Much historiography on Myanmar has taken the Doh-bama Asi-Ayoun (တို့ဗမာ အစည်းအရုံး) as an example of how a narrow Bamar nationalism suffused the country’s anti-colonial movement. But Kei Nemoto’s excellent article, appearing two decades ago in JoBS, destabilizes that conventional wisdom by suggesting that Doh-bama was more complex. Nemoto shows that “Bamar” for the Doh-Bama had a different valence: it was a term that described all the peoples of Myanmar. The distinction that mattered was whether these Burmese people were aligned with the colonists (Thudo-Bama) or were working for Burmese independence (Doh-Bama).

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Tune in next week when we post Kabya Pyetthana, a မြန်မာစာ text from the Doh-Bama era that also complicates conventional wisdoms.