The Burmese Labyrinth
A first-hand account of the complex, bloody history of Myanmar and the origins of the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingyas

In 2011, Myanmar embarked in a democratic transition from a brutal military rule that culminated four years later, when the first free election in decades saw a landslide for the party of celebrated Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Yet, even as the international community was celebrating a new dawn, old wars were raging in the northern borderlands. A crisis was emerging in western Arakan state where the regime intensified its oppression of the vulnerable Muslim Rohingya community. By 2017, the conflict had escalated into a military onslaught against the Rohingya that provoked the most desperate refugee crisis of our times, as over 750,000 of them fled their homes to neighbouring Bangladesh.

In The Burmese Labyrinth, journalist Carlos Sardiña Galache gives the in depth story of the country. Burma has always been an uneasy balance between multiple ethnic groups and religions. He examines the deep roots behind the ethnic divisions that go back prior to the colonial period, and so shockingly exploded in recent times. This is a powerful portrait of a nation in perpetual conflict with itself.
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The Burmese Labyrinth
A first-hand account of the complex, bloody history of Myanmar and the origins of the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingyas

In 2011, Myanmar embarked in a democratic transition from a brutal military rule that culminated four years later, when the first free election in decades saw a landslide for the party of celebrated Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Yet, even as the international community was celebrating a new dawn, old wars were raging in the northern borderlands. A crisis was emerging in western Arakan state where the regime intensified its oppression of the vulnerable Muslim Rohingya community. By 2017, the conflict had escalated into a military onslaught against the Rohingya that provoked the most desperate refugee crisis of our times, as over 750,000 of them fled their homes to neighbouring Bangladesh.

In The Burmese Labyrinth, journalist Carlos Sardiña Galache gives the in depth story of the country. Burma has always been an uneasy balance between multiple ethnic groups and religions. He examines the deep roots behind the ethnic divisions that go back prior to the colonial period, and so shockingly exploded in recent times. This is a powerful portrait of a nation in perpetual conflict with itself.
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The Burmese Labyrinth

The Burmese Labyrinth

by Carlos Sardina Galache
The Burmese Labyrinth

The Burmese Labyrinth

by Carlos Sardina Galache

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Overview

A first-hand account of the complex, bloody history of Myanmar and the origins of the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingyas

In 2011, Myanmar embarked in a democratic transition from a brutal military rule that culminated four years later, when the first free election in decades saw a landslide for the party of celebrated Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Yet, even as the international community was celebrating a new dawn, old wars were raging in the northern borderlands. A crisis was emerging in western Arakan state where the regime intensified its oppression of the vulnerable Muslim Rohingya community. By 2017, the conflict had escalated into a military onslaught against the Rohingya that provoked the most desperate refugee crisis of our times, as over 750,000 of them fled their homes to neighbouring Bangladesh.

In The Burmese Labyrinth, journalist Carlos Sardiña Galache gives the in depth story of the country. Burma has always been an uneasy balance between multiple ethnic groups and religions. He examines the deep roots behind the ethnic divisions that go back prior to the colonial period, and so shockingly exploded in recent times. This is a powerful portrait of a nation in perpetual conflict with itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781788733236
Publisher: Verso Books
Publication date: 03/10/2020
Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format: eBook
Pages: 352
File size: 906 KB

About the Author

Carlos Sardiña Galache was born in Madrid in 1978 and has covered Burma as a freelance journalist since 2010. Based in Bangkok, he visited the country regularly covering its many conflicts during the transition period. His work has been published in outlets like Al Jazeera, the Intercept, the Christian Science Monitor, the South China Morning Post, TIME, the Bangkok Post, or Nikkei Asian Review. He currently works for the Spanish news agency EFE in Bangkok.

Table of Contents

Maps vii

Note on Burmese Terms ix

Introduction: Trapped in the Burmese Labyrinth 1

Part I 'Discipline-Flourishing Democracy' 9

1 The Transition 11

2 The War in the 'Green Hell' 27

3 Days of Fury in Arakan 41

4 'We Will Build a Fence With Our Bones if Necessary' 57

5 The Counted and the Excluded 75

6 The Burmese Cage 91

Part II History and Its Traces 105

7 The Worlds of Precolonial 'Burma' 107

8 Burma Under the British 127

9 The Emergence of Nationalisms 139

10 World War II and the Road to Independence 152

11 An Embattled Democracy 166

12 The Burmese Way to Socialism 181

13 A Long 'Caretaker Government' 197

Part III A Diarchic Government 219

14 The Election 221

15 'The Lady' in Power 232

16 'An Unfinished Job' 246

17 After the Ethnic Cleansing 267

Conclusion: The Failure of Burmese Nationalism 283

Acknowledgments 295

Notes 299

Index 331

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