Burma Needs Inter-Ethnic and Inter-Class Solidarity

By Dr Zarni

The world knows plenty about Aung San Suu Kyi and what she represents. But it knows almost nothing about the generals beyond their international pariah status.
Self-styled Burma experts attest to this general ignorance of the essence of military rule and the psyche of those in power in Naypyidaw.


In private policy circles and public forums, many of these tea-leaf-readers continue to discuss a myriad of the country’s problems, still without putting their finger on the single most fundamental issue which most broadly accounts for the people’s daily misery and country’s bleak future. 
Is it “bad governance?” Is it Snr-Gen Than Shwe’s callous leadership with its characteristic total disregard for public welfare?  Is it the military’s persecution of ethnic nationalities (or minorities)?  Is it widespread human rights violations?  Is it the war crimes, which the Tatmataw, Burma's armed forces, are allegedly committing, especially in ethnic conflict zones?  Or is it the country’s kleptocratic, repressive, and pathological state?  Is it the predatory neighbors?

Of course, one would be tempted to tick the box “all of the above” and argue that specific problems – the regime’s failure, for example, to provide public services in health, education and social security or to set up an adequate and functioning system of agricultural credits for the country’s farmers, who make up the bulk of the population—need to be addressed, while waiting for the revolution to deliver.

However, Burma’s fundamental problem is not just about leadership, policy failure, dysfunctional institutions, rights abuses or fractured opposition movements. 
Categorically speaking, Burma is confronted with nothing less than a full-scale pathological process of internal colonization, this time by its own military. This is an evolutionary process which was set in motion within the past 50 years, at least since the coup of 1962 decisively established one-party military rule, where the military and the State became coterminous or two-sides of a coin.
Indeed, Burma’s problems can best be understood as those of a colonial order.  


Sixty-two years after independence from Britain, Burma has evolved into a dual-colony in which the population of more than 50 million citizens is being herded into a political space via the Orwellian “7-steps road map for democracy.”  The ruling military clique backed by its 400,000-strong military will continue to make all decisions with massive societal and ecological consequences for the whole population; only this time their decisions are going to be made to sound constitutionally mandated, and in accord with the laws of the land.  

Further, this small group of men subscribe to an irredeemably myopic and toxic version of ethno-nationalism which refashions Burma along the old feudal lines where the majority “Burmese and Buddhists,” as defined by these men in generals’ uniform, will be more equal in their Union of Republic of Myanmar. 

Needless to say, the generals will pay lip service to ethnic unity and create nominal space for the ethnic people while pursuing “divide and rule” as the overarching strategy. Substantial numbers of electoral seats won by the Shan and Arakanese parties which some analysts have hailed as “symbolic victories” look rather fishy in light of the looming “counterinsurgency” operations against the Karen, the Kachin, the Karenni and others. 

It is worth stressing that the ruling generals have rejected the federal spirit of ethnic equality and violently opposed any struggle towards a genuine federated Union.  They have declared dead the Panglong Agreement of 1947, the founding document of a modern, post-colonial Burma, wherein ethnic equality was enshrined as an inviolable pillar of multi-ethnic Burma.
In Burma’s new colonial rule under its own military, anything and anyone that doesn’t bend to the generals’ will is to be controlled, subjugated or crushed.  

Suu Kyi and ethnic minority leaders, whether armed or not, are heading on an inevitable collision course with Burma’s military junta.  For they have made repeated calls for national and ethnic reconciliation as well as genuine public expressions of inter-ethnic solidarity,
The last thing any colonial power would want and would tolerate is social and ethnic solidarity across communities, regions and classes. 

For those who have viewed the emerging parliamentary and formal political processes as the only space in which the people’s voices can be heard, policies debated and public welfare advanced, it is time for a serious rethinking and soul-searching.