By Dr Maung Zarni
RB Opinion
October 15, 2017
Ethnicity and Race are INVENTIONS, MADE-UP, CONSTRUCTED
with an identifiable political purpose.
But the country is moving in the different direction on
this, that is, Hitler's blood-based, "real", notions of RACE.
In the most recent Irrawaddy "Debate" hosted by
Ye Ni who advocates openly "surgical operations" against
"Bengali", one Burmese anthropology professor from Mandalay raised
the issue that there are no people called Rohingyas in Chittagong.
(In fact, it was Hitler who used the term "surgical
operations" in his Mein Kampf or My Story.
There are no Chins in India North East (across from the Chin
Hills of Burma. They are called Zo. That's identities shifting across
geographic space.
Time/context wise, here is another example of fluidity of
identity.
In the colonial period, the flag raised against the
ruling British colonizers is: Burmese.
Coastal region Rakhine commercial, Lower Burma cultural
elite Buddhists, Mon commercial, and Dry Zone-rooted cultural elite Buddhists
forged a political identity called "Burmese", using the common
oppression as a common bridge and Buddhism as an additional pillar of their
newly forged umbrella identity.
General Council of Buddhist Association (GCBA) U Soe
Thein was a Mon, but adopted the Burmese identity, as head of the majoritarian
cultural - and later political movement from which the Peasant Uprisings sprang
up under the local medicine man - Saya San. PM U Nu was a lower-Bama Mon. The
late UN Sec. General U Thant, was a Lower Burma Kular-Bama mix, who adopted
Bama Buddhist identity.
After independence, Rakhine and Mon shed that umbrella
identity, and hoisted their primary identities as Rakhine and Mons and sought
autonomy and equality in the post-independence period.
The most famous Rakhine leader, the Cambridge-trained ICS
U Kyaw Min, my friend Prof. Ko Kyaw Tha Paw Oo's grandfather, was initially
Burmese nationalist in the service of the British Colonial rule. He led the
above-ground parliamentary push for autonomous Rakhine Statehood.
As a widespread phenomenon, Burmese of Chinese and Indian
or Pakistani Muslim ancestry frontload their primary identities as
"Muslim" or "Chinese" when the new social context is more
accepting, liberal and tolerant, for instance, the United States or UK.
So my friends, Khin Khin of Chinese background in Burma
would become Phillipa Tan, Win Ko would become Akbar Hamid, or Kyaw Zwa,
Mohammad.
Even within a single political unit as Frontier Areas of
Burma, Jing Hpaw (Kachin) would morph into Shan, a more powerful ethnic group.
After the waning of their dominance in the pre-colonial
Burmese feudal entities, the Shan feudal elites, geographically closer to the
Burmese Dry Zone centers of power, they would emulate Burmese power symbols,
rituals, feudal customs and manners while those Shan feudal elites closer to
Northern Siam or Thai kingdoms would be more culturally and politically tied to
the Thai or Dai or Siamese.
Given the way the NLD and the military are leading the
country, ideologically, it is conceivable that the Ministry of Education will
use Mein Kampf as a prescribed text for Ethnicity and Race - 101. Go Myanmar
Nazi, Go!
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