Quote from Dr Zarni on Bama (Burman) "nationalism"

these nationalist discourses are not fully honest intellectually, although there is a tinge of truth to them. They are largely silent about our own troubled pre-colonial pasts. Our pre-colonial histories are marked by local imperialisms, brutal slave raids, rigidly enforced caste-like social stratification, institutionalized gender oppression, monopolistic economic exploitation of peasantries by ruling feudal houses, and wasteful and gigantic pagoda and palace building projects, be they of the Bama, Arakanese, Mon, Shan, etc.