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Myanmar in 2022: The Conflict Escalates
- Edited by Thi Ha Hoang, ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute, Daljit Singh, ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute
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- Southeast Asian Affairs 2023
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- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
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- 27 February 2024
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- 31 March 2023, pp 197-216
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Summary
In the aftermath of the February 2021 military coup, Myanmar saw an unprecedented uprising across the country. The violent military crackdown on what was once a widespread, peaceful movement has generated spontaneous revolutionary violence. This rapidly escalated into a full-blown civil war as the pro-democracy movement and its newly formed People's Defence Forces (PDFs) joined together with preexisting ethnic armed organizations. For most of 2021, the balance of power remained in favour of the junta. By contrast, in 2022, this appeared to be less so. The continued escalation of conflict across the country, combined with the mobilization of resistance forces around the common goal of defeating the military dictatorship, is an indication that a return to the status quo is no longer an option. In this context, this chapter examines Myanmar's political, socio-economic and foreign affairs dimensions, and highlights the strengths and challenges of both the junta, led by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, and the anti-coup movement. We explore how the revolutionary movement in Myanmar, or the “Spring Revolution”, gained ground in 2022 and, despite numerous weaknesses, began to represent a serious threat to the junta.1 We also examine the junta's military, political and economic actions and their consequences with a view to understanding the motivation behind these policies and decisions.
Intensifying Political and Armed Struggle
In 2022, the anti-junta movement, led by the National Unity Government (NUG), continued to strengthen its institutional structure, in particular with regard to local administration and revenue generation. Meanwhile, the State Administrative Council (SAC) took steps towards its 2023 election plans (which aim to legitimize the 2021 takeover) and intensified its violent crackdown and psychological warfare against the resistance. Looking at the competition of both actors over the allegiances of ethnic armed forces and the expansion of conflict areas, we argue that this indicates some shift in the balance of power in favour of anti-junta forces.
Political Developments in the Anti-coup Movement
While negotiations on a common political vision between the NUG and proresistance ethnic armed forces (now referred to as Ethnic Resistance Organizations, or EROs) are still under way, the anti-coup movement took steps to strengthen its institutional structures.
2 - Elucidating the Meaning of Democracy through Narrative
- Tamas Wells
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- Narrating Democracy in Myanmar
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 17 June 2021
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- 14 May 2021, pp 31-54
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Abstract
As opposed to the assumption of an ‘ideal type’ of democracy – which is present in much mainstream democratisation scholarship – the second chapter in this book begins by drawing on W.B. Gallie's notion of the ‘essential contestability’ of democracy. Meanings given to the word ‘democracy’ are inevitably open-ended and dependent on context. Recent interpretive studies have established the context-specif ic nature of meanings of democracy and sought to ‘elucidate’ meanings of democracy on their own terms. Chapter Two extends this work to show how attention to narratives can ground and locate meanings of democracy and expose the ways in which they can be wielded as political tools.
Keywords: democracy, interpretivism, narrative analysis, essential Contestability
Democracy is the inspiration for many social movements in today's world. But what does democracy mean to activists or political party leaders? If democracy does not have a taken-for-granted meaning, then understanding how meanings may vary – and how these differences might help to make sense of policy decision-making and political contests – is important. Before turning to the Myanmar context in the following chapters, my argument in this chapter is that an interpretivist approach, and in particular narrative analysis, can open new possibilities in elucidating the concept of democracy across varied linguistic, cultural and political contexts (Schaffer 2016).
From the work of Roe (1989) on complex public policy disputes, to Labov and Waletsky's (1997) seminal work in linguistics, and Moon's (2006) work on narratives of reconciliation, scholars have applied narrative theory in a range of academic disciplines. Some disciplines have even taken a so-called ‘narrative turn’ (Ospina & Dodge 2005). The distinguishing feature of this shift is the desire by researchers to use the framework of story to understand diverse, rather than universal, meanings of concepts or events, meanings that are temporally and spatially defined (Bacon 2012). Attention to plot and characters in the way concepts are communicated by political actors can generate new insights, both into how concepts are understood by these actors and how concepts are used politically to forward certain agendas while undermining others. It is surprising, then, that there is an absence of systematic application of narrative theory to the analysis of meanings of democracy within democracy and democratisation scholarship.
1 - Introduction
- Tamas Wells
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- Narrating Democracy in Myanmar
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 17 June 2021
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- 14 May 2021, pp 15-30
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Abstract
This chapter introduces the concept of narratives of democracy and links it to the context of Myanmar and the struggles between Burmese activists and democratic leaders, and international aid workers, over the meaning of democracy. It also provides an overview of the book's structure.
Keywords: Myanmar, elections, democracy, narrative, activists, aid
Nay Pyone Latt announced on Facebook that he had won. It was not unexpected. The well-known blogger was a candidate for Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), which was the favourite to win Myanmar's 2015 national elections. Yet, just a few years before, Nay Pyone Latt had been a political prisoner. During the countrywide 2007 protests, the so-called Saffron Revolution, the then seventeen-year-old had been accused by Burmese authorities of mobilising protest through blogs and videos. He was promptly sentenced to more than 20 years in prison. But in 2012, amidst a mass pardon of political prisoners by then President Thein Sein, Nay Pyone Latt was released. By evening on the day after the 2015 election it was clear that he had won his seat for the NLD in a landslide and would soon join the Yangon Region Parliament.
By that same evening, 9 November 2015, there were crowds massing on Shwe Gone Daing Road outside the NLD headquarters in Yangon. Most in the crowd had dark indelible ink stains on their little fingers as a mark that they had voted in the election. Many wore red T-shirts with a picture of Aung San Suu Kyi or red NLD headbands – with the distinctive white star and yellow peacock – while some waved NLD balloons or flags. News was emerging of a decisive victory in which the NLD ultimately won 255 of the 330 possible seats in the Pyithu Hluttaw, or lower house of parliament. The victory was seen by many local reporters and commentators as ushering in a new post-authoritarian era of government for the country.
The NLD victory was celebrated not only domestically but also internationally. Amongst media commentators and diplomats in Europe and North America, the 2015 elections were considered to be a pivotal moment in Myanmar's long struggle for democracy.
6 - A benevolence Narrative
- Tamas Wells
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- Narrating Democracy in Myanmar
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 17 June 2021
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This chapter describes an alternate narrative of democracy that centres around the value of sedana or benevolence. This narrative has three parts: the challenge of dictatorial leadership in Myanmar and the moral failure of citizens; the vision of a morally transformed society based on benevolent leadership and the values of unity and obligation; and a strategy of moral education to renew these values within society and promote discipline. This narrative highlights a moral rather than liberal vision – one in which the ability of individual political actors to transcend self-interest is of the highest importance. Proponents of this narrative emphasise that a focus on the narrow interests of particular individuals or groups will spark division and thereby undermine democracy – with the most immoral approach to politics being that of the ar nar shin (‘power-obsessed dictator’).
Keywords: National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, benevolence, moral, unity, discipline
In September 2019, Aung San Suu Kyi gave a speech for International Democracy Day in the nation's capital, Naypyidaw. In the previous year she had been stripped of multiple international awards for supporting human rights and democracy – as criticism of her and the NLD reached a crescendo following the crisis in Rakhine State. In the speech, Aung San Suu Kyi (2019) defines democracy as ‘people power’. Yet she stresses that this people power can be used both positively and negatively – it can be used for parahita (‘public interest’) or atta hita (‘self-interest’). ‘Some people think that democracy is just for self-gain’, Aung San Suu Kyi (ibid.) said, ‘basically, human beings are selfish. We can't ignore this fact, if we want a successful system. I would say democracy is a culture, rather than a system as it involves not only politics, but also social, economic and philosophical values.’ The key to these values of democracy, as opposed to a ‘system’, was ‘goodwill’. Aung San Suu Kyi (ibid.) concluded by saying that Myanmar must ‘realize democratic culture through true goodwill towards the country and mankind for the flourishing of democracy’.
Frontmatter
- Tamas Wells
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- Narrating Democracy in Myanmar
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 17 June 2021
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Index
- Tamas Wells
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- Narrating Democracy in Myanmar
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- 17 June 2021
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- 14 May 2021, pp 211-212
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5 - A liberal Narrative
- Tamas Wells
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- Narrating Democracy in Myanmar
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 17 June 2021
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- 14 May 2021, pp 95-118
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This chapter unpacks a liberal narrative of democracy. It grounds and locates the ways that many aid workers in Myanmar understood and communicated about democracy. The chapter outlines three elements of this narrative. First, most international aid workers involved in the research pointed toward the challenge of ethnic and religious divisions in the country. These aid workers described how divisions in Myanmar were perpetuated by a personalised political culture where formal institutions of democracy were insufficiently embedded. Second, aid agency representatives often expressed a vision of a formal procedure-based democracy supported by liberal values of human rights, pluralism and the protection of minorities. This vision also had a future orientation, where proponents of this narrative saw Myanmar's democratisation as being set within the context of other transitional countries around the world – moving away from traditional systems toward a democratic future. Third, many aid workers emphasised a strategy of government and civil society capacity building led by international aid agencies.
Keywords: donor agencies, liberal, democracy, aid, rights
In President Barack Obama's 2012 State of the Union address he declared that ‘a new beginning in Burma has lit a new hope’ (Obama 2012). This ‘new beginning’ was embodied in reforms by the Thein Sein government, such as the establishment of a new parliament, a gradual freeing of press censorship and the release of many long-term political prisoners – most notably Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Four months after Obama's State of the Union address, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton (2012) glowingly said that, ‘[a]fter decades of internal repression, we see dramatic and hopeful changes taking place in Burma. Here is a democratic transition unfolding in a peaceful, collaborative fashion – acclaimed by the domestic electorate and the international community.’ Western embassies in Myanmar likewise had buoyant expectations about Myanmar's progress. Over the following year, many OECD governments responded by easing longstanding sanctions against the Myanmar government and scaling up the budgets and presence of donor agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID).
3 - Toward the ‘Ocean of Democracy’?: The British Colonial Administration, the Thakin and Contests over Meanings of Democracy in late Colonial Burma
- Tamas Wells
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- Narrating Democracy in Myanmar
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 17 June 2021
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- 14 May 2021, pp 55-76
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To understand the dominant narratives described in this book, they need to be situated within the context of Myanmar's modern history and the ways different political actors – whether independence leaders, colonial administrators, military leaders or activists – have narrated that history. This is not an attempt to construct a unitary history of Myanmar, but rather to locate and uncover struggles over the meaning of democracy during these different periods and how they shape contemporary political uses of the word ‘democracy’ amongst the networks of activists and democratic leaders that I studied. The third chapter explores the example of contrasting meanings of democracy between British colonial administrators and the Thakin independence leaders in the late colonial period in Burma.
Keywords: Burma, British, colonial, Aung San, democracy, independence
In 1937, Chief Secretary to the colonial Government of Burma Frank Burton Leach published his work, The Future of Burma. According to Leach, there was a global current of politics which had ‘for the last century been carrying mankind towards the Ocean of Democracy’ (Leach 1937: 138). Leach considered the West to be the ‘centre of the stream’, while the East ‘has for the most part been left in backwaters along the banks’ (ibid.: 138). He concluded, however, that ‘the East has been gradually sucked into the main stream’ (ibid.). Late colonial Burma, with the support of the British, was moving toward the ‘Ocean of Democracy’.
Yet these were tumultuous times. There were waves of strikes and protests throughout Burma in 1938 and significant mobilisation of opposition to British rule. The Thakin movement was instrumental in this social mobilisation and in the years before the Second World War, ‘democratic freedom’ became a prominent goal for these independence activists (Aung San 1993a [1945]: 81). Yet, between colonial officials such as Leach and the Burmese Thakin, ‘democracy’ took deeply contrasting meanings. There was intense contest between British and Burmese elites in the late colonial period, not just over a transition to self-rule but over the meaning of democracy itself, and political rivals used contrasting narratives as tools to outflank their opponents.
Foreword
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- By Tamas Wells
- Tamas Wells
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- Book:
- Narrating Democracy in Myanmar
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 17 June 2021
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- 14 May 2021, pp 11-14
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Summary
It is two weeks since Myanmar's military coup. Thousands of protesters are on the streets around the country, police in bulletproof vests and riot shields are setting up perimeter lines on major roads and using water cannons to disperse crowds, and a widespread civil disobedience movement is gaining momentum with employees in many sectors refusing to work. State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and many National League for Democracy (NLD) leaders have been detained, along with a number of activists. This military seizure of power is an incredibly distressing turn for those who have participated in the research for this book and who have devoted much of their lives to service of their country. It is with admiration for their bravery and commitment that I write this foreword.
One striking thing about the days following the coup – and a point which is at the heart of this book – is the degree to which the language of democracy is infused in communication, from military elites, foreign diplomats and protesters alike. As General Min Aung Hlaing attempted to justify the seizure of power, he did so through the language of democracy – by questioning the legitimacy of the November 2020 election and promising to hold fresh ‘free and fair’ elections which would bring about a ‘discipline flourishing democracy’. On the streets in Yangon, Naypyidaw and Bago protesters held signs saying, ‘Fight for democracy’ and ‘We want democracy’. North American and European leaders meanwhile condemned the coup and called for a restoration of democracy. Despite the vast gulf in aspirations and hopes for the country between Tatmadaw elites, NLD leaders, radical young activists, international aid workers and Western diplomats, the word democracy remained part of all their messages.
Before the coup, it was clear that the democratic visions of NLD leadership were being challenged on a number of flanks. On one flank, the last five years have underscored the divergence between the democratic visions of the NLD and those of a Western style liberal democracy – brought most obviously to light through issues of protection of Muslim minorities or freedom of the press.
9 - Beyond an ‘Ideal type’
- Tamas Wells
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- Book:
- Narrating Democracy in Myanmar
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 17 June 2021
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- 14 May 2021, pp 187-198
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This case of activists, democratic leaders and aid workers in Myanmar – and the ways in which they communicate about democracy – reveals lessons that can be applied more broadly to endeavours to understand democracy promotion around the world. This chapter addresses both the democracy-promotion literature and also the practical implications for practitioners working on governance or democracy programs in international donor agencies or NGOs.
Keywords: democracy promotion, narrative, donor agencies, aid, liberal
This case of activists, democratic leaders and aid workers in Myanmar – and the ways in which they communicate about democracy – reveals lessons that can be applied more broadly to endeavours to understand democracy promotion around the world. In this chapter, I address both the democracypromotion literature and also practical implications for practitioners working on governance or democracy programs in international donor agencies or NGOs.
Before addressing these implications, however, I recap the significance of this study for consideration of meanings of democracy. As described in Chapter Two, I have taken a different path to that of mainstream studies of democracy. Rather than beginning with an ‘ideal type’ from which to analyse meanings that citizens or political actors give to the word ‘democracy’, I have instead drawn on Gallie's (1956) notion of ‘essentially contestable concepts’. Using ‘essential contestability’ as the conceptual foundation allows meanings of democracy, in countries like Myanmar, to be considered on their own terms rather than as pale reflections of an ideal democracy that exists elsewhere.
There are, of course, few democratisation scholars who would deny that there is normative contestation over how democracy should be practiced, for example, with the participation of women, the practice of voting, and so on. However, the case of activists and democratic leaders in Myanmar reveals contests over both the practice of democracy and also contests over the very components of the concept of democracy itself. This is a crucial distinction. The liberal, benevolence and equality narratives portray profoundly different versions of challenges, visions and strategies related to democracy in Myanmar. It is this finding that supports Gallie's (1956) arguments and challenges notions of an ‘ideal type’ of democratic values and institutions that transcends cultural or temporal context.
Contents
- Tamas Wells
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- Narrating Democracy in Myanmar
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 17 June 2021
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- 14 May 2021, pp 5-6
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Narrating Democracy in Myanmar
- The Struggle Between Activists, Democratic Leaders and Aid Workers
- Tamas Wells
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- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
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- 14 May 2021
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This book analyses what Myanmar's struggle for democracy has signified to Burmese activists and democratic leaders, and to their international allies. In doing so, it explores how understanding contested meanings of democracy helps make sense of the country's tortuous path since Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won historic elections in 2015. Using Burmese and English language sources, Narrating Democracy in Myanmar reveals how the country's ongoing struggles for democracy exist not only in opposition to Burmese military elites, but also within networks of local activists and democratic leaders, and international aid workers.
10 - Playing Different Games: Myanmar’s Future Challenges
- Tamas Wells
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- Narrating Democracy in Myanmar
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 17 June 2021
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- 14 May 2021, pp 199-210
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Drawing on this history of conceptual contests over democracy in Myanmar, this chapter looks forward to how contests over the meaning of democracy might shape areas of political decision-making and policy in Myanmar over the coming decade. How might the particular examples of narratives, and their political use – within activist networks, the NLD and aid agencies – apply to the future of Myanmar's politics? What challenges might there be for activists, democratic leaders and aid agencies through future contests over the meaning of democracy?
Keywords: Myanmar, elections, benevolence, National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi
I began this book with reflections on the historic election victory of the NLD, which catapulted the long suffering NLD party, and Aung San Suu Kyi, into power. Much of the rest of this book has been oriented to look back from that pivotal moment in 2015 – to the transition after 2010, to the decades of authoritarian rule, and then even further back to the independence era and the late colonial period in Burma. Drawing on this history of conceptual contests over democracy, in this chapter, I now look forward to how contests over the meaning of democracy might shape areas of political decision-making and policy in Myanmar over the coming decade. How might the particular examples of narratives, and their political use, that I have described within activist networks, the NLD and aid agencies apply to the future of Myanmar's politics? What challenges might there be for activists, democratic leaders and aid agencies through future contests over the meaning of democracy?
Since the 2015 elections there have been many attempts to identify the core future challenges that Myanmar faces – related to political leadership (Blaževič 2016; Barany 2018; Roman & Holliday 2018), Muslim minorities and citizenship (Kosem & Saleem 2016; Win & Kean 2017; Ahsan 2018; Mukherjee 2019), ethnic conflict and peace (Dukalskis 2017; Ganesan 2017; South 2018; Wilson 2018) and ongoing military influence in politics and the economy (Huang 2017; Selth 2018). Most analysts implicitly or explicitly ask, as Roman and Holliday (2018) do, ‘What are the prospects for liberal democracy in Myanmar?’ Some authors are hopeful of movement toward liberal democracy (Blaževič 2016), or at least ‘cautiously optimistic’ (Steinberg 2015).
Acknowledgements
- Tamas Wells
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- Narrating Democracy in Myanmar
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 17 June 2021
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4 - Burma after Independence: From Moral to ‘Disciplined’ Democracy
- Tamas Wells
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- Narrating Democracy in Myanmar
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 17 June 2021
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- 14 May 2021, pp 77-94
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By examining other examples of conceptual contest over the meaning of democracy in Myanmar's history, the fourth chapter follows through the periods of parliamentary and military rule in the twentieth century, and then through the recent transition to democracy. This highlights how key conceptual contests in Myanmar's history informed the contrasting ways democracy is understood and communicated amongst activists and democratic leaders today.
Keywords: Burma, U Nu, independence, Tatmadaw, socialist, disciplined Democracy
Following the end of the Second World War in 1945, British colonial resources in Southeast Asia were exhausted and the Burmese movement for independence gained momentum. After negotiations in London, British Prime Minister Attlee finally conceded that the British would grant Burma independence in 1948. The AFPFL convincingly won general elections in 1947 – to determine the composition of the future government of Burma – and Aung San was thrust into national leadership. Ironically though, while resisting British colonial rule, the formal institutions adopted in the new 1947 Constitution were largely structured around the British Westminster ‘prototype’ (Maung Maung Gyi 1983: 87).
This chapter examines the period from Burma's independence until the first political and economic liberalisations under the Thein Sein government from 2011. I first focus on the AFPFL leadership after independence and the ways in which, during the parliamentary period, meanings of democracy took a moral turn, focussing on the value of unity amidst the chaos of multiple civil wars and party division. I then examine the lurch to the military leadership under General Ne Win and the reaction against the perceived immaturity of parliamentary government. Finally, I highlight the emergence of democracy movement leaders, particularly Aung San Suu Kyi, and their reaction against the military assumptions of ‘disciplined democracy’ and a guardian role for the Tatmadaw. Overall, this chapter is not an attempt to construct a unitary history of Myanmar but rather to locate and uncover struggles over the meaning of democracy during these different periods and how they shape contemporary political uses of the word ‘democracy’.
Abbreviations
- Tamas Wells
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- Narrating Democracy in Myanmar
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- 17 June 2021
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7 - An Equality Narrative
- Tamas Wells
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- Narrating Democracy in Myanmar
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 17 June 2021
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- 14 May 2021, pp 147-168
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This chapter examines an equality narrative of democracy that was drawn on within some networks of activists, and which was largely a reaction against the benevolence narrative described in the previous chapter. This narrative has three components – the core challenge of hierarchy within Burmese society, a vision of personal or relational equality and a strategy of cultural reform. Proponents of this narrative saw the emphasis on values of unity and obligation within the benevolence narrative, and the implicit hierarchies that these values create, as deeply problematic for the country's democratisation.
Keywords: activism, Myanmar, equality, Aung San Suu Kyi, democracy
In the lead up to the 2015 elections, I sat in the upstairs office of a Burmeselanguage journal publisher, speaking with prominent writer and activist Daw Thandar Win. Thandar Win had written a number of articles about the rapid political transitions in Myanmar. Yet, along with her critique of the role of the military in politics, she was also deeply critical of Burmese political culture, even within the democracy movement itself. She described ‘Burmese thinking’ as ‘locked up’, insisting that new leaders, even those within the NLD, would not be able to solve the inherent problem in Myanmar of relational inequality. If political leaders emphasise the values of unity and obligation, she argued, this simply reinforces an undemocratic culture. Crucially, she suggested that new formal democratic institutions would also fail to treat the core problem, which was seen to be cultural rather than procedural. The primary problem was not the personalised nature of politics, but rather the hierarchical values fostered within that personalised system. These hierarchical values were seen by Daw Thandar Win to be an unresolved obstacle to Burmese democracy.
To this point, my unpacking of meanings of democracy amongst Burmese democratic leaders, activists and international aid workers has emphasised two contrasting ways in which democracy was narrated. In this chapter, I outline an equality narrative of democracy that was drawn on within some networks of activists, and which was largely a reaction against the benevolence narrative described in the previous chapter.
8 - Exposing the Political use of Narratives
- Tamas Wells
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- Narrating Democracy in Myanmar
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- Amsterdam University Press
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- 17 June 2021
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- 14 May 2021, pp 169-186
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This chapter turns to the task of exposing the ways that meanings of democracy are wielded politically by networks of aid workers, activists and democratic leaders in Myanmar. Rather than narratives being neutral or objective, it describes how understandings and communication about democracy are embedded within unequal relations of power. Activists and aid workers use narratives of democracy to position themselves in relation to rivals and to establish themselves and their allies as experts who can define what ‘genuine’ democracy is and is not. Narratives are a tool through which activists, opposition leaders and aid workers can exercise power in a discursive form.
Keywords: interpretivism, narrative, Myanmar, democracy, contest
In the terms of Schaffer (2016), the ‘elucidation’ of concepts requires the intellectual tasks of grounding, locating and exposing. I have devoted the previous three chapters to describing contrasting storylines of democracy drawn on by activists, democratic leaders and aid workers – the liberal, benevolence and equality narratives. These chapters have firstly focussed on the task of grounding the concept of democracy by examining how key political actors themselves understand democracy and democratisation in Myanmar. The previous three chapters have also focussed on locating these meanings of democracy – tracing out the historical and cultural embeddedness of the narratives and how they have been produced by political actors. It is clear from this grounding and locating of the meaning of democracy that democratic leaders and activists in Myanmar, and their supporters, were not all running toward the same finishing line. Tracing out different narratives, with their origins, overlaps and distinctions, can make the actions and beliefs of Burmese and international political actors more comprehensible.
Having laid these foundations in the previous chapters, this chapter turns to the task of exposing the ways that meanings of democracy are wielded politically by networks of aid workers, activists and democratic leaders in Myanmar. Rather than narratives being neutral or objective, I describe how understandings and communication about democracy are embedded within unequal relations of power.
7 - Advocacy Organizations and Special Economic Zones in Myanmar
- from Part III - Places
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- By Pyae Phyo Maung, Yangon-based aid and development consultant specialising in monitoring, evaluation and learning., Tamas Wells, Research fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne.
- Edited by Justine Chambers, Gerard McCarthy, Nicholas Farrelly, Chit Win
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- Myanmar Transformed?
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- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
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- 12 February 2019
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- 20 September 2018, pp 161-180
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Summary
The Myanmar government announced in January 2012 that, due to environmental concerns, they had cancelled plans for the construction of a coal-fired power plant in Dawei, in the south of the country. The proposed power plant was to produce 4,000 MW, making it one of the largest coal-fired power plants in the region. It was also part of larger plans for a deep-sea port and Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Dawei—a project led by Thailand's largest building contractor, Italian-Thai Development. In the lead-up to the cancellation of the coal-fired power plant, there had been significant mobilization of local citizens in Dawei in opposition to it, involving distribution of information about the power plant, use of local media, and protests. Local activist groups had also established transnational links including with advocacy organizations in Thailand and in Europe.
This incident, which was early in the period of the Thein Sein government, highlighted the unique place of Special Economic Zones at the intersection between, on one hand, economic liberalization, and on the other hand, political liberalization in Myanmar. The shift away from authoritarian military governance to the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) government under U Thein Sein, and then to the National League for Democracy (NLD) government after the 2015 elections, facilitated increased flows of investment into development projects such as the planned Dawei development project. Yet on the other hand, the end of direct rule by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) also ushered in greater freedoms and opportunities for citizens to network, mobilize and oppose development projects when the projects diverged from their hopes or visions.
The SPDC government under General Than Shwe sought to control citizens and local organizations largely through coercion and the threat of crackdown. The operation of social or political organizations during these periods thus depended often on avoidance of, rather than engagement with, the state (Fink 2001). This legacy of military rule remains, to some degree, in the relations between communities, government and companies in SEZs. Yet there have also been striking changes since 2011 in the forms of contentious politics in Myanmar. Many advocacy organizations are seeking to engage the state and businesses through formal institutions and through forging new direct relationships with policymakers.
12 - Making sense of reactions to communal violence in Myanmar
- from Part IV - Us and Them
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- By Tamas Wells, University of Melbourne
- Edited by Nick Cheesman, Nicholas Farrelly
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- Book:
- Conflict in Myanmar
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- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
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- 22 July 2017
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- 01 August 2016, pp 245-260
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Summary
In June 2012 the rape and murder of a Buddhist girl in Western Rakhine State sparked reprisals against Muslim communities. The resulting cycles of communal violence in the following months left hundreds dead, and thousands displaced. The tensions in Rakhine State continued through 2012, and by early 2013 the violence began to spread to other areas of the country. In Meiktila, in the country's central dry zone, a dispute in a jewellery store saw an escalation of violence and the burning of significant parts of the Muslim quarter, including mosques and schools. Through the rest of 2013 tensions remained high, and there continued to be isolated incidents of violence, especially in Rakhine State.
In October 2013, Mishal Husain interviewed Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on the BBC's Today programme. When asked about growing communal conflict between Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar, Suu Kyi responded, “This is what the world needs to understand: that the fear is not just on the side of the Muslims, but on the side of the Buddhists as well. Yes, Muslims have been targeted, but also Buddhists have been subjected to violence” (BBC 2013). And when finally asked pointedly whether she condemned the anti-Muslim violence, she replied that, “I condemn any movement that is based on hatred and extremism” (BBC 2013).
Over the next few days, Suu Kyi was heavily criticized by the Western media for supposedly defending Buddhist extremism. Daily Telegraph reporter David Blair said that the interview had “sent a shiver down my spine” and that her attitudes toward Muslims were “deeply disturbing” (Blair 2013). Others described the interview as a “fall from grace” from the democracy icon (4News). One commentator even suggested that Suu Kyi should now be “shunned by the international community” (4News). While this condemnation was focused specifically on Aung San Suu Kyi, it was representative of a shift that was also taking place in the attitudes of the international aid community toward the democracy movement.
Previously, like Suu Kyi, democracy activists and opposition leaders had been considered allies of Western aid organizations’ interests in the country. Yet this perception shifted dramatically with the contrasting reactions to reports of violence against Muslims.