Aung-thwin's "Myth of the Downtrodden Mon"
The so-called de-bunking of the myth of Mon oppression runs like this. Aung-thwin in Mists of Ramanna (p. 261) declares:
1. "...I do not wish to debate whether the Mon as a people were in fact oppressed by Burmese speakers as claimed..."
2. "I have found nothing in the pre-colonial Mon histories that show any indication that they were, or felt themselves oppressed by any group, including the Burmese speakers, even when both parties were at war..."
3. "...in fact, the image of a victimized Mon people was not initially a self-image at all; it was a colonial construct, found originally only in English in the official memoranda just prior to and during the First Anglo-Burmese War"
To paraphrase the argument:
1. I don't know if the Mons were actually oppressed or I consider it irrelevant.
2. I've never seen any Mon text translated into English or Burmese where a Mon is oppressed.
3. English colonial rulers claimed in their texts that Mons were oppressed.
The absolute first thing that is needed here is a definition of "oppress" and it can't be just whatever the English colonials meant by "oppressed". That would be circular reasoning.
Second, although the Burmese chronicle provides very little detail on pre-modern practices of warfare, other indigenous texts do, especially Razadarit Ayeidawpon.
Scorched earth tactics are an integral part of warfare (c. 1385-1421) and Scorched earth tactics are exactly what is meant by "oppression" in modern warfare.
Third, subject peoples (Mons, Shans) do not, as a rule, write about being oppressed in texts that are publicly available to their rulers (Burmese). The brutality of war is also usually absent from such texts.
Oppression and the brutality of warfare enter historical texts once again when political control ends. The Chiangmai chronicle of the mid-1750s is a lot more frank about "oppression" than it is in 1558 at the beginning of Burmese rule. There may well be a 'hidden transcript' as anthropologist James Scott calls it, perhaps in an oral folklore tradition.
(See p. 1171-1173 of Fernquest, Jon (2005) "Addendum to Min-gyi-nyo, the Shan invasions of Ava (1524-27, and the beginnings of expansionary warfare in Toungoo Burma: 1486-1539," SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research, Vol. 3, No. 2, Autumn 2005, Link).
Just because existent historical texts don’t record brutality or acts of oppression doesn't mean that they didn’t exist. Once again, absence of evidence doesn't imply evidence of absence. This is called the fallacy of negative proof.
Something must have kept a dream of Mon independence going though.
In 1740 after an interval of over 200 years, Mon leaders seized the opportunity to reassert Mon political control.
At the end of this short reign (r. 1740-1757) there was a short brutal oppression that was extensively recorded in texts. Lieberman points out in Burmese Administrative Cycles (1984) that this was followed by a period of apparently peaceful co-existence.
What kept the Mons going as a group with the potential for state formation for over 200 years may be a far more relevant question than whether they were oppressed or not (if in fact we can even come up with a definition or "oppression" that is independent of time and place.)
1. "...I do not wish to debate whether the Mon as a people were in fact oppressed by Burmese speakers as claimed..."
2. "I have found nothing in the pre-colonial Mon histories that show any indication that they were, or felt themselves oppressed by any group, including the Burmese speakers, even when both parties were at war..."
3. "...in fact, the image of a victimized Mon people was not initially a self-image at all; it was a colonial construct, found originally only in English in the official memoranda just prior to and during the First Anglo-Burmese War"
To paraphrase the argument:
1. I don't know if the Mons were actually oppressed or I consider it irrelevant.
2. I've never seen any Mon text translated into English or Burmese where a Mon is oppressed.
3. English colonial rulers claimed in their texts that Mons were oppressed.
The absolute first thing that is needed here is a definition of "oppress" and it can't be just whatever the English colonials meant by "oppressed". That would be circular reasoning.
Second, although the Burmese chronicle provides very little detail on pre-modern practices of warfare, other indigenous texts do, especially Razadarit Ayeidawpon.
Scorched earth tactics are an integral part of warfare (c. 1385-1421) and Scorched earth tactics are exactly what is meant by "oppression" in modern warfare.
Third, subject peoples (Mons, Shans) do not, as a rule, write about being oppressed in texts that are publicly available to their rulers (Burmese). The brutality of war is also usually absent from such texts.
Oppression and the brutality of warfare enter historical texts once again when political control ends. The Chiangmai chronicle of the mid-1750s is a lot more frank about "oppression" than it is in 1558 at the beginning of Burmese rule. There may well be a 'hidden transcript' as anthropologist James Scott calls it, perhaps in an oral folklore tradition.
(See p. 1171-1173 of Fernquest, Jon (2005) "Addendum to Min-gyi-nyo, the Shan invasions of Ava (1524-27, and the beginnings of expansionary warfare in Toungoo Burma: 1486-1539," SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research, Vol. 3, No. 2, Autumn 2005, Link).
Just because existent historical texts don’t record brutality or acts of oppression doesn't mean that they didn’t exist. Once again, absence of evidence doesn't imply evidence of absence. This is called the fallacy of negative proof.
Something must have kept a dream of Mon independence going though.
In 1740 after an interval of over 200 years, Mon leaders seized the opportunity to reassert Mon political control.
At the end of this short reign (r. 1740-1757) there was a short brutal oppression that was extensively recorded in texts. Lieberman points out in Burmese Administrative Cycles (1984) that this was followed by a period of apparently peaceful co-existence.
What kept the Mons going as a group with the potential for state formation for over 200 years may be a far more relevant question than whether they were oppressed or not (if in fact we can even come up with a definition or "oppression" that is independent of time and place.)
posted by Jon Fernquest at 1:22 AM
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