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Want to tackle disinformation? Stop using the same tactics.

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By Sophia Rigby

General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith presents on how the British Army is adopting to new warfighting domains, including information operations (MOD, 2020)

Disinformation is nothing new. It seems to be a commonly held belief that disinformation is a new style of warfare and interference, put to perfect use in the 2014 Ukrainian Crisis, the 2016 US election, and the 2016 Brexit referendum. But disinformation has been around for centuries to spread malicious rumours and to discredit rivals; what is new is the manner of spreading disinformation and how quickly it can spread.

The advent of social media and technological advances have meant that we have a mass of information at our fingertips and expect to be able to find a concise answer to complex problems in seconds. Or 0.37 seconds, which is how long it took Google to find me results relating to the Internal Market Bill. However, unlike the encyclopaedias of old, few of these results will come with verifiable and reliable evidence attached. Anyone can post on a blog or Wikipedia and almost anyone can doctor a photograph or a video (to varying degrees of success),yet we have very little in the public sphere, especially education, about evaluating sources of information and treating news critically. 

The 2015 National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review[1] failed to recognise disinformation as a significant threat to national security under its cyber section. But the recently published Russia Report[2] in the UK found that Russian disinformation was fomenting political extremism around Brexit and other divisive issues. This puts disinformation purely in the domain of political and national security, an area of life that for many people seem as remote from their daily lives, as the countries in which the threats originate.

However, in the context of the growing anti-vax movement and alternative therapies for Covid-19, we observe how disinformation coupled with public ignorance of the facts are negatively  impacting our everyday lives. Anti-vax and anti-lockdown conspiracy theorists have taken to the streets in European capitals (including London on 19 September), to protest against the lockdown measures and the mandatory wearing of face masks, in attempts to discredit any future vaccine[3]. Anti-vax theories are gaining a greater following in the UK, but the impact can be clearly seen in many American cities which are seeing an increase in cases of measles, mumps, and tuberculosis as vaccination levels decrease[4]. 

Despite accumulated scientific evidence pointing to the reliability of vaccines, not least the eradication of devastating diseases in the UK such as polio, and the discreditation of the scientists who first supported anti-vax theories, people are still inclined to believe some stranger on Facebook. This is made possible by disinformation methods that have become far more sophisticated and appear in articles on websites, in videos on news sites, and rarely find engagement with vigorous debate. The anonymity of social media and the courage (or bravado) this instils in people mean that reasonable voices are drowned out by those spouting vitriolic abuse at any dissenting voices. Mainstream views are pushed out as extreme voices resort to threats and insults to get their point across more firmly. 

‘Knowledge is power’ (was first written down in Thomas Hobbes’ political tome Leviathan in 1668) is perhaps not the most powerful argument in favour, but how are we to make sure that the knowledge being distributed and circulated in social media networks is accurate? Firstly, and most importantly, we have to stop using the same tactics. From the politician who purposely manipulates statistics to make a false impression of reality, to the wordsmith who uses language to mask the truth, to the politician who rebrands their party political account to appear as an independent fact checking organisation.  

We know statistics can be manipulated and it is done time and time again in debates on poverty statistics. Relative poverty and absolute poverty are two different measures – relative poverty is set at 60% of the average net household income in the year in question and can fluctuate from year to year whereas absolute poverty is set at 60% of the average net household income of 2010/11 and does not fluctuate over time. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies data[5], relative poverty rates have increased for children and everyone overall, for working-age non-parents and pensioners they have stayed fairly level. However, absolute poverty rates have decreased for pensioners and working-age non-parents, stayed fairly level for everyone overall, and increased for children. So, the Government can claim to have reduced poverty and use statistics to back up that fact, the Opposition and charities can claim poverty has increased, and the public are none the wiser to the actual state of affairs. 

Politicians will always use the best evidence to support their claims, and the opposition will always pull another piece of evidence that seems to suggest otherwise – that’s just the way politics works. With elections and Government at stake, it seems impossible as well as naïve to assume that for politicians would speak plainly and leave the party-political rhetoric at the door. But journalists have a responsibility, not just to support the politicians whose party their editor or paper supports, but to analyse claims and show their respective strengths and weaknesses. They also need to look at the use of anonymous sources and treat them as factual. Without the opportunity to assess the reliability of sources, we are both failing to look critically at information and encouraging belief in faceless facts. 

Ultimately, we need critical thinkers. Schools try to teach critical thinking through History and English Literature, but all subjects have a role to play in teaching us to look at the world more critically and analyse what is being told to us. Maths is important in showing us how statistics can be manipulated, Science can show us the complex systems in place to develop vaccines as well as look at the ethics of experimentation, Drama can teach us to look at the character behind the rhetoric and eloquent speeches. Above all, coursework and project work teaches more than teamwork and presentation skills; it teaches us how to research and balance the various claims, how to look critically at who is writing and explaining, and what their motives are. This? Pedagogy you mean? is as important as the actual content, so that people learn to look past the emotive and sometimes the shocking elements to the trustworthiness of the content. 

We’ve seen the pernicious and deadly impact that disinformation can have on people’s lives. From the war in Ukraine to the Covid pandemic, disinformation is a threat to national security. But we are not taking it seriously and we are not taking adequate steps to tackle it. Social media platforms must be made responsible for the content on their sites, politicians must be made accountable for comments they make, “inside sources” must face greater scrutiny from journalists, and we must ensure that tackling disinformation is incorporated into the curriculum. National Service was used to prepare the nation when the threat of conventional war was present; education promoting critical thinking is our preparation for disinformation at present.

 

Sophia Rigby is a Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Defence Studies at King’s College, London. Her research is focusing on realist-constructivist theories of international relations and how it relates to Russian foreign policy in Europe. She holds a BA in Modern Languages and a Masters focusing on Russia and Eastern Europe. Since graduating, she has been working in political strategies and communications.

Israel’s Electoral Standoff: Challenges in Securing Centre-Left Governance

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by Kevin Nolan

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, here pictured with Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz, while meeting with President Reuven Rivlin in Jerusalem, September 2019 (Image Credit: Haim Zach/GPO)

The State of Israel, even prior to the Coronavirus outbreak, was a nation in crisis. Since April 2019, the political deadlock between Benjamin Netanyahu, the incumbent Prime Minister’s centre-right Likud party and Benny Gantz’s centre-left Blue and White alliance has subjugated its citizens to three national elections. The ensuing breakdown of Gantz’s opposition alliance during unity government negotiations in March 2020 enabled short-term electoral gains for leftist politics at the potential expense of its long-term prosperity. However, irrespective of the eventual tenure of the new unity administration, struggles with policy differentiation, fragmented political structures, and growing sectarian politics linked with changing demographics ultimately pose the greatest threat to a revival of leftist governance within Israel for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, until these barriers can be overcome a power-sharing agreement offers the most realistic opportunities for nationwide policy influence and implementation.

Lack of Differentiation

Despite the international perception that Israel’s leftist movement was experiencing a revival under the Blue and White alliance before its implosion, its leadership had aligned many of its policies, barring minor caveats, with the incumbent administration. For instance, despite its controversial coverage over the status of Jerusalem and annexation of large sections of the West Bank, both Netanyahu and Gantz have endorsed the 2020 Trump Peace plan. Even Gantz’s only major point of contention, the inclusion of Palestinian leadership into discussions, has been weakened through subsequent dialogue.

Indeed, whilst it does espouse several leftist policies, since its founding as the de facto anti-Bibi alliance, Blue and White’s core policies were almost entirely focused on ousting the Netanyahu administration from power either through the ballot box or via retrospectively binding legislation.[1] Such initiatives would involve enforcing term limits and preventing indicted politicians from serving as premier, thus disqualifying Netanyahu who currently awaits trial over allegations of corruption. Thus, despite overall having a more leftist platform than Likud, Netanyahu’s removal from office would be one of the only significant measures of differentiation imposed by a Gantz administration. As such, the emphasis on a political rather than ideological platform will likely struggle to attain broader support outside of a single-issue voter base in future elections.

A Fragmented Opposition

Fragmentation among oppositional factions threatens to impede their capability to govern as a genuine alternative to Likud in future electoral contests. Despite the limitations of a single-issue platform, Gantz was capable of attaining a broad array of support from multiple political factions, including the first endorsement of a Jewish politician from an Arab dominated party since 1992 via the Joint List. However, despite possessing a larger backing then Netanyahu to become the newest premier following the latest election, the misinterpreted strength of Gantz’s position made him incapable of translating this into a viable coalition government due to alliance factionalism.

Although the Joint List lent Blue and White their support for the preferred Premier, their anti-Zionist platform and fragile political formation prevents them from participating within any formal coalition government propagating Zionist ideals. Similarly, cultural apprehension among the Jewish factions against coalitions with Arab parties has permeated since the foundation of the state in 1948.[2] Irrespective of the accuracy of their assumptions, questions involving the ultimate loyalty of Arab parties and their lack of support of Zionism has resulted in the leaders of most Jewish factions, including Gantz, from opposing such an arrangement ever occurring. While Arab politicians have never served in any Israeli government, if the Joint List continues to remain the third-largest party in the Knesset, leftist parties will increasingly need to identify methods for overcoming these barriers in order to successfully challenge perpetual right-wing governance.

Additionally, regardless of their intentions behind doing so, the divisions generated among rival Blue and White factions following the initiation of unity government negotiations with Likud have damaged the cohesion of the opposition for the foreseeable future. National unity governments are not unprecedented within Israel, particularly during periods of national crisis. However, given that Blue and White’s platform was primarily based on ousting Netanyahu from power, the initiation of dialogue over any form of power-sharing agreement was enough to result in the formal exit of the Yesh Atid and Telem factions. Whilst Gantz has continued to keep the Blue and White name for his sole remaining political faction, Israel Resilience, the capitulation of the broader alliance may make it increasingly difficult for the opposition to reunify once the tenure of the unity government lapses.

Long-term Demographic Struggles

In addition to these immediate obstacles to securing governance, long-term demographic changes are likely to increasingly marginalise the capability of centre-left parties from beating right-wing blocs in elections within the next half-century. Historically,  the vast majority of citizenry have voted for parties which represent their religious or cultural beliefs, irrespective of the benefits, economic or otherwise, which may be better offered by rival factions.[3] For instance, the nation’s fastest-growing Jewish demographic, the religiously hard-line ultra-orthodox sect, are predicted to nearly double from thirteen to twenty-seven percent of the total population by 2059. Within this constituency voting patterns overwhelmingly align with their particular ethnicity, with those of Sephardic origin generally endorsing the Shah party, whilst those of Ashkenazi descent tending to favour United Torah Judaism. These allegiances transcend basis cost-benefit analyses since centre-left policies generally offer better subsidy packages for the ultra-orthodox, among whom nearly forty percent continue to live below the poverty line.

Similarly, nearly ninety percent of Arab-Israeli’s votes go to the Joint-List, despite its four factions, Hadash, Ta’al, United Arab List and Balad representing a large cross-section of differing ideologies, from socialism to Pan-Arabism. Yet while its population is also set to markedly increase from fifteen to twenty percent of the total population, unless the aforementioned tensions between Jewish and Arab political parties can be resolved they will remain outside the corridors of power indefinitely. Consequently, given the sectarian nature of a large part of Israel’s electorate, the rapid growth of the predominately right-wing Haredi threatens to increasingly undermine the long-term prospects of leftist parties securing governance throughout the next half-century, regardless of the policies which they propose.

Silver Lining

The centre-left has a long way to go before they will be able to reconcile the variety of challenges standing in its way of wresting control from Likud. Nonetheless, the current unity administration presently offers the greatest opportunity for leftist ideals to influence national policies. Despite the division of influence varying widely in prior scenarios, Gantz has successfully attained control over the influential Defence and Justice ministries, while temporarily delaying annexation plans within the West Bank. Consequently, despite the challenges which the centre-left will face in future elections, so long as the current unity arrangement is maintained in a fair and proportionate manner, leftist politics will remain capable of exercising some form of influence on federal policies within the current Likud administration.

[1] Kaḥol Lavan. 2019. “Blue And White 2019 Platform”. https://en.idi.org.il/media/12312/%D7%9B%D7%97%D7%95%D7%9C-%D7%9C%D7%91%D7%9F-%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%A2.pdf.

[2] Tessler, Mark. 2019. “Israel’S Arabs And The Palestinian Problem (1977)”. Religious Minorities In Non-Secular Middle Eastern And North African States, 325-344. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-19843-5_12.

[3] Mathie, Nicola. 2016. “‘Jewish Sectarianism’ And The State Of Israel”. Global Discourse 6 (4): 601-629. doi:10.1080/23269995.2016.1259284.

Kevin is a MA student in Conflict, Security and Development within the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. A Series Editor for Strife, his research interests are primarily focused on the Indo-Pacific region, State building within post-conflict zones, and combating technological challenges to regional security concerns. Additionally, serving as King’s mature student officer, he is a strong advocate for exploring the correlation between the psychological impact of mental health degradation on academic well-being. Readers who identify as mature students and experience difficulties relating to any aspect of university life are encouraged to contact him at kevin.nolan@kcl.ac.uk

 

 

Death by Douze Points

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by Zenia Duell

Conchita causes controversy during Eurovision 2014 (Image credit: Getty Images)

For the first time since its conception in 1956, Eurovision has been cancelled. 2020 will not be bringing any awkward accented presenters, chicken dances, or cutting commentary from Graham Norton. Perhaps now is the best time to reflect on everything that Eurovision has graced our screens with in the last 64 years. In one respect, Eurovision is a wonderful expression of European solidarity, using the power of creativity as a unifying force for reconciliation. This musical hug extends far beyond the borders of the EU – of the 41 countries participating in Eurovision, only twenty-four are in the EU.[1]

Eurovision was originally a telecommunications initiative, rather than a political one. It was the brainchild of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which represents countries located within the European Broadcasting Area (EBA) – an area extending from Greenwich to the northern part of Saudi Arabia, spanning the entire Mediterranean basin. Membership to the EBU makes countries eligible for participation in Eurovision, thus Israel, Turkey and even Morocco have competed. Perhaps, then, another way to look at Eurovision is to view it as a statement of ‘Western values’ such as pluralism, diversity, and progressive union. This is certainly reflected in Eurovision’s slogans of the last few years: ‘celebrate diversity’, ‘building bridges’, ‘we are one’. This would explain the participation of countries like Israel and Turkey: Israel has been described as a ‘Western stronghold’[2] in the Middle East due to its firm alliance with the US, while Turkey has only recently stopped knocking at the EU’s door. In 2015, Australia was invited to participate – despite most definitely being outside the EBA, it was deemed to share those common ‘Western’ values, since its colonised history gave it more in common with the United Kingdom than with its geographical neighbours.

But as Eurovision continues to expand its horizons, it seems to be experiencing a bad case of mission creep and the musical celebration has started to become hijacked by political agendas. This is reflected in the financial clout of the so-called ‘Big Five’ (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) who, because of the amount of money they contribute to the competition, are guaranteed a place in the contest’s final regardless of the quality of their entries. Perhaps not coincidentally, these countries are also the five largest EU budget contributors of the past decade. Once again, art reflects politics: the alleged ‘diversity’ and ‘unity’ so heavily promoted in Eurovision’s slogans appear to be just a veneer, lacquering over the reality of European financial inequality. Turkey objected to the ‘Big Five’ rule so strongly that they withdrew from the competition completely, and set up their own rival song contest: Turkvisyon. Although it only ran for three years, this alternative contest coincided with Turkey’s decision to shelve its effort to join the EU. Both these actions were a clear manifestation of Turkey’s new foreign policy, as Turkey turns its head from the West to fix its gaze on the East.[3]

The ongoing tension between Europe and Russia has also found a platform on Eurovision. When the cross-dressing Austrian singer Conchita Wurst won Eurovision in 2014 with her seismic ballad ‘Rise Like a Phoenix’, Russian officials proposed an alternative ‘straight’ Eurovision (though this never came to fruition). In 2016, Russia expressed further outrage when Ukraine won with their entry ‘1944’, which commemorated the deportation of the Crimean Tartars during the titular year, and doubled as a thinly veiled critique of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

And then there’s the fraught political voting. This incredible infographic illustrates how each of the Eurovision voting ‘blocs’, roughly organised geographically into Northern, Eastern, Southern and Iberian, exchange votes. Only four countries have ‘broken rank’ and have, on average, awarded the most votes to another country outside their voting bloc. One study notes that these blocs may have formed due to similar cultural traits that result in homogenous music tastes[4] – although another study points out that loyal bloc voting also correlates to countries with less impartial political institutions.[5] Countries with impartial governments tend to vote more meritocratically. The infographic also demonstrates that eight countries share ‘special relationships’ – consistently awarding each other the most points in Eurovision. Notably, Cyprus regularly awards their douze points to Greece, and Greece responds in kind. Enosis, the desired political union of Greece and Cyprus so famously (and destructively) advocated by Bishop Makarios III may still be a political pipe dream, but it is a Eurovision reality.

In 2008, MP Sir David Amess tabled a motion in the Houses of Parliament for Britain to leave Eurovision on the basis that it was ‘more about politics than about talent’. However, I for one would much prefer political wars to be waged by sequinned singers than with fraught rhetoric, political fragmentation and economic disengagement. The latent political subtext of Eurovision can be seen as a healthy pressure valve, a cathartic performance which relieves global political tensions and should therefore be embraced. As the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei once said, ‘everything is art; everything is politics’. This, to me, is why Eurovision is everything.

[1] Eurovision. “Countries”. Accessed 17th March 2020. https://eurovision.tv/countries

UK Government. “EU-EEA”. Accessed 17th March 2020. https://www.gov.uk/eu-eea

[2] Russell, “Memorandum From the Secretary of State’s Special Assistant (Russell) to the Secretary of State”, in Glennon, John P. (ed). Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers. (1955 – 1957, Vol XVI), pp. 136-138.

[3] Ersen, Emre and Seckin Kostem. “Introduction: Understanding the dynamics of Turkey’s pivot to Eurasia”, in Turkey’s Pivot to Eurasia: Geopolitics and Foreign Policy in a Changing World Order, ed. Emre Ersen and Seckin Kostem, (Routledge 2019), pp. 2-4.

[4] Stockemer, Daniel, Andre Blais, Filip Kostelka and Chris Chhim. “Voting in the Eurovision Song Contest”, Politics, (2018), Vol. 38 (4), p. 432.

[5] Charron, Nicholas. “Impartiality, friendship-networks and voting behaviour: Evidence from voting patterns in the Eurovision Song Contest”, Social Networks 35 (2013), p. 495.

Zenia is a documentary producer and part-time MA student in Strategic Communications. Outside of the office or the library, Zenia enjoys reading about ancient history, doing burpees and trying out new recipes.

The Rise of Digital Propaganda – An ‘Alt-Right’ Phenomenon?

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by Tom Ascott

Co-founder of Breitbart News Steve Bannon described the news website as a platform for the alt-right (Image Credit: Wikimedia)

Without social media, the alt-right would not exist, Donald Trump would not be president, and the UK would not be leaving the European Union. As the American Sociological Association put it ‘the rise of the alt-right would not be possible without the infrastructure built by the tech industry’. Social media is becoming the most important way for political campaigns to reach out to potential voters, and online misinformation campaigns use coordinated inauthentic activity to subtly manipulate citizens. It is the fastest and can also be the cheapest way of targeting an audience, much more so than door to door campaigning or flyering.

The alt-right isn’t simply more popular online than the left. In fact, there are far more left-wing political blogs, and blog readers often skew left-wing. Right-wingers tend to engage less with political discourse online and, when they do, they are more likely to be bi-partisan. Despite that, the alt-right is far more successful online when they do engage.

The Success of Alt-Right Activity

Right-wing political groups have had a significant impact on international affairs through their online activity. By successfully using data harvesting, micro-targeting and meme warfare, they have sent out tailored, political messages to individuals or small groups, which are never seen by others. The messages leverage the data they have mined to be as effective as possible. It may appear unusual that there has been no left-wing equivalent of the Cambridge Analytica scandal – and it could be quite a while before we see the emergence of such – but it will be crucial to understand how the left might channel such activities.

The closest we have seen to a left-wing version of Cambridge Analytica is Project Narwhal, the database that the Obama team built in 2012. Project Narwhal started by slowly and manually joining discrete databases, each with a few data points on a single voter, to build their profile. Years later those profiles had grown, and the project had 4,000– 5,000 data points on each American voter. Looking back at the ways the media fawned over Obama’s data strategy, it is not a surprise that the right took the ball and ran with it.

It is an anomaly that the alt-right thrives online. Identification can be risky for the alt-right. Those who are seen and identified attending rallies can lose their jobs or face other repercussions. Extreme-right opinions that are clearly racist, sexist or xenophobic can lead to users being blocked on mainstream platforms, so these users begin to ‘join smaller, more focused platforms’. Alt-right figures Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos were banned from Facebook because they ‘promote or engage in violence and hate’. Laura Loomer, an alt-right activist, was banned from Twitter for tweeting at Ilhan Omar that Islam is a religion where “homosexuals are oppressed… women are abused and… forced to wear the hijab.”   As a result, the alt-right has become more digitally agile, using tools to exploit larger platforms and reshare their views. Platforms like Gab have a much higher rate of hate speech than Twitter. Discord has also been used to radicalise and ‘red pill’ users towards extreme-rightist beliefs.

The tools of the alt-right represent tools for disruption. It is only by disrupting the status-quo that Breitbart founder Steve Bannon believes that the alt-right can break into the political spectrum. These tools can be used to persuade or dissuade; Pro-Publica found that adds targeting liberals often urged them to vote for candidates or parties that did not exist.

The Left’s Slow Response

One reason why left-wing political parties have not used similar tools is exactly that conflation of such activities with the alt-right. Though there is plenty of dissent in left-wing politics over how centered or left-leaning it should continue to be, groups from the left simply do not identify as alt-left. Cambridge Analytica has offered the alt-right a chance to disrupt the right-wing, but there is much less desire to disrupt on the left. Instead of a true alt-left there is only ‘an anti-Alt-Right‘. Bannon believes that Cambridge Analytica, and the chaos it created, was a tool that the right-wing needed in order to survive. The ability to harvest data and use it to target specific individuals with political messaging appears to be a content-neutral process.

Any organisation could have done it, but the first to do so was Cambridge Analytica. It was an act of ‘evil genius’ to find individuals who weren’t motivated enough to engage in politics, target them with personalised messages and convert them to their specific brand of right-wing thinking, or to urge left-wing voters to disengage. It is hard to assess how prevalent online misinformation campaigns are. Groups will use neutral-sounding names, mask the political nature of their ads, or identify as partisan. Their only aim, however, is to confuse or dissuade voters.

Consequences for Social Media Platforms

The first-comer has it the easiest and copying the process will be extremely difficult. Following the scandal, the infrastructure for data harvesting has started to be regulated. The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) was granted new powers in the Data Protection Act 2018 and the European Union introduced its General Data Protection Regulation in response to the scandal. Facebook has been forced to refine its policies on data sharing and, as a result, new data from the platform is less available now than previously.

After the scandal broke, the platform started to audit data that apps could collect and began blocking apps that continued to take users’ data. As Mark Zuckerberg’s continued appearances in front of Congress show, if Facebook will not regulate itself, then perhaps it will be broken up. Where anti-trust laws may seek to punish companies for harming the consumer, it will be hard to penalise Facebook. Users continue to opt-in, voluntarily hand over data, and enjoy time browsing their personalised, if pyrrhic, feeds.

Tom Ascott is the Digital Communications Manager at the Royal United Services Institute. You can find more of his articles here.

Conflict, Competition and Legitimacy: Holding on to the Memory of Aung San

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by Anna Plunkett

A defaced statue of Aung San in Myitikyna (Photo credit: The Irrawaddy)

 

General Aung San is venerated throughout Burma as the father of the nation. He is remembered as a strong leader and switched on politician, remembered as a man of honour and loyalty that has awarded him the local title of Bogyoke. He was the leader of the Thirty Comrades movement and was set to become the much-loved leader of Myanmar’s first independent government and as such has been memorialised throughout Myanmar with statues, buildings and roads among the most common commemorations. Perhaps the most famous use of his name sits with his own daughter who conflated their names as she is known today – Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. He is a man of great importance in modern day Myanmar, his status only growing since his daughter took up the mantel as state counsellor after the 2015 election. Yet, the growing endorsement of Aung San has proved controversial with students and locals in Karenni state being arrested for their opposition to the erection of a General Aung San statue in the state capital’s local park. This article will analyse the reasoning behind the growing popularity of the General’s iconic image and why such increases in popularity lack uniformity throughout Myanmar.

Legitimacy behind the General’s Image

General Aung San’s image can be found throughout Myanmar and there is no doubt it demands a great level of respect. He is remembered as the father of the nation, the leader of the Thirty Comrades, a Japanese-trained liberation army that fought the allied forces during World War Two. He transcended his military might to show his political prowess as a statesman, leading the Burmese forces to switch allegiance from the Japanese and strike deals with the allied forces toward the end of the war.[1] Then negotiating with British colonial forces to bring Burma its independence soon after the war in 1947. During this time, he also married a nurse, Ma Khin Kyi who would later become one of the country’s first diplomats and had three children. Yet, in the post-war period the Burmese nationalists began to factionalise and on 19 July 1947, he was assassinated during a committee meeting in Central Rangoon. It is suspected to have been an act by his political rivals within the nationalist movement. His death shocked and saddened the new nation, which -now leaderless- suffered from a power vacuum that left the central government scrabbling for control over Myanmar’s expansive territories. It would take General Ne Win’s military coup in 1962 and the famous ‘four cuts’ counter-insurgency strategy to restore the central government’s control over the majority of the country.

For his leadership role as a military general and as a politician General Aung San has historically been dubbed the father of the Burmese nation. He has also been titled as the father of the army. Though the relationship between the two has been turbulent over the successive military governments in Myanmar, he was a great source of legitimacy throughout the Ne Win period (1962-1988) as Ne Win himself was a member of the Thirty Comrades led by Aung San. This close relationship to General Aung San provided Ne Win with personal legitimacy as ruler and caretaker of both the military and the Burmese state. As such, during this period the imagery and promotion of General Aung San was profligate. Yet the bond between the father of the nation and his armed forces, which controlled the state lost favour after the 8888 uprising when his daughter rose to popularity on the back of the pro-democracy movement.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her Father’s Image

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Myanmar to care for her dying mother in 1988. Having studied at Oxford, she had married an academic there and settled down in her university town with their two children. Her father died when Suu Kyi was only two years old, she found herself witness to a growing uprising against Myanmar’s autocratic state. Approached by leaders of the movement Aung San Suu Kyi joined and lead the pro-democracy activists, appealing for non-violent and peaceful protest against the state. Support for the pro-democracy movement and the soon to be founded National League of Democracy blossomed under her leadership. Much like her military opponents in government she claimed her right to speak and lead the people of Myanmar through her relationship to her father, giving her first speech to the masses in-front of a poster of the General. She reclaimed the icon of the father of the nation for the opposition, using it to build her own support and support for the NLD. The importance of familial connections and networks in Myanmar can be evidenced through the success of this manoeuvre. After the brutal repression of the 8888 uprising which ended with widespread bloodshed in the capital, images of both ‘the lady’ and Aung San plummeted in popularity with the former being officially being banned under the  new military government[2].

An Aung San Statue in Bogyoke Park Taunggyi (Photo credit: author)

Since 2015 the military and the National League for Democracy have become uncooperative partners in the halls of government in Myanmar. Daw Suu’s party have taken over the parliamentary houses with landslide victories in both, yet the military’s grip on power remains. Their twenty-five per cent seat allocation in those same houses and control of central department have solidified their role as overseers of Myanmar’s political arenas[3]. It is therefore, perhaps surprising to see the increasing propagation of an image over which these two political forces have competed over in the past. General Aung San and his memory have become something of a myth tied to the legitimacy of the political forces within Myanmar’s political arena. His period of dis-favour is over, with the seventieth anniversary of Martyrs Day receiving special commemoration in Yangon in 2017. He is both the father of the army and nation and the father of the democracy movement (or at least its leader) and now this image of fatherly support is not in competition but rather represents the rightness of such cooperation between the two sides. As these two competing political forces, the military and the NLD attempt to navigate the spaces of co-existence they have found a common ground, or at least common imagery for legitimacy within General Aung San.

Aung San’s Image: Divisive Locally

Whilst the institutional support and favour has returned to General Aung San and his sacrifices to the establishment of the Burmese State, support at the local level has not followed. With the centenary of the Bogyoke’s birth in 2015 and the seventieth anniversary of his death in 2017 the unveiling of a new set of statues may not be that surprising, particularly given the changing political arena.  Nevertheless, such celebrations have been far from uniform. Protests in Karenni and Mon against the dedication and commemoration of new statues and bridges respectively have highlighted underlying tensions within Myanmar’s memory of the Bogyoke. Despite rising tensions the erection of such statues has continued including the unveiling of the largest General Aung San Statue in Mandalay in June 2017 prior to the July commemoration.

For whilst the memory and iconic image of General Aung San may legitimise the current governmental institutional establishment it has left many minority groups dissatisfied. General Aung San may have been the father of the nation that delivered Myanmar its independence, however many minorities felt betrayed by the independence negotiations which left them without a right to an independent state or secession. The infamous Panglong Agreement the General Aung San brokered with the ethnic minorities in 1947 provided some vague commitments to equality with few specifics on minority rights or protections.

The failure of the successive governments to protect minorities or recognise their independence from the state has left most with a sense of betrayal in relation to the father of the nation. The image and icon which is now appearing in their capitals, on their road signs, in relation to the infrastructure projects being developed throughout the borderlands. Rather then promoting the cooperation between the two major political forces within Myanmar, Aung San imagery is becoming the face of an encroaching hostile state within minority regions. Rather then unifying or celebrating the diversity of Myanmar through the promotion of a diverse set of icons the focus on the first nationalist leader is being perceived as at best centrist arrogance and at worst forced domination by the ethnic majority.

Conclusion

The manipulation of such imagery and historic icons within any state’s history is an important part of building a state narrative and sense of homeland. It is a history and discourse that will always be built by the victor of the struggle. Yet if Myanmar’s wishes to increase the inclusion of its ethnic minorities rather then lengthen the already extensive civil war in Myanmar they may do well to tread lightly with the establishment of such a uniform and state centric narrative in its borderlands. Myanmar is an ethnically and politically diverse state, it is also a community waiting for change and development away from the historical state domination. The commemoration of those from outside of the government-military institution even just within these localities could be an effective tool to build cooperation and goodwill over the hostility that is being entrenched through the dominance of majority narratives in minority and historically weak state regions.

Anna is a doctoral researcher in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. She received her BA in Politics and Economics from the University of York, before receiving a scholarship to continue her studies at York with an MA in Post-War Recovery. She was the recipient of the Guido Galli Award for her MA dissertation. Her primary interests include conflict and democracy at the sub-national level, understanding how minor conflicts impact democratic realisation within quasi-post conflict states. Her main area of focus is Burma’s ethnic borderlands and ongoing conflicts within the region. She has previously worked as a human rights researcher focusing on military impunity in Burma and has conducted work on evaluating Bosnia’s post-war recovery twenty years after the Dayton Peace Accords. You can follow her on Twitter @AnnaBPlunkett.

[1] See Seekins(2000) for an in-depth analysis of the special Burman-Sino relationship and the role of Aung San as a political and military leader.

[2] Testimony from authors in field interviews with activists from the 8888 student protests

[3] For further analysis on the role of the military in Myanmar’s parliament see Than (2018)