ABSTRACT
In Myanmar, where the ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), oppresses the various ethnic groups living in the country and routinely uses difference as a pretext for repressing community organizations, cross-cultural understanding is a rare occurrence. 1 Decades of political oppression coupled with a history of postcolonial struggle to formulate a national identity has left the populace guarded against unfamiliar people and suspicious of calls to collective action. Before President Thein Sein was elected in 2011, the Unlawful Association Act inherited from British colonialists defined all unauthorized assemblies of five or more people in public outdoor spaces as illegal. Although this law was inconsistently enforced, the threat of jail time in notoriously inhumane prisons discouraged everyday residents from gathering together in any potentially conspicuous manner. Even traditional Burmese festivals such as Thadingyut (Festival of Lights) and Thingyan (Burmese New Year) were censored, stripped of elements that might be critical of the government. Rather than the customary opportunities to express one's religious beliefs and social/political critique, Burmese holidays had become largely commercialized spectacles that lacked the depth of meaning and community experienced before 1988.
