• Burmese
Friday, June 20, 2025
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Irrawaddy
26 °c
Yangon
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
No Result
View All Result
The Irrawaddy
No Result
View All Result
Home Opinion

Moving Beyond the Racial Lens

Violet Cho by Violet Cho
June 13, 2012
in Uncategorized
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0 0
A A
3.4k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

As has been widely reported, western Burma is suffering from continuing communal violence. This has been primarily talked about in racial and/or religious terms: Arakan versus Rohingya. Buddhists versus Muslims. Indigenous people versus illegal migrants. At best, this ethno-religious lens simplifies the conflict. At worst it enflames it.

Uncritically viewing the conflict, and Burma more broadly, through a racial lens can prolong current and future instances of violence. Some of the taken for granted assumptions central to discussions about the conflict need to be unpacked.

Ongoing civil war, often justified by ethno-nationalism, has been a key feature of post-colonial Burma. Before that, race was almost obsessively used by the British to categorize and govern the population. Burma’s official “national races”—including many of the racial category terms and ethno-nationalist histories—have their roots in the colonial period.

RelatedPosts

The UWSA and the Peace Process

The UWSA and the Peace Process

August 10, 2016
6.9k
Burma’s Peace Process and the Swiss Bank Account

Burma’s Peace Process and the Swiss Bank Account

August 3, 2016
8.2k
The Lady

The Lady, Surrounded by the Generals and Their Families

July 23, 2016
8.2k

In Burma, the British spent a lot of time and effort researching and defining race, using now discredited quasi-scientific practices such as measurements of facial features. Racial profiles of Burma were extensively written up in colonial census reports and other documents.

The effects of this large body of colonial knowledge on race and demography endures. Karen, my own official race, is an example of this. Karen is an English term, an equivalent of the Burmese term Kayin. There is no equivalent word for Karen Race indigenous to any Karen language. The idea of race, defined as something biological (blood, skull size, levels of intelligence), is scientifically invalid. Rather, the idea of race is socially constructed. Knowing that, how should we talk about Karen? As a language group? As a group that shares a common tradition of textiles?

I think there needs to be public debate about the meaning of race and some redefining of old racial categories. This necessarily involves a reexamination of colonial legacy, which can be deep and personal.

Along with race, Burma’s modern borders are a recent colonial legacy. The geographical map of Burma is new and pre-colonial kingdoms did not keep subjects from moving, particularly in peripheral areas, like the towns and villages that have seen the worst of the conflict. It is therefore unsurprising that more recent lines on maps have not been able to stop people’s mobility.

Karen are also subjected to unnatural borders, being spread throughout the eastern periphery of Burma and northwestern Thailand. These are hill areas with only a recent history of being subject to central governments.

The murders, destruction of villages and hate speech going on now therefore needs to be seen in the context of more than a century of colonial and post-colonial Burmese history, in which problematic ideas of race and nation have been dominant.

Burma is in a process of democratization. Diversity is a key feature that needs to be maintained. That involves human rights for all, including the right to identity, be it religious, ethnic, gender or sexual. The recognition of one identity must not be equated with the denial of another.

Western Burma is one of the poorest regions of the country. The significant investment that exists is primarily in resources, which hardly benefits local people. Poverty and state repression leads to intense frustration that does not have an easy outlet and can be seen as a common root cause of communal violence around the world.

Class and the experience of state repression also form a key commonality amongst those involved in the violence, both perpetrators and victims. In everyday life, people involved in the violence arguably have a lot more in common with each other than rich, urban-based members of their respective ethnic groups and/or religions that they may identify with. This is often drowned out by nationalist talk, fear and hatred. We should be looking at these and other commonalities rather than emphasizing difference and division.

So what are we afraid of? In talking about this conflict, Islamophobia is a feature. This is linked to post-911 global terrorism discourse that has been imported into Burma. For example, one friend recently argued that the Rohingya should not yet be recognized because of fear that western Burma could become like southern Thailand. Then there is the argument that Rohingya are not a national race. There is also a popular fear of losing sovereignty, of the need to protect Burma’s colonial borders from those marked as other.

If we dig below the surface, we can see that western Burma’s communal violence is rooted in wider and very complex historical, social, political, class and cultural processes. Perhaps we should start redefining outdated categories, such as race, and look through alternative lenses that can help lead to more productive analysis.

Violet Cho is a former Irrawaddy staff reporter currently based in Australia. The views expressed here are her own.

Your Thoughts …
Tags: Contributors
Violet Cho

Violet Cho

Contributor

Similar Picks:

Burma’s Sexist School Requirements Hurt Women—And Society
Specials

Burma’s Sexist School Requirements Hurt Women—And Society

by Khin Hnin Soe
September 7, 2014
11.5k

Universities seem to be systematically discouraging women from pursuing many leadership roles, and it’s a great loss for our country’s...

Read moreDetails
The Lady
Burma

The Lady, Surrounded by the Generals and Their Families

by Thuta
July 23, 2016
8.2k

For national reconciliation, Suu Kyi must build pragmatic, reconciliatory relations with former and current generals who once regarded her as...

Read moreDetails
Posthumous Award Revives Memories of a Shan Prince
Culture

Posthumous Award Revives Memories of a Shan Prince

by Withaya Huanokk
October 8, 2015
6k

The late Sao Kya Seng, the last Shan prince of Hsipaw, is honored with a Distinguished Achievement Medal commending outstanding...

Read moreDetails
Burmese Neo-Nazi Movement Rising Against Muslims
Guest Column

Burmese Neo-Nazi Movement Rising Against Muslims

by Kosak Tuscangate
March 24, 2013
11k

The violence in Meikhtila comes at a time of growing anti-Muslim sentiment in Burma that bears a disturbing resemblance to...

Read moreDetails
Toward a More Perfect Union
Guest Column

Toward a More Perfect Union

by Wai Yan Hpone
February 12, 2015
7.6k

The legacy and continued dominance of the ethnic Bamar in Myanmar, and enduring chauvinism, are major obstacles to national reconciliation...

Read moreDetails
Guest Column

Spy Me, Spy You, Sa-Bai Thailand

by Kavi Chongkittavorn
November 4, 2013
10.8k

The revelation that the US uses its Asian embassies for spying has upset some, but intelligence cooperation works both ways.

Read moreDetails
Load More
Next Post
Arakan Residents Demand More Security

Arakan Residents Demand More Security

Protesting Miners Face Third Night at Mandalay Pagoda

Protesting Miners Face Third Night at Mandalay Pagoda

No Result
View All Result

Recommended

Myanmar Tourism Sector Mocks Junta’s Russia Tourist Drive

Myanmar Tourism Sector Mocks Junta’s Russia Tourist Drive

6 days ago
1.7k
Untested Commander Takes Charge as Myanmar Military Faces Toughest Challenge in Decades

Untested Commander Takes Charge as Myanmar Military Faces Toughest Challenge in Decades

6 days ago
1.8k

Most Read

  • On Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s Birthday, Recalling the Cake That Rattled the Junta

    On Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s Birthday, Recalling the Cake That Rattled the Junta

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Global Campaign Reaches Goal to Honor Aung San Suu Kyi on Her 80th Birthday

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Bago Resistance Claims 20 Myanmar Junta Personnel Killed

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Thai PM Faces Growing Calls to Quit in Cambodia Phone Row

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • ADB Announces Record $100m Quake Aid Package for Myanmar

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Newsletter

Get The Irrawaddy’s latest news, analyses and opinion pieces on Myanmar in your inbox.

Subscribe here for daily updates.

Contents

  • News
  • Politics
  • War Against the Junta
  • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
  • Conflicts In Numbers
  • Junta Crony
  • Ethnic Issues
  • Asia
  • World
  • Business
  • Economy
  • Election 2020
  • Elections in History
  • Cartoons
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Commentary
  • Guest Column
  • Analysis
  • Letters
  • In Person
  • Interview
  • Profile
  • Dateline
  • Specials
  • Myanmar Diary
  • Women & Gender
  • Places in History
  • On This Day
  • From the Archive
  • Myanmar & COVID-19
  • Intelligence
  • Myanmar-China Watch
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Food
  • Fashion & Design
  • Videos
  • Photos
  • Photo Essay
  • Donation

About The Irrawaddy

Founded in 1993 by a group of Myanmar journalists living in exile in Thailand, The Irrawaddy is a leading source of reliable news, information, and analysis on Burma/Myanmar and the Southeast Asian region. From its inception, The Irrawaddy has been an independent news media group, unaffiliated with any political party, organization or government. We believe that media must be free and independent and we strive to preserve press freedom.

  • Copyright
  • Code of Ethics
  • Privacy Policy
  • Team
  • About Us
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Burmese

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Business
    • Economy
    • Business Roundup
  • Books
  • Donation

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.