The State Nationalism vs Liberal Nationalism in Thailand and Myanmar: Focusing on the National Revolution Traits in the Process of Nation State Building
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Abstract
This paper intends to verify with the cases of Thailand and Burma that national unity is not the background condition for democratization based on liberal nationalism, but that democratization after critical decision and habituation phases is the background condition for national unity through reconciliation putting an end to a ‘prolonged and inconclusive political struggle’. Thai society has never had a history of overcoming state nationalism adhering to the trinity of ‘Nation, Religion, and King’. Democratization as civil revolution in Thailand was bounded by “Democracy with the King as Head of State”, and there was no prototype civil revolution beyond the royalism unlike in Europe, at least before the aftermath of 2006 coup that turned over the Thaksin regime. The coup after democratization triggered intensive struggles between typical civil revolutionary forces based on liberalism and pro—official nationalism based on statism. The ‘yellow-red standoff’ since 2006 can be interpreted as the starting point of a ‘prolonged and inconclusive political struggle’ between state-national forces and liberal- national forces. The 2010 May civil war and the 2014 May coup exposed an aspect of intensive political struggles between the two forces. In Burma the prototype of civil revolution broke up in Burma in 1974, 1988, and 2007, even though all ended in a failure. The Burma case proves that the political conflicts between official-state nationalists and civil-liberal nationalists may not settle down easily, as it shows the 2021 February coup. The ongoing civil war in Burma is revealing atrocities of official—state nationalists. In sum, the cases of Thailand and Myanmar suggest that genuine national unity is not possible without reconciliation after passing through intensive struggles between official-state nationalists and civil—liberal nationalist.
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