The Karen separatist movement has been in existence in Burma since 1949, one year after Burma gained independence from the British. The movement has received some scholarly attention by historians and political scientists and has merited brief comments in the anthropological literature on the Karen.
Keyes’ short account of Karen nationalism (1977b:56–8) provides the essential background to the emergence of the separatist movement in Burma which is now based in several strongholds on the Thai-Burmese border. As Keyes notes,
The activities of the Christian missionaries among the Karen must be recognized as perhaps the most important factor in the development of a Karen national movement, a movement that has attracted many non-Christian Karens. (1977b:56).
The reason for this, as Keyes points out, was that Christian missionaries initiated the development of a Karen literate tradition through the introduction of schools, the construction of printing presses which served both religious and secular needs. Equally important was the fact that Karen Christian churches provided a supralocal network of connections and organisation.
Out of this background has emerged the Karen National Union (KNU), a political organisation, and its military arm, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), as they are now known.[5] The aim of the KNU is the establishment of an independent Karen state which they call Kawthoolei or “The Land of Lilies”. The Karen separatists, under the leadership of General Saw Bo Mya who is both President of the KNU and Commander-in-Chief of the KNLA, occupy a certain amount of territory in Burma and this is, for all practical purposes, their de facto state.
There is a semblance of a government complete with cabinet ministers holding various portfolios, but in the final analysis these are somewhat artificial creations which do not mean very much, at least in terms of ministerial powers as they are conventionally understood. The real administrative structures of Kawthoolei are army command structures modelled on the British Army, that is its organisation and order of battle. This consists of five brigades and an elite battalion. Each of these brigades and the battalion are responsible for an operational sector which together form the administrative and constituent territories of Kawthoolei. The principal tasks of these units are, of course, the defence of their sectors and the conduct of operations against Burmese government troops when they move into these sectors. The elite battalion has additional, rather more offensive tasks.
The commanders of these units are responsible for the collection of taxes or levies on goods in the black market trade between Thailand and Burma. The income from these levies is turned over to the government, as it is called, though it is nothing but the headquarters of the KNLA. The income thus received is used to finance the movement’s never-ending military confrontation with the Burmese government. Income is also obtained from the sale of timber and some minerals in Thai markets. A certain amount of income in kind, namely rice, is also collected from Karen villages in Kawthoolei. Unit commanders are said to receive nominal salaries, but all amenities such as housing, road and water transport and so forth are provided. Part of the income from the levies are redistributed to unit commanders for the purpose of equipping and paying their regular troops and conscripts who are said to serve for two years. Generally, however, units are required to be self-sufficient in food, and some commanders in fact have their own sources of income deriving from the sale of livestock in Thailand or from their own farming businesses.
The important point to note about the separatist movement is that it represents an active or activist manifestation of Karen nationalism and, like Karen nationalism, grew out of a history and system of Christian missionary patronage in Burma. Its leadership is predominantly composed of Christian (Baptist and Seventh-Day Adventist) Karen, many of whom are Sgaw, though for all practical purposes little weight is attached to Sgaw-Pwo differences. The two major languages used by members of the KNU and KNLA are Sgaw Karen and English, although Burmese is also sometimes used, especially by Karen from Rangoon and Moulmein who have joined the movement.
The separatist movement is undoubtedly political in its motivation, but it is the cultural logic of the movement that is relevant here. This is best exemplified in official and quasi-official accounts of what is best regarded as the “mythical charter” (in Malinowski’s sense) of the movement. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this “charter” is that much of it rests on the ethnological speculations and conjectures of the early missionaries and British colonial administrators in Burma, based on a number of Karen myths.
The first myth, which bears certain resemblances to the story of the Garden of Eden in the Old Testament, tells the story of the creation of the first ancestral couple by a cosmogonic deity, Y’wa. According to the myth, Y’wa forbade them to eat a certain fruit but a serpent, Mu kaw li, feminine in its conception, persuades them to do so and the couple then become subject to the processes of aging, disease, and death. The second myth relates that Y’wa gave his children, amongst whom numbered the Karen, books of knowledge. The Karen, however, lose the book through their negligence and it is destroyed. Y’wa nevertheless promises them that some day “foreign brothers” would bring a “golden book” for them. Both myths are discussed by Keyes who says:
These two myths greatly impressed the American Baptist missionaries who began work among the Karens in the early part of the nineteenth century. The first story so paralleled the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden, including the fact that the name Y’wa was very similar to the Hebrew Yahweh, that the missionaries concluded that the Karens must be the descendants of one of the ten lost tribes of Israel. Moreover they quickly presented themselves as the foreign brothers bringing the Karens the golden book. The fact that missionaries were the first to record these myths has led to their interpretations colouring the understanding of them ever since. Contrary to such interpretations, Y’wa cannot in fact be seen (at least prior to Christian missionization) as a high god that approximates the biblical conception of God. For the Karen, Y’wa represents a natural state, including the distinctions between men, some of whom are literate and others of whom, like the Karens, are not.
The cosmogonic deities, Y’wa and Mu kaw li, are but one type of supernatural power recognized by the Karen. In addition are the rather large number of animistic divinities, that is, minor gods and spirits, that belong to the Karen pantheon. Of these animistic beings, the most important are the “Lord of Land and Water,” that is, a territorial god, and the ancestral spirit, called bgha. (1977b:52).
Keyes’ discussion is generally persuasive, but at least one missionary, Francis Mason, attempted to fit if not the ten lost tribes theory then most certainly its assumption of migrations to a theory of the origins of the Karen based on another myth to explain the presence of the Karen in Burma. It is, it might be added, perhaps the only indigenous Karen myth with a millenarian colour and it is the one discussed by Stern.
There are a number of versions of the myth, described by early missionaries. The following account draws on a somewhat later version provided by the Reverend David Gilmore (1911). Very briefly, the myth recounts the travels of another mythical ancestor or patriarch who kills a wild boar. He uses one of the boar’s tusks to make a comb and as he combs his hair with it, he becomes young again. His family does the same, becoming young again. His children bear a great many offspring, and they in their turn have many children. As they all use the comb, their numbers are not reduced by death and the land they occupy becomes overpopulated. The old-young patriarch therefore decides that he should set out in search of new land to settle. As he travels further afield, he loses his children or descendants after he crosses a “sandy river” or “river of sand”. The descendants are left behind because of some misadventure. The myth ends with a declaration that when the descendants are freed from sin, the patriarch will return and lead his descendants across the river to the pleasant land which he has found beyond.
The point to note about this myth is the reference to the “river of sand” or “sandy river”. As Gilmore says:
Dr. Mason interpreted it to mean a “river of running sand”, i.e., a river consisting of sand. He came to the conclusion that the desert of Gobi was meant by this, and interpreted the legend to mean that the Karens had crossed this desert during the migration into Burma. Subsequent writers have followed Dr. Mason here. (1911:81).
Although Gilmore and some other missionaries were unconvinced by Mason’s ethnological conjectures, it is evident that some version of them has found its way into the political ideology of the Karen separatist movement.
In a publication available in Kawthoolei (Saw Moo Troo and Mika Rolley, n.d.), an article whose purpose is to establish that the Karen separatist movement has nothing in common with communism is prefaced by a definition of what it means to be a Karen, what a Karen heritage consists of, and a statement on the historical origins of the Karen.[6] The definition is expressed thus:
According to the tribal traditions of the Karens their earliest known patriarch is Poo Htot-meh-pah, boar tusk’s father. Hence in answer to the question “Who is a Karen?” one of the answers should be (1) one who can claim his ancestry to Poo Htot-meh-pah and (2) one who possesses, maintains and cultivates the legacies bequeathed to him by the said fore-bear and his predecessors. (Saw Moo Troo and Mika Rolley n.d.:1).
As for the Karen heritage, the author says, “As a nation, we have at least eight”, and proceeds to present them “in order of merit and value”. They are: The knowledge that there is a God, the Divine Being; High moral and ethical standards; Honesty; Simple, quiet and peaceful living; Hospitality; Language; National costumes; and Aptitude for music.
The origin of the Karen, which is clearly an implicit justification for a prior right to land, goes as follows:
From central Mongolia our forefathers moved down south to Tibet and afterwards further down along both sides of the Irrawaady [sic], Sittang and Salween rivers settling down scatteringly everywhere between these rivers and thickly in the Irrawaddy Delta. After them came the Talaings and the Burmese respectively in bigger waves. Then they lived together or side by side with the subsequent settlers most of them became Buddhists [sic]. (Saw Moo Troo and Mika Rolley n.d.:2).
Although the pamphlet is not, strictly speaking, an official publication issued by the Kawthoolei government — it is described on the first page as “An appraisal by an inside observer who is not a politician and who does not aspire to be one” — it undoubtedly seeks to present views which are endorsed by the separatist movement.
A similar type of pamphlet entitled The Karen Revolution in Burma (Lonsdale n.d.) presents the same ethnological speculations in greater detail, with what can only be described as a touching faith in the power of dates, in an appendix entitled “The Origin of the Karens”. The first three pages of this appendix are reproduced in Appendix I.
The official view of the basis of a Karen identity is hardly different from those expressed in these pamphlets. Indeed, the consistent reiteration or representation of this view at both levels would suggest that Mason’s speculations have taken on the status of a “culturally” based political doctrine, for they provide the ultimate validation for the existence of Kawthoolei. In an interview with General Saw Bo Mya (a Sgaw Karen and Seventh-Day Adventist), Bo Mya asserted:
The Karen migrated down to China from Mongolia and down to Burma. The Karen are peace-loving people and for that reason they suffer. Thieving and robbing is not in the Karen line. The Burmese migrated after the Karen. The Burmese are more aggressive than the Karen and exploit all peoples. The came and encroached on Karen land and the Karen say that there is so much land so the Karen moved away. Because we are peace-loving people we gave way …. Later on the Burmese not only took away what the Karen owned but persecuted them.
After a long diatribe about the iniquities of the Burmese, he went on to say:
From the point of view of the world, people may think we are a very backward group [because] we have not won the war. But, to speak seriously, the Burmese have received help from all over. But we have stood up against the Burmese and the rest of the world. So we are not perhaps such poor fighters …. So this is no mean feat on our part because we are fighting against all odds, and to think of it, it is like the whole world oppressing us. Inspite of all this and the odds, we feel that God is with us.
In many respects, the Karen separatist movement is virtually millenarian. Though it is not predicated on a predicted emergence or arrival of a religious figure, it nonetheless seeks to establish a new order which, if not a dhamma, is most certainly based on a Christian view of a Karen society in which they, like the Christian meek they see themselves as, will come into their own and inherit their earth.
The political ideology of the separatist movement, however, cannot be a very neat edifice. It consciously draws upon myths and other symbols which are regarded as being quintessentially Karen: bronze frog drums, for example, provide the motif for the KNU’s and KNLA’s coat of arms, while Karen clothes (the “national costumes”) are specially worn during Liberation Day parades and celebrations. There is, in other words, a deliberate utilisation of what are held or thought to be intrinsically Karen. Furthermore, as one Karen Seventh-Day Adventist lay preacher closely associated with the separatist movement views it, although all in Kawthoolei are Karen, yet not all are the same because there are those who are not Christian who eventually must be shown the way from “animism” and “uplifted”.
As with the Telakhon, Karen nationalism and the separatist movement which have rather different roots in Christian conversion represent the manifestation of historical processes and a transformation in cultural ideology. And, similar to the Telakhon, the Christian Karen associated with the separatist movement I suggest are really not “Karen” in the sense that the Palokhi Karen are “Karen”.
[5] The following descriptions of the Karen separatist movement are based on a visit to Kawthoolei in early 1982. I discuss elsewhere, in an unpublished paper (1985) the history of the Karen separatist movement and its organisational antecedents. Currently, the only reasonably comprehensive account of the Karen separatist movement is to be found in German (Sitte [1979]).
[6] Despite the apparently non-Karen names of some of the authors of the publications which I discuss here, it is possible that they are in fact Karen. I have already discussed the naming system in Palokhi; it would seem that a similar system also operates in the case of Christian Karen. The system, however, draws upon Christian and other English names or words with occasionally somewhat strange, if not bizarre, results. In the KNLA, there are a Lieutenant-Colonel Saw Oliver, a Colonel Saw Gladstone, and a Colonel Marvel.