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Authors: Jesper Bengtsson
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soldiers met resistance everywhere, partly from exofficers in the Bamar army and partly from the ethnic minorities.
The Bamar are the largest group of people in Burma. They constitute around 60 percent of the total population and they live mainly in the central parts of the country, in the vicinity of the Irrawaddy River with its six hundred miles. When using the word âBamar,â one thus means the majority group. The word âBurmeseâ is used to describe all the ethnic groups living within the mapped-out borders that constitute Burma.
Apart from the Bamar, there are several dozen ethnic minorities, of which the smallest consists of not more than a couple thousand people. The larger of these groups, however, are easy to distinguish as distinct and separate. They have had control over their own territory for a long time and built up their own social and political structures. They have their own languages, their own culture, and their own stories about their peopleâs history. The largest groups are the Karen, Karenni, Mon, Chin, Shan, Kachin, and Rakhine. They live mainly in the mountainous, jungle-clad border regions of the country, and historically they have actually never been subjugated to the Bamar central rule. The country that is today called Burma/Myanmar and that nowadays is to be seen on the maps of the world has, in other words, never existed. The various groups of people have lived in their own societies, and the mountains have protected them from occupation and given them a certain degree of independence.
The border peoples have often been in conflict with the Bamar kings, and when the British attacked they did not intend to defend the Bamar monarchy. However, they also feared that the British would be more effective in their ambition to conquer the mountainous regions, and therefore several of the ethnic groups went out into battle to fight against the occupation.
In the end, the British chose to exploit the ethnic conflict for their own ends. In central Burma, among the Bamar, they established a regime that was as hard as nails and must be described for all intents and purposes as a military dictatorship. In the mountainous regions the ethnic minorities were given the formal self-government that they had always striven for. The British called these regions the Border Areas. The Kachin, Shan, Karen, and other groups were thus able to use the colonial period as a lever in theirefforts to build their own nations. Men from the ethnic minorities, not least the Karen and the Karenni, were given posts in the army, police, and administration. Cheap labor was imported from India, and at the beginning of the twentieth century there were more Indians than Bamar living in the capital, Rangoon.
For the Bamar this development meant cultural, political, and economic degradation. They had been at the top of the social hierarchy and now they had suddenly ended up at the bottom.
Aung San grew up in a society that had left behind the old days. The kingdom no longer existed. The country was run by a brutal British regime that exploited the natural resources and let a large portion of the population remain in a state of poverty. A well-developed network of informers and a feared security police saw to it that the population was kept in check, and every attempt at armed resistance was beaten down with brutal violence. However, the new rulers had also developed the infrastructure, constructing railways lines from north to south and building bridges and roads. Industries had also grown up around the big cities. A system of education was introduced, partly to modernize the country and partly to compete with the Buddhist monastery schools, which were understood as being pockets of anticolonial resistance.
The final revolt, characterized by a conservative longing for the past and the old kingdom, was the so-called Saya San revolt at the beginning of the 1930s. Saya San had been a monk but left his monastery and
The Bamar are the largest group of people in Burma. They constitute around 60 percent of the total population and they live mainly in the central parts of the country, in the vicinity of the Irrawaddy River with its six hundred miles. When using the word âBamar,â one thus means the majority group. The word âBurmeseâ is used to describe all the ethnic groups living within the mapped-out borders that constitute Burma.
Apart from the Bamar, there are several dozen ethnic minorities, of which the smallest consists of not more than a couple thousand people. The larger of these groups, however, are easy to distinguish as distinct and separate. They have had control over their own territory for a long time and built up their own social and political structures. They have their own languages, their own culture, and their own stories about their peopleâs history. The largest groups are the Karen, Karenni, Mon, Chin, Shan, Kachin, and Rakhine. They live mainly in the mountainous, jungle-clad border regions of the country, and historically they have actually never been subjugated to the Bamar central rule. The country that is today called Burma/Myanmar and that nowadays is to be seen on the maps of the world has, in other words, never existed. The various groups of people have lived in their own societies, and the mountains have protected them from occupation and given them a certain degree of independence.
The border peoples have often been in conflict with the Bamar kings, and when the British attacked they did not intend to defend the Bamar monarchy. However, they also feared that the British would be more effective in their ambition to conquer the mountainous regions, and therefore several of the ethnic groups went out into battle to fight against the occupation.
In the end, the British chose to exploit the ethnic conflict for their own ends. In central Burma, among the Bamar, they established a regime that was as hard as nails and must be described for all intents and purposes as a military dictatorship. In the mountainous regions the ethnic minorities were given the formal self-government that they had always striven for. The British called these regions the Border Areas. The Kachin, Shan, Karen, and other groups were thus able to use the colonial period as a lever in theirefforts to build their own nations. Men from the ethnic minorities, not least the Karen and the Karenni, were given posts in the army, police, and administration. Cheap labor was imported from India, and at the beginning of the twentieth century there were more Indians than Bamar living in the capital, Rangoon.
For the Bamar this development meant cultural, political, and economic degradation. They had been at the top of the social hierarchy and now they had suddenly ended up at the bottom.
Aung San grew up in a society that had left behind the old days. The kingdom no longer existed. The country was run by a brutal British regime that exploited the natural resources and let a large portion of the population remain in a state of poverty. A well-developed network of informers and a feared security police saw to it that the population was kept in check, and every attempt at armed resistance was beaten down with brutal violence. However, the new rulers had also developed the infrastructure, constructing railways lines from north to south and building bridges and roads. Industries had also grown up around the big cities. A system of education was introduced, partly to modernize the country and partly to compete with the Buddhist monastery schools, which were understood as being pockets of anticolonial resistance.
The final revolt, characterized by a conservative longing for the past and the old kingdom, was the so-called Saya San revolt at the beginning of the 1930s. Saya San had been a monk but left his monastery and
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