Toward the ‘Ocean of Democracy’?

Abstract

To understand the dominant narratives described in this book, they need\n to be situated within the context of Myanmar’s modern history and the\n ways different political actors – whether independence leaders, colonial\n administrators, military leaders or activists – have narrated that history.\n This is not an attempt to construct a unitary history of Myanmar, but rather\n to locate and uncover struggles over the meaning of democracy during\n these different periods and how they shape contemporary political uses\n of the word ‘democracy’ amongst the networks of activists and democratic\n leaders that I studied. The third chapter explores the example of contrasting\n meanings of democracy between British colonial administrators and\n the Thakin independence leaders in the late colonial period in Burma.