functions. Manual surveillance is still intensive, but a range of suprapanoptic methods are additionally now used by Military Intelligence
... Amid these changing forms of both intelligence gathering and
the delivery of state ideology through repetitive propaganda, Burmese
people are continually having to make distinctions between what is real
and meaningful and what are lies in their everyday lives. These new forms
of intensive surveillance and the effective targeting . . . of the population
with propaganda are thus primary methods by which the regime maintains
control . . . . Without access to alternate forms of information, the sheer
volume of this propaganda threatens to trip Burmese up in the “facts” of
their nation’s history and current political situation, and thus through a
combination of silencing the public sphere and filling it with repetitive
propaganda, the regime creates gray spaces of confusion in which
complicity may begin (Skidmore, 2004, pp. 70-71)
Propaganda. Globalization and modernization opened the door for the military
to broaden its control tactics while at the same time more easily presenting itself to the
international community under a veil of democratic reforms. In the post-democratization
era, the military relies heavily on propaganda to proliferate stereotypes strategically
designed to support its totalitarian ideology.
In 2018, the Tatmadaw’s Propaganda Unit published a book series entitled
Myanmar Politics and the Tatmadaw, referring to it as a “true news” book (McPherson,
2018). McPherson explains that in Part One of the series, a section discussing the ethnic
riots of the 1940s provides an image allegedly depicting “Buddhists murdered by
Rohingya—members of a Muslim minority the book refers to as “Bengalis”—to imply
they are illegal immigrants” (McPherson, 2018). Closer examination by Reuters
journalists revealed that the image was actually taken in 1971 during the Bangladesh war
for independence. Other images also falsely depict instances alleged to be part of
Burmese history. One shows Rwandan refugees attempting to flee genocidal attacks in
the early 1990s and being turned away by Tanzanian soldiers. This image was used by
the Tatmadaw with the caption “Bengalis intruded into the country after British
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