the futile and violent search for ‘authenticity’ in burma

7/27/2019 The futile and violent search for authenticity in Burma

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The futile and violent search for

authenticity in Burma

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By ELLIOTT PRASSE-FREEMANPublished: 12 July 2013

Wimala

Biwuntha shows

a religious map

before a 969

conference in a

monastery in

Rangoon.(Reuters)

This is the first

article in a two-

part

series examinin

g the

relationship

between

sectarian

violence andresource

distribution in a

changing

Burma. The

second part can

be readhere.

The recent conflagrations ofsectarian violence in Burma have shocked the country and the

world, having left thousands displaced, scores dead, and millions of kyat of property

damaged.

They have also left a series of fragmented analyses, as commentators struggle to make sense

of the slaughter. On one hand, some incapable of seeing beyond a big-bad Burma state

paradigm believe that the state is behind the current violence, and/or that disgruntled

generals are orchestrating attacks frombehind the scenes to legitimate the militarys

institutional role. On the opposite end of the spectrum others argue that a deep-seated racism,

fomented under the long years of the military regime, is now being unleashedas the

military relaxes controls.

Both of these perspectives draw from evidence that is partially correct the military-

state has spurred internal divisions and likely has orchestrated violence in the past;

there is racism in Burma society against dark-skinned people. But neither encompasses the

entire story.
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The Buddhist-monk-led anti-Muslim campaign that has generated much collective hatred

cannot be construed as emerging from a conspiratorial state elite. Likewise, such hatred

cannot be imagined outside of the context of state institutions which insist upon eternal racial

and religious differences: ID cards demand that babies at birth be given either but not both

a Muslim or a Burmese identity; state-enforced birth-limits directed only at certain

Muslim communities present them as second-class citizens and demographic threats.

But understanding the spontaneous explosions of violence requires a consideration of the

socio-economic context in which these attacks are occurring. Increasing economic

stratification can help explain the growth in anxieties generated by concerns over resource

distribution. The exclusion of perceived foreigners can be interpreted as an inter-class attempt

to construct a community of legitimate claimants to this finally-growing but unequally

distributed pie.

But this exclusion may not stop with these particular others. These intensifying feelings of

being left out, combined with the failures of citizens and political leaders to articulate a

conception of an inclusive Burmese civil political community, creates opportunities for aviolence that may be uncontainable and may continue to attach to others who may seem

suddenly or irreconcilably foreign. The risk is that Burma tears itself apart in its search for

its authentic core.

The Instability of Scapegoating

When Arakanese Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims first clashed in western Arakan state last

summer, the violence was a regional issue. But it did not remain there. Discourse across

Burmese society about the Rohingya soon exploded, with Buddhist monks, political leaders,

and even other ethnic minority groups weighing in. They were all in agreement: the Rohingya

were threats to the nation, were not part of it, and must be expelled.

A tiny ethnic minority kept in concentration camp conditions for years, periodically targeted

for mass abuse and expulsions was suddenly imagined as a threat to the entire polity? How to

make sense of this? Could this violence and the violent discourse surrounding it be

interpreted as a tactic for building a collective in-group? Indeed, as the long years of the

military regime gave way to a new, more open society, the violence seemed to work as a

way of trying to establish the definitions and limits of that new society.

This was especially true given the long-standing historical animosity between the majority

Burmans and Burmas otherethnic minorities. These ethnic minority groups, who scholarMatt Walton has identified as seeming to enjoy only conditional membership in the national

community always subject to suspicion of disloyalty, were suddenly being hailed as

indigenous races connected to the blood and soil of the nation.

These ethnic groups played their part, quickly drawing a distinction between themselves and

the Rohingya. The National Democratic Front, a coalition representing eight nationality

parties, was unequivocal:Rohingya is not to be recognized as a nationality.

But as the inside was apparently being established through the process of eradicating the

outside, violence overflowed. From its initial scapegoat, violence began to be directed at

Burmas other others: in the central town of Meikhtila, in environs north of Rangoon, and
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/SEA-01-020413.htmlhttp://www.hrw.org/news/2013/05/28/burma-revoke-two-child-policy-rohingyahttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/opinion/ethnic-cleansing-of-myanmars-rohingyas.html?_r=0http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/05/25/burma-end-abuses-against-rohingyahttp://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/SEA-01-090513.htmlhttp://www.academia.edu/3663807/_The_Wages_of_Burman-ness_Ethnicity_and_Burman_Privilege_in_Contemporary_Myanmar_Journal_of_Contemporary_Asia_43_1_2013_1-27http://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/rohingya-06262012185104.htmlhttp://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/rohingya-06262012185104.htmlhttp://transitions.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/03/26/leadership_failure_in_the_latest_wave_of_religious_violence_in_burmahttp://news.yahoo.com/myanmar-forces-restore-order-latest-anti-muslim-violence-121713329.htmlhttp://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/SEA-01-020413.htmlhttp://www.hrw.org/news/2013/05/28/burma-revoke-two-child-policy-rohingyahttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/opinion/ethnic-cleansing-of-myanmars-rohingyas.html?_r=0http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/05/25/burma-end-abuses-against-rohingyahttp://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/SEA-01-090513.htmlhttp://www.academia.edu/3663807/_The_Wages_of_Burman-ness_Ethnicity_and_Burman_Privilege_in_Contemporary_Myanmar_Journal_of_Contemporary_Asia_43_1_2013_1-27http://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/rohingya-06262012185104.htmlhttp://transitions.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/03/26/leadership_failure_in_the_latest_wave_of_religious_violence_in_burmahttp://news.yahoo.com/myanmar-forces-restore-order-latest-anti-muslim-violence-121713329.html


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in the northeastern city of Lashio, respective mobs have turned on Muslim citizens, burning

property and murdering scores.

Critically, these Muslim citizens have been integrated into Burma society for generations, and

so it is more accurate to say that they are being turned intoothers. Muslims in central

Burma who have no connection to Bangladesh are now being called Bengali. This isalso the name Burmesestate security agents insist Rohingya call themselves.

Similarly, a Chinese Muslim (Panthay) colleague whose light skin means she does not

look like the Muslims that Burmese often derisively refer to as kalar told me last month in

Rangoon that she is afraid that the violence will spill over to them as well. Days after our

conversation, Panthays had their cinema burned to the ground in Lashio.

This progression of violence suggests that scapegoating is potentially uncontainable from

Rohingya to allMuslims, from Rohingya to alldark-skinned people, and potentially beyond.

For instance, in Rangoon I came across a number of propaganda pamphlets urging Buddhiststo protect their race and religion. While the covers are adorned by fetuses (invoking Muslim

population threat) and prehistoric beasts (invoking the supposed Muslim desire to consume

the Burma nation), the texts implore readers to beware the other races, or the evil other-

race husbands, which are terms eminently re-deployable to any group constructed as

other.

But this cuts both ways: once one group is identified as not part of Burma, or

incompatible with our traditions, Burmese citizens or traditions themselves are put into

question, are even potentially undermined.

From animosity to violence

All of this animosity still does not explain the move to sporadic, spontaneous violence.

Looking at economic indicatorsas a proximate cause provides helpful insight. Stanley

Tambiah, in a study close to the Burmese case, shows how as far back as 1910 Buddhist

monks in Sri Lanka were justifying violent attacks against non-Buddhists through the

language of economic victimisation.

Tambiah cites a tract written by a Buddhist monk that argues that the merchants from

Bombay and peddlers from South India trade in Ceylon while the sons of the soil

abandon agriculture and work like galley slaves in urban clerical jobs.

A similar phenomenon occurred in Burma and remains relevant today. Many Burmese still

reference how Chettiars money-lenders from Tamil Nadu expropriated hundreds of

thousands of hectares of land when the Great Depression undermined the ability of Burmese

borrowers to repay agricultural loans.

Increasing economic stratification can help explain the growth in anxieties generated by

concerns over resource distribution

While Sean Turnell, author of a book on the period, tells me that these Chettiars were mostly

non-Muslims (either Hindus or Christians), their South Asian physiognomy has largely beenconflated with Muslim identity, especially given that today, as a 2002 Human Rights Watch
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report illustrates, many Muslims are businessmen, shopkeepers and small-scale money

changers.

HRW argues that this position in the economy means that [Muslims] are often targeted

during times of economic hardship. The difference now is that while the whole economy is

still poor, there are signs that small swathes are improving drastically. As Ivearguedelsewhere, there is a palpable sense of anxiety in Burma today deriving from the speed of

change and the feeling of missing out on the spoils associated with those changes.

And while there is no time-series data tracking increasing inequality in Burma over the past

years, rapid growth that is concentrated inextractive industries will often accrue to narrow

elites especially when rampantland-grabsattend it, and when compensation if given at all

considers only the market price today, not what it will become in a changing Burma.

Given all this, when political leaders such as Aung San Suu Kyi tell poor farmers in places

like Latpadaung that they have to respect contracts written by the previous military regime

and so must hand over their land to Chinese companies in the name of a rule of law that shehas always insisted did not exist when those contracts were written, average people may

begin to suspect from this utter nonsense that democracy means nothing more than their

freedom to continue to be exploited.

Thus abandoned, people take matters into their own hands. This does not mean that sectarian

violence is inevitable (it has not occurred in Latpadaung, for instance), but rather that some in

these situations lash-out at what they misperceive as their exploiters (and with the potential

aim of looting the resources and appropriating the market positions of those one rung above

them).

Within this logic, it is not surprising that the city of Meikhtila, long deeply-impoverished but

now sporadically-growing by dint of its increasing importance in linking Rangoon with

Mandalay, has become a site of sectarian strife. It is no wonder the Rohingya are being

displaced and contained in an area where a Special Economic Zone is being built. Most

convincing here is that theBuddhist 969 movement is above all an economic boycott that

targets Muslim businesses.

Matt Schisslers exploration of working-class Burmese Buddhist anti-Muslim sentiment

shows how economic grievance fuels the legitimacy of that movement: whereas Buddhists

can observe how Muslims do not always convert wives or children, that they often respect

Buddhism, etc, demagogues and average people alike perceive Muslim wealth. In this contextthe 786 symbol that adorns Muslims shops signifies to Buddhists not only halalfood but also

a desire to dominate the economy.

As Maung Zarni, visiting fellow at London School of Economics, puts it, some militant

Buddhist preachers effectively scapegoat the countrys Muslims for the general economic

hardships and cultural decay in society, portraying the ethnic Burmese as victims at the hands

of organised Muslim commercial leeches and parasites. CommentatorSai Latt points out

that economic exclusion is not a mere pretext for physical violence and exclusion, but rather

directly leads to it.
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This is particularly relevant now given that the conventional wisdom in Burma today assumes

that economic development will act as a panacea for Burmas internecine problems. It may

do precisely the opposite.

Elliott Prasse-Freeman is Founding Research Associate Fellow of the Human Rights and

Social Movements Program at Harvard Kennedy Schools Carr Center for Human Rights.He is also a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Yale University

-The opinions and views expressed in this piece are the authors own and do not necessarily

reflect DVBs editorial policy.

Tags:anti-Muslim violence,Arakan state, economics,Maung Zarni,meikhtila,riots,

rohingya, Sai Latt,Sean Turnell

Author: ELLIOTT PRASSE-FREEMAN Category: Analysis

Comments

1. Tayzarsays:

July 16, 2013 at 11:08 am

It is a thought provoking article. I agree that changes in socio economic situations

play a big part in the conflict. But we cannot forget the fact that changes in the media

fuel the whole situations. The whole country was mobilized when the crime scencephotos (the dead body of the raped girl) were widely covered in journals and used the

words Kalar in identifying the culprits. So people faced the old problem in a new

challenge of dealing with it. Another thing is the new political setting. People realized

the revolution to topple the military government was over since NLD joined the

parliament and the military stepped back to some extent. While the islamophobia has

already been widespread among the monks, the anti-muslim campaign was picked up

to replace the old revolution. Argualy, the government might not engineer the anti-

muslim violences but they let it happened to captilize the political gain. In this case,

NLD was silence to advocate for human rights because the monks can cause the

serious damage to NLDs ambition to win 2015 election. The power of the monks

cannot be understimated since they can dictate the rural population on who to vote inthe coming election. So it is the combination of all these factors that sustain the

violence such a long time.

2. naingsays:

July 17, 2013 at 4:26 pm

Thein Sein governmet secretly playing political game with extraime monk like

Wirathu.Thein Sein can,t play longer against NLD because people of the country are

very claver to understand the situation.
http://www.dvb.no/tag/anti-muslim-violencehttp://www.dvb.no/tag/arakan-statehttp://www.dvb.no/tag/arakan-statehttp://www.dvb.no/tag/economicshttp://www.dvb.no/tag/economicshttp://www.dvb.no/tag/maung-zarnihttp://www.dvb.no/tag/maung-zarnihttp://www.dvb.no/tag/meikhtilahttp://www.dvb.no/tag/riotshttp://www.dvb.no/tag/riotshttp://www.dvb.no/tag/rohingyahttp://www.dvb.no/tag/sai-latthttp://www.dvb.no/tag/sai-latthttp://www.dvb.no/tag/sean-turnellhttp://www.dvb.no/author/elliott-prasse-freemanhttp://www.dvb.no/category/analysishttp://www.dvb.no/analysis/the-futile-and-violent-search-for-authenticity-in-burma/29610/comment-page-1#comment-475079http://yahoo./http://www.dvb.no/analysis/the-futile-and-violent-search-for-authenticity-in-burma/29610/comment-page-1#comment-477172http://www.dvb.no/tag/anti-muslim-violencehttp://www.dvb.no/tag/arakan-statehttp://www.dvb.no/tag/economicshttp://www.dvb.no/tag/maung-zarnihttp://www.dvb.no/tag/meikhtilahttp://www.dvb.no/tag/riotshttp://www.dvb.no/tag/rohingyahttp://www.dvb.no/tag/sai-latthttp://www.dvb.no/tag/sean-turnellhttp://www.dvb.no/author/elliott-prasse-freemanhttp://www.dvb.no/category/analysishttp://www.dvb.no/analysis/the-futile-and-violent-search-for-authenticity-in-burma/29610/comment-page-1#comment-475079http://yahoo./http://www.dvb.no/analysis/the-futile-and-violent-search-for-authenticity-in-burma/29610/comment-page-1#comment-477172


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The ties that bind in Burma

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By ELLIOTT PRASSE-FREEMANPublished: 15 July 2013

A young activist

hands out

stickers

promoting

religious

harmony in

Rangoon on 5

April 2013.

(DVB)

This is the

second article

in a two-part

series examinin

g sectarian

violence and

exploring

strategies that

can help unite

Burmas

diverse populace. The first part can be readhere.

Four weeks ago, I spent the latter part of an evening with the local commander of an

Irrawaddy-delta town chatting with him and other friends. He ultimately asked me and

effectively the group to define this open society that was meant to be coming to Burma,

and to explain how the country is supposed to manage it?

He indexed the recent violence as a gaping question mark, providing it as an example of

people losing discipline. A rambunctious party fell silent and debate ensued for the next hour.

That these kinds of discussions are occurring is remarkable and positive, and it is important to

highlight them as examples of Burmese Buddhists (in this case) struggling with these issues.

It also illustrates that people are not merely seeing the other as a threat, but are trying to

figure out how to navigate and even embrace difference.

Indeed, these conversations can be interpreted as nascent attempts to confront scapegoating

violence with apositivepolitics, with citizens articulating inclusive conceptions of

community that base inclusion not on the violence of the colonial encounterof all things.

This positive politics must include elaborations of economic justice and inclusive political

membership. The first can be achieved through a combination of legislation, advocacy and
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7/9

pedagogy around the importance of directing support to the 70 percent of Burmese citizens

who toil in or around the rural agriculture sector.

A team of Harvard professors has highlighted the economic sense in supporting small-holder

plots, something that is a far cry from Aung San Suu Kyi telling farmers that they will be fine

without their land.

Luckily there are signs that such pro-poor orientation is emerging from the National League

for Democracy as well. The NLDs new in-house research team is focusing on the

agricultural sector, working to synthesize research and data from constituents so as to develop

policies that allow growth to come from the bottom.

A missing piece is Suu Kyi using her immense social capital to infuse herempty rule of law

rhetoricwith these kinds of meanings. Indeed, it is not enough to sayrule of lawwithout

telling people how these ideas will actually affect their lives in positive ways.

A rule of law that guarantees that the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor is one that is notonly unjust but which breeds potential conflict, as those who feel excluded at any level

can find scapegoats to target or victims to violate. A rule of law that ensures that some are

citizens and some are not puts the lie to the NLDs plea for universal human rights and justice

for which the party has putatively advocated for so long now.

Second, political leaders must articulate policies and political narratives that elaborate a more

capacious understanding of political membership. Here, changing the exclusionary 1982

citizenship lawand developing a federalist systemthat devolves power to ethnic states will

certainly be necessary.

Moreover, there are positive voices which can be magnified: a collection of inter-faith youth

organisations in particular have made courageous statements against racial violence and a

group ofmoderate monks have repudiated the claims made by the bigoted ones.

But neither policies nor rejections will be sufficient because they do not positively articulate

why people like the Rohingya, Muslims, ethnic minorities, Christians, etc belong. This will

require pedagogy about how all of these peoples have shared collective struggle (living

through the military regime), often share bonds of family and culture, and most importantly,

share a desire to be part of the nations future.

If Burma examines its society, they will see that denizens of all stripes ethnic minorities,Muslims, even Rohingya can make and have made those kinds of commitments.

Fortunately, there is a model for this Suu Kyis father and namesake Aung San, Burmas

founder.

Anthropologist Gustaaf Houtman has analyzed Aung Sans speeches, and finds Aung San

continually searching for a political liberation that applies to all of Burmas peoples and

which is expressed through the idiom of socio-economic justice: [Aung San] described new

democracy as although not entirely free of capitalism, is not capitalistic, is somewhere

betwixt and between If the old democracies had succumbed to underhand manipulation

by capitalists and big business discreetly assuming power the constitution of this new

democracy would place power in the hands of the masses through their electedrepresentative from top to bottom.
http://www.ash.harvard.edu/extension/ash/docs/appraising.pdfhttp://www.dvb.no/analysis/the-rule-of-law-will-not-save-burma/27000http://www.dvb.no/analysis/the-rule-of-law-will-not-save-burma/27000http://www.dvb.no/analysis/the-rule-of-law-will-not-save-burma/27000http://www.dvb.no/analysis/the-rule-of-law-will-not-save-burma/27000http://www.dvb.no/analysis/the-rule-of-law-will-not-save-burma/27000http://www.dvb.no/analysis/the-rule-of-law-will-not-save-burma/27000http://www.dvb.no/analysis/the-rule-of-law-will-not-save-burma/27000http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_nationality_lawhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_nationality_lawhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_nationality_lawhttp://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21578172-myanmars-ethnic-conflicts-are-main-obstacle-continued-progress-f-wordhttp://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21578172-myanmars-ethnic-conflicts-are-main-obstacle-continued-progress-f-wordhttp://uscampaignforburma.org/statements/3439-cso-joint-statement-statement-from-myanmar-civil-society-organizations-and-youth-representatives-of-all-religions-on-religious-and-ethnic-violence-that-has-occurred-in-myanmar.htmlhttp://uscampaignforburma.org/statements/3439-cso-joint-statement-statement-from-myanmar-civil-society-organizations-and-youth-representatives-of-all-religions-on-religious-and-ethnic-violence-that-has-occurred-in-myanmar.htmlhttp://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/SEA-02-200513.htmlhttp://www.academia.edu/1836314/Mental_Culture_in_Burmese_Crisis_Politics_Aung_San_Suu_Kyi_and_the_National_League_for_Democracyhttp://www.academia.edu/1836314/Mental_Culture_in_Burmese_Crisis_Politics_Aung_San_Suu_Kyi_and_the_National_League_for_Democracyhttp://www.ash.harvard.edu/extension/ash/docs/appraising.pdfhttp://www.dvb.no/analysis/the-rule-of-law-will-not-save-burma/27000http://www.dvb.no/analysis/the-rule-of-law-will-not-save-burma/27000http://www.dvb.no/analysis/the-rule-of-law-will-not-save-burma/27000http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_nationality_lawhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_nationality_lawhttp://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21578172-myanmars-ethnic-conflicts-are-main-obstacle-continued-progress-f-wordhttp://uscampaignforburma.org/statements/3439-cso-joint-statement-statement-from-myanmar-civil-society-organizations-and-youth-representatives-of-all-religions-on-religious-and-ethnic-violence-that-has-occurred-in-myanmar.htmlhttp://uscampaignforburma.org/statements/3439-cso-joint-statement-statement-from-myanmar-civil-society-organizations-and-youth-representatives-of-all-religions-on-religious-and-ethnic-violence-that-has-occurred-in-myanmar.htmlhttp://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/SEA-02-200513.htmlhttp://www.academia.edu/1836314/Mental_Culture_in_Burmese_Crisis_Politics_Aung_San_Suu_Kyi_and_the_National_League_for_Democracy


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Drawing on Aung San, who is still seen as a multi-ethnic unifier, and his historical demands

for equality may address the lingering and ever-displaced issues of multi-ethnic belonging in

a majority-Burman state.

This can be done by imagining apolitics of the daily and basing policies and narratives on

the struggle of everyday life in a changing Burma. When such a politics is imagined, it mustconjure in the minds of policymakers, activists, and citizens alike not only the stylised

average Burmese (who undoubtedly is Burman and lives in central Burma), but rather

expand to consider the experiences of the various classes, ethnicities, and religions in Burma.

This takes unique experiences seriously without flattening difference into a narrative about

simple socio-economic concerns, and without insisting that all non-Burmans or Burmans

for that matter have the exact same experiences.

Such a politics can re-orient the futile search for the timeless authentic Burma subject. It

can help develop a sense of a new authentic subject: anyone who has struggled through the

long years of the regime and who is now willing to work for a better collective future.

Elliott Prasse-Freeman is Founding Research Associate Fellow of the Human Rights and

Social Movements Program at Harvard Kennedy Schools Carr Center for Human Rights.

He is also a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Yale University

-The opinions and views expressed in this piece are the authors own and do not necessarily

reflect DVBs editorial policy.

Tags:anti-Muslim violence,aung san suu kyi, ethnic minorities, federalism,national league

for democracy

Author: ELLIOTT PRASSE-FREEMAN Category: Analysis

Comments

1. tocharian says:

July 15, 2013 at 7:35 pm

Dream on, Mr. Prasse-Freeman!

(you forgot the greedy aggresive Chinese, Aung San couldnt have anticipated that)

2. German Travellersays:

July 16, 2013 at 3:42 pm

Thats typical for HRW-indoctrinated westerners: Not being able to manage their own

(dirty) backyards but turning the world upside down in order to favour it with

WESTERN VALUES.

Easterner, alarm bells should start ringing in your heads !
http://www.academia.edu/1546656/Power_Civil_Society_and_an_Inchoate_Politics_of_the_Daily_in_Burma_Myanmarhttp://www.academia.edu/1546656/Power_Civil_Society_and_an_Inchoate_Politics_of_the_Daily_in_Burma_Myanmarhttp://www.dvb.no/tag/anti-muslim-violencehttp://www.dvb.no/tag/aung-san-suu-kyihttp://www.dvb.no/tag/aung-san-suu-kyihttp://www.dvb.no/tag/ethnic-minoritieshttp://www.dvb.no/tag/federalismhttp://www.dvb.no/tag/national-league-for-democracyhttp://www.dvb.no/tag/national-league-for-democracyhttp://www.dvb.no/tag/national-league-for-democracyhttp://www.dvb.no/author/elliott-prasse-freemanhttp://www.dvb.no/category/analysishttp://www.dvb.no/analysis/the-ties-that-bind-in-burma/29838/comment-page-1#comment-474037http://www.dvb.no/analysis/the-ties-that-bind-in-burma/29838/comment-page-1#comment-475421http://www.academia.edu/1546656/Power_Civil_Society_and_an_Inchoate_Politics_of_the_Daily_in_Burma_Myanmarhttp://www.dvb.no/tag/anti-muslim-violencehttp://www.dvb.no/tag/aung-san-suu-kyihttp://www.dvb.no/tag/ethnic-minoritieshttp://www.dvb.no/tag/federalismhttp://www.dvb.no/tag/national-league-for-democracyhttp://www.dvb.no/tag/national-league-for-democracyhttp://www.dvb.no/author/elliott-prasse-freemanhttp://www.dvb.no/category/analysishttp://www.dvb.no/analysis/the-ties-that-bind-in-burma/29838/comment-page-1#comment-474037http://www.dvb.no/analysis/the-ties-that-bind-in-burma/29838/comment-page-1#comment-475421


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the futile and violent search for ‘authenticity’ in burma

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