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SHAN DEMOCRATIC UNION: A SHAN DECLA
- Subject: SHAN DEMOCRATIC UNION: A SHAN DECLA
- From: shan@xxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 05 Jan 1999 21:23:00
Subject: SHAN DEMOCRATIC UNION: A SHAN DECLARATION: YEAR 1999:
January 1, 1999.
SHAN DEMOCRATIC UNION: A SHAN DECLARATION: YEAR 1999
At the dawn of the 21st Century many nations have abandoned the sword,
except in retrogressive regions like "Burma" where brutal barbaric Nazi-like
racists have illegally seized political power at gunpoint: -
We, the peoples of the Shan State, do clarify our position in relation
to the Burmese State and her people and their leaders.
The former "Union of Burma" has since 1962 fallen into the hands of
Burmese racial facists in uniform. The conceit of such Burman racists is that
they claim to have kept the country together, kept the "Union" from being
dismembered. They claim to be heir to Burmese uniqueness and glory, and to
have restored the Burman race to its glorious imperial past.
Unfortunately, such racist sentiment is shared by some section of the
pro-democracy Burmese elites, in various forms, and to various degrees. In
its
mildest and quite prevelant form is the one that views the Burman as the most
advanced ethnic segment and is therefore rightfully entrusted with "national
leadership", and regards the Burman as a "paternalistic, compassionate
Big Brother" to the non-Burmese ethnic nationalities.
Such sentiments stems from what the Burmese elite's belief, in and out
of uniform, in the "fact" of Burman hegemony, established over this "golden
land", it is claimed, since time immemorial, and before the humiliating
British
interregnum.
We say that the claimed hoary Burmese hegemony is an illusion, a sad and
pathetic, psychotic delusion. The "golden age" of the Burman were not
golden. All
Burmans were lowly, powerless serfs of a series of despotic kings. There
did not
exist per se a Burmese nation. There were, in those days, no sense or fact of
nationhood among the peoples of Southeast Asia.
There did not exist kingdoms in the sense that it is generally understood
in academia and in the modern world. Those kingdoms were not states, much
less
national states, but were personal properties of overlords ("greater
kings"), who
depended upon tributes paid to them by fiefholders, ruling princes or "lesser
kings". In fact, the Burmese "golden age in history" was created for them by
Western scholars and historians who transposed their Western past and
history to
Burma, and generally to Southeast Asia.
In fact Western ideas which followed the colonial flag and trade played a
crucial role in creating a sense of nationhood among the Burmese, the Mon,
Karen,
Rakhine, Shan, Kachin, Chin and so on. Thus there arose the notion of a
people as
nation, with a right to freedom and national self-determination; there
emerged the
notion of a "glorious, golden historical past" among these newly created post
colonial nations.
We ask: - who then is the Big Brother? Who then are the heirs of "great
empires"? Who exercised hegemony, cultural and political, over this golden
land?
Our answer is: - NO ONE. The notion of Burman hegemony is erroneous and a
gross
conceit, a pathetic delusion, based on "history" reconstructed by the
colonial
White-man.
The point we make is that we are all equal. We are all the product of
colonial modernization and of modern ideas and concepts that followed. Our
golden
age was in fact the years of the Panglong Conferences, which led to the
historic
Panglong Accord of 1947. Those were golden and glorious years because it
was at
this time that Burman, Shan, Karen, Kachin, Chin and others - who did not
know
each other, met as brothers.
Imperfect as the 1948 Constitution was, we - the Shan, Karen, Mon,
Burmese, Chin, Kachin and others were, in the first decade of independence,
learning to live together in unity amidst diversity, this despite the rampage
of uniformed Burmese racists in our homeland.
Today, for over three decades now (since 1962), the land of the Shan has
been transformed into a extermination camp. This is not an exaggeration. We
say
this because the power that uniformed Burman Nazi-like racists wield in our
land
and over our people is the kind wielded by Hitlerites-racists over Jewish and
other extermination camp inmates.
In the Shan homeland the brutal uniformed Burmese racists kill on a whim
with total callousness and impunity. They need no reasons to kill, the
desire to
kill is reason enough. They rape, murder, pillage and plunder at will. No
one is
safe. We, like inmates of Nazi extermination camps are all vulnerable to
"state-sanctioned" inhuman atrocities and killings, dispossed and displaced.
Hundreds upon thousands of Shans are forced into beggary or to live like
hunted
animals in the forests and deadly "free-fire" zones while the world looks on
impotently as it did in the years of the Hitler holocaust.
The Shans cannot, and will not, surrender. How can we surrender to those
bent on exterminating us? The facist Burman Hitler-like racists do not even
have
the skill to colonize the Shan people and Shan land despite their imperial
pretensions and delusions.
We know and are aware that the Burmese nation as a whole, do not support
the uniformed brutal racist elements among them. We too understand that the
Burmans are also enslaved. A nation that oppresses another cannot itself be
free. Oppression is not without costs. The price paid by the Burmese is that
they are no longer free. They have, as in the days of old, of despotic kings,
become enslaved, mere serfs of Burman Hitlerite-racist elements in their
midst.
Thus we share with our Burmese counterparts a common human bond to aspire
to be free, to have dignity and security of person and property, to possess
human
and other rights that are guaranteed to all peoples by the Universal
Declaration
of Human Rights, and to be masters of our fate.
But we have grave reservations regarding Burmese elites and leaders. We
have yet to be convinced that Burman leaders have recognized the evil of
their
psychotic delusion of granduer, the harm of the pathetic illusion of being a
"better" if not "superior imperial" race.
We - as the 21st century dawns - challenge Burmese leaders and elite to
renounce their delusionary and illusionary claim to leadership and imperial
overlordship over the country, the "Union of Burma". It is time that our
Burmese
counterparts and their leaders and elites clearly recognize that
imperialism is
dead, a putrid rotting carcass that serves no good purpose.
We declare our cooperation with the Burmese and with our other fraternal
nationalities, to build a free, democratic, and prosperous future. Free and
equal
in every way. This is not the time to quibble, but it is the time to revive
the
1947 "Spirit of Panglong". Freedom is not negotiatable; imperialism in any
shape
or form is absolutely rejected.
Shan Democratic Union
Shanland
January 1999.