The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a political association founded in 1967 in Bangkok, Thailand. It was originally comprised of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, but grew to include Brunei (1984), Vietnam (1995), Laos and Myanmar (1997), and Cambodia (1999). Its declared aims are the support of economic growth, cultural development, and “social progress” in its member states, the promotion of regional security and rule of...

Ashin Wirathu (b. 1968) is a Burmese Buddhist monk and the leader of the 969 nationalist Buddhist movement. He has received international notoriety for his anti-Muslim rhetoric and was described on the cover of Time in July 2013 as “The Face of Buddhist Terror.” He was jailed for eight years by the military government in the early 2000s and has repeatedly stoked Burmese fears of the Muslim minority since his release. Although Wirathu asserts that his speeches do not explicitly advocate violence,...

The Rohingya is a Sunni Muslim ethnic minority in Myanmar and Bangladesh. Roughly 800,000 to a million of the world’s 3.5 million Rohingya live in Myanmar, where they currently face severe institutionalized discrimination and violence in what is framed as a religious conflict between Buddhists and Muslims. Many have settled elsewhere in Southeast Asia, and in Australia, Europe, New Zealand, North America, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia,...

The Burma Citizenship Act of 1982 granted citizenship to individuals residing in Burma who could trace their family residency to prior to 1823, that is, the year of the first British military campaign on Myanmar and with it, a wave of immigration from India and China. The law was deeply problematic, as for many families of various ethnic groups, transnational ties were common and there was rarely documentation to prove whether a person had deep roots in Myanmar.

The law was part of a series of actions taken by the nationalist Burmese government meant to shore up Burmese ethnic...

Roman Catholicism arrived in Myanmar with the Portuguese in the 16th century. Burmese descendants of the Portuguese, known as Bayingyi (derived from the Persian farenji, “foreigner” a term used widely throughout the Indian Ocean region and a legacy of the Crusades), make up the oldest Catholic community. 90% of Burmese Catholics come from the Karen, Chin, Kachin, Chin, Shan, and Kaw ethnic minorities and are a legacy of Catholic proselytization under...

Aung San Suu Kyi (b. 1942) is a Burmese political opposition leader affiliated with the National League for Democracy (NLD). She is the daughter of Burmese independence hero Aung San, and Daw Khin Kyi, later Myanmar’s ambassador to India. She was the recipient of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.

After schooling in India and England, she moved to New York to work for the UN. She married a...

The State Religion Act was passed in 1961 after Prime Minister U Nu resumed leadership of Burma following a brief period of military rule. Unlike the 1947 constitution, which did not establish a national religion, this act made Buddhism the official state religion of Burma and formalized the government’s role as a religious patron. Passage of this act led to unrest among non-Buddhist minorities, which was used by ...

Approximately 2% of Burmese people are Hindu. Burmese Hindus are a mix of Bengalis, Tamils, Telegus, and Uttar Pradeshis who arrived in Burma under British colonialism. With the military coup of 1962, about 1 million Indians were forced out of Burma, but some remained, mostly in Yangon (Rangoon), Mandalay, and in the Bago District. As India is a close neighbor, Hinduism has had a regional influence for centuries and Hindu gods are sometimes included among the nats, or spirits, worshiped by some Burmese Buddhists. Due to historical ties between Hinduism and Buddhism, Hindus have faced far...

Is it called Burma or Myanmar? In 1989, the SLORC government mandated that their country should henceforth be known in English as Myanmar instead of Burma. (In all, several hundred place names were changed; another prominent example was the renaming of Rangoon to Yangon). This name change has not been accepted by all members of the international community. Some, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, did not recognize the legitimacy of the...

The 1947 Panglong Agreement was the outcome of the Panglong Conference, a meeting on the eve of independence between Burmese nationalist hero Aung San and representatives of several of the largest minority groups in Burma, namely the Chin, Shan, and Kachin. These groups agreed in principle to the formation of the Union of Burma, which became the first post-colonial government. However, other ethnic groups, most prominently the Karen and...

Burma was once home to a thriving Jewish diaspora community, which at one point numbered over two thousand, and which was part of a much larger regional community stretching from India to China. The integration of Burma into the British Empire meant that it was governed by a common international law, the Pax Britannica, which facilitated regulated trade between members of the tightly knit and widespread Jewish community linked by family, language, and faith.

The Musmeah Yeshua, Rangoon’s synagogue built in 1893, was the center of Jewish life in Myanmar until the mid-century....

Aung San (1915-1947) was a nationalist and military figure who is considered the founder of modern Burma. He is the father of Aung San Suu Kyi. At the beginning of WWII, in 1939, he began secret conversations with the Japanese and ultimately collaborated with them in their invasion of Burma. By 1945, however, he turned on the Japanese and helped liberate Burma with the British. Although many in the British government viewed him as a traitor, they ultimately negotiated with him about the future of...

U Ottama (1879-1939) was a Buddhist monk who was active in the Burmese independence movement. He traveled and taught throughout Asia, ultimately returning to colonial Burma to seek independence nonviolently. He wrote articles for The Suriya, a nationalist newspaper, including an open letter of protest to Reginald Craddock, the then-British governor, entitled, “Craddock, get out!” He was eventually imprisoned for his political activity and died in jail, becoming a martyr for the cause of...

The Karen are an internally diverse group of ethnic minorities who live primarily in southern and southeastern Burma. They are the second-largest non-Burman ethnic group in Myanmar comprising some 6% of the population, and are mostly Christian. During WWII, roughly 28% of Karen served in the Burmese army, which by British policy deliberately excluded ethnic Burmans. During the war, the Karen continued to support the British even as Burmans, led by...

The Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) / National Unity Party took over the government of Myanmar in a military coup in 1962 and held power until 1988. During this time, it was led by General Ne Win and called for government ownership of all forms of production. Under the BSPP, the government largely cut itself off from the rest of the world, discouraging tourism and foreign investment. After civilian uprisings in 1987 and 1988, power was transferred from the BSPP to a new military-led government,...