All posts by Maung Zarni

Dr Maung Zarni is a scholar, educator and human rights activist with 30-years of involvement in Burmese political affairs, Zarni has been denounced as an “enemy of the State” for his opposition to the Myanmar genocide. He is the co-author (with Natalie Brinham) of the pioneering study, "The Slow Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingyas" (Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal, Spring 2014) and "Reworking the Colonial-Era Indian Peril: Myanmar’s State-Directed Persecution of Rohingyas and Other Muslims" (The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Fall/Winter 2017/18).

Myanmar Mothers’ Cries Do Not Bode Well for the Nation’s Future

The musician of resistance Mun Awng reminded the viewers, “the revolution must prevail, against all odds.” Tain Sway was seen nodding her head profusely when Mun Awng spelled out the pervasive sentiment – that “it is better to die fighting for the cause than living under the boot, again”.

/ April 19, 2022

The Russian Invasion of Ukraine Through My Burmese Eyes

None of the leading liberal democracies of the West really honours the principles they loudly espouse such as non-violence, popular and state sovereignty, human rights, or democracy, nor do they support democratic resistance, armed or non-violent, unless such support serves their hidden interests, whether those interests are commercial or geostrategic.

/ March 13, 2022

ကိုလိုနီ စိတ်မှ လွတ်မြောက်ပြီး ဒီမိုကရေစီနည်းကျ အသိပညာပြန့်ပွားရေး၊ FORSEA ပညာရှင်များ စကားဝိုင်း

ရိုဟင်ဂျာလူမျိုးစုနှင့် ၎င်းတို့သမိုင်းကို မြန်မာနိုင်ငံမှ ဖျက်ဆီးခြင်းတို့ကို ဂျင်န်နိုဆိုက် (genocide) လူမျိုးတုံးအမြစ်ဖြုတ်မှု အဖြစ်ရှုမြင်ခြင်းနှင့် ပတ်သက်၍ ကမ္ဘာ့အဆင့်ပညာရှင်များ စကားဝိုင်းတစ်ရပ် ပြုလုပ်ခဲ့သည်။

/ January 15, 2022

Post-Holocaust Genocides as a Single Clearest Indictment of the Criminal Failure of the United Nations & World Civilization

FORSEA’s new YouTube LIVE Dialogue series “Decolonizing Minds, Democratizing Knowledge” hosted its first episode, looking at Rohingya identity and history destruction by Myanmar as a real-world case.

/ January 15, 2022

“I Was Not Used by the Military”: Myanmar Dictator Ne Win’s Most Influential Educational Reformer Dr Nyi Nyi

I am writing these words not so much as an obituary of a public figure who helped lay the educational foundation for Burma’s military-controlled politico-economic system but as a tale which offers some invaluable lessons for the western-educated elite, who self-perceive themselves as advisers, policy actors and power brokers in the government of the day.

/ December 18, 2021

A Myanmar’s Military That Burns Civilians Alive Ought to be Designated as Terrorist

While governments and human rights organizations were occupied with the farce of the coup junta’s trial of Aung San Suu Kyi and the expected guilty verdict on 6 December 2021, the junta’s back-to-back acts of terrorism have not been reported in the ways they deserve and nor have they received worldwide scrutiny and condemnation.

/ December 9, 2021

From Auschwitz to Myanmar

FORSEA Co-founder Dr Maung Zarni shared his thoughts on the recurring genocides around the world, despite the Genocide Convention of 1948 and the Security Council, tasked to maintain peace in the world, 26 November 2021.

/ November 27, 2021

Why Have Myanmar Activists Begun Talking, Approvingly, about Balkanizing Their Country?

I want to spell out clearly my stance on this taboo subject: I see the Balkanization of Myanmar as the only viable end to what the overwhelming majority of Burmese public, including religious and ethnic minorities, experience as a home-grown Fascist occupier.

/ November 11, 2021

After Afghanistan, Time to Review and Reset ASEAN & International Policies Towards Myanmar

The vicious dialectic of “failed international policies AND failed Myanmar state”, will need to be placed at the right, left and centre of the new international policy debates on Myanmar. Repeating the same strategy of dangling the sweet discourse of mediation before the intransigent mass-murderous generals of Myanmar without the serious stick of international accountability will simply not do.

/ October 27, 2021

Media Continues to Orientalize “Buddhist Myanmar”

Add “Buddhist Terror” to the standard duo of Sex/Scandal and War/Violence as the media angle that sells. Yet unlike these, “Buddhist Terror” is rooted in the distorted invention of Buddhism and Buddhists as peaceful (vis-à-vis Islam and Muslims as violent). This is so deeply troubling with mainstream media picking up the old trend – Orientalizing hatred and racism in non-Europe, non-Christian spaces, in Wirathu’s case, “Buddhist” Myanmar.

/ September 8, 2021