Towards Confederation
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“This is not only my interest—it is also my duty,” says Khay, a research fellow now based in Berlin, about his work in unraveling and better understanding Myanmar’s complex crises.
Khay’s personal story has embodied his research. Raised in Karen State during an era of armed conflict, he first became politically engaged as an engineering student at university, volunteering to document constitutional dialogues at KNU headquarters. A pivotal moment came during a flag-raising ceremony. Khay recalls a leader saying they had been struggling to raise the flag for many years, even for their lives. Hearing this, he felt reminded of his duty to his ethnic people and resolved to continue their struggle through research rather than arms. Soon after, he shifted from engineering to political research. He worked as a senior researcher for an organization in Myanmar, where he studied ethnic politics and security issues. This experience eventually led to his move to Germany.
After the 2021 coup, he returned temporarily to Karen State to document the impact of the military’s violence on local communities, researching the displacement, flow of refugee, and rise of informal governance structures in resistance-held areas. Conducting this work required caution. “I had to pass the military checkpoints using many strategies,” he recalls, underscoring the personal risk involved in even basic fieldwork. Yet it also gave him an intimate view of how ethnic organizations adapted in the face of state collapse and how grassroots governance became a crucial pillar of survival.
Central to Khay’s research is the Karen National Union (KNU), one of Myanmar’s most prominent ethnic resistance organizations. For decades, the KNU had balanced armed struggle with participation in national peace negotiations. But the coup convinced KNU leaders that dialogue alone was futile. Since then, it has pursued a multifaceted approach: continuing military resistance, forging alliances with other anti-junta forces, engaging in diplomacy, and— perhaps most significantly— investing in local administration. The organization has provided extensive training to township-level officials and prioritized “bottom-up federalism,” an alternative to the country’s historically centralized state model.
Yet the Karen movement is not without its internal debates. For example, Khay identifies a widening generational divide. While KNU leaders remain committed to a federal union, many younger Karen activists, particularly those in the diaspora, demand even greater autonomy, sometimes envisioning confederation-like arrangements inspired by political movements in Rakhine State. This gap, Khay argues, reflects not disunity but a dynamic political awakening. “Youth now expect more than just federalism,” he says, noting that this same ambition extends to the broader resistance movement, including Bamar-majority youth who have begun to question long-standing power hierarchies.
Religious divisions within the Karen community, however, have eased since the coup, according to Khay. In the past, the military had successfully exploited rifts between Karen Buddhists and Christians, most notably regarding the events that contributed to the fall of the KNU’s stronghold at Manerplaw in 1995. Today, Khay sees an uncommon unity that has formed in the face of the military’s violent attacks on both communities.
Living in Berlin has positioned Khay to better able to situate Myanmar’s struggle within a global context. For example, he has witnessed firsthand the rise of right-wing politics in Germany, including the growing strength of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, and how this has led to more restrictive immigration and asylum policies that are directly impacting Burmese refugees. He warns that autocratic regimes worldwide are growing increasingly coordinated, citing the alignment between Russia, China, and North Korea, and contrasting this trend to the divisions and hesitation he sees within democracies.
Yet even amid this bleak landscape, Khay still believes that Europe—and Germany in particular—could play a more meaningful role in supporting Myanmar. He calls for direct humanitarian assistance channeled through trusted local networks rather than junta-controlled mechanisms. He also argues that Europe should engage formally with the National Unity Government (NUG) and ethnic resistance organizations, while rejecting any recognition of the military regime or its planned elections. “Recognizing such an election,” he cautions, “would only legitimize an illegitimate regime.”
Khay emphasizes that no durable solution is possible in Myanmar without genuinely addressing the country’s long-standing ethnic grievances, which he argues have been overlooked by both the international community and Myanmar’s own political mainstream. “Myanmar’s problem is not only a military problem,” he says. Despite the enormity of this task, however, Khay is optimistic. He explains that the coup has produced new solidarities among ethnic groups. Not only that, he notes the remarkable shift in how many in the majority Bamar community now view the country’s ethnic conflicts— once largely indifferent, many have become more sympathetic to the struggles of minority communities. “They know a lot more about the ethnic situation,” he says, attributing this change to the shared trauma of military violence and the unprecedented collaboration between Bamar and ethnic resistance groups in the post-coup period. He sees this newfound cohesion as emblematic of a broader trend across Myanmar: as repression intensifies, old divisions are giving way to shared resistance.
Another important source of optimism for Khay is his faith in Myanmar’s youth. He describes how they have poured their skills into the resistance, from engineers designing improvised technologies to medical professionals staffing frontline clinics. This mobilization, he believes, represents a historic political awakening. A more determined, politically sophisticated generation of young activists, combined with increased interethnic and majority-minority solidarity, represents the foundation of a future federal, democratic Myanmar, one rooted in local governance and shared political responsibility.
“We have to be open-minded,” he concludes. “We have to learn from each other. We have to discover our common goal. Without solving the ethnic conflict, we will never solve the country’s problem. It might take time, but we must be patient, and we must do it together.”