Language, education and the peace process in Myanmar.

• Author: South, Ashley
• Position: Essay

This article explores how language and education have featured in half a century of armed ethnic conflict in Burma/Myanmar, and how these issues feature in the ongoing peace process. The argument developed here is that different stakeholders' positions in relation to language policy and use in education are proxies for positions regarding the relationship between the central government and ethnic communities, in the context of widespread state-society conflict. Given the salience of ethno-linguistic diversity in Myanmar, (1) studies of the politics of language are surprisingly rare. (2) While the complex and fast-changing peace process in Myanmar, which began in late 2011, has yet to generate much scholarly analysis, commentary and policy literatures have largely bypassed the relationship between language, education, and state-society and armed conflicts, and their resolution.

Thus far, those engaged in the broader movement of political reform in Myanmar have largely addressed education and peace building as separate issues; likewise, state, international (donor) and other actors in the peace process have mostly ignored issues of language and education. This article explores the relationships between education and language policy and practice, and armed conflict and, more recently, the peace process in Myanmar. We focus on the state education system and education regimes under the authority of three major ethnic armed groups (EAGs): first, the New Mon State Party (NMSP), which has maintained a ceasefire with the government since 1995; second, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), which saw its seventeen-year ceasefire collapse in 2011; and third, the Karen National Union (KNU), which in early 2012 agreed to a preliminary ceasefire, following more than half a century of armed conflict. Analysing these three contrasted case studies, and addressing the situation of other ethnic communities as necessary and in order to provide context, allows us to draw out questions regarding the relationship between ethnic nationality communities and the state. The article concludes that a sustainable resolution to Myanmar's long-standing ethnic conflicts will be difficult to achieve without education reform which leads to the right language policies.

The article is based on data collected over a period of nine months of fieldwork in 2011. (3) The results of this research were published, (4) and as the peace process gathered pace and increased in complexity, the team decide to return to the field in 2015. (5) Data was collected in Mon, Karen and Kachin States, and the team spoke to over 150 people and conducted thirty focus groups and larger meetings with stakeholders from EAG education departments, ethnic political parties and local civil society groups, including ethnic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). In addition, teachers, parents and students at ethnic schools were either interviewed or took part in focus groups. (6)

The Conflict Nexus and the Peace Process: Language Rights and the Politics of Education

Myanmar, with a total population of 51 million, is home to more than 100 ethno-linguistic groups. Non-Burman communities make up at least 30 per cent of the population. In the lead-up to independence in 1948, ethnic nationality elites mobilized communities in order to gain access to political and economic resources, demanding justice and fair treatment for the groups they sought to represent. The KNU went underground in January 1949, initiating more than six decades of (mostly "low intensity") civil war. The ensuing armed conflict was marked by serious and widespread human rights abuses on the part of both the Myanmar armed forces (the Tatmadaw) and, less systematically, the EAGs. Myanmar's ethnic insurgents have been fighting to achieve political self-determination, which in recent years has been framed as a desire for federal autonomy within a multi-ethnic union; (7) unsurprisingly, after half a century of armed conflict, there are also significant political-economic agendas at play in Myanmar's armed conflict and the on-going peace process.

Communist and dozens of groups of ethnic insurgents controlled large parts of the country for decades. Since the 1970s, however, armed opposition groups have lost control of their once extensive "liberated zones", precipitating humanitarian and political crises in the borderlands. A previous round of ceasefires in the 1990s brought respite to conflict-affected civilian populations and provided the space for civil society networks to (re-)emerge within, and between, ethnic nationality communities. However, the then-military government proved unwilling to accept EAG demands for substantial political negotiations. Therefore, despite some positive developments, the ceasefires of the 1990s did not dispel distrust between ethnic nationality communities and the government. (8)

A new phase in the peace process began in late 2011, under the military-backed, semi-civilian government of President U Thein Sein. Preliminary ceasefires were agreed to with most (but not all) of Myanmar's EAGs, and some progress was made towards negotiating a comprehensive nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA). At the time of writing, however, progress seems to have stalled, with significant differences remaining between the EAGs and the government (particularly the Tatmadaw) on a range of issues, including security sector reform and how to decide the future political makeup of the country. The general election of November 2015 resulted in a landslide victory for the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Nobel Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Informed sources state that the NLD will promote a Burmese and English language-oriented education policy, rather than one based on mother tongue learning. (9) Ethnic-based political parties did relatively well in the 2010 elections but had relatively few members of parliament elected in 2015. Therefore, while ethnic political parties remain important champions for mother tongue and ethnic education in Myanmar, EAGs and civil society actors will continue to be key actors in this field, despite the uncertain progress of the peace process.

A few weeks before the election, on 15 October 2015, eight EAGs agreed to an NCA. (10) The significance of this agreement was somewhat reduced because several key EAGs did not sign the NCA, due to concerns over "inclusiveness" i.e. disagreements regarding which EAGs would be allowed to join the NCA. For those groups which did sign, two key structures have emerged: a joint ceasefire monitoring mechanism, and a political dialogue, framed by the Union Peace Conference (UPC), initiated in Naypyidaw in mid-January 2016. At the time of writing, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has appeared willing to support the outgoing government's peace process, by participating in the UPC. This may be against her inclinations, as NLD leaders regard political legitimacy as derived from success in parliamentary elections, rather than a product of armed struggle. Therefore, in the middle-to-long-term, EAGs may find themselves relatively marginalized in processes of "national reconciliation" under an NLD government, compared to the privileged interlocutor position they experienced during the outgoing military-backed regime. Myanmar's next government will have a packed agenda, and may not prioritize the peace process in the same way as its predecessor. The concerns and aspirations of ethnic nationality communities will not go away, but the opportunity to address these through a structured peace process may be diminishing.

Meanwhile on the ground, the peace process is seen by some stakeholders as a vehicle for the expansion of militarized state structures into conflict-affected areas, where the government is regarded by local communities as illegitimate, predatory and violent. This is the case also in the field of education.

Ethnic armed conflicts in Myanmar have persisted for many decades. The causal factors are multiform and complex, including both "grievance" and "greed", private, political and economic factors. (11) The right to mother tongue language education has been one of the key demands of ethnic stakeholders in Myanmar's prolonged state-society and armed ethnic conflicts. At a minimum, ethnic nationalists have demanded the teaching of minority languages in schools, including state schools; a stronger version of this position is to demand teaching of the curriculum in the mother tongue, at least through primary schooling. Positions in relation to language use, in schooling, and more broadly in public administration, can provide a mapping of the positions of ethnic nationalist elites--civil society actors, political parties and particularly EAGs--vis-a-vis conflicts in Myanmar more broadly. The stated positions, and practices, of key stakeholders, for example EAGs and affiliated and associated education actors, derive from and reflect, and to a degree inform, identities, interests and positions in the broader peace process. Different actors' positions on the relationship between EAG education systems and those of the state (as discussed below), and demands regarding the use of ethnic nationality languages in, for example, the administration of government and justice, can be seen as proxies indicating how stakeholders consider that Myanmar's ethnic communities should relate to the state--revealing a continuum of positions, from unitary state-led assimilation of minority communities, through varying types of federalism, towards outright secession and independence for ethnic polities.

Thus, language policies are not linked only to learning and cognition in schools. In many developing countries, especially nations made up of diverse ethnic groups and subject to state-society (including armed) conflict, there tends to be a concern among state authorities that promotion of minority languages and ethnic identities will lead to greater divisiveness...