Youth lead fight for freedom
Kyaw Thu Win leaned into the microphone, growling in his distinct, gravelly voice. ‘‘Viva la revolution! Let’s sing together, let’s fight together!’’ he sang, adding a string of profanity-laced challenges to authority.
In his black jacket, black shirt and black shorts, the lead singer of Yangon-based punk band Rebel Riot is usually gentle and soft-spoken. But rage filled the recording studio this week when he recorded the band’s latest protest song against Myanmar’s new military regime, which overthrew the civilian government in a bloodless coup last weekend.
‘‘I worry every night, who will take me?’’ Kyaw Thu Win said, noting that some of his friends had already been arrested, including Saw Khwar Phoe, an ethnic Karen reggae singer who was taken into custody on the day of the coup.
But as shock gives way to anger, younger people in Myanmar like Kyaw Thu Win are driving a growing opposition to the junta that could erupt into mass demonstrations.
They are demanding the release of deposed State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, leaders of the ousted National League for Democracy ruling party, who remain under house arrest on dubious-sounding criminal charges as the country formerly known as Burma returns to military dictatorship after 10 years of flawed democracy.
Already, acts of civil disobedience are gaining steam, despite authorities having
blocked access to Facebook – a primary mode of communication in Myanmar – to try to blunt any organised opposition.
Yesterday, hundreds of students at Dagon University in Yangon, Myanmar’s most populous city, marched on campus in opposition to the coup. They flashed the threefingered salute that has become synonymous with the democracy movement in neighbouring Thailand and that was inspired by the Hunger Games films.
At Yangon University of Education, scores of teachers
chanted ‘‘Long live Mother Suu’’, a reference to Suu Kyi, while holding signs with the red ribbon symbol of resistance.
Civil servants from various ministries, along with doctors, student unions, teachers, and employees of military-linked companies, have launched strikes and work stoppages. Others are calling for boycotts of military-owned businesses, ranging from insurance companies to beer and rice products.
At night, the din of pots and pans being banged reverberates
across Yangon, in a tradition designed to expel evil spirits.
Everyone who resists the junta’s rule faces the risk of jail or violence. Myanmar’s armed forces, known as the Tatmadaw, have shown no misgivings about gunning down, torturing or disappearing their own people, as happened during popular uprisings in 1988 and 2007.
But many of today’s youth have little or no direct memory of those events, and belong to a far different generation of young people from those who came before them – a generation accustomed to free and fair elections, civil society groups, and connections to the outside world. Many are unwilling to accede to the Tatmadaw’s power grab, viewing it as a blatant abrogation of the NLD’s overwhelming popular mandate in elections in November.
The nascent resistance movement still lacks widespread coordination, however. With the pro-democracy movement’s figurehead, Suu Kyi, still in custody and unable to communicate regularly with her followers, many are unsure what to do.
A 23-year-old student activist, speaking on condition of anonymity, admitted that a lack of organisation has been a key failing of the resistance movement so far, but said this would change. ‘‘We are now trying to connect with different unions: student unions, labour unions, teachers’ unions.’’
His group is demanding not just a reversal of the coup, but an overhaul of the 2008 militarydrafted constitution that gave the Tatmadaw control of key institutions like the police, and veto power over constitutional changes.
Wai Hnin Pwint Thon, an activist with the Britain-based Burma Campaign whose father, Mya Aye, was among those arrested, said activists were taking lessons from prodemocracy movements in Thailand and Hong Kong.
‘‘The encouraging thing is a lot of people in their 20s, and teenagers, are getting involved because they have never seen anything like this.’’
Whether more people will start joining in remains to be seen.