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2 - Myanmar’s Post-coup Crisis: Reflections on a History of Failed Nation Building
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- By Khin Zaw Win
- Edited by Justine Chambers, Australian National University, Canberra, Michael R. Dunford, Australian National University, Canberra
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- Book:
- Myanmar in Crisis
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 01 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 26 June 2023, pp 31-40
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Summary
What Myanmar1 is currently experiencing is often referred to as a ‘post-coup crisis’. Within the country, people call it the ‘Spring Revolution’, because it began in February, Myanmar's ‘Spring’. As significant parts of the country descended under armed conflict, political analysts and pundits began to start speaking of ‘civil war’ and the concept of a ‘failed state’. All these terms are accurate to some extent and reflect a certain kind of reality. And yet, they are inadequate and incomplete. In a world where unspeakable happenings occur almost daily, those who write pieces on Myanmar for the media will find the words ‘crisis’ and ‘tragedy’ a common feature of their news articles. In Myanmar we see and encounter such things with numbing regularity. And yet even we, ourselves, have not come up with a common term or phrase to label what we are faced with on a daily basis.
By calling it a ‘cataclysm’ one comes closer to the mark. Sifting through different descriptive terms of trauma goes together with plumbing the nature of the upheaval. An outsider may not comprehend the magnitude of the trauma and the depth of suffering that is being experienced — or indeed, that has been experienced collectively over the course of our history. That is one reason the remedies prescribed by external actors (like ‘dialogue’ for instance) fall flat on Myanmar ears. The United Nations and its various representatives have become the butt of jokes for their repeated expressions of ‘concern’. Because what is happening is unprecedented in living memory. While one can go back a number of decades to look at comparable circumstances, those cases simply don't do justice to the present. To the fear, uncertainty, exhaustion, sadness, anxiety, confusion and overall deep sense of utter devastation at what has and continues to take place on a daily basis.
One event that comes to mind is the fall of the Kingdom of Burma, etched into the history books by the deposition and exile of the last King, Thibaw, and annexation to the British Empire in 1886. Not many people are aware that the subsequent ‘pacification’ of the country took ten more years, and the deployment of 60,000 troops from the British Empire to quell various forms of resistance.
2 - 2010 and the Unfinished Task of Nation-building
- from Part II - Political Legitimacy, Governance and Justice
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- By Khin Zaw Win
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- Book:
- Ruling Myanmar
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 21 October 2015
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2010, pp 19-31
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Summary
INTRODUCTION
The term “nation-building” is enjoying a revival in scholarly circles as well as becoming common in international politics. It has come to prominence in the debate on failing states, conflict management and development theory. In the post-colonial nation-states of South and Southeast Asia particularly, it has been on the political agenda since the 1950s (Derichs and Heberer 2006). This earlier usage needs to be distinguished from the term now widely being used, especially in the United States, to mean creating a “nation” in a country undergoing conflict. The latter usage denotes the employment of armed force and civil authority in putting together a workable government in a country recovering from war or still embroiled in it. There is a growing literature on this, but the meaning differs greatly from that intended in this paper.
Anthony Smith defines the nation as “a named human population which shares myths and memories, a mass public culture, a designated homeland, economic unity, and equal rights and duties for all members” (1995, pp. 56–57). It does not take much effort to realize that by this definition Myanmar still has a long way to go before attaining nationhood. At the present time, there is little sharing of myths among its peoples, and there would be marked differences particularly in the memories of the post-independence period, which has been witness to what is perhaps the longest-running civil conflict in the world.
According to Jochen Hippler (1998), nation-building consists of three major elements:
An integrative ideology, that might be nationalist, but could also be religious, racist, developmentalist, or shaped along other lines, as long as it provides for integrating the sub-groups of the inhabitants of a country into one society.
An integrated society, with its several elements communicating more often with each other than with outsiders. This implies a “nationwide” integration of geographic regions, economic sectors, and politics. It also presupposes a functioning infrastructure and intellectual discourse of “national” scale.
An existing state apparatus, which actually fulfils its functions on all of the national territory.
12 - Reality Check on the Sanctions Policy against Myanmar
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- By Khin Zaw Win
- Edited by N. Ganesan, Kyaw Yin Hlaing
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- Book:
- Myanmar
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 21 October 2015
- Print publication:
- 08 February 2007, pp 278-288
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Summary
Introduction
The political upheaval of 1988 and its aftermath occasioned violent excesses committed by both the military-backed one-party state and its direct-military rule successor, as well as by groups of angry citizens. As a result of actions of the government, while feelings ran high, a retaliatory international response was demanded. The United States, Japan and other donor countries either terminated or cut back their aid programmes, and an arms embargo was imposed.
At the same time foreign governments adopted a wait-and-see attitude with regard to the expected changeover to a democratic political system. General elections were held in May 1990, although without any previous provisions for a transfer of power. The outcome of those elections led to expectations, unrealistic in the end, of a swift end to military government.
Two intertwined issues need to be looked at — the transition to democracy and the international measures deployed to bring about this change. More specifically, the intention is to gauge how skilfully or unskilfully various actors have gone about achieving both outcomes. It should be noted that broad sanctions were not applied until much later, by which time things in the domestic political scene had deteriorated quite badly in terms of a quick handover of power. It is very much the case of a long, slow slide to failure and stalemate.
Against the backdrop of uncertainty, misery and hope that pervades this period, a closer analysis of events, actions and attitudes reveals a number of significant portents that presaged the present breakdown in relations between the military regime and the democratic opposition, particularly the National League for Democracy (NLD). In September 1988 then-president Dr Maung Maung had announced that all state employees were required to resign from the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP), the only legal party at that time. This act meant that not only the carpet but the very floor beneath that party was removed — in fact, sounding the death knell to the organization.