Breaking Newsrooms: Ethnonationalism and Myanmar’s Future

Picture: David Brenner

In an article by New Mandala, Dabid Brenner dives into the crisis in Myanmar.

The biggest challenge to peace in Myanmar is the country’s military and its attempt to terrorise the population into submission. But while the generals are chiefly responsible for dragging the country towards the abyss, there is a need to reckon with the underlying structural features of Myanmar’s state, which have haunted the country since British colonial rule. Since an attempt to negotiate power between ethnic groups failed at the eve of independence in 1947, the state has not been able to address ethnic minority grievances or forge a unified national identity.

Ethnonational conflict has also long been exacerbated by the country’s leaders, who have sowed ethnic division and violence for decades. The military has maintained its longstanding stranglehold over the country precisely because generals have used the threat of ethnic separatism to portray themselves as the “guardians of the nation”. These generals have turned Myanmar into an ethnocratic state that discriminates against ethnic minorities, or ethnic nationalities, who make up about 40% of the population. Ethnic conflict has consequently remained a defining feature of the postcolonial state.