Taliban and Tatmadaw - two groups, two nations, one idea, one reign of terror

Tatmadaw is the name of the official Armed Forces of Myanmar or Burma. Taliban is an insurgent group in Afghanistan. Both two of them appear very different from the moments they surfaced, with two groups ruling two nations far apart from each other, having two different religious ideologies, except both are Asians. Yet, their idea of how to govern their nations are characterised by fascinating similarities: terror, thirst for power, and brainwashing, year by year.

To understand the Tatmadaw and the Taliban, one can't go without digging the root of the past the created these forces, renowned for being brutal and violent from every corner it can do with. Only by seeing the inner self have we really discovered why Tatmadaw and Taliban are so ruthlessly murderous, for both the innocents of Myanmar and Afghanistan.

History

We'll talk a bit.

Tatmadaw was originally the "Burma Independence Army", founded by the father of current detained Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, Aung San. Of course, he didn't found it alone, he established them with the other legendary Thirty Comrades in Hainan, then occupied by Japan. Because it was founded with funds and supports from the Japanese, who shared ambitions of driving the British colonists out of Asia, they returned home welcomed by the masses.

The Thirty Comrades, famous for founding the modern Burmese Armed Forces (Tatmadaw), in 1942.

When Japan established the puppet Burma state in 1942, Aung San was designated its Defence Minister of the reformed Burma National Army (BNA). However, since the Tatmadaw was composed solely of the Burman people, it started to reveal its heart. Rather than go fighting alongside the fellow Japanese Army, the BNA engaged in brutal ethnic cleansing and massacres, notably against the Christian Karen and Kachin, or against fellow Buddhist Arakanese and Muslim Rohingya. Aung San was partially responsible, yet he remained the only person to realise the depth of ongoing violence would be beneficial to nobody. From 1943 till 1945, Aung San sought to unify, heal the wound of ethnic tensions, going as far as suspecting the Japanese. It paid off and in early 1945, shortly after Japan was about to lose, Aung San ordered his BNA to change the side.

Because of Aung San's influential role in the puppet government, the British took opportunities to engage with Aung San, resulting in the independence of Burma to be announced by January 1948. But Aung San would not take part in the ceremony, as he was assassinated six months before the independence was granted. With Burma became a state, so a new chapter of his Tatmadaw would turn into a darker route.

The early 1950s to 1962 was an era Burma governed under an elected democracy based on the Westminster system. However, subsequent ethnic and political rebellions led to Burma's Prime Minister U Nu ordering the army to temporarily form a government in 1958. This caretaker regime would end in 1960 when the army voluntarily gave power back to civilian control. Little to know for U Nu, the Chief of Tatmadaw, Ne Win (a former member of 30 Comrades) staged a coup two years later.

Once the coup was completed in 1962, Ne Win converted the civilian government into an autocratic military autarky and succeeded in doing so - by nationalising, and militarising, many national industries, and isolating the nation. His army also violently suppressed any seeds calling for democracy. The use of violence by Ne Win ultimately sparked the national uprising in 1988. Ne Win resigned, but not without designating his successor Saw Maung, who was even more brutal than Ne Win, by killing more than 3,000 people. Saw Maung agreed to hold a national election after the bloodbath, only to regenerate the promise of peaceful transition in 1990. The military then kept reigning for two decades, before slowly decoupling, not completely, from politics. Say it "not completely" because the military still maintained some key ministries to deter the new civilian government from making full reforms.

After the 2015 elections that the military proxy party, the USDP (Union Solidarity and Development Party), lost to NLD (National League of Democracy), the military reluctantly allowed the NLD to form a government. But disagreements throughout the first years with the NLD government culminated into another 2020 elections that NLD won with a resounding 83% of the vote, far more than the previous 2015 edition. By this point, the military could no longer watch the deterioration of its power and seized again after the 1 February 2021 coup.

Taliban was a bit fascinating because of its background. It was originally established by exiled Afghans who opposed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980. Many of them gathered in Pakistan, where dictator Mohammad Zia ul-Haq attempted to deter the Soviets from ever taking Pakistani soil. The first leader of this nascent Taliban was Mohammed Omar. Common anti-Soviet resistance fueled sympathy for the group as the United States and Saudi Arabia offered training and finances, while China openly sponsored the Taliban members' scholarships.

Taliban fighters in Pakistan, during the 1990s.

However, the Taliban, in reality, took little action against the Soviets, despite some of them did return to fight in Afghanistan. Yet some of these guys would go on to take control of the Taliban, openly radicalised them on time.

In 1992, after the Soviets left four years ago, Afghanistan was turned into a mess when different warring factions could not agree with a unified government and were torn apart. Taliban's terror began in 1994 when Mullah Mohammad Omar aimed to liberate Afghanistan from corrupt warlords. By this time, only China and Pakistan kept providing financial supports for them. But as no one took care of other warlords, the Taliban soon became the strongest faction in Afghanistan. Taliban entirely acted in Pakistan's interests, took over Kabul in 1996.

Following the takeover, the Taliban issued the foundation of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and reigned the country through a combination of brutal doctrines of Salafi and Deobandi Islam. The reign of terror resulted in the deaths and devastation of many families and drained further facilities, encouraging millions to flee Afghanistan. Taliban hardly paid attention to the livelihood of the public, so the disaster continued. Pakistan kept aiding the Taliban to further destroy Afghanistan, until 2001 when the United States bombed the country, forcing them to flee to Pakistan once again.

However, it was notable that the Taliban managed to stay in its insurgency for at least two decades. Various attempts to dismantle the group had been largely futile due to somewhat its refusal to cooperate, and covert supports from Pakistan. With these issues unsolved and the drain of natural resources, the U.S. and NATO pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021, leaving a totally unsettled and devastated Afghanistan and a poor civilian government led by the inept Ashraf Ghani, which would be re-taken by the Taliban after just a week in the shock of the international community in August 2021, although signs that former warlords are re-arming in the border of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to fight the Taliban like they used to be, have grown. Of course, on the opposite, Pakistan and somewhat, China and Russia, are satisfied.

What fed the Taliban and Tatmadaw?

This is a unique deal you can't get a clear answer from day one. But many similarities can be immediately witnessed in the brain of both two terror organisations.

1. Religious extremism. For the Taliban, it is radical Islamism of the Deobandi and Salafi branches. For the Tatmadaw, it is radical Buddhism of Ma Ba Tha version. The ringleaders of these groups construct a clear religious orthodoxy in where they want to affirm and want their followers to be completely loyal to it.
2. Isolation: both Taliban and Tatmadaw are very insular organisations. All information is kept secret. The leaders of the Taliban and Tatmadaw want to keep strict discipline and order, as well as severe punishments, for those trying to defect from it. Massive brainwashing is expected. Peace is only achieved by ruthlessness.
3. Hierarchy. The system Taliban and Tatmadaw built for themselves has been highly similar, with clear discrimination between ranks and ranks. This hierarchy plus insular nature prevent the structure from complete collapse, if not to say, making these organisations the most cohesive.
4. Foreign actors: of course, these organisations couldn't survive that long without somebody backing. For Tatmadaw, since isolation from 1962, it always relies on China to help. The Taliban, it is backed by Pakistan from the start. Interestingly, Pakistan is China's strongest ally.
5. Independence and resistance to outside reforms, are something worth paying attention to the most, however. While it is correct to speak about the ruthlessness, these insular organisations have a high degree of independence to the point it is able to avoid all kinds of reforms. They even have the will to pay for these prices to maintain their authoritarian structure.

Taliban and Tatmadaw have done a lot of deeds to keep their sophisticated governments not falling off hand. And to maintain their rules, they're not afraid of letting blood spill on the street to keep power.

Taliban is authoritarian. Tatmadaw is authoritarian. They learn to evade suspicion within the inner ranks, not outside - just keep the outsiders from knowing is enough. Who fought for them, ended up becoming their robots - no thinking, no human feeling. Nothing else. Envisioning a future with blood is the only thing. Fear of losing power always exists among these tyrants. This is why seizing power is what they know most.

Both Tatmadaw and Taliban, on their heights from the 1980s to 1990s, tried to cultivate and earn money by selling drugs from Afghanistan and Myanmar, making the two nations the leaders in producing cocaines, still standing now. Both operate like cartels, with the inner decision dependant on the chief ruler. Taliban and Tatmadaw rely on religious rhetorics: Tatmadaw depends on radical Buddhism, while Taliban justifies its rule by the autocratic Deobandi/Salafi Islam.

Taliban and Tatmadaw also lead their worlds in the murder of minorities, in particular, the Hazaras who are Shiites in Afghanistan, to the Rohingyas in Myanmar, suffer the most from these autocrats. The Taliban has the base from the disenfranchised Pashtuns, while Tatmadaw draws their ranks solely from the Bamar Buddhists - both are the majority in their respective nations.

Yet one thing to be certain is these groups are far from totally weakened. Even when Afghanistan began its reconstruction, which is undone in 2021, the Taliban managed to keep terrorising the locals while bribing and corrupting Afghan officials to become henchmen. Meanwhile, in Myanmar, the Tatmadaw only ceded a little power and didn't allow anyone to investigate them, before undoing everything in the same year for its restoration of power.

The mouths of Taliban and Tatmadaw's leaders are untrustworthy, either. When Min Aung Hlaing deposed the civilian government in February 2021, he arrogantly and ignorantly spoke about how the Tatmadaw safeguarded Myanmar, while his troops did the opposite. Now, we're seeing the same response from the Taliban after it successfully restored its place in Afghanistan after a week, the same propaganda from the leader, self-declared ruler Hibatullah Akhudzhada, that he wanted "peace" for Afghanistan and that Taliban will rebuild Afghanistan, everyone knows that his goal is to restore the country to the medieval age. Shortly after restoring power, Taliban's ministers are planning to abolish women's education and rewriting the constitution to enhance its rule.

And let's not forget both groups reject the equality of men and women. Tatmadaw does include women on the rank, but its propaganda leaflet frequently portrays women as weak, unethical, only best at cleaning houses only and that women should stick at home. Consequently, we have never seen any women on the top brass of Tatmadaw's conservative Generals. Taliban is far worse: it cracks down on women's rights, and violently treats women like a tool for the men, the soldiers of this mad, uneducated group. For the Taliban Generals, women are for fun only, unless it is desperate.

Last, but not least, they know who they can trust. Taliban has Pakistan. Tatmadaw has China. These authoritarian states will never miss a chance to enhance their links with these autocrats. This is when they get away with full impunity, allowing them to return to power when they've the chance.

How to deal with both organisations?

To be honest, in a changing world where authoritarian rulers found themselves surging thanks to China's rise, it is best to say, duh!

But that doesn't mean we have no hope. We must take a clear talk about how should we deliver the hope to these people, the victims of Afghanistan and Myanmar, that these terror organisations will fall. At the same time, the world should increase aids to the innocents while isolating these regimes and forbid them from ever connect with the outside world.

Yes, I know it's hard. Given Myanmar and Afghanistan's histories, the way Tatmadaw and Taliban behave, we can conclude they don't have interests in their own people. But that doesn't allow us to let these nations under the chains of their own terrorist regimes. We must inform the world about the Taliban and Tatmadaw - that they don't represent anything for peace and prosperity, but for the demise and misery.

Moreover, it is up to the popular people of both Myanmar and Afghanistan to remember, where they're from, their countries, are not for those Generals, dictators. A systematic re-education, while maybe difficult at first, can prove to be a game-changer, to remind the terrors Taliban and Tatmadaw brought upon the normal populace.

Only by then, maybe we can see a new light for the fate of both Myanmar and Afghanistan.