ABSTRACT
The nationalism of today' s Burma differs from the nationalism of the anti-colonial struggle, as well as from the nationalism of 1947 immediately before independence, when ethnicism began to determine the future. In the 1940s nationalism meant liberation from a foreign coloniser; since independence, nationalism has become a remedy for preserving a union as one unitary state. The present nationalism does not anticipate freedom since that has become a fearful expression of imminent division and the collapse of the union. Whereas the nationalism of 1947 was an anticipation of modernity including democracy, the nationalism of today signifies endless autocracy and corporate modernity in the SLORC model, while some of the ethnic movements envisage democracy and federalism. Within this process there is a plurality of imaginations of a nation and a national identity—identities often based on a subjectively defined, ethnic core. There is, however, one crucial change: all minority groups have given up demands for exclusive territorial space. This leaves cultural and religious autonomy as the most crucial claims at the moment. According to Partha Chatterjee (1993), in Burma, and in other countries with anti-colonial nationalism, culture and religion were separated from the material domain as social practices not directly controlled by the colonisers. This separation left a ‘cultural core’ and images of an essential identity intact, as seen from the indigenous nationalists' point of view. Interestingly, this observation is not merely confirmed by the SLORC in its nationalism, but also by Aung San Suu Kyi: ‘While Indian nationalism was essentially a product of British rule, there had always existed a traditional Burmese nationalism arising from Burma's cultural homogeneity.’ 1 And part of this homogeneity was, and is, Buddhism: ‘To be a Burmese is to be a Buddhist.’ 2
