(Mis)Representation of Burmese Metal Music in the Western Media

Heavy metal music is performed in Burma (also known as Myanmar) by two distinct groups of musicians: generalists, who are part of the mainstream music industry, and underground bands, who differentiate themselves from the mainstream industry in a number of ways. Importantly, the underground performers insist on presenting nothing but their own original songs. Western-educated journalists have recently published a number of articles about these underground bands, equating their original creations with resistance against the military junta that controlled Burma for the past half-century. The author argues that the metanarrative revealed in such media reports does not accord with the nuanced reality on the ground in Burma. Resistance is not the sole province of underground musicians, and underground bands have a number of different priorities

The Don Dance: An Expression of Karen Nationalism

How do Karen people define themselves as Karen? This question has particular import for one community in New York State—the Karen of Utica. The two hundred members of this group affirm their distinctiveness in part by celebrating a day that is special to Karen people worldwide. Since their arrival in Utica in 1999, every January they dance the don dance, a dance created and practiced only by Karen people. This article will discuss the performance of the don dance in another context: in a refugee camp in Southeast Asia, the dance functions to create and reinforce a particular ideal of Karen nationhood

Jesus Is Not a Foreign God :Christian Music-Making in Burma/Myanmar

Christians in the Southeast Asian country of Burma, also known as Myanmar, make up approximately five percent of the national population. The Christian community of Burma includes both Catholics and Protestants, and the Protestants are divided into many denominations. Baptist Christians are predominant among this group, and they provided most of the ethnographic information upon which this article is based. In the article I argue that twenty-first century Baptists in Burma fulfill both aspects of a “twofold legacy” bequeathed to them by Adoniram Judson, the first Baptist missionary to Burma, and that their fulfillment of this legacy is manifest in their musical practices. I further argue that it has been, and continues to be, to Burmese Baptists’ advantage to emphasize both aspects of this religious legacy, because at various times both aspects have highlighted their affiliation with more powerful groups inside Burma

Revolutionary Songs from Myanmar: Reconsidering Scholarly Perspectives on Protest Music

Since the February 1, 2021 military coup in Myanmar, Burmese musicians have been creating and circulating anti- coup songs. This article describes a representative sample of these songs, explaining how the lyrics reference important tropes in Burmese life and history. Further, the article argues that these anti-coup songs, while they can be understood as protest music, do not fit precisely into categories previously delineated for protest songs. Nor do these songs provide a neat answer to the question that scholars so often pose of protest music, to wit: do these songs work to persuade listeners to take an anti-authoritarian position? Depending on ethnographic findings derived from interviews with musicians, disseminators and listeners, I argue that Burmese anti-coup songs are intended to support those already involved in resisting the military regime. The songs’ reception is complicated, suggesting that scholars must be cautious about making liberatory claims for protest music, even in cases such as this, where the lyrics of the songs are unambiguous and well-understood by listeners

Myanmar’s Pop Music Industry in Transition

In the wake of the November 2010 elections, one important signal of the Myanmar government’s commitment to change was the cessation of the censorship of music recordings in October 2012. 1 Prior to that date, the country’s Press Scrutiny Board conducted rather rigorous censoring of so-called stereo series (albums), in cassette and later in compact disc formats. Producers wishing to sell their series in retail shops were required to submit a copy of the recording and ten copies of the song lyrics to the censors at the Press Security Board (MacLachlan 2011:148). Although the censoring was supposed to be provided for free, as a government service to recording artists, producers in fact incurred regular and sometimes large costs in the form of “fees” and “fines” (MacLachlan 2011: 149). Ending the censorship requirement, then, represented the lifting of a financial burden borne by musicians and producers. Even more importantly, it was a powerful symbol of the transition government’s commitment to freedom of artistic expression.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/books/1085/thumbnail.jp

Hate Music on Youtube: The Dark Side of Advancing Digital Freedom in Myanmar

The International Fact-Finding Mission of the United Nations has condemned Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingya people as one of the world’s worst instances of ethnic cleansing, calling it “genocidal in intent.” The Rohingya are only one of many Muslim communities in Myanmar, a number of which have been subject to violent attacks by Buddhists in recent years (Wade 2017). This presentation explains the role that music plays in fostering anti-Muslim prejudice in the country’s majority Buddhist population. I present an analysis of the lyrics and accompanying videos of a corpus of recently recorded songs, all available on Youtube, and argue that these songs constitute hate speech, or better said, hate music (Kahn-Harris 2004). Several ethnomusicologists have called for investigations into whether music incites violence (Johnson and Cloonan 2008; O’Connell 2011). Putting these scholars in dialogue with recent legal scholarship on incitement (Benesch 2008), I further argue that while these songs clearly arouse racist hatred in their listeners – evidenced by the comments responding to the videos – they cannot be held responsible for inciting attacks on Muslims in Myanmar. It is clear, however, that this hate music promotes an “exclusionary ideology” which, as scholars of genocide have shown, is a risk factor that increases the likelihood of the occurrence of genocide by two and half times (Harff 2003). The songs are therefore complicit in the tragic events in Myanmar, as is Youtube, which makes the songs available to all Myanmar citizens with an internet connection

‘Jesus Is Not A Foreign God’: Baptist Music Making in Burma/Myanmar

Christians in the Southeast Asian country of Burma, also known as Myanmar, make up approximately five percent of the national population. The Christian community of Burma includes both Catholics and Protestants, and Baptists predominate among the Protestants. In this article I argue that twenty-first century Protestant Burmese Christians fulfill both aspects of a “twofold legacy” bequeathed to them by Adoniram Judson, the first Baptist missionary to Burma, and that their fulfillment of this legacy is manifest in their musical practices. I further argue that it has been, and continues to be, to Burmese Christians’ advantage to emphasize both aspects of this religious legacy, because at various times both aspects have highlighted their affiliation with more powerful groups inside Burma

Introduction to Special Issue, \u3cem\u3eMusic in World Religions: \u3c/em\u3eA Response to Isabel Laack

This article serves to introduce a special issue of Religions, titled Music in World Religions. A 2015 article by religion scholar Isabel Laack claimed that the study of music and religion has been neglected by Laack’s peers in the field of religions. Responding to Laack, I argue that scholars of music have been making important contributions to the study of music and religion and, indeed, have been addressing the twelve specific topics she highlights for decades. After summarizing academic works which respond to Laack’s twelve categories of inquiry, I introduce each of the articles in this special issue, showing that each of these also address the gap in the literature that Laack perceived. Ultimately, I argue that transdisciplinarity in the study of music and religion is alive and well, and is exemplified both by historic writings and by those contained in Music in World Religions

A Review of \u27Spaces of Solidarity: Karen Identity in the Thai-Burma Borderlands\u27 by Rachel Sharples

In 1949, civil war broke out in the newly independent country then known as Burma, and now known as Myanmar. The war, which continues to this day, pits the central government (made up mostly of Burmans) against dozens of ethnic minority insurgent groups. One of the largest and most militarily successful of these ethnic insurgent groups is the Karen National Liberation Army, which contests the state army in southeastern Burma/Myanmar in areas of Karen State abutting the border with Thailand. The conflict has created tremendous hardship for civilians in the area, who speak mutually unintelligible Karennic languages and who variously adhere to animism, Buddhism and Christianity. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people from these different Karen groups have crossed the Moei River (which constitutes the natural border between Burma and Thailand) and become refugees in Thailand. The establishment of large refugee camps within kilometers of the international dividing line has attracted numerous non-governmental organizations, who along with the KNLA and affiliated Karen NGOs have established offices in the Thai town of Mae Sot. Since the late 1980s, Mae Sot, the nearby refugee camps, the military checkpoints on various access roads, and the no-man’s-land on either side of the Moei River have been identified in the international press and in some scholarly works as a conceptual space most often called “the Thai-Burma border.” Rachel Sharples’ dissertation offers a detailed history of the development of this area (pp. 70-86), which she calls “the borderlands.” Most importantly, Sharples makes two related claims about the borderlands: first, that the borderlands space is created by the social interchanges which occur there, and second, that the space in turn gives rise to particular types of social interchanges which form the basis for a specific form of Karen identity