Myanmar protesters are becoming increasingly creative
Credit: Sai Aung Main/AFP
Young women marching in bright ball gowns, shirtless bodybuilders flexing their biceps, sartorial posters, and grandmothers banging saucepans; Myanmar’s creative anti-coup protests appear to have a bit of everything.
But one thing they don’t have is a defined leadership.
Friday saw the Southeast Asian nation’s largest protests yet, as an estimated 100,000 risked state-sponsored violence to gather on the streets of the commercial city of Yangon to demand the military return power to the democratically-elected government of detained civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The crowds that gathered on the streets for the 7th straight day in a row were not united under her name or that of her political party, but rather under a loose pro-democracy campaign inspired in part by other organic movements in neighbouring Thailand and Hong Kong.
“I feel like it has never been so dark before. The only saviours we have are ourselves, We can’t rely on anybody, not on one lady, or on one party,” said Thinzar Shunlei Yi, a high-profile activist.
The movement, which has harnessed the power of social media to tell its story to the world, had learned “how to resist and respond” as individuals and in groups, from strategies used by Hong Kong, Thai and Black Lives Matter activists, she said. “I’ve never seen such things before..we don’t need politicians.”
Some, but not all, protesters are focussed on the release of Aung San Suu Kyi
Credit: Lynn Bo Bo/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
The public had initially appeared stunned after the military seized power in a series of dawn raids on February 1 that abruptly ended Myanmar’s short dalliance with democracy and threatened to plunge the nation back into the dark days of junta rule.
But the first act of resistance soon began with the collective banging of kitchen utensils through the night, in a sign of defiance and as a symbolic tradition of driving out evil.
The banging also has a secondary purpose: to ward off the dreaded "night dragging" nocturnal raids from security forces.
Protesters too afraid to sleep make noise to alert neighbourhoods to approaching officers and then swarm the streets to prevent arrests.
“When they [are] trying to arrest, people hit the pot and pans to call the neighbours, civilians are coming out to the street and surround the house to keep the one who they want,” said a trader in the capital Yangon.
"Our nights aren’t safe anymore" and "Myanmar military is kidnapping people at night" are captions on memes that have been shared widely online.
A civil disobedience movement initiated by medics refusing to work for the generals then gained more than 230,000 likes on Facebook, helping to fuel an online wave of opposition that spilled into mass street protests when the regime reduced internet access to just 16% of normal levels last Saturday.
Since the February 1 coup, the organic opposition has built pace across the nation of 54 million, crossing generational, professional and ethnic divides to draw farmers, garment workers, monks, students and civil servants together in resistance to military rule.
The crowds have defied government curbs on gatherings, threats of legal consequences, and navigated roadblocks, tear gas and water cannons. On Friday, they remained undeterred by a wave of overnight arrests of dozens of election officials, activists and a magician who put a curse on the military leadership.
Buddhist monks hold placards featuring images of Aung San Suu Kyi
“We started the civil disobedience movement because we can’t let our country be ruled again under military dictatorship,” said Dr Ye Lin Hein, an emergency doctor in Yangon. “We will never go back to work until the military government steps down.”
While the international community is fixated on the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar protesters have evolved into a collection of coalitions opposed to military rule but not necessarily backing the ruling National League for Democracy party, which won a landslide in a November poll.
Many still display posters showing Aung San Suu Kyi or wave the red flag of the NLD, but others have opted to wear black as a sign of political neutrality and a more general push for democratic change.
The University of Yangon Students’ Union has focused on full constitutional reform, rejecting the military-drafted 2008 constitution that grants it 25% of parliamentary seats and control of key ministries.
Marginalised groups like LGBT rights activists and ethnic minorities are campaigning for their own aspirations of equality and self-determination.
LGBT activists are making their voices heard
Credit: Ye Aung Thu/AFP
On Thursday, bankers became the latest key profession to collectively go on strike, when more than 50 staff from the state-run Myanmar Economic Bank joined the demonstrations in Yangon for the first time.
“I decided to join because I realised that we can’t destroy the next generation again. Our generation suffered under the military junta,” said MEB employee Daw Aye Hla.
“If all civil servants join, the government bureaucracy will shut down and the military government will step down. Earlier, when I saw young people join the protest, I felt ashamed, guilty and selfish. Now I can live proudly.”
Since the early days of the coup, police have guarded banks and threatened to charge them if they try to convince employees to demonstrate.
Hunter Marston, a Canberra-based Southeast Asia specialist, said the involvement of banks could be “crucial” to the protest movement as the coup leaders relied on them to “continue functioning, to not scare investors, to make everything seem like normal.”
He added: “If the banks aren’t working then an immediate downturn in the economy could be a gamechanger for this regime.”
There are more people out on the street in Yangon today than previous days – we estimate well over 100,000 people. Four major protest sites, and many smaller ones. Hledan, Sule and Myaynigone all busier.#WhatsHappeningInMyanmar
Read more on our liveblog: https://t.co/3I5sZ5Pxb4 pic.twitter.com/4z5Z3JivnE
— Frontier Myanmar (@FrontierMM) February 12, 2021
The huge change in internet connectivity compared to previous democratic uprisings was also working in protesters favour, he argued. “This means the eyes of the world are on them in a new way.”
By contrast, Facebook said on Friday it would reduce the distribution of all content and profiles run by Myanmar’s military, saying they have “continued to spread misinformation.”
However, the net appears to be closing on the country’s social media-savvy generation. Radar vans patrolling the protests have raised fears of intrusive electronic surveillance, while the junta is mulling a bill that would allow it to ban content it dislikes, restrict internet providers and intercept data.
Mr Marston said that authoritarian rulers were also exchanging tips on how to clamp down on popular movements.
The junta’s reaction to the mass rallies remains unpredictable.
On Friday, an amnesty for more than 23,000 prisoners, including nationalists known for inflammatory rhetoric, raised fears the regime was emptying cells to make room for coup opponents.
In the realm of best-case scenarios, the military could re-enter talks with the NLD to restore a semblance of democracy, argued Mr Marston, but he cautioned that “the military has no history of backing down.”
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