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.