Story by: Kiana Cole
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – On August 8, 1988, Ye Tun’s gentle voice became a clamorous cry for democracy, calling out with a chorus of millions to denounce the military regime ruling Burma.
When he thinks back on it now, sitting in his Chapel Hill home with his white-haired dog, McGee, perched on his leg, Tun’s brows furrow behind the thick frames of his glasses. That day turned into weeks, then months, then three years of fighting. He remembers the chills and mental delusion from the malaria he contracted while traversing the country. He remembers having to travel from village to village as a part of the rebellion under the cover of night because of the potential dangers daylight might bring.
But his first recollection — the one he still wrestles with — is the overwhelming division within the country that the “8888 Uprising” hastened.
By September of 1988, one month after the nationwide uprising against the Burmese military, it was no longer just a fight against the government, Tun said. Everyone was suspicious of each other’s motives, and the Burmese military continued to torture and target the people, including one of the country’s largest ethnic groups, the Karen. As the pro-democracy protest progressed, the country’s 100-plus ethnic groups became more polarized because of the infighting that had been simmering in the country since Burma achieved independence from the British in 1948.
Tun fled Burma in 1994, first a refugee in Thailand and then arriving in North Carolina in 1997. Now Tun, 47, is one of the estimated 1,100 refugees from Burma living in Orange County, working as a sound engineer for Duke Chapel.
The remnants of his childhood in Burma remain in the past – playing soccer in the blazing sun, the big tree in front of his house, the warm summer nights. But he’s bothered by the facet of his home life that has traveled with refugees from Burma escaping persecution: The division between ethnic groups, specifically the Karen and the Burmese in Orange County.
History of division
In order to understand how division between ethnic groups has carried over from Burma, now Myanmar, to Orange County, it’s imperative to understand the cultural context and history of division within the nation, said Peter Coclanis, a history professor and director of the Global Research Institute at UNC.
There are 135 different ethnic groups recognized by the government in Myanmar – 135 different cultures, many of which contain subcultures of different religions and customs, along with a multitude of different languages and dialects all swarming within the nation.
In Myanmar, there is no single national identity.
In Chapel Hill and Carrboro, refugees from Burma belong mainly to two of these numerous groups – the Burmese and the Karen, according to a study done by UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Public Health. Tun is Burmese, along with two-thirds of the nation of Burma, and though Tun is a Christian, the majority of Burmese people are Buddhist.
Coclanis said it’s a common mistake for all refugees from Burma to be categorized as “Burmese,” even though a large population of the ones in Orange County are Karen.
Divisive hostilities between the Burmese and the Karen groups are woven into the history of the nation of Myanmar. Once the nation achieved independence from the British in 1948, decades of conflict ensued between the Burmese military governing the nation and the country’s different ethnic groups. This led to the start of the Karen conflict in 1949, a series of ongoing insurgencies that have become the world’s longest civil war.
“When [the Karen] interact with Burmese over here, sometimes the old resentments kind of resurface,” Coclanis said. “When we see the modern opposition, it grows in part out of history, religious conflict, ethnic tension and opposition to consolidation.”
A lot of Karens in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area were forced out of Myanmar because of off-and-on warfare between the Burmese government and that Karen, Coclanis said, meaning they often had to flee.
“It’s kind of a mess, but it’s largely a mess that was at least in part created by colonialism and the aftermath of colonialism, that left the state both poor and unequipped,” he said. “A lot of dominos fell in a bad way for Burma.”
‘A communal cold shoulder’
The division between ethnic groups in Orange County looks different than it did – and does – in Myanmar.
Though Tun speaks both Burmese and Karen, he’s had a difficult time developing deep relationships with other refugees from Myanmar. He said it’s hard for him to pinpoint why, exactly – perhaps because a distinct separation between groups is the way it’s always been and what everyone’s used to.
Though he’s made an effort to forge meaningful friendships with refugees from different ethnic groups, other obstacles have gotten in the way, like the different religions and cultures between the Burmese and Karen, and how the nation’s history is not so easily erased despite being in a new country.
After 20 years in North Carolina, Tun has one or two friends from Myanmar he feels he can confide in, he said, which perpetuates feelings of isolation refugees already experience from being in a drastically new country.
“Why do we have to hate each other, because we didn’t do anything wrong to each other, right?” Tun said. “Because government are the [ones] who kill innocent Karen people, but I didn’t kill any of them.”
This separation between groups is only perpetuating division, which makes it hard for his refugee community to stand united. Being separated by the barriers of tensions between ethnic groups is a disadvantage, Tun said. Whether you call the country Burma or Myanmar, he said he hopes everyone can recognize its universal name: home.
“I think the community would be great if we all, you know, come to the term that we all come from this country,” he said.
Flicka Bateman, director of the Refugee Support Center in Carrboro, said she has noticed conflicts between different ethnic groups she works with.
“I mean, when the Burmese dictator says, ‘The only Karen I want to see is the one in a museum,’ it’s very hard for people to forget that,” Bateman said of Burmese Army General Shwe Maung in 1997.
Mai Mai, a refugee who has lived in Orange County since 2008, said she didn’t notice the divisions as much when she lived in Myanmar, because her ethnic group – the Chin – stuck mostly to itself. It wasn’t until she arrived in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area that she began hearing stories of the hostilities between different groups.
“I think [it’s] because of language, and then religion – and even within Chin people we don’t get along,” she said.
Mai said she doesn’t feel resentment toward any ethnic groups, but like Tun, she’s seen how refugees from Myanmar still stick to their groups.
“[The] issue is that Karen people generalize about Burmese people,” Mai said. “They hate individuals as opposed to recognizing the individuals aren’t responsible, it’s the military government.
“There are some people – they don’t like the Burmese. So that’s sad.”
Adam Clark, the office director at World Relief Durham, said refugees from countries with internal ethnic tensions are sometimes housed in the same apartment complexes once they’re resettled in a new country, Clark said.
“In some ways, the neutrality of the placement system can be seen as a good thing, because it forces people to confront those biases, but it also doesn’t help them,” he said.
Despite all the efforts of agencies, churches, health departments and schools, Clark said many refugees experience a communal cold shoulder from U.S.-born citizens, which adds another layer of friction to the unfamiliarity of being a refugee.
“There’s a lot of work to be done around racial and ethnic tensions among refugees populations,” he said.
Tun has experienced these little encounters of coldness, like feeling ignored by the cashier who seemed perfectly friendly to everyone else, or not receiving a smile back from someone who walks by. When these disheartening moments are added onto the existing disparities he feels within his own refugee community, it’s easy to always feel out of place, he said.
“I mean, being [hated] by somebody is not a fun feeling,” he said. “Everybody wants to be loved.”
Looking forward, Tun is hopeful that there will be more unity among refugees from Myanmar. His main goal is to work toward the consolidation of all the ethnic groups in the area, not just the majority groups. He has a few plans in the works, he said, and is in the midst of developing an online Burmese talk show to discuss politics and social issues, inviting different guests from Myanmar to share their perspectives.
“Unity is really important for me,” he said. “And I personally feel that we need to focus on trying to have everybody come together and understand each other.”
