End Of Strife?

Rangoon, founded by King Alaungpaya in 1755, literally translates to ‘end of strife.’ The king vainly hoped that with his conquest of central Burma his struggles would be over in a new and unified country. But for the next 250 years to follow, the city has known little more than a turbulent history of fighting and living under occupation of the Mon, the British, the Japanese and more recently a repressive military dictatorship. 

Present day Rangoon, or Yangon as it called now, remains a rigidly stratified society where hierarchical social relations reveal deep scars of social inequality. Misguided economic policies compounded by extraordinary neglect of the education and health sectors have deprived the economy of the basic foundations for sustainable improvements in living standards.