Journal of Contemporary Asia

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Addressing Myanmar’s Citizenship Crisis

Ian Holliday

To cite this article: Ian Holliday (2014) Addressing Myanmar’s Citizenship Crisis, Journal of
Contemporary Asia, 44:3, 404-421, DOI: 10.1080/00472336.2013.877957

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Journal of Contemporary Asia, 2014
Vol. 44, No. 3, 404–421, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00472336.2013.877957

Addressing Myanmar’s Citizenship Crisis

IAN HOLLIDAY
Department of Politics and Public Administration, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT Among many problematic issues surfacing in reformist Myanmar is a citizenship crisis
with four main dimensions. First, in a state with fragile civil liberties, skewed political rights and
limited social rights, there is a broad curtailment of citizenship. Second, Rohingya Muslims living
mainly in Rakhine State are denied citizenship, and other Muslims throughout the country are
increasingly affected by this denial. Third, designated ethnic minorities clustered in peripheral areas
face targeted restrictions of citizenship. Fourth, the dominant Bamar majority concentrated in the
national heartland tends to arrogate or appropriate citizenship. The result is growing social tension
that threatens to undermine the wider reform process. To examine this crisis, the article sets
Myanmar in a comparative context. In particular, it considers how multicultural states in the
developed world have sought to manage a political switch from racial or ethnic hierarchy to
democratic citizenship. Drawing on global experience with multiculturalism and enabling civic
integration, it advances a series of policy options focused on rights, duties and identity. It argues for
domestic political leadership, backed by global political support, to address Myanmar’s citizenship
crisis.

KEY WORDS: Burma, citizenship, ethnicity, multiculturalism, Myanmar, race

As Myanmar, the Southeast Asian country formerly known as Burma, presses ahead
with a raft of sweeping political, economic and social reforms, tensions long present in
the society and exacerbated by 50 years of austere indirect or direct military rule are
starting to resurface. Among the most pressing issues is a citizenship crisis with four
main dimensions. First, in a state where all citizens can claim no more than fragile civil
liberties, partial political freedoms and limited social rights, there is a broad curtailment
of citizenship. Second, Rohingya Muslims living above all in western Rakhine State are
denied citizenship, and partly in consequence other Muslims throughout the country
face growing problems. Third, in peripheral areas minority ethnic groups are able to
claim no more than restricted citizenship. Fourth, and contrastingly, in the broad
national heartland the Bamar majority tends ever more to arrogate or appropriate
citizenship. To think through how Myanmar might tackle its citizenship crisis, this
article looks beyond assertions of exceptionalism to parallel experience in other coun-
tries. In particular, it makes a rather large comparative leap to consider how multi-
cultural states in the developed world have sought to manage a political switch from
racial or ethnic hierarchy to democratic citizenship. Drawing notably on experiments
with multiculturalism and enabling civic integration, it advances policy options focused
on rights, duties and identity. The first section of the article provides necessary context

Correspondence Address: Ian Holliday, Department of Politics and Public Administration, The University of
Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Email: ian.holliday@hku.hk

© 2014 Journal of Contemporary Asia

 Myanmar’s Citizenship Crisis 405

by briefly surveying the current reform process, the second presents the major dimen-
sions of the generalised citizenship crisis, and the third follows up by looking at the
three specific domains of deeper crisis. The fourth section then makes the case for
comparative analysis, and for a focus especially on issues associated with multicultur-
alism and dominant group privilege. The fifth examines Myanmar in this context, and
generates a series of policy options for building citizenship. The brief conclusion argues
for domestic political leadership, backed by global political support, to address
Myanmar’s citizenship crisis.

Myanmar in Reform
Visible reform in Myanmar dates from 2011, when in the space of no more than a few
short months overt military rule was dismantled, a quasi-civilian government took office,
an elected bicameral national parliament began to function, 14 provincial assemblies came
into being, and top political leaders made public commitments to incremental political
change (International Crisis Group 2011). On the side of the military elite, long the
dominant political force, President Thein Sein reached out to key stakeholders across
the political spectrum, signalling a desire to entrench meaningful reform. On the side of
the democratic opposition, long the most visible contender for power, 1991 Nobel Peace
laureate Aung San Suu Kyi met with the president in August 2011 and committed the
National League for Democracy (NLD) to a loyalist inside track. An important symbolic
moment came no more than a few weeks later when, at the end of September 2011, Thein
Sein responded to widespread public disquiet and protest by suspending construction
work in Kachin State on Myitsone Dam, a vast hydroelectric project financed chiefly by a
Chinese investor (Turnell 2012). Thereafter, additional reforms were implemented through
a large-scale release of political prisoners in January 2012, an overwhelming triumph for
NLD candidates at by-elections in April 2012, a rollback of media censorship in August
2012, and a general loosening of political and economic controls (International Crisis
Group 2012a; Holliday 2013).
Undeniably, reform has extended the terrain of liberal freedom in Myanmar. Cities and
even towns and villages are now marked by an openness inconceivable in the dark days of
military dominance instituted in March 1962, when a largely bloodless coup destroyed the
democracy created at independence from Britain in January 1948, and ushered in nearly
50 years of authoritarian rule. The wider world is also much more present in Myanmar, as
diplomats, corporate executives, aid workers and tourists descend on a country isolated for
decades from Western nations. At the same time, though, much has not yet changed inside
the country, with endemic poverty stalking much of the land, basic social safety nets
largely absent, low-grade civil warfare disfiguring peripheral parts, and national reconci-
liation still a distant dream (International Crisis Group 2012b). Indeed, some tensions,
both ethnic and religious, that were partially suppressed or displaced during the long years
of military rule are now reappearing with a vengeance. Kachin State and northern Shan
State have been scarred by conflict throughout the reform period, and social tension
pitting majority Buddhists against minority Muslims flared in Rakhine State in June and
October 2012, and sporadically in towns within the Bamar heartland in the early months
of 2013 (Human Rights Watch 2013; International Crisis Group 2013; Physicians for
Human Rights 2013; United Nations General Assembly 2013). Today a narrow, chauvi-
nistic Buddhist “969” movement is flourishing and many communities are aggressively
406 I. Holliday

adorned with Buddhist flags, with some also marked by 969 logos signalling an economic
boycott of Muslim traders. Across the country anti-Muslim hostility and violence are
commonplace, and segregation of Buddhist and Muslim communities, nearly total in
Rakhine State, is rapidly gathering pace. In consequence, the fear of military rule about
which Aung San Suu Kui (1995) wrote so eloquently from house arrest more than
20 years ago has been partially transposed. For Buddhists, as Daw Suu herself now
argues, the primary fear is of Muslim incursion (BBC 2013). For non-Buddhists, it is of
Buddhist mob violence. Structural power nevertheless remains in the hands of individuals
associated with the country’s oversized military forces, who retain institutionalised control
at all levels of the polity. This is exactly as was planned in a seven-stage roadmap to
“disciplined democracy” unveiled in August 2003 by the military junta that ruthlessly
controlled national politics from 1988 to 2011 (Holliday 2011). The earliest opportunity
for any significant change appears to be a general election scheduled for November 2015.
The reform process, currently in its third year, remains volatile and uncertain.
The challenges that lie ahead are therefore legion. While ensuring that the overarching
political reform process stays on track, state leaders need to address a series of economic
and social problems with deep historical roots that are now pressing for ordinary citizens
throughout the land. As well as seeking progress in building a robust democracy, many
individuals want to see improvements in daily life for themselves and their families, and
to feel that opportunities existing in countries close by will soon become a reality in
Myanmar. In a context where so much needs to be done, it is hard to identify the most
urgent task. Nevertheless, there is certainly a case for focusing on citizenship, as issues of
rights, duties and identity underlie so much else in the political domain. They are also
entwined with difficult social and economic issues. Ethnic conflict pitting minority
militias against the national army clearly reflects fundamental questions of identity reach-
ing back to the near-mythical 1947 Panglong Agreement, and before that to the full span
of British colonial rule (Walton 2008). At the same time, though, it is about resource
control, development plans and a measure of rent seeking. Religious tension driving
Buddhists and Muslims into opposing camps derives from visceral fear of domination
by an alien faith. Equally, though, it too has economic triggers in Buddhist resentment of
Muslim traders.

Myanmar’s Generalised Citizenship Crisis

Citizenship is broadly held to encompass a package of rights and duties that collectively
generate a civic persona or identity. On one side are four major baskets of rights. T. H.
Marshall listed three of them in a lecture given in Cambridge in 1949. The civil
component comprises “the rights necessary for individual freedom” (Marshall 1950,
10). The political component entails “the right to participate in the exercise of political
power” (Marshall 1950, 11). The social component embraces “the whole range from the
right to a modicum of economic welfare to the right to share to the full in the social
heritage and to live the life of a civilised being according to the standards prevailing in the
society” (Marshall 1950, 11). Marshall’s argument was that these three rights were
necessary to the exercise of citizenship duties, that unless a state delivered on rights it
could not call on citizens to fulfil concomitant duties. More recently, scholars have added
a fourth basket. The cultural component comprises the right to assert and cultivate one’s
cultural heritage (Kymlicka 1995, 2001; Parekh 2006; Modood 2013). On the other side,
 Myanmar’s Citizenship Crisis 407

balancing this cluster of civil, political, social and cultural rights, is the obligation of
allegiance to a state. Thus, citizenship is a two-way street of rights and duties constituting
a civic persona or identity.
In contemporary Myanmar, the rights held by Marshall to be foundational to citizenship
are curtailed in important ways. The constitution, drafted by the military junta and enacted
through a patently rigged referendum held in May 2008 as stage four of its seven-stage
roadmap to democracy, sets out a reasonably standard list of rights and duties. Article 21
states that “Every citizen shall enjoy the right of equality, the right of liberty and the right
of justice.” Article 34 holds that “Every citizen is equally entitled to freedom of con-
science and the right to freely profess and practice religion.” Chapter VIII, on fundamental
rights and duties, prescribes a right to education in article 366, a right to health care in
article 367, and so on. However, there are also broad constitutional limitations, notably in
the sphere of political rights. In the executive, article 232 stipulates that the ministers of
defence, home affairs and border affairs shall be serving military personnel nominated by
the commander-in-chief of the defence services. Article 201 places the commander-in-
chief, his deputy and all three of these ministers in the influential 11-member National
Defence and Security Council. In the legislature, articles 109, 141 and 161, on formation
of the bicameral national parliament and 14 regional and state assemblies, prescribe that
one-quarter of the members of each institution shall be defence services personnel
nominated by the commander-in-chief. Provisions for declaration of a state of emergency
in article 40 and chapter XI also allocate considerable direct authority to the commander-
in-chief. The constitution supplements these political limitations with a series of militar-
istic duties. Article 383 establishes a duty to uphold what junta propagandists defined as
the three main national causes: non-disintegration of the union, non-disintegration of
national solidarity, and perpetuation of sovereignty. Article 386 holds that “Every citizen
has the duty to undergo military training…and to serve in the Armed Forces to defend the
Union.” Article 387 imposes a duty to enhance national unity. In these myriad ways, the
2008 constitution fills out the meaning of its core commitment to a “genuine, disciplined
multi-party democratic system,” introduced in article 7 and mentioned throughout the
document (Republic of the Union of Myanmar 2008). This insistent constitutional
emphasis on discipline and order, which even in the current reform period remain the
defining values of the Myanmar state, simultaneously places significant limitations on
citizenship.
More important still, at least in the short and medium term, are two additional factors.
One is that many restrictive laws from prior eras remain on the statute book, and are being
supplemented by hastily drafted legislation pouring out of the parliament that came into
being in 2011. The early phase of reform thus saw real uncertainty hang over freedom of
speech, for instance, with journalists clearly able to exercise considerably more liberty, yet
at the same time not knowing where the limits of permissibility lay. Although a new
media law began to be drafted, the process was controversial, and in the interim a
patchwork of problematic legislation continued to hold sway. Similarly, the right to free
assembly and protest became much more extensive, and to exercise it people took to the
streets not only of major cities, but also of towns and villages. Nevertheless, many
restrictions remained in place through mandatory requirements for registration of any
planned protest, slow approval processes frequently resulting in rejections, and official
harassment of demonstrators in both urban and rural areas. Moreover, a brutal crackdown
on protesters at a mainly Chinese-run copper mine in Letpadaung, Sagaing Region on
408 I. Holliday

29 November 2012 raised searching questions about how far the domain of civil rights
now extended. Two contrasting reports, one issued by civil society groups and the other
released by an official commission chaired by Aung San Suu Kyi, did little to clarify
matters (Asian Human Rights Commission 2013). The NLD leader was herself vilified for
siding with the Chinese corporate investor against the demands of local villagers. In other
areas, people remained unsure how to understand their rights at a time when a stable and
predictable balance between still-powerful military actors and emergent forces of democ-
racy had yet to be struck. The second additional factor is that many of the most alluring
and positive constitutional provisions are currently worth little more than the paper they
are written on. Notably, commitments to social rights in education and health are close to
meaningless in a country where state spending continues to be heavily skewed towards
industries based on extraction and natural resources (Bissinger 2012; UNICEF 2013a).
Despite quite substantial increases, UNICEF (2013b) estimates that state spending on
health and education combined remain below 2% of gross domestic product. The United
Nations Development Programme (2013, 164) reports that mean enrolment in school is as
low as 3.9 years.
Generally in contemporary Myanmar, then, civil rights are restricted by repressive laws
retained on the statute book from earlier days of colonial and military government, and by
new laws passed with undue haste. Constitutional provisions for emergency rule, triggered
easily, allow for the suspension of almost all rights. Political rights are egregiously limited
by constitutional articles enabling the top military leader to nominate members of the
executive, and appoint one-quarter of the members of both houses of the national
parliament, and of all 14 regional and state assemblies. Social rights, though listed in
the constitution, are virtually non-existent for large numbers of people because state
funding for all welfare functions has long been minimal.

Specific Features of Myanmar’s Citizenship Crisis

Set in the context of these varied and sweeping limitations on citizenship are three more
targeted and specific aspects of Myanmar’s citizenship crisis. Two of the three affect
designated minority groups negatively. The third is a concomitant positive claim to
superior citizenship on the part of the majority Bamar Buddhist group. In examining
these dimensions of Myanmar’s citizenship crisis, it is important to note that after
centuries of intermarriage and intercultural mixing of many other kinds, there are few
people, at least in the national heartland, who can claim ethnic or racial purity. Many
citizens have ancestors from ethnic groups other than those with which they now identify.
However, since perceptions and self-identifications are supremely important in this
domain, the analysis can proceed on the basis of asserted and ascribed identities.
For Rohingya Muslims living mainly in Rakhine State, estimated to total 750,000
people in 2011 (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 2011, 7), the situation
is most desperate. This is a collection of people with disparate personal stories and a
deeply, often violently, contested history inside the borders of contemporary Myanmar
(Berlie 2008). One critical issue is whether a Rohingya community was resident inside the
territory prior to the first phase of British colonisation in 1824. If this was the case, and
there is some evidence that it was (Berlie 2008, 58), then there are grounds for arguing
that Rohingya people today can rightfully claim the status of indigenous minority. If it
was not the case, however, the status of contemporary Rohingya communities becomes
 Myanmar’s Citizenship Crisis 409

highly contentious. A second key issue is how the Rohingya community was treated by
the state once the country gained independence from Britain in 1948. Despite abundant
claims to the contrary made today by Bamar nationalists, it seems clear that in those days
senior government figures had little hesitation in viewing the Rohingya as established
members of the nation. In February 2013, for instance, Shwe Maung, a Rohingya member
of the national parliament, insisted that inaugural President Sao Shwe Thaik and inaugural
Prime Minister U Nu both recognised the Rohingya as one of the country’s indigenous
races (Hindstrom 2013). Thereafter, however, there is no doubting how history unfolded.
The Citizenship Act 1982, passed during the long period of Ne Win’s dominance and still
on the statute book today, denied the Rohingya both full and associate citizenship (United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 2011, 7). By contrast, a separate community of
Kaman Muslims, also mainly resident in Rakhine State, was acknowledged as one of
Myanmar’s designated ethnic groups and accorded full citizenship. Kaman Muslims retain
this status to this day (Berlie 2008, 25).
The result is that the Rohingya have a deeply uncertain status inside contemporary
Myanmar. Those who can document a family history stretching back to the period before
the advent of British colonialism in 1824 have a full claim on citizenship. For the
overwhelming majority that lacks a paper trail of this kind, the current legislation rules
out citizenship, though ad hoc permissions may be extended to individuals from time to
time. In the run-up to the 2010 general election, for instance, temporary identity cards
were issued to some Rohingya in Rakhine State in an effort to garner additional votes
(Aye Nai 2010). Effectively, though, almost all Rohingya are stateless. Within Myanmar,
their civil rights are curtailed through a lack of most rights necessary for individual
freedom. Their political rights are limited through only patchy possession of the right to
political participation. Their social rights are restricted through aggressive denial of the
right to live the life of a civilised being. Their cultural rights are eliminated through often
vicious denial of the right to cultivate their cultural heritage. In May 2013, a regional
directive apparently on the books since 2005 was revived to limit Rohingya couples
lacking formal citizenship to no more than two children (Kashyap 2013).
Furthermore, persecution of Rohingya Muslims by Buddhists took a particularly violent
turn in 2012. On 3 June, sectarian clashes in four out of 17 townships in Rakhine State
targeted mainly Rohingya communities, killing dozens and displacing tens of thousands.
On 23 October, a more systematic campaign was launched against both Rohingya and
Kaman Muslim communities in nine townships across the state, again killing dozens and
displacing tens of thousands. Today an estimated 140,000 people, almost all Muslim, are
internally displaced in Rakhine State. In a carefully researched report (using the former
terminology of Arakan State rather than Rakhine State), Human Rights Watch (2013, 4)
argued that the 2012 attacks “were organized, incited, and committed by local Arakanese
political party operatives, the Buddhist monkhood, and ordinary Arakanese, at times
directly supported by state security forces.” Its overall assessment was uncompromising:
“The criminal acts committed against the Rohingya and Kaman Muslim communities in
Arakan State beginning in June 2012 amount to crimes against humanity carried out as
part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing” (Human Rights Watch 2013, 11). In July 2013,
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon drew global attention to the “disturbing” humanitar-
ian situation faced by the Rohingya (UN News Centre 2013).
Moreover, as Buddhist chauvinism develops among the Bamar majority, other Muslim
groups are finding their citizenship status increasingly challenged. While not reduced to the
410 I. Holliday

level of the broadly stateless Rohingya, their rights are certainly being degraded.
A particularly chilling episode of anti-Muslim violence took place in Meiktila, Sagaing
Region on 20–21 March 2013, and from there spread to a series of small towns in the flat
central plains of the country over the following days and weeks. Again there was official
involvement. A graphic report by Physicians for Human Rights (2013, 20) notes that
eyewitness survivor testimony in Meiktila provides “compelling evidence that police
officers were complicit in violent crimes against civilians.” Furthermore, attempts by
international aid agencies to assist displaced Muslims are often met with resistance by
local Buddhist communities (Lawi Weng 2013a, 2013c). When UN human rights envoy
Tomás Ojea Quintana made a fact-finding visit to Rakhine State in August 2013, he was met
by Buddhist protesters urging him to leave the state. In Meiktila, his convoy was attacked
(United Nations General Assembly 2013, para 60). Even leaders of the 88 Generation civil
society group were circumspect about his mission (Lawi Weng 2013b). In the international
community, real unease is now expressed that violence against Muslims could derail the
entire political reform process (International Crisis Group 2013; United Nations General
Assembly 2013). The especially troubling situation of the Rohingya is widely deplored. In
September 2013, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2013) issued a statement
of deep concern. For five nights at the start of November 2013, it projected onto its exterior
walls building-sized images of Rohingya, photographed by Greg Constantine, to bear
witness to their plight (White 2013; also see Constantine 2013).
Additional peoples able to claim only limited citizenship are Myanmar’s designated
ethnic minorities, amounting in total to perhaps 40% of a population of roughly 60 million.
For these groups, the 2008 constitution is a rather ambivalent document. The opening
words of the preamble point to a mythic unity that has never emerged and could be read as
a defiant repudiation of ethnic diversity: “Myanmar is a Nation with magnificent historical
traditions. We, the National people, have been living in unity and oneness, setting up an
independent sovereign State and standing tall with pride” (Republic of the Union of
Myanmar 2008, 1). Then, however, unfolding constitutional provisions dispel any such
reading of organic national unity, holding in article 3 that “The State is where multi-
National races collectively reside,” and going on to prescribe core governance arrange-
ments for a multiethnic state. Its precise ethnic make-up is only specified somewhat
tangentially in the constitution itself (through, for instance, delineation of the state
structure in article 49). Elsewhere, though, the Myanmar government holds that 135
ethnic groups are clustered into eight major national races: Bamar, Chin, Kachin,
Kayah, Kayin, Mon, Rakhine and Shan. The constitution issues firm assurances of
support for ethnic minority languages and customs. Article 22 states, for instance, that
the union shall assist “to develop language, literature, fine arts and culture of the National
races,” and “to promote socio-economic development including education, health, econ-
omy, transport and communication, so forth, of less-developed National races.”
Furthermore, although article 361 notes that “The Union recognizes special position of
Buddhism as the faith professed by the great majority of the citizens of the Union,” article
362 immediately adds that “The Union also recognizes Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and
Animism as the religions existing in the Union at the day of the coming into operation of
this Constitution.”
However, as with many of the more general (social) rights listed in the constitution, the
problem faced by many ethnic minorities is that the reality of daily governance in
Myanmar falls far short of what the constitution and supplementary legislation provide
 Myanmar’s Citizenship Crisis 411

for. Indeed, coming out of a half-century of military dominance in which state leaders
prized unity above all else, ethnic leaders find it very difficult to promote their cultures.
For most of that period, for instance, it was illegal for schools to teach beyond fourth
grade in anything other than the Bamar language, and a panoply of censorship rules
limited still further the public use of minority languages (Callahan 2003). Ever since
1999, Myanmar has been a “country of particular concern” for the US State Department
because of its poor record in guaranteeing genuine religious freedom. In 2012, it was one
of eight countries on that list, making up an East Asian triumvirate with China and North
Korea (United States Department of State 2013). Moreover, because in recent national
history rebellion and disloyalty have so often been configured along ethnic lines, minority
groups tend to be required to meet a notably high standard in demonstrating their will-
ingness to perform appropriate duties of citizenship. Today, the formal rights of ethnic
minority peoples are mainly similar to those enjoyed by the Bamar majority, and moves
are being made to cater for distinct linguistic and cultural groups. In July 2013, for
instance, state broadcaster Myanmar Radio and Television announced that by the end of
the year it planned to launch a TV channel with shows in ethnic minority languages
(Roughneen 2013b). Nevertheless, it remains the case that the actual exercise of key social
and cultural rights is typically more limited. Furthermore, the weight of citizenship duties
can frequently be especially onerous.
Finally, this necessarily means that for the Bamar majority itself formal rights are
broadly in line with those invested in all other designated national races, but that the
actual rights they are able to exercise are superior, notably in the social and cultural
domains. Some clues to this superiority can be found in the constitution. The “special
position” allotted to Buddhism in article 361, for instance, picks out the religion of the
majority group. Although practiced by individuals from many other groups, this faith is
widely held to have a close affinity with majority culture. “To be a Bamar is to be a
Buddhist” is a phrase that echoes down the decades in popular speech and academic
studies (Taylor 2005, 264). Today it is advanced with great vigour across the land.
Similarly, a brief provision in article 450 at the very end of the constitution somewhat
slyly picks out the language of the majority group: “Myanmar language is the official
language.” In fact, what is meant by “Myanmar language” is the language spoken by the
Bamar people, which has been promoted as the national language ever since independence
in 1948 (Callahan 2003, 143). Indeed, as Callahan (2003, 174) notes, this was also the
policy under British colonialism: “Language politics in twentieth-century Burma was
unfailingly one-directional.” At the same time, because the Bamar majority sets the
norm for citizenship, exercising duties of allegiance to the state tends to be a relatively
simple and straightforward matter for citizens from this community. Indeed, somewhat
ironically, the lack of suspicion directed at Bamar people means that they are called upon
less often to perform citizenship duties.
Thus, there is a great deal more to Bamar dominance than just religious and linguistic
policy. Across the years, many analysts have noted the priority given to Bamar culture in
national politics and policy. Near the beginning of a quarter-century of drab state
socialism, F. K. Lehman (1967, 104) argued that “Adherence to a minority cultural
tradition is treated as tantamount to subversion of the nation and is branded as a mark
of group inferiority within the nation.” In the 1990s and 2000s, when the military junta
held sway, scholars rarely sought to revise this assessment (Brown 1994; Callahan 2003;
Holliday 2007). Indeed, they tended to read junta development projects as nothing more
412 I. Holliday

than another Bamar attempt to civilise and control the margins of a fractious state
(Lambrecht 2004). Perhaps the only significant exception was a quixotic attempt by
Robert H. Taylor, in 2005, to float the possibility that ethnic categories, identified in an
earlier article as central to national politics (Taylor 1982), might now be a thing of the
past. “In fact, the question needs to be asked whether 50 years of civil war has created a
nation from the fragments that previously fought over what kind of nation to conceive”
(Taylor 2005, 265). Against this, Matthew J. Walton in 2013 drew on critical race theory
to argue that Bamarness (for him, Burman-ness) is the functional equivalent of whiteness
in many Western societies, particularly the US. It operates as a privileged identity
generating normative and institutional benefits for the majority group within the society.
“While they may still experience oppression in a variety of ways, Burmans in Myanmar
are privileged in that they are not subjected to the same treatment as the members of other
ethnic groups” (Walton 2013, 18).
Many of the citizenship problems facing Myanmar in the current reform period thus run
deep into the social fabric. Ethnicity became the primary marker of difference in the
colonial era (Taylor 1982), and ever since has generated the most intractable political
issues facing the country. Religious tension has long characterised the society. Today,
ethnic and religious questions are fused with difficult political and economic issues, which
increase the reluctance of the Bamar majority to cede its dominant position. Citizenship is
therefore not just a matter of equal rights and human dignity, but also of hard practical
matters directly affecting people’s daily lives. It is for these many reasons that ethnic and
religious identity undergird the citizenship crisis that is one of the greatest challenges to
the wider reform process.

Myanmar in Comparative Perspective

Some 15 years ago, Taylor (1998, 33) noted an unwelcome theme in the literature on
Myanmar: “There is a temptation…to see the political issues of the country as sui
generis.” With regard to the Rohingya, one of the largest stateless peoples in the world,
Myanmar is very nearly unique. As the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(2011, 7) put it, “The Rohingya are virtually friendless amongst Myanmar’s other ethnic,
linguistic and religious communities.” Indeed, an official Inquiry Commission on the
Sectarian Violence in Rakhine State, which reported in April 2013, declined to use the
term “Rohingya,” opting instead for “Bengali,” a term commonly used by Bamar and
other ethnic groups across Myanmar. Through choice of language, it thereby suggested
foreignness and illegality. Moreover, its recommendations argued for a broad enhance-
ment of security arrangements throughout Rakhine State, “a temporary separation of
Rakhine and Bengali communities,” and non-coercive “family-planning education” to
limit growth of the “Bengali” population (Inquiry Commission on the Sectarian Violence
in Rakhine State 2013, sections 9E, 2B).
Viewed more broadly, though, Myanmar’s citizenship crisis has clear parallels with
crises witnessed elsewhere, notably in three domains, of which two are particularly
fraught. First, the limitations on political rights found in Myanmar, particularly through
direct military appointments to the executive and to both houses of the national legislature
and all 14 regional and state assemblies, have also been witnessed in other transitional
contexts, such as Indonesia in Southeast Asia. It seems highly unlikely that any change
will be made ahead of the 2015 general election, though there is a chance that the military
 Myanmar’s Citizenship Crisis 413

elite will concede the argument soon thereafter, and that necessary reforms will be
enacted. Since the issues of principle that underlie this issue are not viscerally contested,
the question of military appointees will not be examined in greater detail here. By
contrast, the other two domains are riven with conflict, and reach into fundamental issues
of civic identity. They therefore need to be studied at greater length. On the one hand, the
generalised Islamophobia currently sweeping Myanmar, targeted above all at Rohingya
communities but increasingly affecting other Muslim groups, is by no means unique to
this society. Rather, it has clear parallels with UK reaction to the Rushdie affair in 1989,
US reaction to the 9/11 attacks in 2001, European reaction to the changing composition of
contemporary societies, and so on. On the other, the restricted citizenship allowed to
designated minority groups, and the concomitant arrogation of citizenship displayed by
the majority Bamar population, is also similar to situations found in many other societies.
As has been noted, Walton (2013) likens Bamarness to whiteness.
When searching for ways to tackle Myanmar’s citizenship crisis, these two issues are
thus worth examining in more detail, for they represent real-world attempts to grapple
with the challenge the country currently faces: moving from a vertical form of ethnic
hierarchy to a horizontal form of democratic citizenship (Kymlicka 2012). Clearly,
historical processes of state formation and nation building in Myanmar are very different
from those of developed Western nations. Indeed, it is partly because one developed
Western nation, the UK, is seen by many inside the country as having opened the door to
an influx of Muslim peoples in the colonial period that hostility towards contemporary
Muslims is so great. In many respects, the Rohingya especially and other Muslim groups
more generally are viewed as an alien imposition. Factoring in dissimilar levels of
economic, social and political development serves only to increase the gap between
Myanmar and Western counterparts facing similar degrees of ethnic and religious diver-
sity. Nevertheless, policy tools fashioned in developed Western states are to only a limited
extent dependent on high levels of national income, state spending and welfare payments.
To a far greater extent, they comprise policies of political acknowledgement, social
recognition and cultural sensitivity that can readily be adopted in a variety of contexts.
For sure this is not to ignore differences in the political, social and cultural underpinnings
of Myanmar when compared with Western states. Nor is it to argue for direct policy
transfer. It is merely to hold that in the wealth of Western experience there may be for
Myanmar in transition some valid policy lessons. Indeed, this is a point currently being
made by state leaders. At the World Economic Forum in Nay Pyi Taw in June 2013,
Union Minister Soe Thane cited Germany as a possible model for federalism in Myanmar
(Roughneen 2013a). In August 2013, Minister of Information Aung Kyi listed France as
one country Myanmar was looking to in drafting its media law (Roughneen 2013c). Inside
the central executive, lessons in policy coordination are being learned from the UK.
Taking first the issue of Islamophobia, the response adopted by Western societies from
the late 1960s onwards was often to push for the policy mix broadly known as multi-
culturalism. This term is by no means well-defined or easy to clarify, and the policies
implemented to give it meaning in different societies span a wide range. Generally,
though, multiculturalism denotes attempts by an established majority racial or ethnic
group to reach out to and make room for designated minority groups. In a recent analysis
of states where multiculturalism is most developed, Tariq Modood (2013, 5) defines it as
“the political accommodation of minorities formed by immigration to western countries
from outside the prosperous West.” In an outstanding overview also published within the
414 I. Holliday

past couple of years, Will Kymlicka (2012, 1) takes a broader view, defining multi-
culturalism simply as “the legal and political accommodation of ethnic diversity.” In line
with this definition, the Multiculturalism Policy Index, with which Kymlicka is associated
at Queen’s University, Canada, identifies three types of minority embraced by multi-
cultural initiatives: immigrant groups, historic national minorities and indigenous peoples.
The examples given of national minorities are “the Welsh and Scots in Britain, the
Catalans and Basques in Spain, the Flemish in Belgium, the Germans in northern Italy,
the Corsicans in France, the Swedes in Finland, and the Quebecois in Canada.” The
examples given of indigenous peoples are “American Indians, the Inuit in Canada, the
Maori in New Zealand, or the Sami in Scandinavia” (Multiculturalism Policy Index 2013).
In the Myanmar case, it clearly makes sense to adopt this broader perspective, though the
division between national minorities and indigenous peoples has no traction in local
debate. In these circumstances, the categorisation becomes binary: immigrant groups,
and indigenous or national minorities.
Kymlicka places multiculturalism in a broad historical perspective, identifying three
partially overlapping waves of human rights revolution after World War Two. The first,
stretching mainly from 1947 to 1965, was a sweep of decolonisation. The second, led
from the United States between 1955 and 1965, was a movement for civil rights. The
third, emerging especially in Australia, Canada and the United States in the late 1960s,
was a struggle for multiculturalism and minority rights (Glazer 1997). “Each of these
movements, therefore, can be seen as contributing to a process of democratic ‘citizeniza-
tion’ – that is, turning the earlier catalog of hierarchical relations into relationships of
liberal-democratic citizenship” (Kymlicka 2012, 6). Kymlicka also notes that since
roughly 2000 there has been a backlash against multiculturalism in many Western
societies, and a turn towards either enabling or restrictive civic integration stressing the
need for minority communities to conform to majority language and culture (Joppke
2004; Vertovec and Wessendorf 2010). Indeed, in 2010–11 prominent Western leaders
such as David Cameron, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy all held that “multikulti” (in
the German shorthand) had either failed or died. Nevertheless, the available data tell a
different story. The Multiculturalism Policy Index surveys distinct sets of Western coun-
tries in each of the three main domains it tracks. Looking at policies for immigrant
minorities in 21 countries, it reports broad expansion of minority rights from 1980 to
2000, and a more mixed experience down to 2010. In a context of generalised main-
tenance or expansion of policy stances, Denmark and Italy registered slight retrenchment
from a very low base, and the Netherlands registered major retrenchment from a quite
high base. In the other two domains, the pattern is straightforward. Policies for national
minorities in 11 countries and for indigenous peoples in nine countries broadly expanded
from 1980 to 2000, and were either maintained or expanded from 2000 to 2010. Thus,
only policies for immigrant minorities in the single case of the Netherlands reveal any
significant retrenchment in recent years. Kymlicka (2012, 21) concedes that the term
“multiculturalism” may now be taboo, but insists that the principles and policies asso-
ciated with it remain in place. The Migrant Integration Policy Index (2010) presents
broadly similar findings.
Capturing the policies associated with multiculturalism, or with the enabling civic
integration that is its more acceptable current manifestation, is not easy. Broadly, however,
they correspond to the clusters surveyed by the Multiculturalism Policy Index, which can
be presented in summary form here. The index tracks eight policies linked to immigrant
 Myanmar’s Citizenship Crisis 415

minorities: political affirmation; revision of school curricula; media sensitivity; dress code
and other exemptions; dual citizenship; funding for cultural activities; funding for lan-
guage training; affirmative action. It tracks nine policies related to indigenous peoples:
land rights; self-government rights; respect for historic treaties; cultural rights; recognition
of customary law; political representation; political affirmation; ratification of interna-
tional instruments; affirmative action. It tracks six policies focused on national minorities:
federalism; official language status; political representation; funding for language training;
political affirmation; international visibility. Behind these lists stands rich comparative
experience that is available for scrutiny by Myanmar policymakers.
With regard to a country’s policies for immigrant minorities, for instance, the eight
strands tracked by the index can be captured as answers to a series of questions (Tolley
2011, 5–6). On political affirmation: does the state affirm multiculturalism, and does it
have an implementing body? On revision of school curricula: does it include multi-
culturalism in its curriculum? On media sensitivity: does it write ethnic representation,
inclusion, sensitivity or diversity into the mandate of public broadcasters and into media
licences? On dress code exemptions: does it grant exemptions or accommodations on
religious grounds? On dual citizenship: does it allow for dual citizenship? On funding for
cultural activities: does it provide public funding on a core and/or project basis? On
funding for language training: does it fund bilingual education or mother-tongue instruc-
tion for children and/or adults? On affirmative action: does it have such a policy for
immigrant minorities?
A country’s policies for national minorities can also be captured in this way
(Duvieusart-Déry 2011, 5–7). On federalism: is a division of power between the central
state and constituent units enshrined in the constitution or otherwise guaranteed, and at the
same time do the territories of key national minorities correspond to constituent units of
the state to generate some measure of minority autonomy? On official language status: are
minority languages granted official status regionally or nationally, and do they have equal
footing with the majority language? On political representation: have electoral rules been
adapted to recognise or accommodate national minorities and ensure their representation
in central government? On funding for language training and on political affirmation, the
questions are as already given for immigrant minorities. On international visibility: have
minority nations been accorded an international personality through measures such as
legislative competence on the international scene in areas of internal competence, author-
ity to sign bilateral or multilateral treaties, representation on international bodies and/or
overseas delegations, and representative teams at international sporting events?
The second major issue to be examined from a comparative perspective is Bamar
privilege. Walton fully acknowledges that debate about racial privilege in the United
States does not generate direct conclusions about ethnic privilege in Myanmar.
Importantly, race and ethnicity are distinct concepts, with the physical attributes of racial
difference making it a more ascriptive category. In addition, there are clear variations in
context and setting between the two societies. Nevertheless, he makes a convincing
argument for viewing them as parallel cases, and for holding that “in contemporary
Myanmar society Burman-ness functions as a localised version of Whiteness” (Walton
2013, 6). The argument about white privilege made by critical race theorists is that in the
United States, and elsewhere, it forms the foundation for a racialised order. White
supremacy, viewed across the society as neutral, normative and average, generates
benefits or “wages” that are available even to exploited or oppressed members of the
416 I. Holliday

dominant racial group, and not available to members of other groups. Walton’s argument
about Bamar privilege notes many similar developments in the Myanmar case. During the
colonial period, ethnic markers assumed a heightened political salience that, around the
time of independence, fed into talk of a Burman “master race.” After independence, the
dominant position of the majority group developed to such an extent that David Brown
(1994) wrote 20 years ago of an “ethnocratic state” dominated by Bamars. For all other
groups, membership in the national community was essentially conditional, and loyalty
was not assumed but had to be proven. Walton holds that the policy recommendation
flowing from these parallel analyses is clear and simple. White privilege can be dis-
mantled only by the dominant group. Similarly, “Burman dominance and privilege can be
overcome only through active struggle and repudiation by Burmans” (Walton 2013, 21).
Not until the majority group engages in deep and sincere analysis of its own structural
dominance will progress be possible.

Building Citizenship in Myanmar

How, then, might Myanmar address its current crisis and build citizenship for all as part of
a wider reform programme? The fundamental gaps have already been examined: lack of
civil rights equality; restricted political rights; largely inexistent social rights; skewed
cultural rights. As a result, Myanmar is far from infusing the national civic persona or
identity with principles of democratic citizenship. Ways forward in plugging these gaps
can be informed by comparative analysis of policies for national and immigrant
minorities.
Delivering equality of civil rights is partly an executive and legislative matter, and
partly an administrative matter. The central issue for policymakers is how to build equal
rights for the Rohingya community. At present, debate focuses largely on the question of
whether the Rohingya are an indigenous or national minority, which is why so much
attention is paid to 1824. However, comparative analysis shows clearly that there is
another heading under which the Rohingya might be brought, that of immigrant minority.
In developed nations throughout the world, immigrant minorities have equal civil rights
alongside indigenous minorities and national majorities. Viewed in this light, the issue of
whether the Rohingya can rightfully claim indigenous minority status thus becomes less
important. If the issue is civil rights, equalisation can and should take place on either
basis. It can be supplemented by the kinds of policy advances made elsewhere: clear
constitutional affirmation of multiculturalism; full incorporation of multiculturalism into
school curricula; rules governing media sensitivity to multicultural issues; dress code
exemptions if necessary; consideration of issues of dual citizenship; state (or international)
funding for cultural activities; state (or international) funding for language training; and
affirmative action. Finding ways to do any of this in contemporary Myanmar is never-
theless certain to be wrenchingly hard. For much of the society, the perception is that the
Rohingya constitute an illegal immigrant minority. It is bolstered by the fact that some
Rohingya genuinely are illegal, and others who are not tend to have inadequate docu-
mentation, either because it has been taken from them by the authorities, or because they
have lost it through the many difficult challenges they have faced. In these circumstances,
it becomes relatively easy for the government and the Bamar majority (plus some ethnic
minorities) to paint the entire Rohingya population as illegal. Additionally, entrenched
racist views make official acceptance of the Rohingya inherently difficult. Aung San Suu
 Myanmar’s Citizenship Crisis 417

Kyi, beacon of light for proponents of human rights the world over, for many months
maintained something close to silence on the plight of the Rohingya in her own land.
When a hint of human rights support stirred the wrath of Buddhist communities, she
quickly positioned herself as a forceful advocate of Buddhist fear of the “very great”
global power of Muslims (BBC 2013). The room for manoeuvre is thus extremely small.
Perhaps the best that can be hoped for in the near term is therefore enforcement of an
existing policy of zero tolerance for racism, partnered by a gradual opening up of debate
about constructive policy change. More broadly, civil rights already extended to official
national minorities often collapse because of administrative failings. In a state where
many peripheral zones have long been subject to conflict and violence, and individuals
driven from their homes have lost all their possessions, matters as basic as issuing identity
cards have long failed to happen. This issue is starting to be tackled as peace processes
gather momentum.
Delivering equality of political rights requires action in the executive and legislative
spheres, and also in civil society. In the executive and legislative arenas, the key issue is
how to roll back military privilege. The executive needs to be stripped of military
nominees. Both houses of the national parliament and all 14 regional and state assemblies
need to be fully elected. As has already been noted, it is highly unlikely that any such
reform will be enacted ahead of the 2015 general election. In addition, there is the full
agenda of global policies for national minorities: entrenched federalism with real power
vested in constituent units; official language status; enhanced political representation at
the national level; state (or international) funding for language training; clear political
affirmation of constituent units; international visibility. As peace processes unfold, each of
these strands needs to be examined in the Myanmar context as a means of delivering
meaningful citizenship to minority groups. More broadly, political participation needs to
encompass an energised civil society dependent in part on the spectrum of civil rights, and
in part on an expansive notion of political rights. In Myanmar, civil society grew
considerably following the devastation wrought by Cyclone Nargis in May 2008
(Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies 2010). The process of political reform triggered
soon thereafter has enabled that development to continue. To ensure equality in this
domain, civil society must be allowed space to flourish not only in cities like Yangon
and Mandalay, but also in peripheral zones far from the heartland. Already there is
evidence that this is slowly happening (Thawnghmung 2011; Petrie and South 2013).
At the same time, civil society actors must be encouraged to operate in democratic and
inclusive ways, for not all groups currently work to expand citizenship and rights for all.
Buddhist protection organisations are the most conspicuous contemporary examples.
Delivering equality of social rights is only to a very limited degree a legislative matter,
for Myanmar already has constitutional commitments to a broad range of social provision.
Rather, change in this sphere is mainly a public policy matter to which the executive and
its international partners are already turning their attention. Clearly, access to social
services is more restricted for non-citizens than for citizens, and for this reason the
Rohingya are especially disadvantaged. However, the larger question driving this discri-
mination is tackled separately here. For citizens, any attempt to boost the social dimension
of citizenship rights requires a considerable boost in investment. This needs to come
partly from the domestic state, and partly from international agencies. Even in an
apparently apolitical context of providing for basic human needs, however, deep conten-
tion can arise. One of the greatest challenges currently facing the global community in
418 I. Holliday

Rakhine State is the pervasive hostility of government officials and the Rakhine Buddhist
community to service provision for Muslims driven from their homes by inter-communal
violence and clustered in refugee camps (Lawi Weng 2013a, 2013c).
Delivering equality of cultural rights is partly a legislative matter, and partly a public
policy matter. From the preamble forwards, the constitution needs to take a different
approach to national citizenship, articulating commitments to diverse democratic citizen-
ship, and following up with the kinds of policy instruments already examined from the
Multiculturalism Policy Index. Whilst these divide into two broad areas of democratic
citizenship (from the immigrant minorities list) and federal government (from the national
minorities list), they in fact have many areas of overlap. Thus, although some form of
federalism, official language status and special forms of political representation are largely
restricted to the latter domain, most other issues are found under both headings. Attention
to school curricula, funding for language training, a revised media mandate and promotion
of diverse national cultures are all examples. Together, they constitute a set of policies for
intercultural diversity.
Looking to the other side of the citizenship equation, Marshall was surely right to hold
that a state failing to deliver on rights cannot reasonably claim from its citizens a
committed sense of duty. For a state that prioritises discipline and order, as Myanmar
openly does, the incentive to develop a set of rights linked to full democratic citizenship
thus lies in the concomitant duties that could be expected to flow from it. Indeed, scanning
across many decades of fractious national history, it is hard to see how the country can be
held together without such a shift. So great has been the conflict over such a long period
of time, and so deep is now the cynicism and distrust among minority peoples, that
citizenship reforms of this kind become a necessary component of political stability.
Overall, the objective is to develop an understanding of civic identity that moves away
from ethnic hierarchy on a Bamar model, and embraces the notion of a range of diverse
ethnicities couched within a broad commitment to one nation. Given the circumstances of
Myanmar today, delivering on this aim will certainly be enormously difficult.
Nevertheless, one way or another it is necessary for a country characterised by such
substantial ethnic diversity to launch a broad, substantive debate of what it means to be a
Myanmar citizen through a focus on civic commonality rather than ethnic difference.

Conclusion
Contemporary Myanmar is marked by pervasive ethnic and religious tension and conflict,
and especially at present by the 969 Buddhist backlash and an assertive Buddhist
chauvinism. In both majority and minority populations, the reform process launched in
earnest in 2011 has often seen a hardening, not softening, of ethnic and religious
identities. Together, these social forces threaten to undermine multilateral, multicultural
debate before it has had a chance to get started. At the same time, however, a vibrant civil
society is claiming a wide range of positive rights, and is beginning to entrench them
across the land. In large part, prospects for the wider reform process depend on how these
various dynamics play out. Certainly, it is difficult to see how the country’s citizenship
crisis can be overcome without constructive and transformative moves towards a common
civic identity rather than divisive ethnic identities. For this to happen, strong domestic
leadership with firm international support will clearly be required.
 Myanmar’s Citizenship Crisis 419

Domestically, perhaps the hardest task is to avoid isolating members of the democratic
movement, or more broadly of the democratising coalition that also contains members of
the former military elite. This coalition extends across not only national government and
the national parliament, but also an emboldened and increasingly resourceful civil society.
There is a real danger that open support for an agenda of democratic citizenship would
provoke hardline proponents of Bamar privilege already visible in the Buddhist monk-
hood, and almost certainly present among elements of the military elite and its allies. Then
the backlash already visible in parts of civil society could become a major political
problem, and fatally undermine the reform process now under way. At the very least, it
could ensure that Myanmar fails to progress beyond the soft authoritarianism currently
found in other parts of Southeast Asia. At the extreme, it could subvert the entire process.
At a minimum, then, the span of visible, public support would have to embrace the major
religious hierarchies (especially the Buddhist hierarchy) and the military high command.
Only on the basis of such a broad united front might progress be possible.
Internationally, the task is to provide ongoing support for an agenda of diversity and
democratic citizenship inside Myanmar. To be fair, UN, US and EU leaders speak out
repeatedly about this agenda, deploring the treatment of Rohingya communities and the
rise of Buddhist chauvinism. They also direct funding to programmes that promote
diversity inside the country. Behind the scenes, all major external powers, including
China, urge dialogue through quiet diplomacy, and seek to bring an end to violence.
While engagement by all of these players will always be overlaid by strategic, commercial
and other considerations, all of this needs to continue through funding for education
reform, media training, and broad, global engagement. More widely, leading state and
non-state organisations need to continue to bear witness to episodes of ethnic violence
inside the country, and to raise both domestic and global public awareness through the
media and other channels. Provided this happens, there is a chance that forces of
democratic citizenship inside the country will retain an opportunity to succeed.
Ultimately, though, the decision about whether and how to move from a vertical to a
horizontal conception of citizenship lies with the Myanmar people. The lesson from
comparative experience is that, though difficult and never complete, this can be done.
The issue for the Myanmar people is whether they wish to heed that lesson and build a
diverse citizenship appropriate for the complex ethnic and religious composition of the
nation they inhabit.

Acknowledgement
Work on this article was supported by an award from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region, China [Project No. HKU 745711H]. A brief presentation of the core themes was made to
the symposium “Myanmar in Reform 2013” hosted by The University of Hong Kong on 17–19 June 2013. The
author is grateful for feedback received there. He also thanks three anonymous reviewers for detailed and
constructive reports. He gained many important insights from comments provided by Matthew J. Walton. The
usual disclaimer applies.

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