Communities should be free to celebrate their ethnic heritage and cultural identity. What should be done? Charting a more inclusive future for the country will require a national debate including some difficult reflection. In many ways, violent conflict in Myanmar can be seen as the militarisation of ethnicity. Inter-ethnic relations have become dominated by zero-sum thinking that hardens ethnic divides and drives the proliferation of armed groups, with deadly consequences. Why does it matter? The results of putting ethnicity at the centre of public life are toxic. These efforts have created an unworkably convoluted and ultimately meaningless classification system. Efforts to categorise and enumerate the peoples of this hugely diverse country have been attempted from British colonial times to the latest 2014 census. What’s new? Ethnicity has become central to citizenship, basic rights, politics and armed conflict in Myanmar.
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