Theories Behind the Myanmar Conflict

“What underlies the fear, mistrust, division and continued conflict in Myanmar? What is the explanation behind people’s continued struggle despite the pain and trauma of force and violence?” After six years of working and living in Myanmar, I have firmed up my thesis that the long-standing conflict and underdevelopment faced by this country’s people is an issue of unmet human needs.  This theory is supported by another theory – that the long years of frustration and anger of the parties in the conflict worsened and perpetuated the problem. Using these theories have their own limitations but they surely help answer the questions I have been asking from the beginning and can help guide future thinking and actions that can contribute to resolving the Myanmar conflict in the long term.

The Myanmar Conflict: Seeing Through Two Lenses 

Through the lens of Human Needs Theory

What struck me most during my first few months in Myanmar was the massive poverty, coupled with a culture of silence, distrust, and suspicion extensively exercised and rooted in people’s minds.  Mutual distrust and prejudice has become demanding issues, an experience I myself learned to live with over the last six years, battering my mind for years while slowly finding light in understanding how people went through living with fear in their daily lives in the country.  Amidst fears for their security and well-being, however, hopes for change is prominent in the quiet conversations and relatively safe walls of people’s rooms and care of trusted friends. Stories of violent attacks on people and villages, fighting, repressed freedom, suffering and pain wrap the situation of the country’s long history of conflict.  These stories etched in the experience and knowledge of the people serve as mirrors of my analysis of the conflict in Myanmar.

History, written and told, had been a useful tool which I will continue to use partly in this paper, to start to understand the development of the conflict in Myanmar. It is history and stories of people that helped me grasp the weaving of events to the present-day atmosphere of fear, mistrust and division.  It is history, written in many books and reports that informed us, over and over again, that in the past millennium, the Burmese have never been unified through consent. Instead, they have endured three dynasties of control, fighting, competition, and violence. These struggles of dynasties spanned nearly eight centuries followed by more than a century of British colonial administration, and over four decades of military rule. It is history, which tells us how these dynasties and governments tried pitting different ethnic tribes against one another in the hope to divide and weaken their struggle.  For instance, the Museum of Karen History narrates about the massacre of Karens during the Japanese occupation (TMKHC 2008). News reports and archives as well as personal accounts narrate about the burning of mosques by Bamar Buddhists in Central Myanmar in early 2000, the destruction of Christian symbols and churches in the east, and the violent attacks by Karens of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army[1] against Karens of the Karen National Union in 1994. These are only few of the many stories painted in the divided portrait of Myanmar people.  It is history too, that tells us how successive governments from the beginning, had long story of failed and unsuccessful attempts of unification through consent. Until today, the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) must resort to force in order to preserve a multi-ethnic nation-state whose unity has been continuously challenged by Myanmar’s repressed ethnic minorities.  Ironically, the use of force to artificially unify Myanmar’s 135 distinct ethnic minorities has achieved precisely the opposite effect: It has bred disunity by sowing the seeds of division, fear, and distrust among many of these groups.