Tag: Myanmar

“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

China-US Tensions: Their Impact on Myanmar and Broader Southeast Asia

The next FORSEA Dialogue on Democratic Struggles Across Asia, on Wednesday 17 November, discusses China-US Tensions: Their Impact on Myanmar and Broader Southeast Asia with four expects on the region.

/ November 11, 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

The Balkanization of Myanmar: Minorities’ Solution to 70-years of the Colonial Rule & Political Repression?

The next FORSEA Dialogue on Democratic Struggles Across Asia discusses Myanmar with Rual Lian Than, an ethnic Chin researcher and activist.

/ November 3, 2021

Yugoslavia bang kawlram hi vawleipi map in thlau asi lai lo tiah chim ngam asi hnga maw?

Chin language article with English summary – The Balkanization of Myanmar – Deeply troubled UN member state with its multiple ethnic nations with distinct histories memories, linguistic traditions and conflicting group interests, Myanmar has been in the slow but discernible process of “Balkanization”.

/ November 3, 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

On Myanmar’s Dead Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement

Maung Zarni blew the whistle on military-led top-down democratic reforms – which he argued were, in the final instance, cosmetic as early as these "reforms" were launched by the Burmese generals in 2010. To his rage and dismay, this "transition" was blessed by none other than Aung San San Suu Kyi  and celebrated by Western media and powerful external actors.

/ October 17, 2021

Consider This: Myanmar – What’s General Aung Min’s Endgame?

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the coup in February ended a decade of democratisation Eighteen months on, more than 1,000 civilians have been killed by the country’s security forces and many members of the ousted government including Aung San Suu Ski are on trial or in jail. With the introduction of the Burma Act, will the international context shift in favour of the ousted government?

/ October 7, 2021

Rohingyas: Auto-Ethnographic Photo-exhibit, Oxford Human Rights Festival

The Rohingya photographers gathered here offer a revisioning of sorts, a counternarrative to existing tropes of their community as uber-victims. Instead, we get glimpses of what it means to ‘live with’ such infrastructures of statelessness, to see what we might otherwise miss. 

/ September 9, 2021