Burma or Myanmar? The Struggle for National Identity

Lowell Dittmer

• Publisher: WSPC
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9789814464581
• Topic: Économie
• Subtopic: Économie politique

Burma, also known as Myanmar, strategically located between China and India, is one of the largest and most richly endowed states in Southeast Asia. Yet it remains both economically and politically underdeveloped. Why is this so? We argue that much of the reason has to do with an ongoing struggle for national identity. This struggle involves not only whether the state should be authoritarian or democratic, but how Burma's myriad ethnic minorities should be accommodated within it, what external reference national reference groups the country should identify and align with, and how it should move forward. Identity formation normally occurs much earlier in the national developmental process, but Burma has had unusually intransigent problems that were never successfully resolved during the colonial period and have simply been suppressed by force since then. This protracted divisiveness has stunted the nation's modernization and growth.

Written from a unique perspective, this book on Myanmar deviates from the traditional authoritarian versus democratic rhetoric. Although that is certainly part of the picture, this multifaceted analysis focuses rather on the issue of identity formation — an issue that has all too often failed to make the headlines. Much can be learned from Myanmar's identity problems, making this book essential reading for all students and professionals interested in development studies or comparative politics. By whatever name, Burma is not only a fascinating country but one likely to play an increasingly vital role in Asia's future.

Contents:

• • Burma vs Myanmar: What's in a Name? (Lowell Dittmer)
• Mass Politics:
  • Voting and Violence in Myanmar: Nation Building for a Transition to Democracy (Ian Holliday)
  • Ethnic Conflict in Burma: The Challenge of Unity in a Divided Country (Tom Kramer)
  • Relieving Burma's Humanitarian Crisis (Christina Fink)
• Elite Politics:
  • Daw Aung San Suu Kyi: A Burmese Dissident Democrat (Kyaw Yin Hlaing)
  • Looking Inside the Burmese Military (Win Min)
  • Naypyidaw vs. Yangon: The Reasons Behind the Junta's Decision to Move the Burmese Capital (Daniel Gomà)
• Political Economy:
  • Burma's Poverty of Riches: Natural Gas and the Voracious State (Sean Turnell)
  • Myanmar/Burma: International Trade and Domestic Power under an “Isolationist” Identity (Jalal Alamgir)
• Foreign Policy:
  • China–Burma Relations: China's Risk, Burma's Dilemma (Min Zin)
  • India's Unquenched Ambitions in Burma (Renaud Egreteau)
  • Burma and ASEAN: A Marriage of Inconvenience (Stephen McCarthy)
  • Conclusion (Lowell Dittmer)

Readership: Political scientists, undergraduates, graduate students, general readers interested in Myanmar studies.
Keywords:Burma;Myanmar;Resource Curse;SPDC;SLORC;Junta;Tat;Naypyidaw;Yangon;Identity;Pang Long AgreementReview:0

Chapter 1

Burma vs. Myanmar: What’s in a Name?

Lowell Dittmer

Abstract

Burma or Myanmar? The introduction of new English nomenclature for the country (and for other places within it) by Burma’s military leadership has been controversial, not because of the names per se, but because the two sets of names have come to symbolize two diverging national identity trajectories for the country: one democratic and federalist, one militarily enforced hierarchical unity. The resulting cleavage has greatly complicated national political and economic development.

Keywords: Adaptation of expressions law; ethnic minorities; Tatmadaw.

The then State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) decreed in the 1989 Adaptation of Expressions Law, three years after the UN had adopted pinyin for the spelling of Chinese place names, that their country, hitherto known as Burma, would henceforth be referred to as Myanmar in English, that Rangoon would be called Yangon, and so forth. The new name is taken from the literary form of the language, which first appears in 12th-century inscriptions, while the term “Burma” was derived from the spoken form in Bamar, the language of the majority Burmese ethnic group. Although the Burmese-language name for the country has included some version of “Myanmar” since independence, some organizations, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), took exception to the change, preferring the spoken form “Burma” (which was also used by the independence movement prior to 1948) and continue to use it, signaling their refusal to recognize either the legitimacy of the ruling military government or its authority to rename the country. Some non-Burman ethnic groups, on the other hand, prefer the new name as it is less associated with the Burman (or Bamar) majority ethnic group. Since the political rechristening came in the wake of the 1988 coup, this has given rise to a division between linguistic nominalists (who believe names are simply a matter of arbitrary convenience) and realists (who think names must mean something). This cleavage aligns the United Nations, ASEAN, China, India and Japan among the nominalists (for whom Burma becomes Myanmar) and the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom among the “realists” — metaphysical, not political — who continue to adhere to the old usage as a way of denying the legitimacy of the ruling junta. This seems to have since hardened into an almost principled semantic stance among some analysts, as if the choice of names could in some way strengthen or undermine that unhappy nation’s military dictatorship. Neither they nor we have been able to resolve either this terminological controversy or Burma’s political troubles linguistically, and the contributors to this volume will use the two names interchangeably — sometimes “Burma,” sometimes “Myanmar,” sometimes resorting to the European Union’s catch-all solution: “Myanmar/Burma.” Linguistically, we can live and let live.

So much for our title — would that the political reality underlying this lexicographical cleavage might prove equally tractable! For behind this apparently petty linguistic dispute, a long struggle for national identity has raged since the founding of the state in 1948. These two names have come to symbolize two quite different historical experiences and political trajectories, each upholding its own claim to legitimacy and political loyalty. Actually there are more than two — only the military government’s steadfast suppression of any voice but its own has produced the illusory dualism that stems from forced bipolarity. Though there has not been an official census since March 1983 (and even that was rendered incomplete by ongoing civil war), according to best estimates the Burman (or Bamar) people make up only about 68% of the populace, the other 32% consisting of some 135 “distinct” ethnic groups, the main ones being Shan (9%), Kayin or Karen (7%), Rakhine or Arakan (4%), Mon (2%), Kayah (1.75%) or Karenni (1.25%), and Kachin (1.5%). Though in the minority, these ethnic groups occupy nearly 60% of the land area, much of it along the borders. Intra-ethnic relations have long been tense, exacerbated by the British during the colonial era and by Japanese invaders during World War II. Although an attempt was made to reconcile these tensions by guaranteeing ethnic autonomy at the February 1947 Panglong meeting, perceived failure to honor these pledges resulted in the explosion of strife that helped topple the first Burmese attempt at democracy in 1958–1962. Ne Win’s subsequent imposition of the “Burmese way to socialism” was legitimated by the assumption that only the army (the Tatmadaw) could hold the nation together.

The grounding assumption of this book is that the quest for national identity, a developmental “crisis” usually resolved fairly early in the nation-building process with the establishment of national borders, a national language, constitution, armed forces, capital, currency, and so forth, was never achieved in Burma’s case but only forced underground by suppression — from which it would burst forth again whenever the opportunity arose. Certainly national identity is not the most immediately obvious issue in one of the poorest and least developed countries on earth (e.g., the world’s lowest GDP per capita, estimated at $98 per annum). Yet identity discord has created a frozen set of cleavages around which a cumulative series of supplementary troubles have clustered along the interstices of identity, as it were, sustaining and exacerbating national fragmentation. Thus the enduring mistrust between democratic forces and the military establishment, coinciding as it does with a split between the educated middle classes and the security apparatus, has resulted in gutting the country’s once respected education system and thrown many idealistic political entrepreneurs in jail or out of the country; the ethnic splits have made room for and given incentive to the cultivation of opium crops and the drug trade, making Burma the world’s second-largest exporter of opium and a leading manufacturer of methamphetamine — and so forth. National fragmentation has also contributed to egregious human rights violations with attendant spillover effects complicating relations with neighboring countries. Until the national identity dilemma can be resolved, the quest for national development is likely to falter — or at best take a contorted, imbalanced form, threatening future unity and stability.

In the following chapters some of the world’s leading Burma specialists consider various dimensions of the problems that have clustered around the identity issue to hold the country back, developmentally as well as politically. The book is divided into three sections: the first and longest section is on domestic politics, the second is on political economy, while the third focuses on foreign policy. Our analysis of domestic politics is then further subdivided into a first part on “mass” politics and a second on “high,” or elite politics. In each section we seek to show how these problems have coagulated in the gaps or interstices of identity to impede healthy political and economic development.

Ian Holliday not only provides an excellent historical overview of the country’s political experience from independence to the present but undertakes an insightful analysis of the prospects for democratization — the demand for which (despite limited empirical experience) has obviously taken inveterate root in Burmese society.¹ He does so within a comparative theoretical framework of successful democratic transitions, with particular focus on the disruptive impact of nationalist violence — a disease of the transition particularly endemic to Burma. Although nationalism typically arises in the course of democratization, “when political identities are up for grabs,” in Burma’s case it was already a disputatious issue during the colonial period, which the British manipulated to maintain their control. They drew the boundaries of the new nation quite arbitrarily, often bisecting ethnic groups. Although, fortunately, Burma has not been afflicted by trans-boundary movements fighting for separatism or irredenta, ethnic spillover has given adjoining states the basis for special access and leverage against the central government. Against this background, the country’s abortive early experience with democratization might have been anticipated, as nationalist rivalries quickly spun out of control, undermining democracy and leading to half a century of Burman-dominated military dictatorship. Viewing future prospects for democratization from this theoretical perspective, Holliday finds a mixed picture: On the one hand, a “pacted transition” under the aegis of the current SPDC leadership seems to have acquired considerable momentum, and both leading opposition camps — the NLD and a majority of the ethnic minorities who have made ceasefire arrangements — seem to be willing to go along with the “road map to democracy.”² On the other hand, the current constitution vouchsafes only a democratic sham thinly masking continued military dominance, and the SPDC seems at this point ill-inclined to make the minimal concessions for civil rights demanded by the NLD or for ethnic autonomy demanded by the ethnic minorities. The “tripartite dialogue” suggested in 1994 by the UN General Assembly and still demanded by both oppositions, though seemingly sine qua non for any workable compromise, has been steadfastly rejected by the SPDC. From a theoretical perspective some of these missing pieces seem dispensable, according to Holliday, such as the temporary deferral of the full conspectus of liberal human rights, or a consociational mechanism to accommodate minority demands for autonomy. Whether the opposition will continue to play a game in which they have so little stake is another question. Given their position, they might accept a provisional deal if they could see light at the end of the tunnel. Hopes for a successful pacted transition may thus be contingent upon the SPDC’s willingness to compromise. For instance, more politically realistic provisions for future constitutional revision would be reassuring to all but beneficiaries of the status quo (the 2008 Constitution requires 75% legislative approval and, for many of the more significant provisions, passage of a national referendum by 50% of eligible voters — either of which will be very difficult to achieve, given the likelihood of continued military dominance).

The plight of Burma’s ethnic minorities gained additional salience in the summer of 2009 as a result of the SPDC’s attempt to integrate forcibly the tiny Kokang minority into the border guard before the 2010 elections, precipitating the latter’s violent resistance and the subsequent flight of some 35,000 refugees into China’s Yunnan Province (much to Beijing’s dismay, preoccupied at the time with staging their “harmonious” 60th national anniversary). But according to Tom Kramer, a Dutch political scientist who has long focused on ethnic minority politics and civil society in Burma, this was only the tip of the iceberg. Burma’s ca. 135 ethnic minorities, though bewildering in their diversity and internecine alliances and rivalries, are quite united in their basic demand for a certain realm of federal autonomy — yet this has never been fully granted in any of the state’s three constitutions. They reached perhaps the acme of their power around 1988, when most of the border areas were dominated by well-armed ethnic coalitions, from the West-leaning National Democratic Front (NDF) along the Thai border to the Communist Party of Burma (which had formed coalitions with several minority ethic groups, mainly the Wa) along the border with China. But from 1989 to the mid-1990s, SLORC Secretary 1 Khin Nyunt succeeded in forming ceasefire alliances with 17 of the 18 largest ethnic armies (25, by 2009), bringing civil war under (relative) control. These ceasefire alliances are all strictly bilateral, the center’s discretionary silence keeping inter-ethnic relations invidious, and the ethnic armies retained their weapons. Thus ethnic divisiveness has been suspended but not really resolved. Though they comprise only 35–40% of the total population, the ethnic minorities occupy nearly 60% of the land, much of it strategically situated along Burma’s borders (the longest land borders in Southeast Asia), where Burma’s neighbors (Thailand, China, India) have not been above playing them off against the center or one minority group against another in order to gain marginal advantage, as in logging or mining operations, gas or oil pipelines or illegal immigration. For their part, the minorities too have exploited national fragmentation and cross-border ethnic connections for drug manufacture, gambling emporiums, arms or drug smuggling and other clandestine activity. Civil society is marred by inter-ethnic suspicion, and there is even a certain distance between the ethnics and the (mostly Burman) NLD. Only the United Nationalities Alliance has been able thus far to build a tenable coalition bridging this gap. Yet the SPDC, having built its legitimacy on Burman nationalism, has consistently opposed federalism as the first step toward national disintegration, preferring to govern using bilateral divide-and-rule tactics. In April 2009, with the end of the road map in view and the truces set to expire, the junta demanded that the minority armies disarm and place their troops under central command in a new Border Guard Force. A few of the smaller ceasefire groups have acquiesced, but at least four of the major forces have thus far rebuffed the offer and regrouped as the Myanmar Peace and Democracy Front.³ Whether the SPDC’s 2009 attack on Kokang is a harbinger of moves against the more formidable groups is an issue relevant not only to domestic tranquility but to Burma’s relations with China, its main patron. Though the SPDC has been keen to absorb the ethnic armies before the 2010 elections, by force if necessary, China as the country’s biggest foreign investor (since 2008), with a stake in border stability, has had a pacifying effect.

The series of choices made by the country’s leadership has had devastating humanitarian consequences for the Burmese people, as clearly documented in Christina Fink’s chapter. This seems of little concern to the military leadership, as became clear in May 2008, when Cyclone Nargis hit and the SPDC barred international human rights nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) from providing aid because they might interfere with the national referendum on the new constitution — to which the SPDC gave top priority, even evicting Nargis refugees from schools to be used as polling stations. Most authoritarian systems, including the Soviet Union, even Nazi Germany, do have social welfare packages to compensate for infringements on liberty.⁴ But in Burma, the junta’s comprehensive focus on potential threats to national security is ironically accompanied by a minimalist view of the state’s obligation to promote the general welfare — the economy seems to be seen as self-sufficient, or at least self-reliant. Education, health and welfare all receive derisory fractions of the budget. The populace is swept by malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS pandemics, poverty is currently estimated at 26%; and there are thousands of internal displaced persons (IDPs) as people are shifted from one place to another to bolster national security. Poverty seems to have affected even the military, which is more generously provided for, throwing the lower ranks upon the local populace for their upkeep. These social disfunctions are not only a domestic time bomb but complicate relations with Burma’s neighbors, spilling over in the form of drug exports, disease epidemics, gambling emporiums and massive refugee flows (e.g., 2–4 million illegal migrants in Thailand alone). Skewed fiscal priorities (ca. 40% of the budget to the military, a nonproductive allocation) result in a large external debt and a big budget deficit. This has been financed largely by printing money, resulting in chronic double-digit inflation (est. 20–30% since 2000). About 70% of the economy remains agricultural, but the combination of low procurement prices for grain (to ensure food supplies to the military), ill-advised and arbitrary agricultural policies, and special exactions (including corvée labor) for roads, bridges and other meretricious public works have resulted in a per capita income (in 2006) less than half that of Bangladesh or Laos, high percentages of which must be expended on food and shelter.⁵ The humanitarian crisis is linked to national identity more as a functional consequence of the leadership’s priorities than a causal factor, though certainly it has become part of the identity of the regime and its long-suffering citizenry and the nation they have built together (since 1987 the UN has relegated the country to the world’s “least developed countries”).

To the world, Aung San Suu Kyi personifies her country more than any other human being, living or dead, as Kyaw Yin Hlaing illustrates. While symbolizing Burma, she is at the same time very much a global citizen: educated abroad and married to an English don, she was engaged in work on an Oxford PhD on Burmese literature when first drawn into Burmese politics during the 1988 uprising. At this time she was known only as the daughter of General Aung San, Leader of the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League and martyr-founder of the Burmese Army (Tatmadaw) and the Union of Burma. Her instant name recognition, lack of political baggage, personal courage in confronting the junta on behalf of the oppressed, and finally Burma’s only Nobel Peace Prize (1991) all helped to vault her to the forefront of the democracy movement where she was exalted as the “goddess of democracy.” Her democratic crusade has indeed been implacable, sometimes even reckless, never succumbing to unprincipled compromise, not even leaving the country for her husband’s funeral lest the military deny her return. Yet this combination of dedication to principle and international renown has made her persona non grata to the xenophobic military leadership, which used her marriage as a pretext to bar her from politics. Though reportedly difficult to work with, she has remained head of the NLD despite being under house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years, still politically indispensable to any meaningful settlement. While her principled opposition has helped dramatize her country’s plight, an integrated national identity will require reconciliation with a leadership she once called fascist — yet she cannot compromise too much without losing her constituency. In September and November 2009 she reportedly wrote two letters to the SPDC, offering to work for the lifting of economic sanctions and possible further collaborative endeavors. In response, she was allowed to discuss the lifting of sanctions with representatives of the US, the EU and Australia and to meet briefly with the aging leadership of the NLD (but not with Than Shwe). Yet the SPDC made no concessions, and sanctions seem likely to remain in place at least for the time being. Whether the West will agree and, if so, whether the SPDC will in any way reciprocate remain of course to be seen.

On the other side of this symbolic dualism is the nation’s military dictatorship which, however lacking in charisma, has maintained its collective solidarity and iron grip on power for half a century. Based on interviews and other primary sources, Win Min provides rare insight into the internal workings of this secretive regime. The leadership is not as cohesive as might appear, as various factions based on saya–tapyit (patron–client, teacher–student) ties form along vertical formal hierarchies and vie for power, particularly as a leadership succession approa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Contributors
• Chapter 1 Burma vs. Myanmar: What’s in a Name?
• Part A Mass Politics
• Part B Elite Politics
• Part C Political Economy
• Part D Foreign Policy
• Index