Global media focused on Burma this week as the country’s military staged a coup early Monday morning, detaining Senior Minister of State Aung San Suu Kyi and other top government officials and declaring the military in power.
And within the Biden administration, both the White House and the State Department issued statements closely following the situation in Burma. It is worth noting that the official name of Burma is Myanmar, yet all official documents in the Biden Administration refer to Burma as Burma.
Asked by reporters this week about the designation, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the official U.S. position is to use Burma but may use Myanmar as a diplomatic courtesy in communications.
Why doesn’t the United States recognize the country by its official name? There may not be a simple answer to this.
The disagreement over the two names arose in 1989 when the ruling military junta changed the country’s name from Burma to Myanmar, along with the English spelling of its largest city, Yangon.
The military government argued that the term Burma only covered Burma’s largest ethnic group, the Burman, and did not cover the other 134 ethnic groups. It smacks of racial discrimination if the name of its main ethnic group is used as the name of the country.
Another explanation is that Burma was the name given to Burma during the British colonial period. The Burmese army changed the name of the country to get rid of the traces of the British colonial period.
The year before the junta’s name change, the 1988 pro-democracy demonstrations and military crackdown were a watershed in Burma’s history. From March to September of that year, thousands of people across Burma took to the streets to fight for democracy. However, they were repressed and thousands were killed by the army and police.
The 1989 name change was recognized by the United Nations and other countries including France, Japan and China, but the United States and the United Kingdom refused to recognize the name change. They argued that the name change did not have the consent of the people, so the new name had no legal effect.
Other countries, such as Australia, have adopted a mixed strategy, using Myanmar and Burma interchangeably to show respect for diplomatic protocol while reminding Myanmar that they have not forgotten the country’s human rights violations in 1988.
Political leanings
Richard Coates, professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of the West of England, told the Voice of America that the choice of country name designation is a politically sensitive one, representing “which side to take.
“The name Myanmar was suggested by the military, so to reject it would be an indication of the country’s political leanings against the military government,” he said.
Mark Farmaner of the Burma Campaign UK, a human rights group, told the BBC that looking at a country’s use of Burma or Myanmar usually tells you whether it has a more moderate attitude toward the military government. The use of Burma “challenges the legitimacy of the military government,” he said.
Linguist Koz added that Myanmar has been around for a long Time, with Burma being a verbal term for Myanmar in the 19th century, and then developing into a national name during the British colonial period. The reality now is that Burmese refer to their country verbally as Burma, while the term Myanmar is generally used in official written documents.
Aung San Suu Kyi: Take your pick
Aung San Suu Kyi, the currently detained Burmese state minister and leader of the pro-democracy movement, has publicly stated that she likes to refer to her country as Burma.
“Some people have a lot of opinions because I insist on calling Burma Burma instead of the official name, Myanmar. I have explained many times that this is because the name of the country was changed without the consent of the people,” Aung San Suu Kyi told a Singapore forum in September 2013, “and it is fundamental for me to seek public opinion. If Myanmar is to become a democracy, it must first learn how to respect the will of the people. If other people choose the name Myanmar, I actually don’t have a problem with that at all, because democracy means exactly the right to choose. It means broadening people’s choices so that more of us can make more diverse choices.”
After she became a senior minister of state in 2016, she re-emphasized that there is no explicit provision in the country’s constitution that says which name must be used, so foreign countries are free to choose one of the two names.
She said she is comfortable using Burma herself, but that doesn’t mean others have to follow suit. She also uses Myanmar when she needs to in order to make others more comfortable.
“I think it’s diplomacy, and we have to learn to be tolerant,” she said.
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