Federalism... OK... but why?

Imagine a home. In this home, the rooms are different. One is painted with stories of mountain spirits, another echoes songs from the coast. Some rooms burn incense, others cook with turmeric. The people in these rooms are family, but not the same. They don’t always agree. Sometimes, they fight. But there’s one thing they do agree on: this house should not belong to just one of them. It should belong to all of them.

That, at its heart, is the spirit of federalism. Or at least, it should be.
But let’s slow down. What is federalism—not as a textbook definition, but as a living political idea?

Federalism is NOT a Map. It’s a Conversation. Many people in countries like Myanmar talk about federalism as if it’s a kind of jigsaw puzzle. How many states? How should we draw the lines? Who gets what resources? These are important questions, but they are not foundational questions. They ask how federalism works, not why it exists.

From my point of view, federalism is not about fixed destination or ancient divisions. It is not about drawing borders around "pure" ethnic groups or enforcing neat, eternal truths about who belongs where. That’s essentialist thinking—imagining that there are timeless, unchanging groups with permanent entitlements. But human groups are not static. Cultures mix. Languages evolve. Power shifts. What we call “ethnic identity” is often a strategy—sometimes for survival, sometimes for resistance, often for recognition.

Federalism, then, must be a tool, not a truth. A flexible structure, not a sacred formula. A conversation, not a command.

Let’s return to the house. Imagine one room insisting that its furniture, music, and customs are best—and demand the others to just copy them. That’s not harmony; that’s domination. For a people, it’s colonization.

Let me invites you to ask: Whose values are being universalized? When a majority claims neutrality, they often hide power. When one cultural group is called “national” and others with similar characteristics are called “ethnic tribes,” the language itself creates hierarchy. And that is the problem with many centralized states—especially those built through conquest or colonization.

Federalism matters not because people are essentially different, but because people have historically been treated differently. The choice is strategic. The point is not that communities must govern themselves in isolation, but that they should have the right to do so—especially after generations of being told they could not. Besides, it is the original spirit of international order that every people must have the right to self-determination, isn't it?

So, federalism is not just administrative—it’s historical. It is an invitation to heal from forced assimilation, cultural erasure, and imposed uniformity. It is a chance to say: “We are different, and that’s okay. But we still choose to share a future.”

Let us draw our attention to a country like Myanmar, where different internal nations—yes, nations, not just ethnic groups—exist, the most just path forward is not one single mold for all. It is a plural mold, one that allows people to shape their political future while still being part of a shared country. We must respect their differences in political heritage.

This is what multinational federalism offers. Not one identity, but many. Not one center, but many centers working in coordination. It resists the pressure to blend everyone into one "nation-state mythology". It instead offers a framework of co-existence, with room for autonomy, heritage, and solidarity.

Some may ask: “But won’t this break us apart?”
Indigenous peoples will reply: “Pretending sameness has already broken you.”

The real strength of a country lies not in how similar its people are, but in how well it manages their differences with justice and dignity.

Let me also reflect a few points on what Federalism Is NOT.

• It’s not just decentralization.
• It’s not about giving power from above (or below so to say).
• It’s not a technical fix to appease rebels.
• It’s not about freezing identities into rigid boxes.
• It’s not about carving up the land for political games.

Federalism is not something “granted” by a central authority—it is negotiated by peoples who refuse to be "ruled" without consent. It is not a gift. It is a contract.

Of course, federalism is hard. There are risks. Power struggles don’t vanish just because we redraw boundaries. And yes, identities can become rigid, competitive, even exclusionary. That’s why we need vigilance—to keep asking: Are we using federalism to empower people, or to entrench new forms of domination? We must be watch out for the signals if our new system is entrenching the different forms of inequality.

We must remember that identities are constructed. That doesn’t make them fake. It is like what Buddhists call "Sammuti Sacca"- conventional  realities. These identities are political. So we, for building a peaceful society, must build systems that treat them with care, not with negligence. We must design a future that sees federalism not as a final answer nor product of rigid essences, but a living pragmatic strategy for solving the crisis of shared dignity at this point.

In a intellectually free world, federalism is less about fixed truths and more about shared agreements. Less about who you are and more about how you want to live together. It exists because the alternative (aka forced assimilation for sameness) is violence in slow motion. So let us teach the next generation not to ask, “Who is the real owner of this land?” but instead, “How can we all be stewards of this future?” Let us move away from fear of difference and toward a politics of negotiated coexistence.

That is what I think is what federalism is in some aspect ... the quiet courage to live with many truths in negotiation, in one fragile, shared world.