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)

From Rio to Rangoon

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Trajectories in Flux

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Reclaiming Ground

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Episode #426: The Karenni Interim Executive Council was formed in 2023 to provide services to people in dire need, with an estimated 80% of the civilian population displaced by the conflict. As people...

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A Borderline Personality

A Borderline Personality

Episode #425: Dr. Lalita Hanwong, a Thai historian and analyst, has dedicated her career to understanding Myanmar and its ties to Thailand. “I’m morally attached to the peoples of Myanmar,” she says, ...

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Through Other Eyes

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Episode #423: Ian Taylor is a Canadian photographer whose life shifted from the film industry to decades of work and travel across Southeast Asia. His first experience was with a government-sponsored ...

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At The Edge of Self

At The Edge of Self

Episode #422: “There is beauty in owning one's racial identity. There's beauty in owning, valuing, and respecting one's heritage, ancestors, sexual identity, and gender identity. But on the other side...

30 Loka 20252h 14min

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