Mahn Ba Zan & the Karen Revolution

Speech by Mahn Ba Zan on 1975 Karen New Year Day


My fellow Karen people:

I am very glad to have this opportunity to speak to all our people on this auspicious New Year day. On this propitious day, I would like to talk about the reciprocity of the Karen New Year day and the Karen revolution.

First of all, I’d like to talk about the uniqueness of the Karen New Year day. The Karen New Year day is taken and accepted as the day of Karen tradition. It began from the time the Karens started their organization. Our Karen people inhabit the lowlands as well as the hill regions. Those Karen people living in the hill / highland regions continuously have been able to celebrate the New Year day every year. For the Karens who live in the lowland plains, the New Year day has been ignored and forgotten for quite a number of years. It was only around 1937 that the Karen New Year day resurfaced for the lowland Karens. In 1937, through the efforts of the Karen leaders, the British colonial authorities lawfully recognized the Karen New Year and the use of the Karen national flag.

With the establishment of the Karen New Year day, the morale and conditions for the Karen people have changed enormously. The Karen New Year day depicts the Karen nationality. Prior to the Karen New Year day’s emergence, our Karen people have been separated according to their sub-ethnicity, religion and regional habitation. There was very little contact among each individual group. Our Karen people’s nationality allegiance has been as though amber covered under a blanket of ash. No sooner had the Karen New Year day begun to be celebrated, the situation for the Karens and their perceptions have changed. On the Karen New Year day, all the Karen nationals began to unite and consolidate. The feeling of kinship started to develop. Former allegiance to clans and sub-ethnic groups, to different religions, and to habitual regions, began to disappear gradually, and relationship and contact between individual groups became much improved. All the Karen nationals began to unite both in spirit and in practical matters.

It was the Karen New Year Day that created this situation where all Karen nationals were able to unite together.

The Karen New Year Day enabled the emerging explosion of the nationality allegiance that has been the metaphorical amber covered by the blanket of ash. It would be during the Karen New Year Day that the Karen leaders wish to tell the Karen mass about things related to the new year, the traditions, and how the Karen nationality came into being. When the leaders talk about these, the Karen people begin the think about the origin of their nationality. They begin to understand their lot of having been suppressed in the aspects of their nationality, cultural and social, and suffering from blood-sucking chicanery in economic matters. They begin to understand their lot as slaves.

There have been injuries in their biography. Closely connecting with the knowledge about the acts of harm done to them would be the desire for achieving an improved destiny and national independence. We began to realize that our destiny would change only when we can live in an independent Karen country, with Karen governance, Karen economic system, and Karen culture as well as social structure. The Karen national leaders, in order to promote the progress and obtain independence of the Karen people, asked the British government to grant a Karen State. There has to be a Karen country because the Karens comprise a nation. An independent Karen country is a birthright of the Karen people. It is an indication of the ownership right of the nationality. It is a verity that only when there exist for our Karen people an independent Karen country, with fundamental authority, benefiting the entire Karen populace, a government constitutionally elected by the whole Karen nationals, an economic system that will elevate the lot of the Karens, with modern perceptions for the Karen culture, freedom of belief and religious persuasion that will establish the unique Karen nationality, etc., the Karens can be free, modernized, and able to function at a global level.

Just when our Karen people managed to develop a strong esprit de corps, World War II intervened, and the Japanese took over Burma. The Super-Burman adherents and the Fascist Japanese became allies and took over Burma. (Note by Translator - the term Maha Bama has been translated as Greater Burma by U Maung Maung – see page 108 of his book, Burmese Nationalist Movements 1940-1948, although the author Mahn Ba Zan is believed to have meant it to mean Greater-Burman or Super-Burman.) Because of the Super-Burman adherents’ bullying practices toward the Karens and the ruthless Fascist government of the Japanese, the morale and desire of the Karens for independence rose to the peak, thus enabling them to stage armed resistance with the Superior Burmans against the Fascist Japanese. The Karen New Year that created the uniting and consolidating of the Karen people brought enormous benefits to the Karen revolution. We Karens have been able to stage effective resistance against the Super-Burman adherents and the Fascist Japanese. This resistance has given forth the understanding for the stability of the Karen nationality, and that independence and the establishment of improved destiny could be achieved through no other method than armed revolution.

By the end of the Second World War, the situation of the Karens had completely changed. The entire Karen nationality became very active. That a Karen State or country had to be granted was mouthed by every individual Karen. The KNU, Karen National Union, was organized to lead in obtaining and establishing a Karen State, Karen independence, and improving the lot of the Karens. With the KNU imbued within the entire Karen nationals, enabling them to unite, and as a vanguard in the fight according to the desire of the Karens.

In accordance with the prevailing situation, the KNU led in the Karen national activities. Under the leadership of the KNU, the entire Karen nation was able to unite, and make very active movements.

After World War II, the KNU and the whole Karen nation entered the struggle of asking the colonial British government to grant them an independent Karen State. This demanding struggle was a political move, which also meant the opposition of expansionism. This sort of political maneuver was not very well understood by our Karen people. The demand for a Karen State was not at all to the approval of the British government. In granting a Karen State, they may not have been able to continue their blood-sucking acts of slavery upon the Karen people anymore.

The British government turned down the KNU and the Karen people’s demand. There should be nothing to wonder about this denial. And there was no oddity in it. Practitioners of expansionism like the colonialists never sympathize with, nor legally yield to, those enslaved, and no such precedence has been known. The only way toward manumission was by fighting for it. The denial of the Karen people’s demand by the British government did not cause us any sorrow. Neither did it have any effect on our morale. However, one thing stood out. The entire Karen nation became cognizant of the fact that British had a disloyal and unreliable government. Since we have already solemnly committed ourselves to fight for independence, let us be exhorted to continue to be engaged in this battle. To gain the Karen State, there was no occasion for us to resist and revolt against the British government. Why? Because the British government managed to appease and mediate with their own Burman sycophantic power mongrels who betrayed the Burmese people, thereby granting Burma’s independence.

When Burma obtained independence, Burman capitalist-panderers of expansionists governed the country. These governing Burman capitalists towed the line of expansionists, in essence, rendering the country to come under colonial control. Practicing the super-Burman policy and political authority, they oppressed all the ethnic nationalities in the country.

The Karen peoples continued to fight for an independent Karen State. In doing so, there occurred vehement conflicts between the Karen nationals and Burman capitalists. These conflicts gradually worsened and eventually culminated in an armed conflict that became the Karen revolution, with the counterrevolution by the governing Burman capitalists.

Shown in the above about the uniting and consolidating of the Karen people, the surfacing of the Karens, and how the revolution came into being, all had their origin from and spawned by the Karen New Year day. There is a beneficial relationship and interdependency between the Karen New Year day and the Karen people’s movement.

Today, we are celebrating the great Karen New Year celebration. We are enjoying ourselves. By simply enjoying ourselves during the Karen New Year celebration, this celebration cannot be as useful and beneficial for the Karen people. We must do something to make this New Year celebration to be a thing of national benefit. What will we do? In contemplating what to do, we will have to think about ideas that are appropriate with the revolution in terms of current circumstances. From this moment we will have to commit ourselves to these ideas in entering the battle. I would like to elaborate on the ideas.

We Karens have been enslaved for quite a number of years. And this has been the consequence of two systems, the expansionist system and the land ownership/landlord system, which were organizations of the super-majority people. For us to celebrate victory in our current revolution, and for our very existence, resisting the expansionist system, the land-lordship system and the super-majority people’s policy, comprises our national independence. In deeply examining how the Karen’s lot, how the Karen people came about, we will see that the way we now are being enslaved, would be because of these expansionist system, the land-lordship system and the policy of the super-majority. How are we to resist these evil systems and policies? Therefore, we will have to completely annihilate these evil systems, represented by the Ne Win government, and assume absolute authority. With this authority must be organized an independent Karen State and the country with the union of States.

There must be an establishment of a national democratic economic system that opposes the expansionist economy and the land-lordship economic system. In order for this opposition to be achieved, we will have to resort to genuine patriotic fervor in nurturing a united blood relationship spirit among all nationalities. Conceptual conduct has to be according to this spirit. Today, the main concept for all the Karen people should be the opposing of the expansionist system, the land-lordship system and the super majority ethnic policy. If we keep this concept, our Karen people will have modern freedom and can become a nation that keeps abreast with the world. Keeping this type of concept, our Karen people cannot be deceived; not be manipulated, nor will there be reason for enslavement. So long as our Karen people maintain this sort of concept, we will have to enter into prolonged battle. Without this concept, a truly free nationality cannot be achieved. We really love and cherish our people. Freedom is really desired. For the achievement of a nation with modern freedom, this concept will have to be firmly embraced. This concept is that of the patriotic resistance. It is deeply requested and urged to accept and be committed to this concept.

What I would like to say in conclusion is that, during the New Year, there may be changes in the international scene as well as in the situation in Burma. Some of these changes might be reprehensible, and some could be favorable. Whatever conditions emerge, I wish to urge our entire Karen people to face them together, hand in hand, with a united spirit.

During this Karen New Year Day, I extend my best wishes, not just to the Karen people, but to all in Burma and in the entire world, and my sincere prayers that they would be blessed with solidarity, peace and progress.