Introduction

Growing up in Burma—a Personal Account

I grew up in the 1970s on Seminary Hill, Insein, a suburb eight miles north of Rangoon, the capital of Burma.1 These quiet heights are host to five Christian theological seminaries, two Baptist churches, a government elementary school, and Karen residential homes. The area is fenced off from the noise of the Rangoon-Insein highway, which runs through the heart of Rangoon city, and stands separate from the majority Burman Buddhist communities that form the rest of the city. Every morning Karen civil servants, teachers, accountants, day laborers, and shoppers take the two main thoroughfares down the hill to work and interact with the dominant Burman community. There is no shortage of buses and taxis to take these Karen residents to their various destinations.

Seminary Hill is only one section of Rangoon where Karens are concentrated. There are Karen enclaves in other Insein localities such as Taungthugone (Hill Tribe Hill), Nanthargone (Fragrant Hill), Thamaing (History), and in other outlying areas of Rangoon. These Karen settlements, though separated by numerous Burman communities, are only a few miles from one another.

Karen is my first language. I spoke Karen at home, and I learned to read and write it in the Sunday school run by the Karen Baptist Church. I did not speak Burmese until I went to a government elementary school on Seminary Hill, where most teachers were Karen Christians. Almost half of the students, however, were ethnic Burmans. I still vividly remember my Karen teachers leading us in prayer and singing gospel songs. In addition to following a highly centralized educational curriculum, my Burman Buddhist classmates and I were taught to recite the Lord’s Prayer and, on several occasions, participate in a Nativity play at Christmas concerts. Their parents did not seem worried about this Christian religious instruction that was given outside the formal educational structure. As far as I remember, these Buddhist Burman parents seemed to enjoy their children’s participation in Christmas concerts, and none of them complained to the teachers.

My best friends at elementary school were Karens who lived in my neighborhood and who also attended the Seminary Karen Baptist Church and Sunday school. We spent a lot of time in one another’s company, from playing hide and seek to singing and performing shows in church. We conversed with one another in Karen, and most of us had unmistakable Karen accents when speaking Burmese.

Seminary Hill occupies a unique place in Burma, a multiethnic country ruled by one of the longest lasing military regimes in the world. Burma has 13 major ethnic groups (including the majority Burmans, who constitute about 65 percent of the population, and the Karens who are the second-largest minority after the Shan) and several hundred smaller ones. A former British colony, Burma briefly experienced parliamentary democracy after it gained independence in 1948. The military, led by General Ne Win, took power in 1962, ostensibly to “reunite the country” and prevent it from falling under multiple Communist and ethnic insurgencies. Shortly afterward, Ne Win implemented “the Burmese Way to Socialism,” nationalizing all private enterprises, foreign and domestic, and banning foreign investment. His regime took control of the whole economy, established state ownership over all agricultural land, and required Burmese farmers to sell most of their crops to the government at below-market prices. The military government also abolished political parties, placed restrictions on civil and political freedom, and forced most citizens to join the only legalized party at that time, the Burma Socialist Program Party (BSPP). Following his rise to power, Ne Win opened negotiations with various ethnic resistance groups including the Karen National Union (KNU), a Karen political organization that had taken up arms against the state in pursuit of greater territorial and political autonomy. However, most ethnic armed organizations, and notably the Karen, refused to accept the regime’s terms, which they saw as tantamount to outright surrender.

The Ne Win-led regime soon began waging all-out war against ethnic insurgencies, implementing the so-called “four-cut” strategy (cutting the flow of intelligence, finance, recruits, and food) toward villages in the areas controlled by the armed resistance groups. Minority languages could be taught only until fourth grade in ethnic areas, and Burmese was made the only official medium of communication. In Burma’s core areas, all school instruction and media communications were conducted in Burmese. Foreign visitors were restricted to rarely issued day visas, and Burma became increasingly isolated from the outside world.

I grew up in this highly restrictive environment presided over by General Ne Win, one of the world’s longest-ruling dictators until his death in 2002. The Karen Baptist Theological Seminary (KBTS) in Insein educated many Bible students from the areas controlled by Karen resistance groups, and from a very young age I was exposed to countless stories of brave Karen soldiers in southeast Burma who had sacrificed their lives to liberate us from the Burmese military regime. I witnessed a continuous flow of Karens who traveled back and forth between Rangoon and the Karen-populated area in eastern Burma—a distance of only 150–200 miles—bringing with them stories of atrocities, repression, and mistreatment of the Karen people by Burma’s national army. There were also stories of incredible bravery and divine intervention—such as Karen insurgents repelling thousands of soldiers from the national army, or angels watching over the Karen fighters—which occupied our dinner conversation. Like many of my relatives, I silently prayed for the victory of the Karen fighters. Child as I was, I saw jungle fighting as “cool,” and hoped that someday I would join my counterparts in the “black” areas.

Eventually I began attending high school in Insein, expanding my sphere of activity beyond Seminary Hill. Here the majority of both teachers and students were Burmans. I sat along with my Burman classmates in a 400-square-foot classroom, where 60 to 90 students found themselves uncomfortably cramped. We could not move without touching the person next to us. However, I held myself mentally aloof from most of my Burman classmates, arming myself with the stereotypical images instilled in my childhood. Gradually, I began to make friends with a few Burmans. My relationships with them were still confined to the classroom and could in no way compare with the camaraderie I enjoyed with my Karen friends, whom I continued to see. I was now exposed to Buddhist festivals such as Kathein and Ah-Sa-Ri-Ya Pu Zaw Pwe, which pay homage to celebrated monks and teachers. Obviously, my Christian parents did not approve of my prostrating myself in the presence of these Buddhist dignitaries. Often, I secretly went against my parents’ will, as I was embarrassed to stand out among my classmates. Yet I still closely identified with the Seminary Karen Baptist Church, where I took violin lessons, sang in the church choir, led the worship services, and participated in scripture recital competitions as well as theological debates. Every summer, I attended a Bible study camp organized by the Rangoon Karen Youth Baptist Association. Here I met Karens from other areas of Insein and Rangoon, comfortably conversing with them in Karen and taking lecture notes in Karen. These annual gatherings reinforced my identity as a Karen Christian, someone culturally and religiously different from my Burman counterparts.

My social horizons expanded considerably after I graduated from high school and went to Rangoon University, a major center of higher learning and youth activities in Burma. Although there were very few Karens on campus, the university had a number of organizations for Karens to meet and socialize, including a Karen Literature and Culture Association. There was a Karen Freshman Welcoming Ceremony, held at the start of each academic year to encourage Karen students to meet and socialize. I majored in international relations, where only two Karens were enrolled out of 100 students. Inevitably, I befriended a number of Burman classmates who have become lasting friends. In addition to hanging out with them five days a week during school hours, we occasionally would skip classes, go to movies, and enjoy the opportunities afforded by campus life, like college students around the world. I also joined these friends for weekend activities including visits to fortune-tellers (prohibited by my Christian background) and Buddhist monasteries and pagodas. A few of them even accompanied me to church. Nevertheless, ties with my childhood Karen friends remained strong through our mutual association with the Seminary Karen Baptist Church and its weekly spiritual and social activities.

In March 1988, in my fourth year of college, my happy youth was abruptly curtailed when the military cracked down on a peaceful Burmese student demonstration. Many student leaders fled to the border areas for fear of retaliation by the military. Among those who fled to the KNU-controlled areas were my cousin and many of my close Karen friends. Seminary Hill was filled with stories and rumors of Karens from the city who had joined the resistance. Some continued to endure hardships in the countryside while others returned to Rangoon, and others gained high rank in the resistance movement. Some were killed in battle. A few students and graduate friends set out for the Karen-controlled areas where they volunteered their services as soldiers, teachers, humanitarian activists, and social workers. I was inspired by the Karens who joined the resistance and silently prayed that the rebels would help topple Burma’s repressive regime.

I nevertheless waited impatiently for the university to reopen so that I could complete my education and start a career in foreign affairs. However, once this door of opportunity seemed to have closed for students, I started exploring other ways to pursue my education and considered going abroad. Perhaps surprisingly, I never thought of leaving Rangoon for the KNU-controlled areas. I never questioned why my father continued to teach at a government engineering school, and why his Burman colleagues and students adored him. I never asked why my mother, a theologian who took every opportunity to vent her frustration against the military regime, did not leave Insein to join the armed resistance movement. I never bothered to ask the motivations of the Karen doctors, engineers, teachers, professors, workers, and farmers I knew who, despite their strong Karen nationalist sentiments and hatred for the regime, remained living quietly and peacefully alongside the dominant Burman majority.

The International Phenomenon of the “Silent Minority”

I was obviously one of these “other” Karens, those who remained and lived “quietly” inside Burma. Some of these Karens display strong concern for the Karen people and take every opportunity to preserve and promote their culture and identity, yet at the same time they appear to have very little contact with the “freedom-fighting” Karens. A few of these “quiet” Karens have relatives in the KNU, and a few KNU officials sent their children to Rangoon for education. Generally, however, the political climate in Burma meant that even communication between family members from different regions was limited.

Although Karens form the second-largest minority in Burma, no one really knows how many Karens live within its borders, nor how many of them are in armed rebellion against the military regime. Estimates of the total Karen population range from three to seven million, depending on whether the data is sourced from the Burmese government or the resistance. The majority of Karens are Buddhists and animists; some live in the delta areas where they mingle freely with the Burman population, while others inhabit the remote hills of southeastern Burma. Some Buddhist Karens living in the delta areas or in the Karen state can be considered “assimilated” to the extent that they no longer speak the language. Christians constitute approximately 20 percent of the Karen population, and the Sgaw Karen Baptists, the largest Karen Christian denomination in Burma, claim 300,000 baptized members. The current political climate hardly allows for a survey of ethnic affiliations in Burma. However, if we subtract from the total estimated number of Karen a generous figure of 10,000 KNU members, along with a population of about 150,000 Karen refugees in Thailand, and hundreds of thousands migrant workers in Thailand as well as 100,000 Karen diaspora who are living in Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America, the majority of the Karen still live inside Burma, and this figure could scarcely be less than two million.2 The existence of these quiet Karen, however, has largely been ignored by conventional studies, which have focused predominantly on the Karen “insurgency” and “rebellion.”

The various Karen groups come from diverse religious, cultural, regional, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds, and understandably lack unanimity over the appropriate strategies for preserving their culture and identity. The Karen experience is not unique compared with other groups associated with armed resistance movements. Important segments of the Kachins, Shans, and Mons in Burma, the Muslims in the Philippines, the Kurds in Turkey, the Achenese and Papuans in Indonesia, the Palestinians, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the Catholics in Northern Ireland, and the Chechens in the Russian Federation have used nonviolent means of promoting their personal and collective interests within the circumscribed bounds sanctioned by the host state, and even supported the government, while others continued the armed struggle against a government dominated by the majority population.

Charles King correctly argues that “no violent conflict ever involves all, or even most members of one ethnic group suddenly rising up and deciding to kill all the members of another group . . . it is generally small factions of committed militants that execute wars” (King 2007, 70).3 A pointed example can be found in the 15 million Kurds who live in Turkey but do not share the goals of the Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan (PKK), a Marxist Kurdish group that has turned to armed struggle to achieve a separate state in southeastern Turkey, where most Kurds live. Until the early 1990s, Kurds in Turkey were prohibited from speaking their language in public or from publishing or disseminating information in Kurdish. A great number of Kurds living in southeast Turkey nurture bitter grievances about their poverty and lack of cultural and political rights. Despite this, in the words of Henri Barkey and Graham Fuller, “not all Kurds, even nationalist ones, have chosen to pursue the nationalist cause as their first or exclusive goal, either via the PKK or membership in radical parties” (Barkey and Fuller 1997, 71).4 Kurds who have accepted a Turkish identity appear to enjoy full rights of citizenship and serve in important political, economic, and military positions, ranging from president and prime minister to chief of staff of the armed forces. Estimates suggest that over the years, as many as one-third of the members of any given Turkish parliament have been of Kurdish origin (Barkey and Fuller 1997, 12).

Likewise, not all Filipino Muslims advocate the use of force or seek secession from the Philippines Republic. Muslims represent 4 to 5 percent of the population and are concentrated in the south of the country: in central and western Mindanao, the Sulu Archipelago, and Palawan. Mindanao and Sulu maintained autonomy under the Spanish, but were ceded to the United States in the early twentieth century.5 Under U.S. occupation, Christian settlers from the populous northern islands of Luzon and the Visayas were given incentives (such as timber and mining concessions or land for plantations and cattle ranches) to migrate to Mindanao. Disputes between Christians and Muslims have escalated since the 1960s due to the influx of Christian immigrants who have taken over land claimed by Muslims and have also threatened their electoral base in the south. By 1980, as a result of prolonged migration, the proportion of Muslims in Mindanao, estimated at 76 percent in 1903, fell to 23 percent. Of the 23 provinces in Mindanao and Sulu, only five (and on Mindanao only two) still had a Muslim majority. But by this time, an armed separatist movement was underway under the leadership of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). The MNLF later split into three groups, including a fundamentalist Islamic organization, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Both journalistic and academic treatments of the Philippines have focused overwhelmingly on tension, prejudice, mutual suspicion, and violence between Christians and Muslims, and on the terrorist activities of the MILF aimed at gaining greater autonomy in the south. Interestingly, however, numerous studies have also pointed out extensive cultural exchanges between the two groups as well as toleration of mixed marriages in some major urban areas, specifically in Cotabato (Lacar 1980, Diaz 2003, Musor 2006).6 Diaz, for instance, writes that some Muslims have adopted Western ways, mingle with their Christian peers in various cultural and social activities, and enjoy equal respect with Christians in their neighborhoods and in professional, civic, and business circles. There are quite a few Muslims who are professionals, career officials in the government civil service, academics, traders, businessmen, and political leaders (Diaz 2003, 8).

According to Diaz, more than one-third of the presidents of the student union at Notre Dame University in Cotabato between 1957 and 1990 were Muslims, who constituted 30 to 50 percent of the student population. Christians also elected Muslim friends to head their fraternities or other student organizations and on three separate occasions, Muslim leaders joined Christian seminarians in demonstrating against university policies (Diaz 2003, 50). These pockets of inter-religious collaboration are also found in politics (Diaz 2003, 65). Tom McKenna writes, “for most of the past thirty years Christians have supported Muslim politicians for city offices and Muslims have voted for Christian candidates in Cotabato” (McKenna 1998, 39).7

Giulliano also writes that the misleading assumption that Muslims in Russia form a coherent group has led to accusations, for instance by President Putin, that most Muslims in Russia are potential Islamists, ready to support the radical Chechen separatist project of establishing an Islamic state in the Caucasus (Giulliano 2005, 200).8 This assumes that Russian citizens who are Muslim consider their Islamic identity to be their primary one, or at least the identity around which they condition their political behavior. Giulliano argues instead that Russian Muslims practice various forms of Islam and possess a number of other socially salient identities that might also serve as the basis for their political beliefs. For instance, they may identify themselves as members of an ethnic group (or nationality in the Russian Federation), members of a clan or tribe, urban or rural dwellers, members of a region (Caucasian or a local district), citizens of Russia (national identity), or members of a particular profession or class (intelligentsia, worker, businessman). Giulliano contends that Muslims in Russia have largely opposed radical Islamic movements during the past 15 years and most likely will continue to do so, meaning that their religious belief and practice are not inevitably correlated with an anti-Moscow political stance (Giulliano 2005, 195, 197, 199).

The first comprehensive poll of U.S. Muslims conducted by the Pew Research Center in May 2007 in fact found strikingly different responses to current political issues among Muslim populations across the world. The survey found that 13 percent of U.S. Muslims believed that suicide bombings can be justified, compared to 35 percent of French Muslims, 57 percent of Jordanians, and 69 percent of Nigerians who endorsed moral and religious justifications for suicide bombings (Newsweek, June 11, 2007, 26).9 Such discrepancies indicate that individual political preferences are influenced by diverse factors including place of residence, experiences, political environments, and the framing of issues by local politics—they cannot simply be inferred from associations with particular cultural and religious groups.

Martin Smith’s study of Burmese ethnic community members who joined either the armed resistance movement or Burma’s national army reaffirms that assumptions about individual attitudes toward the state cannot be derived from association with particular cultural or language groups: “In the ranks of the KNU are many Burmese-speaking Karens from the Delta who speak little or no Karen, while in the Burmese Army are Karens from the hills, for whom Burmese is very much a second language” (Smith 1999, 35).10 The Democratic Karen Buddhist Association (DKBA), which has splintered from the KNU over a number of issues including religious differences, contains a fair number of Christian fighters. Likewise, some studies point out that the PKK, the Marxist-leaning Kurdish separatist organization, includes Turkish supporters. In Sri Lanka, a shared sense of discrimination at the hands of the Sinhalese majority led some young Muslims to join the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), an armed Tamil organization that fought for an independent homeland in the north and east of the island until it was defeated by the Sri Lanka army in 2009.11

Theme, Approach, and Method of the Book

This book examines the “other” or “quiet” minorities who are members of ethnic groups associated with well-known armed resistance organizations yet do not take up arms. Most previous studies have focused on violent aspects of ethnic relations and on ethnic armed organizations, such as the Karen National Union (KNU) in Burma, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MNLF) in the Philippines, and the LTTE in Sri Lanka. However, even among minorities that are locked in armed conflicts, the majority of people have shunned armed resistance, sought to “quietly” remain beyond the struggle, and pursued nonviolent approaches to promote their individual and collective interests in the face of hostile governments. This in-depth study of the “other” Karen in Burma examines the circumstances that set them apart from their counterparts who have joined the armed resistance movement. It analyzes the nature of the relationships between the quiet minorities and their rebel counterparts and assesses how these intra-ethnic differences and divisions affect the armed resistance movement, negotiation with state authorities, conflict resolution, and political reform. It also situates the Karen case in a broader comparative perspective by discussing theoretical and policy implications for other minority groups in Burma and in other countries that have experienced both accommodation and armed resistance by minorities.

This project emerged out of my experience as an urban Karen who grew up in Rangoon. I have always been intrigued by the ostensibly patriotic Karen nationalists, many of whom tacitly support the KNU yet “quietly” remain in Burma’s core areas. I have encountered heated discussions and disagreements among Karens over the appropriate strategies to pursue an agenda that would ultimately preserve and strengthen their autonomy, culture, prosperity, and identity. I was prompted to pursue comparative research on the “quiet” minorities after reading articles and books that discuss the “other” Muslims in the Philippines and the “other” Kurds in Turkey. As a Karen, I have had privileged access to the community and information that are not easily accessible to foreign researchers.

This book draws heavily on opinion surveys and open-ended interviews with members of the Karen diaspora, all of whom lived a minimum of 20 years in Burma, “quiet” Karens who lived inside Burma, KNU officials, personnel, soldiers, Karen refugees, and IDPs (internally displaced persons) who lived in the Thai-Burma border areas at the time of interview. These interviews with approximately 200 respondents were conducted from 2002 to 2008.

I have made several trips back home during the last six years to assess the political situation, conduct interviews, and engage in conversation with the “other” Karen in Burma. Although I spent most of my time in Rangoon, I also traveled to Karen areas in the Delta, Pegu division, and the Karen state. I conducted formal interviews with a total of 114 Karen in Burma over the six-year period of my research inside the country. Fifty-nine were from Rangoon (a few of these were temporary residents from various parts of Burma), 17 from Pegu division (Toungoo and Nyaunglebin), 16 from the Delta (mostly from Bassein, with a few from Henzada and Pantanaw), 12 from Pa-an, Karen state, and two from the Mon state. Sgaw Christians (the dominant Karen subgroup) constituted an overwhelming majority of my respondents (96 individuals) mainly because of their role and significance in the emergence of collective Karen identity, nationalist sentiment, and armed revolution, and partly because they represent a unique ethnic and religious mix that sets them apart from their Burman and Karen Buddhist counterparts. In addition, my affiliation with this group gave me easy access to this community. The remaining respondents were Pwo (another dominant Karen subgroup), both Buddhist and Christians, with a couple of Gaiba and Paku Karen (Karen language subgroups). Seventy-nine of the interviewees were men and 35 were women. Most of my informants were local community and religious leaders, NGO workers, academics, veteran politicians, civil servants, government and ex-government officials, and pro-government party members. Their ages ranged between 40 and 80, and they were generally quite knowledgeable about the history and contemporary circumstances of the Karen people. They also introduced me to informants who provided further information and personal accounts. In addition, I accompanied my nieces and nephews to various religious and cultural functions aimed at youth and engaged in numerous informal conversations with the younger generation of Karens.

During the formal interviews, I explained to my respondents and informants the purpose of my project—a study of the lives and activities of Karen who are not part of the armed resistance movement. While I avoided asking politically sensitive questions, our conversations took different turns depending on how well I knew the individual and the level of confidence he or she placed in me. The length of these conversations ranged from one hour to three days. One acquaintance repeatedly invited me back to his home to discuss a number of issues. There were about six or seven individuals whom I met more than twice (at least four to six times) during the course of my research.

I usually began each interview with a number of nonpolitical questions—such as the person’s proficiency in Karen; socioeconomic and educational background; life experiences; the presence or absence of social, cultural, and humanitarian activities in their communities—as an icebreaker to facilitate communication. I personally conducted all the interviews –which allowed me to make observations about the respondents’ physical surroundings and broach various important topics that I had not originally intended to address. It also gave me an opportunity to get to know the respondents better. Many opened my eyes to issues that I was not aware of. Although I focused mostly on activities in the public domain, I was able to put a number of politically sensitive questions to those close to me and those willing to speak out. While the authoritarian and repressive atmosphere in Burma did not generally allow citizens to openly air grievances, most people were quite open about their views in anonymous, private conversations. My continuing involvement in a number of cultural and humanitarian projects inside the country also gave me firsthand experience of bureaucratic red tape and the difficulties many community leaders face on a daily basis. I also gave five public lectures at forums hosted by young Karens and used them as an opportunity to assess opinions on social and cultural issues.

During this six-year-long research process I found it very useful to send my drafts back to my colleagues and mentors in Burma, in particular a number of prominent religious and community leaders and academics, for their comments and suggestions. These drafts then served as topics of debate and conversation for my next trip. It was not possible to send these drafts to all my contacts, partly for practical reasons and partly because many were not proficient in English. Many of the people to whom I sent drafts have extensive experience in dealing with local officials and gave me advice not only about factual matters, but also on revising or omitting sensitive statements that might jeopardize the safety of my contacts. I keep the names and identities of my respondents anonymous unless given express permission to reveal them.

I encountered a number of difficulties and dilemmas during these fieldtrips, many of which are not unusual for researchers working under difficult conditions. Although I took precautions by keeping a low profile, not getting politically involved, and not asking politically sensitive questions, I was always concerned about my safety as well as that of my respondents. I held my breath every time I applied for a visa and was never sure if it would be granted, or if I would be deported during my stay in the country. Sometimes I was unable to differentiate members of quiet minorities from active supporters or participants in the armed resistance. Some mentioned matters that could have put their lives in danger if published, and I have taken pains to protect them.

However, being a member of the Karen community has given me numerous opportunities to gain access to people who are normally unwilling to open up to outsiders and to discuss topics that were both sensitive and private. In addition, in close-knit communities where the details of people’s lives are known to one another, it was relatively easy to cross-check the facts that were provided to me. However, there are definite disadvantages associated with being a member of the group one is studying. Quite a few respondents formed expectations that I would advocate for their cause (particularly among supporters of the armed resistance movement). Some asked for a favor in return for their cooperation—mostly very small donations to various cultural, social, humanitarian, and religious causes. One Karen told me that I would face the “consequences” if I failed to portray the armed movement in a favorable light. I also became a subject of criticism for failing to live up to the expectations of my respondents. Some Karen thought a woman of my caliber and status should “stand up,” “speak out” against the military atrocities, and “protect” the communities. What this amounts to, of course, is openly supporting the KNU cause and joining the opposition movement outside the country to condemn the government. When I did not do any of these, they were reportedly frustrated by my “lack of interest in becoming another ‘Mother Teresa’ or ‘Aung San Suu Kyi.’” A few confronted me or spread rumors that I was collaborating with the Burmese authorities and collecting information on behalf of military intelligence. I cannot count the times I was tempted to abandon this project as a result of the emotional stress and moral dilemmas involved in pursuing it.

Some may regard me as biased and apologetic for the “other” Karen because of my close association with this group. My views have been shaped by my upbringing in a Christian family and the Karen community in Insein, my experiences with Burman friends during my university years in Burma, and my further education in the United States. I personally favor and support nonviolent means of pursuing communal goals. However, by shedding light on the role of non-armed members of ethnic communities in Burmese politics, I am by no means seeking to romanticize this particular segment of the minority population. There are many self-seeking and corrupt individuals among the other minorities. In fact, some have been branded as “traitors” or “people with ulterior motives” by co-ethnics in the insurgent movement for collaborating with the authorities or for their failure to support the insurgency, and have been targeted for public humiliation, death threats, and even murder. The chief purpose of this book is analytical and empirical—to bring this insufficiently studied group firmly into the arena of ethnic politics in Burma and to further suggest policy responses that are sensitive to the needs of the diverse members of ethnic communities in Burma and elsewhere.

In researching this book, my experiences among the Karen outside Burma were quite different from those inside the country. The presence of large numbers of Karen in Western countries—refugees from the Thai-Burma border region—allowed me to conduct interviews in a relatively open atmosphere and to probe political topics that I would not normally touch in Burma. All of the 67 diaspora Karen who participated in my survey had lived a minimum of 20 years in Burma. The majority of interviewees were Sgaw Christians living in America and Canada—some were on student visas, others were immigrants, and many were refugees. They were asked to talk about their experiences with their Burman counterparts and the central and local authorities in Burma, to discuss their proficiency in Karen, and to give their views on the borders and status of a Karen state and intercommunal relationships. In addition, I travelled to Utica, New York; St. Paul, Minnesota; and Phoenix, Arizona, to conduct in-depth interviews with newly arrived Karen refugees, and I carried out email interviews with a few respondents in Australia. My experience as one of the chief organizers of the Karen Reunion in 2007 in Kuala Lumpur not only allowed me to meet Karens from other parts of Asia, but also gave me firsthand experience of the difficulty of bringing this increasingly polarized community under a single collective umbrella. I also travelled to the Thailand-Burma border region to interview seven KNU officials and a number of ex-KNU soldiers, NGO workers, and a prominent religious leader, who were all living and working in the refugee camps at the time of my interview.

Because ethno-national identities are multiple, fluid, and socially constructed, scholars disagree on the criteria that constitute “ethnicity” and membership of a particular ethnic community (Lehman 1979, Keyes 1979).12 It is a matter of dispute as to who constitute “Karen” and who do not. The British colonial authorities identified 21 Karen subgroups as constituents of the major Karen language group. In this book, I focus on the Sgaw and Pwo Karen, the two largest groups, which constitute 65 percent of the Karen population, and on the KNU, the largest Karen insurgent organization, which has historically been dominated by Sgaw and Pwo.13 However, I use reports and studies published by nongovernmental organizations, journalists, and scholars on Karen to incorporate the experiences of the remaining Karen groups in my study. For the purposes of the study, I have defined Karen as anyone who speaks any of the Karen languages or considers themselves a member of one of these groups by tracing their ancestry back to Karen parents or ancestors. Reliable statistics on the Karen-speaking population are lacking. My hunch is that most of the younger generation of Karen speak Burmese more frequently than their older counterparts, or cannot speak the Karen language at all. The services run by the Karen Christian Youth Fellowship in Pa-an, the capital of the Karen state, for instance, are conducted in Burmese. However, the linguistic situation is far from clear. A younger Karen who speaks more Burmese than Karen once harangued me during a public forum in Burma where I had given a speech. These were his impassioned words: “I don’t care if I or others can’t speak Karen—we are Karen as long as our blood is Karen and as long as we love and want to do something good for the Karen people.” He was applauded by most of the 100 or so youthful audience members who attended the lecture. For purposes of comparison with other ethnonational groups outside Burma, I have accepted the descriptions and interpretations of authors who are well known as experts in their respective fields.14

Due to the political situation in Burma, the interviews I conducted were not based on scientific, randomly selected sample groups, but rather on criteria of accessibility and practicality. I purposely targeted community leaders, academics, veteran politicians, and government employees whom I assumed to be familiar with the situation in the country. My respondents were predominantly Sgaw Christians. Although I was able to interview a number of both senior and junior KNU officials in Mae Sot and ex-KNU officials living in Western countries, I did not formally interview any of the Karen insurgent splinter groups in the ceasefire areas. While I did encounter a few such groups and engaged in conversation with them, these exchanges were not formal interviews. I do not therefore claim that the voices I have recorded here necessarily represent the voices of Karen people inside Burma. However, I have sought to address the shortcomings of this approach by including secondary accounts produced by credible scholars, journalists, and human rights organizations (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Karen Human Rights Group, and the Burma-Thailand Border Consortium) with a serious interest in Karen armed organizations and human rights issues in the border areas. The different perspectives evident in these sources reflect the diverse political stances that exist among the Karen population. Readers who are interested in the armed resistance movement, the armed ceasefire groups, and border refugee camps are advised to supplement the present study with the works of Martin Smith and Ashley South in particular. Unfortunately, there has not been any major work on Karen politics written by Karen or Burman scholars or journalists.

In the present book, I focus on one particular aspect of political violence—armed resistance against the state (which is usually controlled by the majority population) by ethnonational groups (usually minority groups within a state, although there are limited exceptions where minority groups are in control of the state such as Iraq in the time of Saddam Hussein). Although I address some aspects of communal relationships in Burma that have remained relatively stable and peaceful since the 1950s, my interests center on the impact of intra-ethnic divisions on relationships with the state, rather than on the relationships between different ethno-national communities within the state. The latter subject is an important one, and has been studied in detail by leading scholars such as Ashutosh Varshney, James Fearon and David Laitin, and Daniel Posner.15 Further single-subject and comparative studies are needed to look at how individuals’ relationships with others, both within and outside their own communities, affect inter-ethnic interactions as well as their relationships with the state authorities, and how these two factors mutually interact and reinforce each other.

This project is based on my personal experiences, my interpretation of the events I studied or witnessed, and the interviews I collected from respondents. So that readers can assess the credibility of this study and the validity of my conclusions, I have been candid about the methods I employed in choosing my respondents, the nature of the questions I asked, the circumstances under which these conversations took place, and the difficulties I encountered as a researcher who is also a member of the community under study.

Chapter 1 discusses the political significance of the other minorities from empirical, policy, and theoretical standpoints. Chapter 2 analyzes the origins of the Karen armed resistance movement in Burma. Chapter 3 identifies the different constituencies that armed resistance groups claim to represent. It examines the diverse experiences of members of ethnic groups who grew up in government-controlled areas, in contested areas, and in rebel-controlled areas. Particular emphasis is placed on the “other” Karen, or the majority Karen population living inside Burma who has hitherto received little scholarly and journalistic attention.

Chapter 4 discusses the variety of socioeconomic and political circumstances that set the other Karen apart from their counterparts in the armed resistance movements. It first looks at the original split in the Karen elite over whether to pursue a strategy of accommodation or resistance to the state. The second part of the chapter examines the socioeconomic profiles of the “rebels” and the “accommodators” during the later period of armed revolution in the 1980s. Chapter 5 sheds light on three major areas of activity undertaken by the quiet ethnic populations in Burma, and demonstrates how their respective positions and activities have in various ways affected the legitimacy of both the state and the armed resistance organizations, the survival of the groups themselves, and issues of political reconciliation. Chapter 6 suggests broader theoretical, empirical, and policy implications for the situation of “quiet” minorities in other ethnically divided countries.

Notes

1. In 1989, the military junta replaced the existing English names for the country and its divisions, townships, cities, streets, citizens, and ethnic groups with what it considered to be more authentic Burmese names. Thus “Burma” became “Myanmar” and its citizens “Myanmars”; “Rangoon” became “Yangon”; and ethnic groups such as the Karen were renamed “Kayin.” While I use both the old and new names for the country, I use the pre-1989 terms for Burma’s divisions, townships, and ethnic groups to avoid confusion, as these terms are commonly used in English-language publications, including the books, journals, and other sources cited in this study. I refer to the majority group in Burma as “Burman,” “Bamar,” or “Myanmar.”

2. The figure inside Burma also includes those who live in ceasefire areas. The official data on the elections in 2010 reveals a total of 293,194 voting age (over 18 years old) from the Karen state (this figure includes Karen as well as some other small minorities), and 1,259,983 from outside the state. Myanmar Alin, November 17, 2011. Out of the 1,259,983 from outside the Karen state, there are 791,198 from Irrawaddy; 158,429 from Rangoon; 137,096 from Pegu division; 130,066 from Mon state, and 43,194 from Tenassarim state. The figure also records that there are 106,192 Burman; 61,099 Mon; and 29,194 Pao living in Karen state.

3. Charles King, “Scots to Chechens: How ‘Ethnic’ Is Ethnicity Conflict?” Harvard International Review (Winter 2007), available at http://hir.harvard.edu/ethnic-conflict/scots-to-chechens?page=0,3 (accessed on May 2, 2009).

4. Henri Barkey and Graham Fuller, Turkey’s Kurdish Question (New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1997), 71.

5. Ron May, “Ethnicity and Public Policy in the Philippines,” in Government Policies and Ethnic Relations in Asia and the Pacific, ed. Michael Brown and Sumit Ganguly (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997): 321–350.

6. Luis Lacar, Muslim-Christian Marriages in the Philippines, Humanities Publication Series #2, (Quezon City, Philippines: New Day Publishers, 1980), 2, 15. E Patricio Diaz, Understanding Mindanao Conflict (Davao city, Philippines: MindaNews Publication, 2003), 49. Gonaranao Musor, “It’s Tough to be a Muslim,” Available at www.bangsamoro.com (accessed August 20, 2006).

7. Thomas McKenna, Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1998).

8. Elise Giulliano, “Islamic Identity and Political Mobilization in Russia: Chechya and Dagestan compared,” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 11 (2005): 195–220.

9. Quoted in Fareed Zakaria, “Beyond Bush,” Newsweek, June 11, 2007, 26. A similar analysis of the different attitudes of Muslims living in America and Europe has been advanced by James Fallows: “The difference between the European and American assimilation of Muslims becomes most apparent in the second generation, when American Muslims are culturally and economically Americanized and many European Muslims often develop a sharper sense of alienation. “Declaring victory,” in World Politics, 07/08, 28th edition (New York: Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, 2008): 145–155.

10. Martin Smith, Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity (Dhaka: University Press; White Lotus: Bangkok; London, New York: Zed books Ltd, 1999).

11. “Sri Lanka’s Muslims: An Unhappy and Forgotten Minority,” The Economist (October 11, 2007), available at http://www.economist.com/node/9949827?Story_ID=E1_JJQJRNS (accessed 2 December 2008).

12. F. K. Lehman, “Who Are the Karen, and If So, Why? Karen Ethnohistory and a Formal Theory of Ethnicity,” in Ethnic Adaptation and Identity: The Karen on the Thai Frontier with Burma, ed. Charles F. Keyes (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Society, 1979), 215–253. Charles F. Keyes, “The Karen in Thai History and the History of the Karen in Thailand,” in Ethnic Adaptation and Identity: The Karen on the Thai Frontier with Burma, ed. Charles F. Keyes (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1979), 25–62.

13. Sgaw and Pwo Karen dialects are mutually unintelligible although there are a few Pwo and Sgaw who can speak both languages.

14. These include the works of Martin Smith, Ashley South, and Karen Human Rights Group.

15. James Fearon and David Laitin, “Explaining Interethnic Cooperation,” American Political Science Review 90, (December 1996): 715 -735. Daniel Poster, “The Political Salience of Cultural Difference: Why Chewas and Tumbukas are allies in Zambia and adversaries in Malawia,” American Political Science Review 98, no 4 (November 2004): 529–545. Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002).