Here are two parallel statements divided by an interval of 85 years. The first comes from the opening page of Burma As I Saw It 1889-1917, written by former British colonial official R Grant Brown in 1926. The second is from the closing pages of Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia, published by top Myanmar watcher Thant Myint-U in 2011.

Brown in 1926: “It is easy to see from the map that the northern part of Burma is driven like a wedge between two great empires; it is less easy to realize that the most important geographical fact about the country is its isolation.”

Thant in 2011: “What was barely discernible just a few years ago is now a readily visible fact: Burma, long a barrier between the great civilizations of the east, is becoming a new crossroads of Asia.”

Thant’s book is a superb survey of shifting territorial dynamics in the part of Asia where Myanmar happens to find itself, a real tour de force. It fully acknowledges that right up to the present day separation from China and India has been the most salient feature of its geography. It holds that all that is now changing as once almost impenetrable borderland forests disappear. It recognizes that this new Asian intersection could turn out either well or badly.

I wonder, though, whether Myanmar will become a true crossroads at all. Despite taking an entire religion from India, Myanmar’s detachment from its great western neighbour is visible on many levels. If anything, the two countries seem now to be moving away from, not towards, each other. Ties with China have long been firmer. Here too, though, relations are currently strained in ways that transcend changing geography, and look to be getting more so.

As Myanmar negotiates a return to international society after 50 years of deep estrangement, it is therefore an open question whether it will embrace its apparent territorial destiny. Just as likely is a scenario in which it remains a place apart, shut off in the future perhaps not so much by geography, but rather by a deep well of cultural and historical factors.

To my mind, one of the finest recent attempts to address the important and contentious issue of ethnicity in Myanmar is an article Matthew J Walton published in the Journal of Contemporary Asia one year ago. It’s called “The ‘Wages of Burman-ness:’ Ethnicity and Burman Privilege in Contemporary Myanmar”. At the same time, though, I think the article is flawed, and I’m posting now to work through that. I do hope I write here in a spirit of constructive criticism about the stimulating work of a good friend and colleague.

The conceptual lens Matt uses to examine Myanmar draws on critical race theory from the US. He notes that race is an ascriptive category generated by physical characteristics beyond individual control, and acknowledges that ethnicity is not ascriptive in the same way. Nevertheless, he holds that ethnicity in Myanmar is functionally similar to race in the US. Each shapes access to power and privilege. On this basis, he draws direct parallels between Bamarness and whiteness. Just as the US has a racial order in which whiteness sets the standard to which all other groups must both conform and aspire, so Myanmar has an ethnic order in which Bamarness is at once normal and ideal. Social membership is thus unquestioned for Bamars, but conditional on good behaviour for everyone else. In the language of the great African-American sociologist and civil rights activist W E B Du Bois, these are the “wages” of Bamarness in Myanmar, the benefits drawn simply by being Bamar. A necessary condition of ethnic unity and equality, Matt argues, is action by Bamars to dismantle the structural foundations of their own privilege.

This is powerful stuff, and it opens up significant new ways of thinking about Myanmar’s difficult ethnic question. The flaw I find in it is that the country does face a racial issue in the treatment currently being meted out to Rohingya Muslims mainly in Rakhine State, and by extension to some other Muslim groups in Rakhine and elsewhere. In Matt’s article, these groups are mentioned only in passing (in one sentence and two footnotes), implying that their situation is broadly similar to that of all other minorities. More and more, though, that appears not to be the case. For sure, as Matt argues, members of other minority groups are second-class citizens forced always to prove their contribution and loyalty to the nation. However, Rohingya Muslims are not citizens at all (as Matt acknowledges in his single sentence), and other Muslims are now in grave danger of being tainted by association.

My own belief is that Myanmar has a layered structure of privilege defined by ethnicity at the top and race at the bottom. Occupying a secure position of social advantage are Bamars. The ethnic border separating them from Myanmar’s seven major designated minorities (Chin, Kachin, Kayah, Kayin, Mon, Rakhine and Shan) is porous upwards but not downwards. While there is little danger of Bamars falling in the social hierarchy, individuals from designated minorities can sometimes climb up. Indeed, as Matt writes in a rather upbeat conclusion, minority peoples in core areas already experience little or no discrimination based on ethnicity. Occupying a dismal position of social disadvantage are Rohingya Muslims. The racial border separating them from everyone else is porous downwards but not upwards. While there is no prospect of Rohingyas moving up the social hierarchy, other Muslims are starting to drop down.

All in all, this is good news for designated minorities and the larger cause of national reconciliation, for ethnic categories are permeable upwards. It’s bad news for Rohingya Muslims and groups linked to them by blood or religion, for racial categories are only permeable downwards.

Last Thursday, Médecins Sans Frontières Holland received a written order from Myanmar’s Union Government to suspend all operations across the country. On Friday, every MSF clinic closed. Over the weekend, urgent dialogue resulted in permission for some MSF activities to resume. This morning, for instance, HIV/AIDS facilities will reopen in Kachin State, Shan State and Yangon Region. In Rakhine State, however, MSF clinics spread across nine townships remain shuttered following a verbal communication from local authorities.

In part, the government’s order focused on technical violations of the memorandum of understanding required for any NGO to undertake in-country operations. On its side, MSF’s plea for an immediate resumption pointed to 22 years of committed engagement with health need throughout Myanmar.

Fundamentally, though, the suspension was linked to issues in Rakhine that for days had triggered vocal street protests in state capital Sittwe. One was a perceived bias towards “Bengalis”, or Rohingyas. Another was an MSF statement, in response to questions from journalists, that it had provided medical aid to 22 Rohingya patients following a mid-January outburst of Buddhist mob violence. The government contends that MSF has not satisfactorily documented this claim. It also maintains that no such outburst took place.

If true, the first allegation would violate the MSF Charter principle of impartiality and neutrality. It is contested by MSF, which insists that in Rakhine State, as elsewhere, it provides care solely on grounds of need, giving priority to those in most serious danger. The second allegation is not substantially disputed by MSF, for it reflects another Charter principle of bearing witness. This is central to MSF’s global profile, tracing back to its split from the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1971.

In this set of events there is, then, disagreement about the roles and responsibilities of international aid agencies. MSF’s position is that in any operation its priority is to provide tangible medical assistance. At the same time, though, it may speak out publicly if it finds it is the sole observer of extreme acts of violence. The Myanmar government’s position is that any speaking out must be fully substantiated. It also hints that it is not the job of an external agency to intervene in domestic political affairs.

Had the Myanmar government undertaken a credible investigation of the alleged Buddhist outburst in Rakhine State in mid-January, or permitted others to do so, its case against MSF might be sound. But no such investigation has taken place, and none is currently in the works. In circumstances where plausible allegations of extreme violence have yet to be properly probed, it is hard to back its action. Democratizing Myanmar should not allow reports of possibly severe human rights abuse to go unexamined.

An established practice of global humanitarian action is engaging with the local. That’s easier said than done, of course, and as the wider world becomes ever more present in Myanmar difficulties are starting to surface. A report issued by the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies last December addresses this topic. Written by Sarah L Clarke, it’s called Working Inside the Triangles: Engaging with Locally Led Peace Initiatives in Myanmar. I’ve long admired the work CPCS does in Myanmar, notably its superb series of listening projects. Clarke’s analysis is another timely contribution.

The report makes three main recommendations for international actors. First, they should acknowledge the level of complexity at play in Myanmar, and to navigate it should seek locally-led solutions. Second, they should adopt a long-term perspective. Third, they should “work inside the triangles” (executive, legislature, military, for example) by always keeping in mind the needs of Bamar majority citizens who remain key actors in building lasting peace. It presents brief case studies to illustrate these points.

One relates to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. At a July 10, 2013 meeting of his Group of Friends on Myanmar, Ban publicly expressed concern about “the plight of the Rohingya population and their disturbing humanitarian situation”. This is precisely the kind of statement leaders of international society are expected to make at times of humanitarian crisis. In the Myanmar case, though, Clarke notes that senior officials like Ban operate “in a context where anti-western sentiment combined with animosity against outsiders, or people considered to be ‘non-Burmese’ are easily drawn upon and manipulated with disastrous effect”. Inadvertently, his statement strengthened hardliners and undermined moderates.

Another concerns grassroots trust-building workshops launched by a Myanmar NGO in Rakhine State. Reaching out to Rakhine Buddhists, NGO staffers initially faced deep hostility, and dark rumours about their motivations spread within the community. By continuing to talk with those prepared to accept them, however, and by drawing on shared Buddhist teachings, they began to make progress. “Eventually, a baseline of trust was built and it was possible to raise the most sensitive issues regarding perceptions of Rohingya communities. Out of this work, Rakhine leaders eventually requested support of the organization to facilitate dialogue with Rohingya community members.”

Clarke’s argument about seeking locally-led solutions to navigate Myanmar’s deep complexities emerges clearly from these linked stories. What is less easy to determine is the appropriate role for guardians of international human rights norms. Quite what UN officials such as the secretary-general and the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar should do when confronted with severe human rights violations in, say, Rakhine State is very hard to specify.

Debate about the upcoming census, now little more than one month away, continues unabated. The main trigger this week was the release on Monday of the latest Burma Policy Briefing by the Transnational Institute and the Burma Centrum Netherlands. All 13 briefings in the series are terrifically useful, but this one especially so. Entitled Ethnicity without Meaning, Data without Context: The 2014 Census, Identity and Citizenship in Burma/Myanmar, and running to 24 pages of detailed, informative analysis, it is by far the most important single document currently available on the topic.

The 2014 Population and Housing Census is the first official survey since 1983. Guided by the United Nations Population Fund, the Department of Population in Myanmar’s Ministry of Immigration and Population is aiming for an ambitious 100 percent headcount. As enumerators, it will deploy 100,000 junior school teachers charged with the almost impossible task of securing comprehensive data under 41 question categories. The full cost, funded mainly by western donors, will be $74 million.

The TNI/BCN argument is that the 2014 census is in fact the most significant since the final British census of 1931. Driven by a passion for enumeration and documentation, the British conducted a headcount every 10 years from 1871. None was entirely robust, and even colonial officials admitted to the unreliability of much of their shifting data. However, an accident of history (in the shape of the Second World War and the Japanese occupation of Burma) meant that the 1931 exercise gained great importance. Its segmentation of the population into 15 indigenous race groups and some 135 sub-groups was especially influential. While the 15 major groups were reduced over time, the 135 sub-groups survive to this day.

It is here that the TNI/BCN briefing focuses its critique. It notes that ethnic categories are among the most complex issues in contemporary Myanmar. It holds that the 2014 census will play a decisive role in establishing the contours of ethnic politics for years to come. It asks why the current exercise makes use of flawed designations from 1931, rather than opting for inclusive dialogue and planning designed to deliver more appropriate contemporary categories. It laments the passing up of an opportunity to build trust among ethnic groups and contribute to meaningful national reconciliation. It makes a powerful case for delay and rethinking. It does all of this on the basis of both deep historical analysis stretching back to the dawn of the colonial era nearly 200 years ago, and vivid engagement with the lived experience of identity in present-day Myanmar.

Also on Monday, the Irrawaddy carried an email response from Janet Jackson, UNFPA representative in Myanmar. She argued that reliable census data are essential for policy planning, and held that the considerable resources committed to the 2014 population count should not be wasted. She reiterated the government position that “the census is a purely statistical exercise”. But that is patently not the case, and if large sums of money are about to be spent on a nationwide audit that will undermine the overarching process of political reform and national reconciliation, then the case for modifying or delaying the 2014 census is compelling.

A remarkable feature of contemporary Myanmar politics is how often Rakhine exceptionalism surfaces in news feeds. On Monday, for instance, the Irrawaddy carried two articles signaling differences between that part of the country and everywhere else.

One was an interview with Tomás Ojea Quintana near the end of his six-year mandate as UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar. Asked to identify his biggest achievement, he said this: “I’m really happy that the human rights mandate from the United Nations is very well-known in the country. I travelled all over the country and in all places, aside from Rakhine State, people value the mandate. They are happy I’m voicing their concerns.”

The other was a brief story, little more than 100 words long, on an abortive humanitarian aid mission to Rakhine State: “The mission, sent by the Malaysian Islamic Organisations Consultative Council (MAPIM), was called off after three of its members were surrounded by around 100 ‘Buddhist extremists’ at their hotel and had to be rescued by local authorities, MAPIM President Mohd Azmi Abdul Hamid said.” By and large, humanitarian aid can be delivered in other areas of Myanmar.

Such issues are now so routine in Rakhine State that they have become minor blips in the daily news cycle. As key figures inside and outside the country understand, though, they point to major challenges ahead.

A significant domestic concern is fragmentation. It turns out that Ekiert’s palimpsest problematic runs deeper in Rakhine State than anywhere else in Myanmar. Just as nineteenth-century maps of Central Europe explain voting patterns and even voluntary fire service membership in contemporary Poland, so eighteenth-century maps of Southeast Asia reveal political faultlines in contemporary Myanmar. The decisive historical fact is that Arakan was not finally annexed by Burma until 1784. Calls for secession will surely soon be at the top of the political agenda.

A growing international concern is safeguarding basic human rights. The 1993 Paris Principles highlight the role of national institutions in promoting and protecting human rights. The 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness mandates national ownership of development strategies. Nevertheless, there are minimum global standards to which all 193 UN member states, including Myanmar, must conform. At present, the humanitarian situation in Rakhine State falls far below those standards. Working out how to secure closer compliance is an urgent political task.

At a time when Myanmar’s mainstream reform agenda is facing many testing issues, it is understandable that problems in Rakhine State tend to be bracketed off and pushed to one side. But those problems will not solve themselves. Indeed, every indication is that they will become increasingly pressing. Before long, we will need to talk more about this exceptional part of the country.

Posting yesterday about the political role of Myanmar’s military in the present and future reminded me of a neat analysis of its role in the past. I’m thinking of an article Federico Ferrara published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution in 2003. It’s called “Why Regimes Create Disorder: Hobbes’s Dilemma during a Rangoon Summer”. I checked Google Scholar and found 26 citations, which is a fair number. But few Myanmar specialists have cited this work, possibly because Ferrara himself has not been inducted into the ranks and is merely a comparative political scientist making excellent use of the tools of his trade.

Ferrara’s research question focuses on Burma’s pro-democracy uprising in 1988, notably the mass revolt of August 8 and the internal coup of September 18. Twice the government unleashed brutal fury on its people. The first time, in August, the opposition movement fought back. The second time, in September, it cowered into submission. Why was that? His answer is simple: “The regime presented its population with Hobbes’s dilemma.” What does he mean by this?

In Leviathan, published in 1651, Thomas Hobbes considered what life might be like in the absence of government or, as he put it, in a state of nature. His prognosis was famously bleak. There would be constant warfare (“such a warre, as is of every man, against every man”), and in general life would be highly unpleasant (“solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”). In such circumstances, Hobbes argued, individuals would mutually covenant to create Leviathan (“reduce all their Wills, by plurality of voices, unto one Will”). In Mancur Olson’s terminology, they would choose by means of a social contract to submit to a relatively predictable “stationary bandit” rather than place themselves at the mercy of capricious “roving bandits”.

Ferrara’s argument is that when faced with the 8-8-88 uprising, Burma’s collapsing government opted to turn Hobbes’s imaginary state of nature into a late twentieth-century reality. For six weeks, it withdrew security forces from streets, released common criminals from jails, and encouraged widespread looting. In short, it compromised the public good of social order. It thereby offered the Burmese people a stark choice: anarchy or dictatorship? In this real-life scenario, however, individuals did not need to engage in mutual cooperation to escape from turmoil. All they had to do was defect from the opposition movement, and submit to what Ferrara calls “an inept, obtrusive, and hideously repressive Leviathan”. He contends that this was how the regime shattered the rebels’ support base and prolonged its autocracy.

In full, the statement reads like this: “The army may have to come forward and make sure that democracy works.” It was actually made about Indonesia by former defence minister Juwono Sudarsono. But it triggers Myanmar thoughts too. It was cited in an interesting op-ed by Michael Vatikiotis carried in last Friday’s New York Times. Looking at Indonesia after 15 years of mainly peaceful transition, Vatikiotis argued that a troubling trend of religious intolerance and weak civilian leadership could persuade the military it needs to act to safeguard pluralism. He further noted that there is historical precedent for this. In the early years of Indonesian independence, weak domestic governance plus limited protection for minorities fanned intolerance, generating guided democracy in the 1950s and army-backed rule in the 1960s.

The parallels with the Myanmar case today, and with Burmese history from half a century ago, are obvious. Indeed, it is because the two countries have so much in common that Indonesia’s broadly successful transition is frequently touted as a model for Myanmar. However, if comparative lessons are to be drawn, then the negatives are just as important as the positives. They too are self-evident. If civilian leaders in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar follow their counterparts in Muslim-majority Indonesia in failing to speak out against religious intolerance, in fact sometimes appearing to endorse it, then fanaticism will increase. At some point, military leaders may claim they have no choice but to build a more muscular political presence. After all, this is the rationale for discipline-flourishing democracy.

Clearly Myanmar’s military is currently held in far lower regard than Indonesia’s ever was. Nevertheless, its image has already been partially rehabilitated by its provision of order at times of sectarian violence, and Senior General Min Aung Hlaing appears to be eyeing a presidential run. It is therefore quite conceivable that Myanmar’s transition will be restricted to the discipline-flourishing variant sketched in the former junta’s seven-stage roadmap. For Myanmar to push beyond that, civilian politicians from across the political spectrum must demonstrate they are capable of providing real leadership on the most difficult human rights challenges facing the country.

Central to debate about the place of Muslims in contemporary Myanmar is a divisive historical dispute. Extreme Buddhist nationalists insist that Muslims have no organic place in the society. Muslims point to many centuries of settlement. Few systematic studies been written in English, however, making it hard to take a definitive position. Here all I do is present a very brief, schematic reading of the conclusions reached by Moshe Yegar, an Israeli diplomat stationed in Rangoon in the early 1960s. There is no reason to believe he was anything other than a disinterested historian making the best possible use of the available material. His analysis, published in 1972 as The Muslims of Burma: A Study of a Minority Group, does not look beyond Ne Win’s 1962 coup. It divides the historical record into four main segments.

The first phase is cast essentially as pre-history. Muslim seamen reached Burma in the ninth century, establishing trading colonies in coastal regions. Interior settlement dates from the eleventh century. While there undoubtedly were Muslims in Burma in these years, the source material is sketchy, suggesting they were perhaps not an important social force.

The second phase dates from no later than the fifteenth century, and comprises a long period of extensive Muslim engagement. In monarchical Burma, contemporary European travelers described major ports as Muslim, and interior settlement also intensified. By the eighteenth century, every significant city contained a sizeable Muslim community, and Muslims occupied senior military and administrative posts. Though overwhelmingly Buddhist, the society was tolerant of other faiths. In Arakan, only finally annexed by Burma in 1784 and today (as Rakhine State) the site of greatest contention, Muslims established settlements from 1430 and went on to play a decisive role in local history. Rohingyas speaking an amalgam of Arakanese, Bengali and Urdu preserved not only their religion, but also their culture through eminent writers, poets and calligraphers. Some were admitted to the royal court.

The third phase opens with British military engagement and conquest from the 1820s to the 1880s. Immigrants from India, arriving in large numbers, sparked a revolutionary change in the lives of Burmese Muslims. By 1921, Indians numbered roughly one million in a Burmese society of 11 million. Roughly half were Muslim. By 1931, the population of Rangoon was 63 percent Indian. Immigrants filled many government posts, as well as jobs in other sectors. Inter-communal hatred triggered anti-Indian riots in 1930 and anti-Muslim riots in 1938. Japanese occupation in 1942 drove many immigrants out of Burma.

The fourth phase emerges with the move to independence in 1948, and saw Arakan pursue a different path from the rest of Burma. In most of the country, Muslims sought the kind of social integration they had known before the arrival of the British. Among a strongly Buddhist people this was challenging but not impossible, as several centuries of history had shown. In Arakan, by contrast, an armed Muslim revolt known as the Mujahids’ rebellion broke out, and intense fighting caused populations to flee to heartland areas. Buddhists congregated in southern Arakan. Muslims clustered in the north. Only at the end of 1961, less than four months before the military coup, was the rebellion quashed.

In reformist Myanmar, all agree that rebuilding a decrepit education system is a top priority. To guide the process, UNESCO is working with the Ministry of Education to complete a Comprehensive Education Sector Review. Also underway are three other major audits (which may be one or two too many). If the objective is to deliver meaningful change to a system in desperate need, however, the reality of the digital revolution must be embraced.

As its name suggests, the Khan Academy Burmese Translation Project is seeking to turn English-language materials into useful resources for Myanmar students. Launched in 2006 as a non-profit online education platform, the Khan Academy itself has been outstandingly successful in developing video tutorials first in mathematics and later in a wide range of other subjects. It is now supported by major donors, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. To date, though, KABT’s work for Myanmar students remains an entirely voluntary effort. Clearly it could achieve so much more if properly funded by donors and carefully integrated into the mainstream education system.

Similarly in the university sector, massive open online courses, the MOOCs that are increasingly talked about, have enormous transformative potential. Yet they scarcely feature on the reform agenda. To be fair, it is still early days for the MOOC. According to Wikipedia, Southeast Asia’s first MOOC was a Taylor’s University course in entrepreneurship offered in Malaysia in March last year. But the demand is already considerable. When a different entrepreneurship MOOC was launched in Indonesia last August (and taught in Bahasa), it attracted an enrolment of more than 20,000. Just two days ago, Thomas L Friedman reported in the New York Times on the first ever MOOC delivered in Arabic. Scheduled for a March 2 launch, it currently has close to 5000 registered students from all over the Middle East.

Fully exploiting digital technology in Myanmar of course will not be easy. Translation or subtitles will often be necessary, and will require donor support. Limited internet access remains a problem. However, Facebook is spreading rapidly, and smartphones are scheduled to reach 80 percent penetration just a couple of years from now. Moreover, tapes always provide a solid alternative. The Teaching Company markets its superb series of Great Courses in a variety of formats: video or audio, discs or digital. Every one of these options should be used as quickly as possible to provide education at all levels in Myanmar.

The point of crossing the digital divide is not to displace indigenous tuition or capacity. Rather, it is to boost it by making the best use of deeply inadequate resources. When tapes and online platforms are used to deliver world-class core teaching, local educators can be deployed to facilitate and support student learning. The digital revolution must animate educational reform in Myanmar.