Over the Borderline
Insight Myanmar10 Kesä 2025

Over the Borderline

Episode #353: Professor Lahra Smith, a political science professor specializing in East Africa at Georgetown University, argues that Myanmar’s current struggles must be seen within a global framework of colonial legacies, using Sudan as a comparative case. While acknowledging contextual differences, Smith shows how both countries were shaped by British colonial rule that hardened ethnic divisions, created infrastructure disparities, and entrenched political inequalities.

Sudan lies within Africa’s so-called "coup belt," illustrating a broader dissatisfaction with post-colonial governance and foreign interference. Like Myanmar, Sudan has suffered from military coups that initially promised reform but quickly descended into new forms of repression. Smith discusses how colonial policies divided Sudanese society along racial and religious lines, just as British colonialism in Myanmar entrenched ethnic and religious hierarchies that still drive conflict today.

Colonialism’s infrastructural and missionary legacies further marginalized Sudan’s peripheries, fostering grievances that exploded into civil wars and the eventual, troubled independence of South Sudan. Similarly, Myanmar’s marginalized ethnic regions remain flashpoints for conflict. Smith stresses the need to move beyond thinking in terms of static land borders and recognize the deeper regional and cultural continuities that colonial boundaries disrupted.

Ultimately, Smith emphasizes that identities and nations are constantly evolving, and that just drawing new lines on maps to replace the old, artificial, colonial ones will not solve the problems caused by the colonial experience. She stresses that genuine understanding requires recognizing this fluidity.

Jaksot(507)

Simplicity And Solidarity

Simplicity And Solidarity

Episode #157: In 1995, Burmese assaults into Karen territory created thousands of refugees who fled to Thai refugee camps, including Eh Nay Thaw’s family. He spent the next ten years in a refugee camp...

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From Democracy to Demolition

From Democracy to Demolition

Episode #156: Even two years after the coup, the Tatmadaw continues its campaign of terror, disrupting communities, causing a massive refugee problem and destroying the country’s infrastructure. And b...

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Yearning For Home (Panel Discussion)

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Kory Goldberg is Along The Path

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Episode #154: When Kory Goldberg was just nineteen, he spent a year studying in India. After the program ended, he traveled around and kept “seeking out whatever I was seeking out,” he recalls.He atte...

10 Maalis 20232h 25min

Tears Matter

Tears Matter

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7 Maalis 20231h 4min

I Fought the Law (and the Law Won)

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Episode #152: Kristina Simion’s book, Rule of Law Intermediaries, looks at the complex transition period of the 2010s in Myanmar, when dramatic changes were sweeping across the country. Simion notes h...

3 Maalis 20232h 3min

The Revolution will not be Incarcerated

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Episode #151: Tomas Martin is a prison researcher who presently works with DIGNITY, the Danish Institute Against Torture. His interest in prison research was first piqued when he heard about ten-day v...

28 Helmi 20231h 5min

Overcoming The Nightmare

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Episode #150: Joining the podcast over a year after her previous interview, Thiri returns to update listeners on her own personal story, as well as to discuss the state of the resistance and the democ...

23 Helmi 20231h 54min

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