Dimokrasi Prat to Rawt Malan!

This chapter considers the failure of early attempts at democracy in the Union of Burma and the slide towards conflict in the Kachin region. It uses detailed analysis of the life story of one of the founding soldiers in the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) to explain how many of the themes of the book — migration, exclusion, educational disadvantage, perceptions of threats to the self — become woven together at this time to create an outcome of violence. The chapter describes the early efforts to raise funds for an armed movement and the ways in which moral justifications for these acts were given. It also describes the disappointment that emerged in the political culture under U Nu and the Sama Duwa Sinwa Nawng to explore further the notion of Kachin political consensus building as a critical dynamic in the social justification of armed revolt.