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The warning came suddenly through a faded ticker on television: Democracy could be broken even if there is no discipline, he said. The “outlaw criminals” should be “eliminated.” The sender of this message on the MRTV television channel was the Myanmar military junta, which abolished democracy and seized power in a military coup on Monday last week.
The recipients of this message were citizens who opposed this coup. Because the junta is facing a wave of protests that is growing: not only are cities filled with a lot of noise every afternoon because citizens are drumming pots with open windows in protest against the coup. There have also been massive demonstrations since the weekend.
“What a shame dictator”
In the northern city of Mandalay, protesters took blacked-out photos of General Min Aung Hlaing, who has now taken power. “What a shame, dictator,” he said. Demonstrations also took place on Monday in the metropolis of Rangoon and the capital, Naypyidaw. Many participants wore red T-shirts and red headbands, because red is the color of the National League for Democracy (NLD), which won the November election with more than 80 percent of the vote. And everywhere were photos of the NLD leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains by far the most popular politician in Myanmar, apparently now under house arrest.
But the protest goes far beyond the demonstrations: civil disobedience is supposed to topple the junta as well. In many state hospitals, doctors have gone on strike and only carry out the most necessary treatments. Students gather in front of universities and take pictures with posters calling for resistance. And they are often just small gestures: officials tie a red bow around their arms to express their support for the NLD. Or they raised three fingers, which, based on the Hollywood saga “The Hunger Games”, became a sign of resistance.
Brave gestures
Even such small hints take a lot of courage: it has shown enough that the military in Myanmar does not shy away from extreme brutality. Many minorities, in whose regions the army destroyed entire villages and displaced countless people, can say so. It appears that General Min Aung Hlain was also one of the main culprits for the expulsion of the Rohingya Muslim minority. Around 700,000 Rohingya were persecuted to neighboring Bangladesh.
The military, which ruled the country since 1962, with the exception of the last ten years, has also brutally suppressed political protests. The 1988 riots, sparked by miserable economic policy and the oppressive apparatus of the military, so crushed the junta at the time that thousands of people were killed. And during the Saffron Revolution in 2007, the military didn’t even hesitate to fire on the revered Buddhist monks who led the protest at the time.
Again, Buddhist monks are part of the protests, but their role is ambiguous. In Mandalay they led the demonstrations against the military junta. On the other hand, a faction of nationalist monks who repeatedly agitate against Muslims in the country supports the coup.
It is impossible to predict whether the military will try to sit in the protests this time or attack again with all the harshness. So far he has been relatively reluctant, but water cannons have already been used in the capital, Naypyidaw. Apparently, the board wants to isolate the leaders of the NLD first. Suu Kyi, for example, must be charged for allegedly importing five radios into the country illegally. Also, there were initial reports Monday night that a curfew would be imposed.
The army has also promised new elections. But he did it right after the coup, and hardly anyone believes that if they did happen, they would be fair.
The junta has received very little from foreign actors – the West has threatened sanctions – in recent decades. Events in the country itself will probably be more decisive. If the military fear losing control in the process, it increases the risk that they will take up arms against their own citizens. And the army must fear that the protest will spread more and more.
Because the pretext of “electoral fraud” is used with which the junta justifies the coup: if someone has been disadvantaged, it is the individual ethnic minorities, but not the military party, that suffered a crushing defeat. Rather, the NLD’s overwhelming electoral victory, of which many politicians sat in the torture prisons of military dictators, appears to have spooked the generals.
Internet activism
The popularity of the NLD now could have a great mobilizing effect. The activists have already called for a general strike. Even if the junta repeatedly blocks the internet or various services, opponents of the regime manage to gather on social media, where international and Myanmar sympathizers from abroad also express their support.
RETURN DEMOCRACY
The citizens of Myanmar do not need dictatorship!#Listen to Myyanmar’s Voice# Feb8Coup#What HappensInMyanmarpic.twitter.com/5w45daihZ2?? Save Myanmar🇲🇲 (@YellyKZIN) February 8, 2021
Over and over again, opponents of the regime post photos of Aung San Suu Kyi. Even if the daughter of the independence hero Aung San has lost much respect in the West due to her silence on violence against the Rohingya, in her homeland many still revere her as an indomitable fighter against the military. One of his words is currently being shared on the Internet: “The only real prison is fear. And the only real freedom is freedom from fear.”
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