What are the prospects for sustainable peace in Myanmar?

The Department of Anthropology at Aarhus University organized a seminar on 26-27 April as part of the EverJust project with the topic ‘Everyday Justice and Security in the Myanmar Transition’. The seminar focused broadly on the prospects for peace in Myanmar. Presentations explored particular sub-topics, based on in-depth, empirical studies, including: dispute resolution, elections, ethnic armed groups, civil society organizations, and religious organizations and politics. Two distinguished scholars, Matthew Walton (Oxford University) and Mikael Gravers (Aarhus University), shared their thoughts about the role of monastic power and nationalist monks in the current political transition, including in perpetuating religious divides. Judith Beyer (University of Konstanz) added a complex perspective to the role and formation of religious community in Myanmar. Myat The Thitsar, a Mynmar researcher, spoke about the recent by-elections, and how peace is challenged by divergent views of federalism and how especially the young people are losing faith in Aung San Suu Kyi’s capacity to bring peace. The role of civil society and the state-making practices of ethnic armed organizations were also discussed with presentations from Michael Lidauer, Annika Pohl Harrison, and Thang Sorn.

The discussions highlighted that peace will depend on embracing the complexity of actors and orientations in Myanmar. This means that we as scholars should abandon using those fixed categories of ethnicity and religion that are being politically engineered to maintain divides and ignite conflicts. There is also a need to discuss possible ways to de-militarize politics in Myanmar. Not only does the military retain 25 per cent of the seats in parliament and control the administrative and security forces, they also play important roles in the economy and in perpetuating ethno-religious conflicts. However, the military is also a heterogeneous organization, and more research is needed to understand its internal dynamics and potential incentives for peace and democratization. The participants also highlighted the critical disconnect between international support to the peace process, which considers the many ethnic organizations on the one hand and international support to development, which now almost exclusively goes through and recognizes the central state institutions on the other hand. These forms of support need to be much more integrated, so that state and peace building do not produce adverse results or create renewed conflicts.