ABSTRACT
This chapter examines an enduring ideological fracture at the heart of contemporary political society in Myanmar: the schism between civilian-led visions for democratic governance and the pursuit of autocratic military rule by Tatmadaw leaders. Framed through contemporary liminality, it argues that Myanmar’s political history since the 1930s has been suspended in a particular kind of overlapping liminal crisis, that of liminal schismogenesis. This complex-sounding term is in fact straightforward, clarifying a particularly volatile period of Myanmar’s political history: the difficult years of the Second World War, Aung San’s assassination, and the early days of postcolonial independence. Tracing how mimetic rivalries within the Thakins of the Dobama Asiayone, the Thirty Comrades, the AFPFL, and the forming Tatmadaw spiralled into factionalisation, reveals the unique conditions that gave rise to 60+ years of military autocratic rule. The chapter turns to how Tatmadaw leaders consolidated power by copying British colonial control strategies with their deployment of ambivalent religious policies, necropolitical violence, othering and enemy creation, and scapegoating and sacrifice to sustain authority – all while repeatedly provoking and suppressing civilian uprisings. It demonstrates how trickster politics have enabled the military to create and sustain the crises only they can fix, while trapping society – and ultimately themselves – in an unresolved and enduring liminal crisis.
