Parliamentary rituals, institutional continuity, and the reinvention of political traditions in Myanmar

ABSTRACT

Shedding light on an understudied aspect of Myanmar's institutional history, this study interrogates the perpetuation of parliamentary rituals in the country's successive postcolonial legislatures. It focuses on two ritualised ceremonies: the oath taken by new members of parliaments and the mace-bearing spectacle marking the opening of the daily session. Their maintenance, re-appropriation and re-designing under Myanmar's different post-independence regimes reveal a persistent linkage between institution-building, state formation and the reinvention of royal symbols and religious traditions of the country's dominant ethnic group, the Bamar. Furthermore, drawing on document analysis, archival research and interviews with MPs and parliamentary staff carried out in Myanmar's Union legislature, this article argues that the continuing performance of such parliamentary rituals has served two other purposes: conferring hegemonic powers and status on the parliamentary speakers, while ensuring loyalty, discipline and deference in the house.

KEYWORDS:

• Parliamentary ritual
• political performance
• reinvented tradition
• oath
• mace
• Myanmar

Acknowledgments

For helpful comments on earlier drafts and arguments, I thank in particular Chit Win, Nicolas Salem-Gervais, David I. Steinberg, Robert H. Taylor and Doi Ling. The suggestions provided by two anonymous reviewers also proved extremely constructive.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Renaud Egreteau is Associate Professor in the Department of Asian and International Studies at City University of Hong Kong, where he teaches comparative politics. He has held fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington DC and the Institute of South East Asian Studies (ISEAS-Yusof Ishak) in Singapore. He authored Caretaking Democratization: The Military and Political Change in Myanmar (Oxford University Press and Hurst, 2016) and co-edited, with François Robinne, Metamorphosis: Studies in Social and Political Change in Myanmar (Singapore: NUS Press, 2015).

ORCID

Renaud Egreteau http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8222-6737

Notes

1 Myanmar is the post-1989 official appellation in English. However, for linguistic simplicity, the adjective ‘Burmese’, instead of the vernacular ‘Myanmar’, refers in this article to the citizenship and common language of the people residing in Myanmar, while ‘Bamar’ more specifically designates the ethnic majority of the country, where non-Bamar minorities, such as the Kachins and Shans, also dwell. The Bamars are also known as ‘Burmans’ in the Western literature, hence the process of ‘Burmanization’ describe hereafter.

2 More specifically in February and August 2013; January and July 2014; February, August and December 2015; June and November 2016; and March and June 2017.

3 There are also specific provisions for Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews and Zoroastrians (The Courts Manual, 1999, pp. 76–85).

4 As for instance described for the parliament that first convened in 1952 (with pictures) in: First session of parliament begins. (4 March 1952). The Burman, p. 1 and First session of House of Nationalities begins. (6 March 1952). The Burman, p. 1.

5 See: First session of Union parliament opens. (24 February 1954). The Burman, p. 1. Two women MPs were particularly applauded after delivering their oath in the Chamber of Nationalities elected in 1960: Swearing-in of members. (8 April 1960). The Nation, p. 1.

6 Here come the people's true representatives. (8 June 1956). The Nation, p. 1.

7 First deputies’ session opens. (1 April 1960). The Nation, p. 1.

8 As underscored by Jessica Harriden (2012, p. 43), in modern Burmese society as in many other societies in contemporary Asia, there is a widely shared belief that female sexual organs, menstruations, and pregnancy ‘pollute’ and ‘threaten’ the authority and power of men. There is thus a gender dimension to the observation and analysis of political and parliamentary ritual in Myanmar, which should not be overlooked.

9 Incidentally, the Bible is also called ‘kyan-sa’ in Burmese language, ‘kyan’ having a holy/religious connotation.

10 Chamber of Deputies. (8 June 1956). New Times of Burma, p. 4.

11 Speaker of Deputies elected. (5 April 1960). The Nation, p. 1.

12 State power handed over to hluttaw. (4 March 1974). Working People's Daily, p.1; and First Pyithu Hluttaw inaugurated. (3 March 1974). The Guardian, p. 1.

13 As reported in: Second Pyithu Hluttaw first meeting begins. (3 March 1978). The Guardian, p. 1; First session of the Third Pyithu Hluttaw begins. (10 November 1981). Working People's Daily, p. 1; and First session of the Fourth Pyithu Hluttaw commences. (5 November 1985). The Guardian, p. 1.

14 Hluttaw sessions. (8 February 1974). Working People's Daily, p. 1.

15 As explained here: First session of second Pyithu Hluttaw commences. (3 March 1978). Working People's Daily, p. 1.

16 Instead of ‘safeguard, protect and uphold’, as mentioned in the Burmese-language constitutional text, the official English version of the 2008 Constitution rather stipulates ‘uphold and abide’.

17 The term ‘serjeant-at-arms’ gradually disappeared from public discourse and the media in favour of the Burmese equivalent of ‘mace-bearer’ (kyaing-gyi-daw).

18 Among other illustrations, the arrest of Aung Moe, MP for Bassein East in 1956: Sensational Scene in Parliament. (4 September 1956). New Times of Burma, p. 1.

19 For instance, five jailed MPs benefited from special police arrangements to attend the first session of the Chamber of Deputies in April 1960: First Deputies’ session opens. (2 April 1960). New Times of Burma, p. 1.

20 Khin Aung Myint also played a key role in the constitution-drafting process as well as the devising of the post-junta legislative procedures (personal communication, 15 August 2013). He was returned to the upper house in the 2015 polls but did not take any presiding position in the NLD-controlled legislature.

21 He would resign two years later to be elected President of the Union in March 2018.