Insight Myanmar

Episode #161: Dan Sullivan, the Director of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East at Refugees International, joins this episode to discuss the challenges facing the Rohingya community. Most of the world began to pay attention to the Rohingya crisis in 2017, when over 700,000 people fled a genocidal campaign against them, creating the largest refugee settlement in the world in Bangladesh. Sullivan led an effort pressuring the United States to recognize the anti-Rohingya campaign for what it was: his  campaign was termed, “Call It A Genocide!”The Rohingya have face so many challenges in Burma because of their Muslim faith, which puts them at odds with the majority Bamar, and even with the native Rakhine who are their regional neighbors and who themselves have historically been at odds with the Bamar majority. Although the Rohingya have been on their land for at least a century, their citizenship continues to be challenged. They have been cast as scapegoats through the hateful rhetoric of Bamar Buddhist nationalists, and victims of violence and assault at the hands of the Burmese military.While the Rohingya are finally settling more comfortably into their camps in Bangladesh, under the surface, there is a growing sense of desperation. This has led thousands of Rohingya to flee and seek a better life elsewhere, often by boat. Some are turned away by any neighboring countries they manage to get to, many others drown, and others get returned to the Burmese military.Sullivan says that many Rohingya currently look at the work of the National Unity Government (NUG) with hope. This is in contrast to the betrayal that many felt when the NLD, and Aung San Suu Kyi in particular, defended the military’s actions against the Rohingya at The Hague. Even so, should the NUG ultimately prevail, there remains much concern as to how they would translate sympathetic and inclusive statements about the Rohingya into a viable and realistic repatriation plan.

Episode #160: U Gambira was a 29-year old monk in 2007 when he helped foment the initial protests that grew into what came to be known as the Saffron Revolution. After running away from home because of an abusive father, he first ended up as a young soldier. But he grew dissatisfied with army life and ran away yet again, this time to become a novice monk. In 2005, he was asked by his older brother, an underground political leader, to join the democratic movement, which U Gambira did, creating an underground network of monastics who trained in non-violent resistant strategies. Following the regime’s very unpopular rescinding of fuel subsidies, U Gambira organized a peaceful march; the military responded by publicly beating the monks who took part. The public, physical abuse of these monks triggered an even greater uprising, and soon tens of thousands Burmese were in the streets, capturing international headlines.           When the military dictatorship refused to apologize for the beatings, the monastic community took the rare action of preventing the military from making merit by refusing their alms offerings (patta nikkujjam kamma). This standoff ultimately led what became known as the Saffron Revolution, in which tens of thousands of people protested the military in over 25 cities across the country. Yet, the movement ended the same tragic way that is often seen in Myanmar: through extreme violence on the part of the regime. U Gambira was arrested. He spent the subsequent eight years in and out of prison, where he was regularly subjected to physical, mental, and chemical torture. Once released—in poor health and with no access to medical care, stripped of papers and a risk to any monastery where he might reside—U Gambira had no choice but to return to lay life.                       U Gamira’s personal thoughts on resistance have changed. While the people of Myanmar adopted a non-violent approach for decades, he believes they have little to show for it, and he questions its effectiveness in the current situation. Citing the almost total lack of international backing, he feels it is time to consider other means of resistance. “It is very painful for me. It’s not according to the teachings of the Buddha! I don’t like it…but we have no choice.”

Episode #159: “As soon as the coup started, the first thing in my mind was how we, the people of Myanmar, had lost our future, and are going back to old times, which weren't good.”This was David Lai’s initial feeling in February, 2021. While the sudden military takeover impacted all fifty-five million people living in the country, David’s situation was more complex than most—he is a public figure, a sort of soft-rock/country rock singer with a large following.He was well on his way to Burmese pop superstardom when the coup hit.Burmese artists of all backgrounds viewed the transition years as a kind of Golden Age, in which creativity of expression was finally permitted to some degree. David saw the impact of this increased freedom affecting not only the artists, but also the wider community. So when the coup hit, Myanmar’s elite class of celebrities and influencers had to choose between their professional careers and their personal safety. Some chose to speak out, others kept silent, while a handful openly supported the military.David chose to speak out for the democracy movement, writing songs in support. This stance put his life at risk, and he had to flee to India. Still, he is sympathetic for those celebrities who balked at taking such drastic action.The potential for music to bring diverse communities together has been an important focus of David’s post-coup work. Growing up a Chin Christian, a minority in both religion and ethnicity, he has been more than aware of how the military has used these divisions to sow mistrust among the people over the years. But for David, the present situation underscores the importance of the current moment. “This military coup made us united!” he explains. “Diversity is a beauty.” David has collaborated with a number of other musicians from other ethnicities, and produced songs he hope will uplift the people during this difficult time. The resulting music is well- produced and high quality, while conveying an important political message.

Episode #158: Following a family tragedy when she was just a teenager, Ayya Yeshe set off on a spiritual journey, becoming a nun in a Tibetan lineage at just 23. However, she soon learned that female renunciates weren’t treated with the same respect as males, and left to train under Bhante Sujato in the Ajahn Chah tradition, before taking Bhikkhuni ordination in 2006 at Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village.“Engaged Buddhism is the way I practiced going forward,” she says. “A monastery in Asia is more than just a place where you go and sit alone and find liberation from the world, separate from the world…[it] is a community,” she explains, adding that in the West, “we are disconnected from community… from the planet.” While Ayya Yeshe also values the need for periodic seclusion, she feels that Westerner practitioners overemphasize this, overlooking the traditional Buddhist value of communal practice. She is also not afraid to call out Western yogis who remain disengaged, indifferent or apathetic in the face of injustice. She points to the danger of spiritual bypass, and encourages meditators to examine when they are passively benefiting from systems of oppression.Ayya Yeshe is a strong feminist because of her experiences as a nun, being treated as a second class citizen just because she was a woman, that simply her gender was “bad karma.” But she knew that the Buddha taught that women had every potential of awakening as did men. So “it was by necessity that I became a socially Engaged Buddhist, because I literally had nowhere to live as a nun!”She joined forces with Bhikkhuni Vimala soon after the military coup, encouraging Buddhist monastics around the world to photograph themselves with their alms bowl upside down as a sign of solidarity with the resistance movement. She understands that the military atrocities need to be resisted in some form. However, she notes the importance of deferring to those actively engaged on the ground, and doing more listening than leading.

Episode #157: In 1995, Burmese assaults into Karen territory created thousands of refugees who fled to Thai refugee camps, including Eh Nay Thaw’s family. He spent the next ten years in a refugee camp before being resettled in the United States.Eh Nay Taw’s years in the camps were quite painful, but he realizes the necessity of coming to grips with that experience. He says, “Part of my goal is advocating for the Karen people and other ethnic groups that are persecuted by the Burmese military regime,” and for this he needs to be able to revisit and retell sometimes horrific stories.Growing up, his hatred of the Tatmadaw extended to a mistrust of the entire Bamar ethnicity. It was only after arriving in America that he was able to move on from his deep-rooted hatred. “It took a long time to convince myself that Burmese people are not to be blamed, but instead the military junta, those in power.” But he also realized he had his own inner work to do. “If somebody still hates others based on their race or ethnicity, it tells me that that person hasn’t healed him or herself yet… I [had to] learn to forgive my former perpetrators.”Eh Nay Taw also thinks a lot about what constitutes Karen identity, and is concerned with how splintered the Karen community has become. This older generation has long viewed politics as a zero-sum game, in which one emphasizes one’s own group over others. Further impacting “Karen identity” is that so many are now growing up in the diaspora, without a firm connection to their ancestral homeland. But he is hopeful with the younger generation who have joined in solidarity against the military with other ethnic groups and even the Bamar majority. And he sees the Bamar evolving as well, towards more understanding of and solidarity with Myanmar’s ethnic minorities. He says, “I'm cautiously optimistic about the future of Burma.”

Episode #156: Even two years after the coup, the Tatmadaw continues its campaign of terror, disrupting communities, causing a massive refugee problem and destroying the country’s infrastructure. And because the military looks for loyalty rather than competence in choosing personnel, it has led to incompetent economic managers heading the country’s banks. Not surprisingly, the result is the effective collapse of the country’s economy. This is the subject of today’s episode with Zach Abuza, a professor at the National War College and specialist of Southeast Asian security and politics.Abuza also expresses a fear about the proposed upcoming elections, which are most likely to be a sham. He believes that any election will result in at least some part of the international community accepting military rule in Myanmar, putting the NLD between a rock and a hard place: If they boycott the election, the narrative will be that they refuse to participate in democracy; and if they participate, the election will be rigged against them. Addressing the hypocrisy of pro-democracy countries failing to support democratic efforts in Myanmar, Abuza says that, at the end of the day, a country’s support is largely one of self-interest. Most nations in the West have limited trade and investments in Myanmar, and so intervention is not an economic or political priority for so-called champions of democracy. Plus, without a figure like Aung San Suu Kyi, the NUG lacks someone who can command the attention of Western policymakers. And while Abuza is sure that PDFs will never defeat the military through combat, he asserts that the Tatmadaw will soon realize they do not have the necessary manpower or resources needed to win the war, which will result in increasing defections. However, in the meantime, Abuza emphasizes that in spite of the long pent-up desire to forcefully redress past wrongs caused by the military, the NUG must maintain a moral high ground. Yet Abuza emphasizes that the military’s mentality will not allow them to back down gracefully. High-level military leaders, led by General Min Aung Hlaing, are “are surrounded by sycophants who tell them what they want to hear. They’re happy to rule the country and run it into the ground because they think it is their birthright to do so.”

Episode #155: What is a “home?” It is more than just the physical structure we live in; “home” has overlapping dimensions. We say that the town or city we live in is our home, as is our country, and the entire planet… even the solar system and galaxy where we are but a speck. “Home” conveys a sense of belonging. It evokes feelings of comfort, safety, and familiarity.If we are forced to leave our home and cannot return, it as a deeply distressing and unsettling experience, filled with grief, sadness and disorienting sense of disconnection. In short, forcibly losing our home is traumatic.For so many Burmese, this “loss of home” trauma is felt acutely on multiple dimensions. In our second panel, titled “Yearning for Home: Burmese Voices on Exile and Loss,” our panel is composed of guests who have tragically lost their “home.” For those of us sitting comfortably in our own homes, the conversation engenders a greater sense of empathy and connection with the people of Burma and their plight, inspiring us by their courage and determination in the face of adversity. 

Episode #154: When Kory Goldberg was just nineteen, he spent a year studying in India. After the program ended, he traveled around and kept “seeking out whatever I was seeking out,” he recalls.He attended daily lectures given by the Dalai Lama, and later visited a socially engaged meditation center in the tradition of Lama Zopa. Then after some other explorations, he sat a vipassana course in the tradition of S.N. Goenka. The result was transformative. “The first time I heard Goenkaji’s voice, it just sounded familiar, it resonated!...I hadn't felt that at ease in a long time.”Back in North America, he began sitting and serving vipassana courses at centers in Quebec, Massachusetts, and California, among other places, often following his practice with hikes deep in nature that lasted up to two weeks. Some years later, he serendipitously ended up meeting his future wife, Michelle Décary; they have been together for twenty-three years, sitting, traveling and raising a family together.On top of that, Kory and Michele eventually wrote a book, Along The Path: The Meditator’s Companion to the Buddha’s Land. For seven years, they periodically trekked all over northern India, refining their book and researching the history of the various sites, as well as soliciting tips and submissions from meditators taking their own journeys in the region…and all the while somehow maintaining a very busy professional and personal life.Following the book’s publication, Kory led pilgrimages to the special sites he had written about. As he also attended and supported various pilgrimages to Myanmar, he has unique insight into the contrasts between leading meditative journeys into the two societies. “Myanmar is way more complex,” he notes right away. “There's so many living traditions and itineraries… you have this whole buffet that you can choose from!”Kory feels deep gratitude for the people of Burma who were so welcoming and generous to him, which makes it all the harder for him to follow what is now transpiring in Myanmar. “I can't possibly imagine what it's like to be in such a horrible situation,” he notes sadly. “[But] when I see what the people in Myanmar are going through right now, some of them are just responding in such courageous ways that, I hope that if I'm ever in that position, that I could be as strong as they are.”

Episode #153: Rahel and Damon Lam founded A Cup of Color in 2014. It is an organization with the goal of “bringing art to places where there is brokenness.” They have created art in public spaces in many places in Asia, and recently they carried out a project in Zurich, where they live, about the suffering in Myanmar.Their involvement was precipitated by a request to them from Raise Three Fingers, an artistic collective resisting the coup. After getting city approval for a large mural, they then went about soliciting Burmese around the world about the messages and images they might want to express. In the end, they designed a mural whose central image features “a woman holding up the three fingers, and it's a woman who is mourning for her family member who got killed.” Calling the finished piece “Tears Matter,” the woman is surrounded numerous words and other images, which came from the many submissions that were sent in from around the world.Besides the work’s obvious message, they set out to capture a sense of common humanity, represent a sense of perseverance and encouragement, with the hope that the piece would move people to start paying more attention to the situation in Myanmar.“[Burmese in the diaspora] are really not suffering loudly, but they're very silently suffering…[and it] is very, very deep,” says Rahel. “Myanmar people can make jokes about the darker things. That's kind of a way they survive, which helps you to be with them in the really difficult times. But seeing their silent tears, it's very heavy.”

Episode #152: Kristina Simion’s book, Rule of Law Intermediaries, looks at the complex transition period of the 2010s in Myanmar, when dramatic changes were sweeping across the country. Simion notes how even though real substantive change actually didn’t take place, there remained a sense of optimism that finally there would be some pathway leading out from under the military’s half century of oppression.Simion weaves her narrative primarily through the perspective of the “rule of law.” While development actors usually see transformational rule of law policies as way to help create a more equitable society, many Burmese actually felt quite differently. They were generally suspicious after decades of oppressive military rule, when “the law was always seen as a tool from the rulers to oppress the population.” Ironically, military figures delighted in the concept, which they took to mean “law and order,” and which they appropriated to justify their stranglehold on individual freedoms and liberties.In trying to better understand the exploitative nature of military rule, Simion examines the system they inherited from the colonial period. The British imposed less a legal system than a type of “regulated control and brutality.” Many colonial laws, including the more restrictive ones, stayed on the books after independence, and the Tatmadaw later operationalized them to justify and strengthen their oppression—and which they have once again resorted to since the coup.Simion’s study also centered on the “intermediary.” During the transition period, with the lack of formal systems yet in place, the rush of foreign development actors who flooded into the country needed to rely on personal contacts—intermediaries—to get their projects off the ground. Intermediaries not only guided conversations, but were responsible for finding the appropriate personal connections and making necessary introductions, etc. Simion wryly notes that it begs the question of who was actually leading the projects!Since the coup, Simion has been impressed with how activists have shown a keen interest in the rule of law and transitional justice mechanisms. Incredibly, even as they are resisting the Tatmadaw and simply trying to survive, many are taking virtual classes with Simion on these complex yet important topics. She conducts training courses with people hiding in the jungle who want to learn more about principles for lawmaking, and tutors others about Constitutional reform, who are already looking ahead to ensure that ethnic minorities are protected in a new, post-Tatmadaw Myanmar.