By Maung Zarni | Asia Times | January 14, 2020 January 4 marked the 72nd anniversary of Myanmar’s independence from Britain. The civil war in which the country – a patchwork of diverse ethnic regions, with mutually incomprehensible languages, unerasable regional identities and distinct political histories – was born has come a full circle. It is noteworthy that modern Myanmar was not the creation of nationalists. It was born out of the external shock of the Second World War and the dissolution of external colonial powers. Few Myanmar nationalist historians have acknowledged this historical fact, for it fundamentally and effectively undermines the nationalist