AHC: Balkanized Burma

The Avenger

Banned
Burma has been beset with ethnic conflict since independence, but has managed to remain in one piece. Is it possible for the ethnic seperatist forces to be more successful, and large parts of the country break off to become internationally recognized independent states?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_conflict_in_Myanmar
What about having Burma come under Communist rule and then break up after the collapse of Communism?

That's what happened to the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. Why not Burma as well?
 
The Karen’s will get there own homeland. The Zabra people, in the north, had connections with India, and Malaysia.
 
Speaking of the Thai's, I am certain there are linguistically Thai populations or populations who speak a language close to Thai much like with the Chinese population/s. Perhaps you could see some areas with the possible inclusion of Rakhine into Thailand.
 
What about having Burma come under Communist rule and then break up after the collapse of Communism?
Burma was communist in OTL. The majority of communist states didn't create a republic for each ethnic groups, but rather were unitary governments. which either ignored the different ethnic groups in favorite of an identity based on the state or tried to assimilate or destroy them.
 
Maybe the best way forward to instigate such a division is to have a widespread idea that Burmese=Communist or something of that nature. We more or less have that presently with the Russians all being Soviet nostalgics and want to conquer {insert various places here} of which of course is utter bollocks. All we need is a similar idea to spread everything else will more or less lead to what we are aiming for.
 

The Avenger

Banned
Burma was communist in OTL. The majority of communist states didn't create a republic for each ethnic groups, but rather were unitary governments. which either ignored the different ethnic groups in favorite of an identity based on the state or tried to assimilate or destroy them.
What about having their mentality change, though?
 
Burma's geography functions like a walk-in closet, the Burmese live in a flat plain stretching inland from the coast until it bumps into the mountain periphery. Burma is ethnically diverse because its difficult or impossible for the valley people to assert control over the periphery and assimilate the mountain peoples. It's easy for a separatist insurgency to keep up its resistance with kalashnikovs and opium profits in mountainous areas the government can't assert control over, but the horrible geography would probably make full independence economically unviable.
A new country in the borders of the Shan state, for example, would be like a isolated valley in Afghanistan declaring independence.
 

Attachments

  • Myanmar-Ethnic-Groups-Map-October-2016.jpg
    Myanmar-Ethnic-Groups-Map-October-2016.jpg
    232.1 KB · Views: 1,040
What about having Burma come under Communist rule and then break up after the collapse of Communism?

That's what happened to the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. Why not Burma as well?

Burma's geography functions like a walk-in closet, the Burmese live in a flat plain stretching inland from the coast until it bumps into the mountain periphery. Burma is ethnically diverse because its difficult or impossible for the valley people to assert control over the periphery and assimilate the mountain peoples. It's easy for a separatist insurgency to keep up its resistance with kalashnikovs and opium profits in mountainous areas the government can't assert control over, but the horrible geography would probably make full independence economically unviable.
A new country in the borders of the Shan state, for example, would be like a isolated valley in Afghanistan declaring independence.

Beat me to it! there is a really weird tendency on this board to equate x with y. The national identities of the former Soviet states and Eastern Europe are completely different from ethnic identities in Myanmar. One of the reasons they chose to change their name from Burma was to reassert a national identity of "Mranma" people over the ethnic identities of Bamar (of which the British named the country after), Shan, Karen, Chin etc. The reification of ethnic identities was something very much encouraged by the British in order to divide and rule.
 

The Avenger

Banned
Burma's geography functions like a walk-in closet, the Burmese live in a flat plain stretching inland from the coast until it bumps into the mountain periphery. Burma is ethnically diverse because its difficult or impossible for the valley people to assert control over the periphery and assimilate the mountain peoples. It's easy for a separatist insurgency to keep up its resistance with kalashnikovs and opium profits in mountainous areas the government can't assert control over, but the horrible geography would probably make full independence economically unviable.
A new country in the borders of the Shan state, for example, would be like a isolated valley in Afghanistan declaring independence.
Can't the Shan join Thailand, though?
 
If Burma/Myanmar underwent a Communist revolution, you can bet that the USA would probably consider a military intervention (or at least indirect involvement) during the same time as the Vietnam War. Perhaps Burma goes through a civil war that greatly weakens the central government, to the point that some ethnic militias are able to take over a few regions and declare de facto independence.
 
Top