New IR Conversations #7: Asia's Failed State, after Afghanistan and N. Korea: The Case of Myanmar and Its Decades-long National Destruction by Dr. Maung Zarni | October 21, Thursday
Date: October 21, 2021 | Thursday
Time: 8:00- 9:30 P.M. (IST)
Link to Join: https://zoom.us/j/97230294686?pwd=WjAvdEdINzhYWUZiamR6K01nQ0VLUT09
Abstract: As a post-colonial political state, with a dozen sizeable ethnic nations, with divergent political histories, mutually incomprehensible languages, conflicting core interests, and national visions, Myanmar has proven itself to be an utter and complete failure since it came into existence in 1948. Among the contributing factors are the ongoing seven-decades of civil wars with fluctuating levels of intensity and scale, the 4-decades of the slow genocide of Rohingyas, pervasive and at times violent majoritarian racism, intra-minorities conflicts, the resource rape by external actors (multinational corporations and Asian neighbours such as China, Thailand, Singapore, S. Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, and India), the geostrategic manipulations by the United States and its poodle UK, chronic waves of nation-wide uprisings, the corrupt and incompetent military regimes, and the incurable coma in the Security Council. The latest military coup of February 2021, the resultant Zero-Sum armed revolution, the raging Covid and the crumbling economy have only accelerated this process of national destruction. This lecture will offer an insider’s look at this slow-motion process, based on the lecturer’s 30-years of scholarship, deep engagement in Myanmar affairs and international politics.
Speaker's Bio: Maung Zarni is a UK-based fellow of the (Genocide) Documentation Center – Cambodia, co-founder of FORSEA.co, a Southeast Asian activist organization, and Burmese coordinator of the Free Rohingya Coalition, with 30-years of engagement in activism, scholarship, politics and media.
More details about the upcoming seminar speakers, and the topics they will speak on, can be found here: http://ashokairsoc.com/seminarseries/
