| Publication |
2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
In his Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Karl Marx wrote: 'The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.' Such an assessment is only half-right when it comes to Burma's internal conflicts, of which ethnicity is of equal importance to class. Whether ethnicity is largely a matter of 'political choice', as many academics suggest today, has little relevance in the lives of these ethnic peoples. The Karen, Kachin, Mon, Shan, Karenni and others have chosen to hold on to their AK-47s or M16s in order to fight on. The unappealing alternative is surrender and subjugation at the feet of their uncompromising enemy in Rangoon and, since 2005, Naypyidaw.
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