Einaudi Center for International Studies
Imagining a New Myanmar: The Views of Ethnic Minority Groups
April 29, 2024
1:00 pm
Kahin Center
Since the Myanmar military seized power in Burma/Myanmar in a coup d’état in February 2021, People's Defense Forces (PDF) and Ethnic Revolutionary Organizations (ERO) have been fighting to remove this military regime and restore civilian government. In this context, ethnic minority leaders in the country appear determined to seize the current opportunity to propose a fundamental renegotiation of the political and governance arrangements in Myanmar, addressing the historic grievances of the ethnic minorities – and Bamar political leaders have also expressed their willingness to work with all ethnic groups.
This panel of ethnic minority leaders will discuss the structure of a new Myanmar, with a particular focus on the views and expectations of the ethnic minorities.
This panel discussion will take place at the Kahin Center, 640 Stewart Ave; and via Zoom. For questions, contact seap@cornell.edu.
Panelists
1. Evelyn Lyn, Vice-Chairperson, Karenni State Consultative Council (KSCC)
Around 90 percent of Karenni State is no longer under the control of the Military regime. In these areas the KSCC and Karenni armed groups have established a functioning local administration. Evelyn will discuss how the people involved in establishing these new governance structures in Karenni State envisage the new federal, democratic Myanmar.
2. Aung Kyaw Moe, Deputy Minister of Human Rights, National Unity Government
As a prominent, young Rohingya human rights activist, he will discuss how marginalized groups, such as the Rohingya, might fit into the new Myanmar.
3. Naw Hser Hser, a representative of the Women's League of Burma and the Karen Women's Organization.
Naw Say Say will discuss expectations for the future of Myanmar from the perspective of an ERO with a history of governing areas under its control.
4. Zo Tum Hmung, Executive Director, Chin Association of Maryland, and former Executive Director, the Ethnic Nationalities Affairs Center-Union of Burma (ENAC)
Chin armed groups now control a large part of Chin State and are aiming for a similar status to that enjoyed by Mizoram in India. Zo Tum Hmung will discuss the current situation in Chin State and the expectations of the Chin for a new Myanmar.
5. Moon Nay Li, Joint Secretary of the Women's League of Burma
6. Sao Khuen Sai, journalist, and leading advisor to the Chairman of the Restoration Council of Shan State, and a former rebel leader
Shan State has the most varied ethnic population and the largest number of EROs of any State or Region in Myanmar. The military recently lost control of large parts of northern Shan State to Kachin, Kokant, Ta’ang, and Wa resistance groups. Sao Khuen Sai will discuss the changing dynamics of ethnic politics in Shan State and how the different ethnic groups in Shan State might envisage the new Myanmar.
Additional Information
Program
Einaudi Center for International Studies
Southeast Asia Program
Report Launch: Food, Agriculture, and Nutrition in South Asia
April 18, 2024
3:00 pm
Warren Hall, B73
The latest in the Tata-Cornell Institute's FAN series, "Food, Agriculture, and Nutrition in South Asia: Building Health, Sustainable Food Systems" provides a snapshot of malnutrition in countries across South Asia, offering a range of policy instruments for improving nutrition outcomes across the region.
At this launch event, report author Milorad Plavsic will present the overall findings of the report. TCI Director Prabhu Pingali will lead a panel discussion on food systems in South Asia featuring Cornell faculty members:
Andrew McDonald, School of Integrative Plant ScienceArnab Basu, Dyson School of Applied Economics and ManagementRamya Ambikapathi, Department of Global DevelopmentAttendees are invited to enjoy refreshments at a post-event reception.
You can download the FAN-South Asia report from the TCI website.
Additional Information
Program
Einaudi Center for International Studies
South Asia Program
Uyghur Human Rights Project Bibliography
Magnus Fiskesjö in World in Focus
Magnus Fiskesjö recently updated the Uyghur bibliography he began in 2017. The bibliography is hosted by the Uyghur Human Rights Project, "one of the most active and well-known organizations dedicated to the issue," he says.
"I refer to the bibliography in my Cornell course Genocide Today: The Erasure of Cultures, which I have taught four times so far."
Since 2017, the Chinese government has imprisoned more than one million Uyghurs and Kazakhs in China's far-northwest region of Xinjiang and committed systematic human rights violations—including forced labor, religious restrictions, family separations, and sterilizations—against the region's mostly Muslim ethnic groups.
Fiskesjö launched the bibliography project to collect news reports, documents, and research on the abuses as they unfolded.
"I started the bibliography on a personal basis, just to keep track of important news on the issue," he said. "Then I was happy to have it hosted publicly so others can benefit."
The bibliography now runs to more than 2,300 pages. It is searchable by topics like eyewitness accounts, forced labor, heritage destruction, reproductive abuse, organ harvesting, and Chinese tourism as propaganda.
Magnus Fiskesjö is a Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies steering committee member and core faculty in the East Asia Program and Southeast Asia Program.
Featured in World in Focus Briefs
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Meta Scales Back News and Political Content
Sarah Kreps, PACS
“I think with many big elections coming up this year, it’s not surprising that Facebook is taking yet another step away from politics so that they can just not, inadvertently, themselves become a political headline,” says Sarah Kreps, professor of government.
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Critics Slam Apple CEO Tim Cook for Laudatory Remarks in China
Eli Friedman, EAP
Eli Friedman, associate professor of global labor and work at Cornell University, said the past mutually beneficial relationship between Beijing and American companies is no longer playing a diplomatic role.
He wrote, "Throwing Apple some treats will not help stabilize the U.S.-China relationship, I promise."
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Little-known Opposition Leader in Senegal Is Named the Next President
Oumar Ba, PACS/GPV
Oumar Ba, assistant professor of government, comments on Senegalese President Macky Sall's refusal to rule out a third term.
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Why Kretek–"No Ordinary Cigarette"–Thrives in Indonesia
Marina Welker, SEAP
Though they’re banned in the United States and many other countries, clove-laced tobacco cigarettes called “kretek” (referencing the crackling sound of burning cloves) make up 95% of the Indonesian market.
“Causing harm and death when used as intended, the cigarette is no ordinary commodity,” Welker, associate professor of anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences, writes in her new, open-access book, Kretek Capitalism: Making, Marketing, and Consuming Clove Cigarettes in Indonesia. “The kretek, in turn, is no ordinary cigarette.”
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April 11: Don't miss the Lund debate!
Panelists Chart Different Paths to Climate Justice
Journalist Kate Aronoff and security expert Joshua Busby meet to discuss equity in our shared climate crisis. Attend in person or by livestream.
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"Air-con chao ta already”: Migrant Domesticities, Citizen Futurities and the Sensuous Anxieties of Air-Conditioning in Singapore
April 11, 2024
12:20 pm
Kahin Center
Gatty Lecture Series
Join us for a talk by Xinyu Guan, (PhD Candidate, Anthropology, Cornell University), who will discuss air conditioning in Singapore.
This Gatty Lecture will take place at the The Kahin Center, 640 Stewart Ave. Lunch will be served. For questions, contact seapgatty@cornell.edu.
About the Talk
My talk explores citizenship as a form of landlordship and sensuous policing of noncitizen bodies in Singapore. Singapore’s much-lauded state-constructed housing program, under the Housing & Development Board (HDB), enables homeownership for more than 70% of the city-state’s citizenry. However, more than 360,000 people, mostly working-class migrants from surrounding countries, rent from Singapore citizens who are owners of HDB apartments, with little by way of tenants’ rights or protections. I discuss how these rental situations provide (often much needed) extra income for citizen-landlords, and house the migrants whose labor maintains the social and dietary infrastructures of HDB housing. The promise of egalitarian citizenship through mass homeownership in Singapore belies the vast power differential between citizen-landlords and migrant-tenants. Landlords dictate the daily routines of tenants to maximize rental extraction, reducing tenants’ bodies to abstracted quantities of space and time. I examine air-conditioning as an everyday site of discipline, contestation and “bordering” (de Genova 2017) of bodies and domesticities in these rental situations. I consider how the sensuous, atmospheric interfaces between citizens and noncitizens shift the stakes of citizenship and the right to the city in Singapore.
About the Speaker
Xinyu Guan is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Cornell University, with graduate minors in the Southeast Asia Program and the Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. His work examines the logics of citizenship by which queer and migrant communities are incorporated into state-constructed housing in Singapore. Xinyu’s research has been supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Hu Shih Fellowship, and the Global PhD Grant.
Additional Information
Program
Einaudi Center for International Studies
Southeast Asia Program
IIE-SRF Fellow Tawab Danish Speaks at SAP Event
Afghan Scholar Proposes Tactics to Address Minority Persecution
"We should use sanctions to force the Taliban to sit at the negotiation table. Otherwise, they have the power," said Tawab Danish at a March 25 event, Hazaras and Shias: Violence, Discrimination, and Exclusion Under Taliban Rule.
Tawab Danish is an Institute of International Education Scholar Rescue Fund (IIE-SRF) fellow and a second-year visiting scholar at Cornell Law School. His research focuses on constitutional law and human rights law.
At the event, Danish began by delving into Afghanistan's demographics, characterized by a diverse mix of ethnicities and religions. Hazaras are the third largest ethnic group in Afghanistan after Pashtuns and Tajiks, and Shia Muslims are the second largest religious community. Both communities have endured discrimination and violence under the Taliban, Danish said.
Danish described the period between the U.S. intervention and eventual withdrawal from Afghanistan (2001–21) as a golden age for Hazaras and Shias. For two decades, the nation shifted toward more inclusive governance, and Hazaras, Shias, and women increased their participation in the political, judicial, and ministerial spheres.
The Taliban's resurgence in 2021 saw a return to persecution for Hazaras and Shias.
"The Taliban's refusal to acknowledge sectarian differences and enforcement of Hanafi jurisprudence present serious dangers to religious and ethnic minority groups," Danish said. "This constitutes a breach of international human rights standards and fundamental Islamic tenets, potentially leading Afghanistan into ethnoreligious strife and undermining its stability and legal structure."
Looking forward, Danish underscored the necessity of combating the Taliban's extremist ideology on the global stage. He proposed a pragmatic initial approach for addressing the plight of Afghan minorities: initiating meaningful discussions with the Taliban while applying pressure to negotiate by imposing sanctions on travel and financial assets of Taliban leaders. He believes advocacy on social media platforms can help support the right to life and work for Hazaras, Shias, and other Afghan minority communities, including women.
The event was hosted by by the South Asia Program, part of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. Learn more about how Cornell supports scholars under threat.
Manju Smriti, MPA ’23, is global operations program coordinator for Global Cornell.