Interpreting Communal Violence in Myanmar

From 2012 to 2014, Myanmar suffered violence between different communities, most of it involving Buddhists attacking Muslims. It ranged from localised, fleeting, inter-group violence, to large scale, apparently well-organised, state-supported killing and destruction of property of a targeted group, running over a number of days. . . .

Collective violence is a feature of uncertain times. In Myanmar too—and before it, Burma—it has tended to occur amid rapid political and economic change. As in other religiously, culturally and linguistically heterogeneous countries where a politically oppressive state loosens a highly coercive grip, people there have found themselves wanting for genuinely democratic institutions to express and manage conflict.

Read more from Nick Cheesman, Member in the School of Social Science, at New Mandala.