Burman ethnic group,
the term ‘Burmanisation’ to the process by which
Burman language and culture came to dominate in Burma, and
the term ‘Burmese-ness’ will be used to describe
a burmanised sense of national unity. The use and meaning
of the term Myanma, or Myanmar in English, is more significant
to our current exploration of the ontological roots of Burmese
nationalism because it has been historically used to refer
to a sense of Burmese national unity across cultural and linguistic
diversity. The term Myanma first appeared on stone inscriptions
from the Pagan period and is widely believed to refer to the
people of Pagan, who were assembled from a variety of ethnic
and linguistic groups19.
The current official name given to Burma
is Pyi-htaung-su Myanma Naing-ngan, loosely translated, “the
Union of Myanmar”20. The word state has never been used
in relation to Burma, but the term Naing-ngan has been used
to describe it21. Robert Taylor, in his lengthy analysis of
the state in Burma, notes that in pre-colonial times, the
Burmese monarchies, and often the kings and queens themselves,
embodied or were viewed as the state22. Further, the term,
Naing, on it’s own means victory or to conquer, but the
phrase, Naing-ngan, means country or kingdom.
It is important to note that the term
Myanma was first used during the Inwa period in the mid-nineteenth
century, when the Court of Ava used the term Myanma Min, or
“Burmese King” to refer to the King23. Prior to
the Court of Ava, Kings had not referred to themselves as
the sovereigns of Myanma, but as the kings of particular regions
and valleys. For example, the Burman King Alaungpaya, of the
Konbaung Dynasty (1752-1886 AD), often referred to himself
as Sin Phu Shin or “Lord of the White Elephant”
and Ti Pyu Saun Min or “Ruler of all Umbrella Bearing
Chiefs”. But even the use of these terms and phrases
indicates the emergence of a unifying and inter-ethnic based
polity24.
Thant Myint-U argues that the mid to late
nineteenth century, the subject of much scholarship on Burma,
was a period of “sustained innovation and attempts at
adaptation to rapidly changing local and global conditions”25,
that witnessed the birth of modern Burma- the birth of its
territorial limits, a sense of who is and isn’t Burmese,
and key political structures. He writes that “(t)he Ava
(or Mandalay) based polity, reduced to its core territory
through military defeats, was fully aware of the need to refashion
state structures and find a place within the emergent international
system”26.
Kinship Relations: The Ties that Bind
Melford E. Spiro argues that shared biology
is the essence of Burmese kinship at the village level. He
notes a famous Burmese proverb, “streams may be spoiled,
but heredity is never spoiled”, and interestingly that
the blood ties of kinship relations may even supersede the
“sacred norms of the monkhood”27. For example, despite
a monk being forbidden to make specific material requests
of laypeople, he may do so legitimately of a blood relative.
Before any attention is drawn to an examination
of the role of Buddhism in conceiving and giving effect to
Burmese nationalism, I will first consider how blood ties
and social relations at their most basic level work to mutually
reinforce a sense of shared belonging, and establish hierarchies
of power. Burmese kinship relations determine how the basic
unit of Burmese social life, families within a village- along
gendered and biological lines of power and authority. The
Burmese proverb, Lu-hma-a-myo-kyet-hma-a-yo, translates as
“people are known by their relatives, chickens are known
by their bones”. The Burmese words used in this phrase
reveal something of the nature of gender and power relations
within the Burmese family. The word, myo, refers to the network
of blood relatives, and comes from the word myo si, or seed,
and is used in relation to both agriculture and male sexual
reproduction. A sense of family or kinship in Burma links
you both with the soil, which you work and own, and to a system
of power relations that privileges men and boys (as the sowers
of seed), over women and girls (the Burmese word for womb
is tha ein, literally translated as son’s house). Land
is the most important form of wealth for Burmese people, not
only as an economic asset, but also as a source of social
prestige and a statement of masculinity and male power.
Prestige is an all-important, often over-looked
motive in Burmese social relations at all levels and “(p)olitical
processes at the village level consist in jockeying for influence
(awza) and prestige (goun)”28. Awza and Goun, established
through land ownership or significant blood and kinship ties
are important bases for village/ family factionalism and resulting
social stratification. There are three main social classes
in Burma, the au-tan-sa a working class of more recent migrants
from other tribes and ethnic groups, the a-le-tan-sa, likened
to a middle class of people, either descendant land owners
or landowners who have acquired wealth, and the a-hte-tan-sa,
who held the more traditionally prestigious offices of village
headman and elders with much greater wealth, and stronger
genealogical ties29. It was, and is today, the village headmen
or elders who are respected much more by the people in their
communities than either distant monarchs (in pre-colonial
times) or military dictators (more recently since 1962). Prestige
enhancement activities, like weddings, Buddhist initiations,
construction and provisioning of monasteries, and many other
forms of cultural and religious ceremonies, are thus limited
and reproduced by Burmese village class structures- determined
by wealth and genealogy.
The relationship between village headman
and elders with the rest of the village community has been
likened to a patron-client relationship30. Understanding this
relationship is important in our discussion of Burmese nationalism
and national unity in that it is a mode of practise through
which relationships of power have been produced and reproduced.
Building a Sense of National Unity:
“Ti-tabin-kaun hnat-ta'taun-na,
A good tree can host a thousands birds”31
Dr. Maung Maung has argued that there
were no formal political organisations in pre-colonial Burma-
that the family was the basic unit of society just as the
village was the basic unit of the tribal organisation32. He
has argued that this is because of the high level of localised
political and economic autonomy that villages enjoyed under
successive monarchs. They did not mind being ruled as long
as they could still maintain their cultural and religious
traditions.
For example, under the monarchs, villages
had yearly visits from the Myo Sa, literally translated as
“eaters of the township”, who were royal tax collectors.
Taxes were collected during April and May after harvesting
of crops. The Myo Sa and their local governors were appointed
by the King and were not hereditary positions. The village
headmen and elders worked together with the Myo Sa and their
governors to keep the “king’s peace”. Only
in times of war were people required to pay extra levies and
to serve under the Royal Commanders as soldiers. Certain states
or principalities in the Kingdom intermittently acknowledged
the sovereignty of the monarchs by sending seasonal tributes,
but there were few administrative structures in place that
resembled a unified governance approach.
Occasionally, the more powerful monarchs
made attempts to conquer other kingdoms. Some attempted to
establish national unity and common law or the system that
help to maintain their social structure and administration
purposes, but in reality, Under such instability situation
a centralised legal system did not survive for long, or it
had minimal impact on people’s daily life. At the grassroots
level, people still continued to seek guidance and leadership
from local elders and village headmen.
Burma was often divided into provinces
ruled over by competing warlords where hereditary rulers from
a variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds exercised immediate
authority. As Martin Smith mentions, it was more on the basis
of city-states than of a nation that any future political
structure was to develop. Power was to vacillate between the
various kingdoms with growing regularity33. Robert Taylor
notes that “(t)hese rulers, Shan Sawbwas, Kachin Duwas,
Karenni Sawbwas, Karen and Chin Chiefs, etc., paid allegiance
to the central count through tribute missions, marriage and
military alliances…”34. While these groups posed
no serious threat to the central state, and made no serious
economic surplus, the monarchs allowed them to do as they
will. Thus, a burgeoning sense of national unity in Burma
was maintained under the slogan Leh-net Naing-ngan, or ‘a
country held by arms’.
The Role of Buddhism in Burmese Nation-Building
“To be a Burmese is to be a Buddhist”.
Buddhism is one of the most significant
cultural systems in mainstream Burma at a village level and
has played a pivotal role in reinforcing notions of nation-state
and national unity in Burma. In Buddhist cosmology, secular
powers must protect Buddhism as a religious order. On the
other hand, the Sangha or monastic order could not exist without
the protection and gifts from the polity. The Sangha, in turn,
offered Monarch and regional rulers access to religious merit-making-
accumulation of which improves their Kharma. Burmese Buddhist
cosmology is a ‘total’ model, which covers all aspects
of human existence- and a range of both ethical and ontological
customs36.
A number of tribal Burmese religions were
practised in Burma before the introduction of Buddhism. The
most popular were animist in nature and revolved around the
worship of Nat sprits, and the practises of astrology and
alchemy. The term Nat originally referred to a feudal lord,
but in pre-Buddhist cosmology, a Nat was a spirit who had
dominion over a group of people or certain objects. The spirit
who had dominion over a small withered tree was as much as
Nat as a spirit who had dominion over a particular village
or district37. Maung Htin Aung writes that, in this sense,
the sovereignty of a Nat spirit was both “territorial
and personal”38. But, there were numerous Nat spirits
worshipped throughout Burma- again very localised and varied
traditions, but their as well as the practise of astrology
and alchemy in pre-Buddhist Burma, occurred under the patronage
of the Ari monkhood. The Ari monks had a vague acquaintance
with the Buddhist scriptures, introduced to them with the
customary laws of Indian Hindu culture.
It was King Anawratha, who first displaced
the power of the Ari monks and brought Burmese Nat worshippers
to Buddhism. Anawratha unfrocked the monks and forced them
to serve in his royal armies, pronouncing Theravada Buddhism
the national religion. He wooed the local peoples to Buddhism
by placing thirty-six Nat spirits in his prime pagoda in an
attitude of worship to a Buddha image, declaring a newly imagined
37th Nat as Lord of the Nats and the guardian of Burmese Buddhism.
Thing Aung writes that over time people came to forget the
pre-Buddhist and primitive origins of their folk belief in
alchemy, astrology and Nats, and learned to accept them as
a central part of their Buddhism39. Buddhist Burmese still
draw heavily on the pre-Buddhist cosmology. Today, Anawratha
is widely regarded by historians and Burmese polity as the
King who brought unity to Burma, unified the small, ethnically
diverse principalities that constituted Burma into a relatively
united state.
Another King later invoked in nationalist
discourse was Alaungpaya. Commencing his career as a village
headman during the Mon occupation of Burma, Alaungpaya organised
ethnic Burman forces into a resistance movement that toppled
the ethnic Mon dynasty. The motivation for such action came
from a sense of shame and loss of prestige associated with
the loss of dynastical power. Burman people were widely displaced
from their a-hte tan-sa and traditional Myo Sa class positions,
many becoming refugees. Under Alaungpaya, conquest of competing
ethnic-based dynasties, and centralisation of Burman power
went hand in hand. In 1755 Alaungpaya crowned himself Myanma
Min or “King of Burma” and standardised the judicial
system. Burma’s administrative structure was fortified
under Alaungpaya, as local cultural diversity was lost amid
a tightening and centralising of executive and judicial power.
Burmese customary law was first written in Burmese and enacted
throughout Burma in its entirety under Alaungpaya.
The Shared Roots of Colonial Modes
of Practise:
The effects of Alaungpaya’s colonising
mission across Burma’s ethnic diversity were felt for
years. Not surprisingly, King Bodawpaya, the fifth son of
Alaungpaya, was the longest ruling Burmese king and presided
over the Burmese empire at what was considered to be its height.
Bodawpaya, however marched his Burmese ‘empire’
steadily westward to the very borders of an equally expansionist
British-India. The annexation of the strategically located
Arakan regions brought the Burmese into direct border conflict
with the British in India. Mutual mistrust and fears over
security on both side increased. But the victory over invading
Chinese armies, the Arakan, the Siamese and the Mon rebels
had only bolstered the Burman’s belief that the world
was there for the taking. Militant Burmese nationalism, coupled
with increasing military might resulted in a new kind of Burma.
Maung Maung writes that,
“After the annexation of Arakan and
the conquest of Assam by the Burmese… disputes about
borders and extradition increased. The Burmese would chase
fugitives from their justice or recalcitrant border chieftains
into British territory and clashes of arms occurred with growing
frequency. Diplomacy having failed to establish friendly relations
between the powers, resort to arms became inevitable”40.
The Burmese fought three bitter wars with
the British along these borders. The first Anglo-Burmese war
(1824-6) turned out to be the longest and most expensive in
British India history. It ended after the Burmese negotiated
in the early 1826 at Yadanabo and the ‘proper’ mapping
of Burma commenced after the treaty. By the end of the second
Anglo–Burmese war (1852-3), amid internal official corruption
and incompetency, Burma’s King Mindon re-imagined a time
of national unity and order similar to that experienced under
Alaungpaya’s reign. Under Mindon, Burma again prospered
and friendly diplomatic relations with the British were established.
He worked hard to build friendly relations with Western nations
and was responsible for the first international recognition
of Burma’s sovereignty. He sent many missions to the
Europe and America and modernised and reformed many outdated
Burmese practises, introducing Burma’s first Burmese
language newspaper. He imagined a modern Burma “in which
the key symbiotic institution of monarchy and Buddhist order
would remain and be strengthen alongside imported technologies,
science, industry and new structures of bureaucratic government”41.
On 29 November 1885, the British invaded
Burma and exiled the last monarch, King Thibaw and his royal
entourage to India, where he was kept as a state prisoner
until his death. The royal family was never allowed to return
to Burma until the end of British occupation. From the exile
of King Thibaw, the British army completely dismantled the
institutions of Burmese royal authority, replacing it with
their own administrative and judicial systems. The Royal Palace
in Mandalay was raided of it’s gold and gems, some of
which are still to be found in the Crown Jewels of the British
royal family, and many royal texts were removed to London.
The British then turned Mandalay palace into the British army
headquarters and sacred parts of it turned into an elite soldiers
club.
Resistance to British Colonialism and
a new sense of Burmese Nationalism
Benedict Anderson writes that, “…the
nineteenth century colonial state (and policies that its mindset
encouraged) dialectically engendered the grammar of the nationalisms
that eventually arose to combat it. Indeed, one might go so
far as to say that the state imagined its local adversaries
as in an ominous prophetic dream, well before they came into
historical existence”42. He observations certainly ring
true in the case of modern Burma. For example, Burma’s
political boundaries, and thus the nature and extent of later
border conflicts, were largely a colonial creation. The colonial
map of Burma even included some areas and peoples that had
never before been claimed by any Burmese court, such as the
Rawang and Lisu communities near the Himalayan Mountains43.
Whilst the development of infrastructure, such as roads, railways,
administrative, financial and education systems brought relative
prosperity, the British ran into problems with the introduction
of a new, British-style land ownership regime and related
tax system.
Increasing political defiance against
the British was always deeply felt in relation to a repressed
traditional cultural and religious belief system. The independence
and anti-colonial movement was a localised Burmese response
to colonisation. The historical factors of prolonged war between
rival kingdoms and the resultant mixing of cultural, language,
governance arrangements and belief systems were homogenised
into a new sense of nationalism. Not surprisingly, Burmese
Buddhist Monks played significant leading roles in the struggle
against the British, who were a threat not just against their
cultural and religious beliefs, but to the very unity and
totality of the Burmese universe and its central tenants based
on Buddhist cosmology.
The Burmese nationalist movement was founded
by a group of young Rangoon collage students under the principles
of A-myo, Ba-tha, Sa-san-a, Pyin-mar (translated as a) race/nation,
b) language, c) the Buddhist spiritual realm and d) education
for all). The first Burmese nationalist movement arrived in
the form of a British youth organisation modelled on the YMCA,
the Young Men’s Buddhist Association (YMBA). The YMBA
became very respectable and received popular support across
various Rangoon social classes and the students later managed
to publish a Burmese-language weekly newspaper called Thuriya,
or the Sun. In Burmese Buddhist cosmology, the sun represented
the omnipresent symbol of enlightenment.
The importance of the Thuriya in communicating
with and mobilising Burmese people across the country is evident
in its coverage of the infamous “Shoe Question”44.
In 1917, the British Governor paid a visit to a pagoda that
had been damaged by an earthquake, and kept his shoes on,
a sign of deep disrespect to Burmese Buddhist culture. A cartoon
in the Thuriya, suggested that the Burmese carry the British
on their backs if they were scared to ask them to take of
their shoes when entering a sacred pagoda. The paper published
a lot on the “Shoe Question” and many public meeting
were held. This resulted in the issuing of a Sangha (Buddhist
monkhood) order in English prohibiting the wearing of shoes
when visiting pagodas. With the success of this campaign,
the YMBA became more radical and gained further popular support,
establishing stronger ideological ties with the Sangha.
The Calcutta university educated monk,
U Ottama, founded the Wun-thanu A-thin, translated as ‘patriotic
societies’, which were modelled on the Ghandi led Indian
National Congress movement. The Wun-thanu A-thin supporters
pledged to use only ‘native products’ and to boycott
British goods45. The feelings of unity provided by the Wunthanu
Athins gave disenfranchised Burmese, particularly the burgeoning
Burmese student movement, the courage and resilience to defy
the British. Of particular significance was the student union
strike of 1920 under the slogan “education for all”,
which resulted in brutal repression by the British army, mostly
made up of non Burman soldiers, but the subsequent founding
of ‘state’ schools. Almost every town had at least
one national school and it served as a catalyst in forging
national unity, remaining a prominent physical and psychological
nationalist landmark.
Interestingly, U Chit Hlaing, the chairman-elect
of the umbrella association, the General Council of Burmese
Associations (GCBA), named himself Thammada-Okkahta Gyi, translated
as ‘great president’ at it’s Sixth Conference
in 1919. This was a significant attempt to define a new sense
of Burmese authority and nation-hood by reference to King
Aloungphar. In 1930, a significant peasant rebellion broke
out in defiance of an economic crisis and the burgeoning movement
for an independent Burma. The rebel leader from the peasant
class, Hsaya San, a member of the YMBA and affiliated with
the GCBA, likened his leadership and struggle to that of a
future king. His use of the term, Min Laung, or king-to-be,
has it’s ontological roots in Burmese Buddhist cosmology.
He successfully brought a sense of traditional kinship to
an anti-British struggle and claimed that he “re-establish
the order of Dhamma and prepare for the coming of the next
Buddha”46. Hsaya San ‘nationalised’ the Burmese
body, encouraging the symbolic tattooing of his followers,
which he claimed had the effect of rendering his soldiers
invulnerable to military attack. Hsaya San and his followers
were killed by the British, but this important concept of
‘Burma for the Burman’s’ remained, forming
the foundation for successive generations of university-based
Burmese nationalist movements. It wasn’t to the emergence
of the Dobama Asiayone- Dobama literally translated as “we
Burman”, Asiayone as “a tight body of men’-
that independence from the British became a reality for Burma.
The Dobama movement believed that ‘fresh blood’
was required for a renewed nationalist struggle for independence,
and in many ways literally embodied a new sense of Burmese
nationalism.
In the lead up to the second world war,
the Burmese independence movement mobilised people to oppose
Burma’s implication in a world war, openly challenging
the British government in a rally at Mandalay, which was a
living symbol of a past Burmese empire. A young organiser,
Thakin Aung San escaped to Japan and formed the Burma Independence
Army (BIA), named himself the Bo-Te-Za, or great leader of
fire, and with Japanese military backing became the army’s
first general. With the support of the Japanese, the BIA was
able to drive the British from Burma.
It is interesting to consider the motivation
of Aung San, a former co-founder of the Burma Communist Party,
in bringing the Japanese fascists to Burma. His prime concern
was removal of the British from Burma, and in gaining independence.
After five years of Japanese Imperialism, Aung San and BIA
declared war on Japanese and founded the Anti-Fascist Peoples
Freedom League (AFPFL). In exchange for assisting the British
defeat the Japanese and bring an end to WWII, Aung San negotiated
independence for Burma. Burmese nationalism during the colonial
period although influenced by various leftist ideologies (like
Marxism and Fabian Socialism) and traditional forms of autocratic
rule (like governance models similar to those under the Burmese
monarchs), was able to maintain a sense of national unity
among a wide variety of political parties and among a great
number of the ethnic minority groups- independence from the
British was almost in everybody’s favour. However, post-independence
expectation over the method and role of a centralised Rangoon
government shortly resulted in the outbreak of civil war that
has continued in various forms, until the present day.
In early 1946, a conference of representatives
from all ethnic minority groups was established at Pang Long.
Organised by the AFPFL, and ethnic leaders in the Shan state,
U Nu, later to become Burma’s only democratically elected
Prime Minister, gave its maiden speech, appealing for unity
amid diversity. On the 12th February 1947, celebrated as Burmese
Union day from this time, U Nu and ethnic leaders ratified
an agreement that gave the Shan and Karenni states autonomy
with the right to withdraw from the Union, and Kachin with
the similar status. The Chin people acquired the status of
a ‘special division’, and the Karen acquired the
Salween river districts.
National Unity as Military Rule
A common Burmese turn of phrase, Nyi-nya-hma-
pyi-tha-meh, translates in English as “if all unite,
the country will prosper”. This call to Burmese nation
contrasts starkly against the British Colonial model of a
pluralist society. British colonial model, however, was based
on a more fundamental principle of ‘divide and rule’.
While British colonial policy recognised racial, ethnic, religious,
social and economic difference, deep contradictions between
competing groups and identities were developed in order that
they could be strategically ‘managed’. The central
power that controlled these contradictions was interestingly,
in the case of Burma, given to India. The only unity in the
British Empire was in its ‘global market’- local
cultural, racial and religious differences were rendered subordinate
to a common division of labour47. In Burma, the British divide
and rule strategy set the Karen, Kachin and the administrative
class (a wealthy Indian migrant minority) against a pro- Rangoon
based Burman majority ethnic alliance- but the seeds of contemporary
civil war had been duly sown. After a short one and a half
decades of central, independent ‘Burmese’ government,
General Ne Win and the Tatmadaw, or Burmese military, established
a strong military dictatorship that rules Burma to date.
For many years before independence, Aung
San did not view a unitary state as feasible, favouring a
loose union of the different ethnics groups as equal participants
and with special rights. The Karen people, favoured great
by the British over other Burmese ethnic groups, sent a parallel
delegation to negotiate independence with the British at the
same time Aung San and his delegation were in London to secure
Burma-wide independence.
Interestingly, Aung San’s concept
of national identity appears in a later Burma Socialist Programme
Party (BSPP) manifesto, which states;
“A nation is a collective term applied
to a people irrespective of their ethnic origin, living in
close contact with one another and having common interests
and sharing joys and sorrows together for such historic period
as to have acquire a senses of oneness. Though race, religion
and language are important factors, it is only their traditional
desire and will to live in unity through weal and woe that
binds a people together and makes them a nation and their
spirit a patriotism”48.
In contrast, the Karen contend that;
“It is a dream that the Karen and
Burman can ever evolve a common nationality, and this misconception
of one homogenous Burmese nation… will lead Burma to
destruction. Karen are a nation according to any definition.
We are a nation with our own distinctive cultural and civilisation,
language, literature, names, nomenclature, sense of value
and proportion, customary laws and moral codes, aptitudes
and ambitions; in short we have our own distinctive outlook
on life. By all cannons of international law we are a nation”
49.
Mikael Gravers notes that the reference
to the term ‘civilisation’, The Karen “meant
that they were more educated in Western ways, sharing a Christian
faith and educated in the Western tradition. Gravers’
observations are critical to my current discussion because
they raise a central and historical tension- between Burmese
Buddhists and Burma’s Christian minorities such as the
Kachin, Karen, Chin and Karenni. It is this tension that in
many ways the Burmese military have used to justify their
rule. Dictator, General Ne Win’s ideology, espoused in
the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) papers, appear
somewhat confused to Western readers, but in fact address
the important question of how a both the Burmese polity and
the Buddhist Sangha should institutionally and ideologically
relate to each other in an imagined social order BSPP policy,
the rationalisation of military rule in Burma, has merely
consolidated a self-fulfilling prophecy: that unless one controls
‘foreign influences’ in the economy, religion and
the ethnic minorities, there were be an imbalance in the universe
and “‘without centralism society will tend toward
anarchism”50.
The student led uprising of 1988 and the
majority win for Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for
Democracy party at the 1990 elections (which still have not
been honoured) resulted in a further tightening of military
rule in Burma. Along with increasing military control, came
a more inflexible sense of nationalism and an need for a more
stringent justification of military rule through a ‘need
for national unity” argument. In 1998, The State Law
and Order Restoration Council (renamed the State Peace and
Development Council in 1998) formed in response to nation-wide
student led strike and protests calling for a end to military
rule. SLORC claim that their prime role is to ensure the ‘non-disintegration
of the union’, a direct reference to the need for centralised
military control over ethnic insurgents wanting to break away
from the union with the aid of ‘neo-colonial forces’.
It plasters Burmese cities, towns and villages with large
billboards with slogans like, “Tatmadaw and the people,
cooperate and crush all those harming the union” and
“The People’s Desire”;
The People’s Desire:
* Oppose those relying on external elements, acting as stooges,
holding negative views
* Oppose those trying to jeopardize stability of the State
and progress of the nation
* Oppose foreign nations interfering in internal affairs of
the State
* Crush all internal and external destructive elements as
the common enemy
Since 1993, SLORC has embarked upon a
‘Burmanising’ project, as Gravers suggest, to uphold
a particular kind of Burmese nationalism “of both continuity
and discontinuity with the past. The military regime aims
to represent the past in the present as a singular social
and cultural identity, and this prevent the Burmese from entering
the modern world where claims of the right to self-identification
are top of the agenda. It is a self-assured SLORC identity
of being modern in a Burmese- and a non-Western-way”
51 and attempting to control even the way that racial and
ethnic diversity is classified and understood.
The Current National Reconciliation
Process: Burma as a Re-Imagined Community
“A nation and a national identity
are the outcomes of a process combining historical memory,
cultural and religion-dominated discourses, ontological experiences
and rationalised action; they are not natural properties primordialised
in groups and individuals, although such claim of primordial
attachment often are politically important. Their representations
are the result of political conjunctures and the distribution
of power, and their classification are always contested and
reformulated.52”
Contemporary Burma is located in a contradictory
and complex place- at the juncture between the competing forces
of globalisation and localism, between the forces of Western
capitalism and “the Burmese way53” to development,
and at the intersection of competing and sometimes contradictory
notions of who, and indeed who and what may constitute a modern
Burmese polity. These contradictions and tensions are not
exclusive to Burma, but can be seen in conflicts within and
between nation-states all over the world. Some social theorists
argue that this tension between an ever tightening of global
interconnectedness, simultaneously with a fragmentation of
social relations in and between people in their local communities
is the underlying and central theme in world politics at the
end of the millennium54. With this in mind, where do we imagine
Burma?
Since the aim of Burmese nationalism since
the 19th century has been in some way, to eliminate the colonial
policy of differences and fragmentation, and to replace this
policy with a sense of national unity, much needs to be done
to lay the foundations for a genuine national reconciliation
process in Burma that involves and addresses all key aspect
of its diversity. While attempts at achieving this unity have
become increasingly brutal and repressive of Burma’s
complex ethnic (and political) diversity, in recent times
there has been a shift away from minority demands for self
determination and autonomous space, to an sense that the current
crisis can be resolve, not through armed struggle but by a
reconciliation process. A genuine willingness to embark on
a political process whereby peace can be restored to Burma,
and a process for determining reconciliation, restoring confidence
and negotiating difference must be encouraged at all levels.
In addition, the healing and unifying forces of politically
engaged Buddhism can play a pivotal role in bringing about
the necessary change in Burma required for a genuine national
reconciliation process to begin. International pressure must
continue to be maintained on the regime, as well as on opposition
forces, to carefully address and resolve these issues.
Bibliography:
Than Myint-U (2001), The Making of Modern
Burma, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Maung Htin Aung (1959), Folk Elements
in Burmese Buddhism, Published by U Myint Maung, Deputy Director,
Reg: No (02405/02527), Religious Affairs Department Press,
Rangoon, Burma.
Martin Smith (1991), Burma: Insurgency
and the Politics of Ethnicity, Zed Books, London.
Lu Zoe (San Lwin) (1996), Myanmar Proverbs,
Ava Publishing House, Yangon.
Benedict Anderson (1991), Imagined Communities:
Reflection on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism Revised
Edition, Verso Books, London.
Dr. Maung Maung (1958), Burma in the Family
of Nations, Second Edition, Djambatan, Amsterdam.
Robert H. Taylor (1987), The State in
Burma, C Hurst & Company, London.
Maung Maung Gyi (1983), Burmese Political
Values: The Socio-Political roots of Authoritarianism, Praeger,
New York.
Josef Silverstein (1997), “The Civil
War, the Minorities and Burma’s New Politics”, in
Peter Carey (ed) (1997), Burma: The Challenge of Change in
a Divided Society, Macmillan Press in association with St
Antony’s College, Oxford.
Victor Liebermann (1984), Burmese Administrative
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Press, Princeton.
Mikael Cravers (1999), Nationalism as
political paranoia in Burma: An Essay on the Historical Practise
of Power, Curzon Press, Surrey.
U Maung Maung (1980), From Sangha to Laity:
Nationalist Movements of Burma 1920-1940, Australian National
University Monographs on South Asia No. 4, Manohar, New Dehli.
U Maung Maung (1989), Burmese Nationalist
Movements 1940-1948, Kiscadale Press, Scotland.
Bertil Lintner (1994), Burma in Revolt:
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De Silva, Duke, Goldberg and Katz (eds.)
(1988), Ethnic Conflict in Buddhist Societies: Sri Lanka,
Thailand and Burma, Pinter Publishers, London.
Melford E. Spiro (1977), Kinship and Marriage
in Burma: A Cultural and Psychodynamic Analysis, University
of California Press, London.
Paul James (1996), Nation Formation: Toward
a Theory of Abstract Community, Sage Publications, London.
Aung San Suu Kyi (1991), Freedom from
Fear, Penguin Books, Australia.
Focar E.C.V (1946), They Reigned in Mandalay,
Denis Dobson Ltd., London.
Graver Michael (1995), “Nationalism
and Ethnism in the Present World Order: A Brief Outline of
Concepts’ In Sefa M. Yurukel (ed), The Balkan war: Aarhus,
Department of Ethnography & Social Antropology, University
of Asrhus.
Saw Po Chit(1945), Karen’s political
future (1945-47), Self-published.
1For a detailed account of Burma under military rule since
1962, see Christina Fink (2001) Living Silence: Burma under
Military Rule, Zed Books, London.
2 UNDP World Report 2000.
3 UNGA Resolution on Burma (Myanmar) 2001.
4 See Bertil Lintner (1996), Burma: Opium and Insurgency Since
1948, White Lotus Press, Bangkok.
5The first of the these refugees were the Karen who fled to
Thailand in mid 1982. There is an estimated one million internally
displaced people and refugees from Burma in and along the
borders of Burma and Bangladesh, India and Thailand.
6 Economic Intelligence Unit report.
7 UN Aids Report on Burma,2000.
8Benedict Anderson (1991), Imagined Communities: Reflections
on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Revised Edition,
Verso, London, 1999, p. 5.
9 Bruce Moore (ed), The Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary
4th Edition, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1992, p.
747.
10 Michael Foucault, idea in lecture notes.
11 Paul James Lecture notes.
12 Benedict Anderson (1991) ibid, p. 5.
13 Op Cit, p.1.
14 Maung Maung (1957) Burma in the family of nations, Djambatan,
NV
15 Martin Smith (1991) Burma: Insurgency and the Politics
of Ethnicity, p. ??
16 For a good account of the allegiance building strategy
with the Chin Chieftains by successive majority rulers see
Vumsom (1987), Zo History: with an introduction to Zo Culture,
economy, religion and their status as an ethnic minority in
India, Burma and Bangladesh, Self-published.
17 Christina Fink (200), ibid, p. 15.
18 See Victor Liebermann (1984), Burmese Administrative Cycles:
Anarchy and Conquest c. 1580-1760, Princeton University Press,
Princeton, p. 98, account of Burman King Thalun’s resettlement
and of conquered Mon, Shan, Siamese, Lao, Indians and Arakanese
in an around his dynastical capital.
19 Thant Myint-U (2001) ibid. 84
20Peter Carey (Ed.) (1997) gives a more detailed background
on the philosophical viewpoints underpinning modern usage
of the terms ‘Myanmar’ and ‘Burma’ and
why there continues to be no uniformity within the use of
the terms to describe the country. See Peter Carey Ed. (1997),
Burma: The Challenge of Change in a Divided Society, Macmillan
Press, London.
21 Robert Taylor (1957) The State in Burma, Hurst, London.
22 Robert Taylor (1987), ibid, p.14.
23 Than Myint-U (2001), The Making of Modern Burma, p. 83.
24 Ibid., p. 9.
25 Ibid., pp. 9-10
26 Ibid., pp. 9-10.
27 Melford E. Spiro (1977), Kinship and Marriage in Burma:
A Cultural and Psychodynamic Analysis, University of California
Press, London, p. 44.
28 Melford E. Spiro (1977), ibid., p.35.
29 Ibid
30 Ibid
31 Traditional Burmese proverb.
32Dr Maung Maung (1956), Op. Cit., p. 11.
33Martin Smith (1991), Burma: Insurgency and the Politics
of Ethnicity, White Lotus Co. Ltd, p. 32.
34 Robert Taylor (1957), Op. Cit. p.22.
35 Aung San Suu Kyi (1991) Freedom from Fear, p. 83.
36 Focar E.C.V (1946), They Reigned in Mandalay, Denis Dobson
Ltd., London.
37See Maung Htin Aung (1959) Folk Elements in Burmese Buddhism.
38 Ibid
39 Ibid
40 Dr. Maung Maung (1958) Burma in the Family of Nations,
p. 31.
41Thant Myint-U (2001), Op. Cit., p. 108.
42 Ibid., p. xiv.
43 Thant Myint-U (2001) Op. Cit. p. 220.
44 For a full account of the “Shoe Question”, see
U Thaung (1995), A Journalist, A General and an Army in Burma.
45 U Maung Maung (1980), From Sangha to Laity, p.14-15.
46 Mikael Cravers (1999), Nationalism as Political Paranoia
in Burma, p. 34.
47 ibid
48 Quoted in the BSPP Policy document, ‘The system of
correlation of Man and his Environment’ in, 1963, pp
50.
49 Saw Po Chit, Karen’s political future (1945-47): p.
170
50 BSPP (1963) ibid. p.31.
51 Gravers (1999) p. 130.
52 Graver Michael 1995. “Nationalism and Ethnism in the
Present World Order: A Brief Outline of Concepts’ In
Sefa M. Yurukel (ed), The Balkan war: Aarhus, Department of
Ethnography & Social Antropology, University of Asrhus,
pp.139-46
53 Successive Burmese military regimes have used the qualifier
of “the Burmese way” to justify their attempts at
politics, for example, the disastrous “Burmese way to
socialism”.
54 Paul James, (1996), Nation Formation: Towards a Theory
of Nation Formation, Sage Publications
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