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State approaches towards managing ethnic diversity in Myanmar and Malaysia: British legacies, postcolonial nationalism and contemporary issues

ABSTRACT A lasting legacy of colonial rule across the world is the political salience of ethnicity in many modern postcolonial nation-states. Upon independence, these nation-states had to grapple with the challenging task of nation-building amidst often tense inter-ethnic group relations. This article examines and compares the state approaches towards ethnic diversity of two former British colonies in Southeast Asia – Myanmar and Malaysia. It finds that in both countries, the key similarity is that the state has favoured the numerically dominant ethnic group in its policies. However, while the main ethnic divisions in Myanmar are within the indigenous ethnic groups, the Malaysia’s ethnic divisions lie along an indigenous/non-indigenous dichotomy. Given the long histories of these ethnic divisions, any long-term solution will be challenging, but is arguably not impossible. A closer analysis of nationalist concepts in Myanmar and Malaysia suggests that moving towards a more civic form of nationalism is possible.