Ethnonationalism and Myanmar’s future – New Mandala

Observers within the West have largely interpreted the devastating violence that has engulfed Myanmar following the February 2021 navy coup as a “battle between democracy and authoritarianism”. This understanding has develop into commonplace amongst journalists, researchers, and policymakers describing the battle. The battle for democracy has certainly lengthy served as the primary analytical lens by way of which Myanmar’s troubled politics are interpreted in Washington, London, Brussels and Canberra. This emphasis on Myanmar’s political system, nonetheless, fails to account for the basis causes and key dynamics of the disaster. The disaster is just not merely a conflict over governance fashions, however a basic battle over the identification and construction of the nation-state itself.

Extra problematically, the “lens of democracy” renders these root causes of battle invisible. It does so by viewing the nation-state because the pure type of political organising. However state formation in Myanmar has remained extremely contested. It has additionally develop into inseparable from violence alongside ethnic traces: in a area the place colonial modernity has imprinted questions of ethnicity into the trajectory of state-making, ethnonational politics form Myanmar’s present disaster in a profound method. Shifting our focus to such ethnonational politics is due to this fact key to understanding the primary drivers of the battle, and by extension, how coverage can help a extra peaceable future within the nation.

Rethinking the drivers of battle

The most important problem to peace in Myanmar is the nation’s navy and its try to terrorise the inhabitants into submission. However whereas the generals are mainly chargeable for dragging the nation in direction of the abyss, there’s a must reckon with the underlying structural options of Myanmar’s state, which have haunted the nation since British colonial rule. Since an try to barter energy between ethnic teams failed on the eve of independence in 1947, the state has not been capable of tackle ethnic minority grievances or forge a unified nationwide identification.

Ethnonational battle has additionally lengthy been exacerbated by the nation’s leaders, who’ve sowed ethnic division and violence for many years. The navy has maintained its longstanding stranglehold over the nation exactly as a result of generals have used the specter of ethnic separatism to painting themselves because the “guardians of the nation”. These generals have turned Myanmar into an ethnocratic state that discriminates towards ethnic minorities, or ethnic nationalities, who make up about 40% of the inhabitants. Ethnic battle has consequently remained a defining characteristic of the postcolonial state.

The military-controlled Ministry of Border Affairs within the Naga-Self Administered Zone, Nanyun, January 2018 (Picture: David Brenner)

Many ethnic nationalities have resisted institutional discrimination for many years, together with by taking on arms towards the central state. The navy has responded with waging battle towards them, portray them as inner enemies of the nation. This technique has develop into the navy’s key technique of state making, and it’s why the navy has lengthy fuelled ethnic tensions with divide-and rule techniques. It continues to take action within the present battle with devastating penalties. On account of the navy’s divisive techniques, a large number of ethnonational insurgent actions, often called Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs), have mobilised throughout the nation. Along with preventing for extra autonomy for his or her respective constituents, EAOs have constructed de facto states inside the state in territories which have by no means been completely managed by the navy.

EAOs have performed a essential function within the present countrywide armed mobilisation, together with the formation of Individuals’s Defence Forces (PDFs) which have taken up arms towards the junta. Some EAOs, equivalent to these of the Karen, Chin, Karenni, and Kachin, aligned themselves with the Spring Revolution early on and have sheltered, educated, and organised armed resistance items on a big scale. However even EAOs who’ve saved a distance from the countrywide marketing campaign for democracy, such because the Ta’ang, Kokang, Arakan, and Wa actions, have confirmed instrumental within the armed rebellion throughout Myanmar. Their non-state territories and guerrilla logistics have helped to scale up the navy capabilities of armed opposition forces countrywide.

The fast unravelling of navy management over giant swathes of territory, together with city centres within the nation’s borderlands since late 2023, is a direct consequence of unprecedented EAO offensives. But regardless of their current coordination, EAOs observe completely different methods. Certainly, the aforementioned escalation was spearheaded by EAOs which have remained sceptical in regards to the Spring Revolution. However their positioning on the revolution, the primary concern of all EAOs stays autonomy for his or her ethnic constituents. The important thing distinction is that some EAOs search to realize this autonomy in nearer cooperation with the countrywide revolution for federal democracy, whereas others search to realize it extra independently.

AA commander Twan Mrat Naing within the group’s non permanent Kachin State headquarters, March 2014 (Picture: David Brenner)

Twan Mrat Naing, commander of the Arakan Military (AA), one of the vital highly effective EAOs within the nation, illuminated the latter place to journalists in 2022. Explaining why his motion didn’t be a part of fingers with the Spring Revolution after the coup he acknowledged, “Our primary goal is ‘Rakhita,’ to win again our misplaced sovereignty. The earlier generations in Arakan wasted quite a lot of time in following and supporting the Burmese … Arakan was even concerned within the 1988 motion to revive democracy, however didn’t reap any advantages.” He continued, “After such experiences, we now not need to observe the Burmese. We need to work in direction of our personal goals. It’s our strategic place to stay at a distance from the continuing battle for democracy now in Burma.”

Importantly, although, these positions are usually not fastened, and proceed to evolve with the quickly growing scenario. For this reason EAOs can’t simply be divided into two camps. The Ta’ang Nationwide Liberation Military, as an illustration, voiced robust considerations towards a more in-depth alliance with the opposition Nationwide Unity Authorities (NUG) in late 2022. Since then, it has quickly developed alliances with NUG-affiliated PDFs. The motion presently seeks to cooperate with the Civil Disobedience Motion (CDM) to revive public providers within the territory that it has captured in its offensives since final October. In a current interview, the AA’s Twan Mrat Naing defined how evolving relations with different resistance forces has additionally formed his outlook over the previous two years. He confused the necessity for constructing extra alliances and partnerships and adopting a “holistic view that accounts for your entire union and our surrounding atmosphere.” In his perspective, this isn’t inconsistent with “the confederation that Rakhine has been advocating” (quite than a federal union).

Discovering avenues for peace

Ethnonational politics in Myanmar are usually not solely a power of battle—they’ve additionally lengthy labored as one of many primary determinants of native stability. Because the state has by no means completely ruled its territory, EAOs have been working non-state administration for many years. These different political orders are particularly subtle in Myanmar’s borderlands with China and Thailand, the place organisations such because the Karen Nationwide Union (KNU) and the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) have lengthy remained influential governance actors. Their administrations are instrumental in delivering well being and training to a whole lot of hundreds of conflict-affected folks. They’ve additionally develop into essential worldwide companions, as demonstrated by their essential function in humanitarian aid assist, refugee safety, and regional pandemic responses.

A nurse prepares an anaesthetic within the KIO-operated hospital of Laiza. March 2014 (Picture: David Brenner)

Mainstream accounts within the literature on “insurgent governance” fail to adequately seize the various features of EAO administrations. EAO governance is just not solely an instrumental means to energy, with which insurgent teams ship public providers in return for native help and legitimacy. A purely regulative perspective that highlights the upkeep of public order can also be inadequate. Reasonably, EAO governance is primarily about fostering nationwide sovereignty in ethnic nationality communities. Put in a different way, EAO governance is about nation-building.

What does this imply for Myanmar’s future and potential avenues for peace? At a time when a number of EAOs are drastically increasing their territories, their governance apparatuses and nation-building ambitions are increasing, too. Whereas most such claims precede the navy coup, they’ve develop into extra delicate with the fast enlargement of EAOs. This presents an elevated threat of inter-EAO battle over territorial claims. (That stated, northern Shan State, a spot the place inter-EAO relations have lengthy been tense, additionally showcases that EAOs are principally pragmatic in addressing such battle with one another.)

Extra urgent are problems with inclusivity and accountability. EAOs govern over ethnically heterogeneous populations, and this heterogeneity has solely elevated with their present territorial features. This turns into notably worrisome in areas the place communal battle predates the present disaster. As an illustration, experiences of the AA’s assaults on Rohingya communities, its inflammatory anti-Rohingya rhetoric, and intimidation of civil society rightfully elevate alarm bells. Nevertheless, we should not tar all EAOs with the identical brush. EAOs are massively numerous organisations, with an enormous number of ideological leanings, historic experiences, inner governance mechanisms, and materials circumstances.

Some EAOs have produced extra accountable and inclusive relations with native communities than others. The KNU and the KIO, as an illustration, have an extended custom of partaking with civil society actors. These actors have performed an essential function in spearheading new types of accountable governance, equivalent to within the case of the Salween Peace Park, a land rights and conservation venture led by Karen activists in collaboration with the KNU. The KNU and KIO additionally function intensive non-state training programs that help ethnic variety. Whereas their curricula stresses mother-tongue based mostly training, they each attempt for extra inclusivity of their training programs that partly function in heterogeneous communities. The KIO has, as an illustration, simply introduced its help for different ethnic and non secular teams establishing non-public faculties in its territory.

A Karen Nationwide Police Power member of the KNU on the Salween Peace Park opening in Mutraw, December 2019 (Picture: David Brenner)

None of that is good, and the way may it’s, within the context of a decades-long battle? Nevertheless it clearly suggests promising potentialities for a extra peaceable future. The important thing to such a future is bolstering initiatives that help inclusive and accountable EAO governance. Reasonably than shun all EAOs due to the actions of particular person armed teams, donors and growth companies ought to step up their engagement with these teams, who will solely develop of their function as governance actors in Myanmar. Equally, as US policymakers search to step up their help for Myanmar, the newfound Congressional Burma Caucus ought to work with quite than towards the grain of EAO governance. Concretely, this implies partnering with EAOs past humanitarian assist aid.

US lawmakers and authorities companies ought to observe by way of on the pledges outlined within the BURMA Act of 2022 and step up the supply of non-lethal help for resistance actors in Myanmar. Different donors ought to do the identical. A part of this assist must be used for supporting EAO governance in areas that foster cooperation and stability, equivalent to training, well being, justice, and land rights. To take action, donors ought to search the partnership of native civil society actors from numerous ethnic nationality communities for this endeavour. These actors are key to making sure that help goes to initiatives that strengthen inclusive and accountable types of governance. This focused method to help is the easiest way to incentivise all EAOs to undertake governance practices that promote inclusivity and accountability, carving a sustainable path to peace in Myanmar.

Working with EAO governance can in flip function a helpful impetus for rethinking worldwide interventions in conflict-affected contexts extra typically. To make certain, calling for nearer engagement with native governance actors is nothing new in and of itself. Quite the opposite, the “native flip” has develop into the mainstay of essential peacebuilding analysis and follow. The majority of this work, nonetheless, stays wedded to Eurocentric understandings of the state and “the native”—or no less than these native actors whose politics are deemed worthy of help.

Unsurprisingly, ethnonational armed actions have hitherto not been seen as native peacebuilding companions. And whereas we should not romanticise exclusionary tendencies of ethnonationalist ideologies, we have to contextualise them inside the postcolonial politics of ethnocratic state formation in a context like Myanmar. Doing so produces a extra differentiated understanding of the drivers of battle and suggests new avenues for peace.

Writer’s observe: I’m grateful to Jenna Marcus for her useful suggestions.