An insightful piece in pointing out the failure of Bamar initiated nation-building process and forging of a national identity “Myanmar” that hasn’t taken roots, after all these years.
The simple reason is the common identity “Myanmar” is the creation of Bamar military leadership, during State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) era, in late eighties, without the consent or endorsement of the non-Bamar ethnic groups.
The more important fact to the rejection of the Bamar notion, labeled “Myanmar”, is the lack of equitable power and resources sharing, apart from opinion that Myanmar, Bamar, Burman, Burmese tags are all identified with the dominant, ruling Bamar clique.
Forging a common national identity first needs to have a feeling that all belong to an agreed label chosen voluntarily by all, including equitable power and resources sharing; not a colonial-like relationship between the Bamar and the non-Bamar ethnic groups that is the order of the day.
Thus the Bamar monopolizing history writing to just glorify its past that stretches until today, with the non-Bamar ethnic groups or nations seen as just its colonial possession and subordinate, won’t do much for the non-existence national reconciliation deliberation.
If anyone would like to argue that it is not the case, he or she would only need to go and have a look at the three Bamar kings statues towering over in Naypyitaw’s military parade ground.
The only complaint to Sai Latt’s otherwise excellent think piece is his continuous using of minorities label for non-Bamar ethnic groups. At least, the Shan, Arakan and Mon were nations in their own right that at various times in history had ruled ancient Burma and had been stark competitors of the Bamar kings, sometimes wining and sometimes losing in their quest for political domination.
Other than that, the 1948 Union of Burma was made up of voluntary participation of the ethnic groups and thus, the non-Bamar ethnic groups are neither minorities, majorities or subordinate in relation to the Bamar.
True, Shans living in Burma Proper, Rangoon area would be minority, while Bamars living in Shan State will also be a minority.
Just because the Bamar are numerically more don’t make the non-Bamars become minorities, for as stated earlier they joined the union in 1948 as equal partners and not as a subordinated minorities.
Sadly, scholars have overlooked this majority-minority misnomer, in relation to the ethnic nations residing in what we now called Burma/Myanmar.
To read “Peace and Reconciliation Call For New Ways of Looking Back”, please go to
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