Trying to honestly interpret a stricken country in unhappy times is not the most pleasant of callings. That country being Myanmar, and emphasis being on the word ‘honestly’. The picture isn’t wholly bleak, and there are some positive hues, like the civil society, run by mostly young people.
I had plied this vocation in the past and had foreseen how the present ruling party – National League for Democracy (NLD) – would pan out. But my forebodings were not welcome news to many at home and abroad.
Just the other day – in the middle of the Thingyan (Burmese New Year) Festival – the Tatmadaw (military) shelled a village in conflict-ridden Rakhine State, killing thirteen and wounding many more.
Nothing is sacrosanct. I pointed out that the COVID-19 outbreak may or may not kill you, but shells and bullets most certainly will.
As the chances for a peace settlement in what is the world’s longest-running civil war grow dimmer, and political choices in the revived democracy get narrower, we constantly juggle the omnipresent threats and try to locate the most troubling.
I have been assessing and writing about nationalism and nation-building for over a decade now. Nation-building is almost a misnomer; nation-unravelling would be closer to the truth of what is happening in Myanmar. The conflict and bloodletting in Rakhine is the best example. The government could have put political preventive measures in place without much difficulty, but it dismissed them out of hand.
Instead the top civilian leadership called for the Arakan Army rebels to be ‘wiped out’.
What has been in my mind over the past three years is the possibility of Myanmar fragmenting in one way or the other. The much-lauded ‘peace process’ is now bereft of substance. The democratic revival had been ushered in at great human cost and there will be elections later this year. But it is difficult to see how Myanmar can break out of the present two-party stranglehold.
In the midst of all this, the other day, a coin dropped unexpectedly. No it did not spring from the usual political sources and progeny.
While looking for something else, I chanced upon a book chapter on China’s southern frontier in history. Titled “Man and Mongol: The Dali and Dai Viet Kingdoms in the Face of the Northern Invasions”, it is authored by an American historian, James A. Anderson. It struck me quite forcibly that it happens to apply directly and eerily to present-day Myanmar.
The essay is about how two different kingdoms – Dali and Dai Viet – stood up to Mongol invasions in the 13th century. Dai Viet was successful, while Dali failed, and the reasons and lessons are very much relevant today. However, more often than not, politicians are blind to such (urgent) signals from the past.
I have to admit that this does not mean I am indulging in historical determinism. This is just an indication, albeit an important one. But the Myanmar state being what it is, one cannot be sanguine about it taking steps to avert the fate that befell Dali.
Dali had been a Buddhist, non-Han kingdom astride the southern Silk Road. It was not a backwoods principality. It had culture, civilisation and trade links in all directions. I had visited the place some years back, and noticed that the pagodas and statuary destroyed during the Cultural Revolution had been restored.
It is widely held that historical Yunnan is part and parcel of what is now regarded as Southeast Asia. As with Dai Viet and practically everywhere else in the region, there had been a lowland political core with montane sub-units around it, usually populated by different upland ethnicities. (Does this sound familiar?)
Both the Dali and Dai Viet kingdoms incorporated those ‘minorities’ into a strong alliance system, but how one succeeded and the other failed against the Mongols makes for very interesting study. The author mentions that –
“The success of (Dai Viet) depended on having shaped a stronger political identity, also through the borrowing of Chinese dynastic structures, and having strengthened the linkage between centre and periphery through marriage, commerce and militia recruitment.”
What really hit me and astounded me is that the present Myanmar ‘dual’ state possesses and practices very little of the ‘minority policies’ that either of those ancient kingdoms did.
So the corollary question is: how does contemporary Myanmar intend to face the multifarious forces emanating now from the north?
It is not going to be a military invasion like what Dali had to contend with, but something more sophisticated and impactful. The imperative to invest in Dali had been to outflank the Chinese Song Empire. What is at stake now is to open a corridor to the Indian Ocean.
As always, the quality of leadership plays a part. Before the attack, when the Mongol army sent an envoy to Dali to negotiate a surrender, the chief minister Gao Xiang had him executed. If it needs reminding, having a murderous streak doesn’t go well with statecraft. Then, as well as now.
*Footnote: ‘Man’ is the Chinese word for barbarian.
Views are the author’s own. Photographs arranged by the author.
Featured image: Fires burn close to archaeological sites in the ancient Rakhine heritage town of Mrauk U, as the Myanmar military fights ethnic rebels nearby. The sites were recently proposed for UNESCO World Heritage Site classification | Source: Tin Htoo Aung, Facebook
is the director of Tampadipa Institute, a policy organisation based in Yangon. He was a political prisoner for eleven years during Myanmar’s military dictatorship.
