November 9, 2022 • 34 mins
The revolution moves from the streets of Yangon to Myanmar’s ‘shatter zones’
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Sitting at a pool bar and Mason listening to covers
of cretent songs by the house band and losing a
pool against Andy and the boys. It's hard to think
of them hold up behind a barricade clutching molotovs. But
not so long ago, the choices the boys face were
pretty stark. Every day, every time they went out from
their little apartment, they knew they might not come back.
(00:24):
But I think the most fucked up thing that we
had to plan was what if someone get shot one
of us and the other person have to go carry
um who do you go? Who gets hits? You know?
And we had to kind of like what we did
this now? But like, okay, if I get hit, you
know two of you this, this, and this person will
(00:46):
come out and you know, do this to me because
it's it's um, I don't know. I think we were
planning because it just it's just good to have that,
you know, because if someone gets shot and if all
of five of us go ran in there, there's more targets,
you know what I mean. So then like if someone
would wait last weight get shots, then you know, this
person go. If someone heavier get shot, this two person
(01:09):
go something like that. When Andy says like we did earlier,
he's talking about a small stop the bleed type course
that we had given the boys. Most journalists operating in
war zones will take at minimum a week long Hostile
Environment and first Aid training or heath at course. Many
of us will take extra courses. James and I both
refreshed our Wilderness first Responder certificates once we had this
(01:31):
trip planned. Andy and his brothers didn't have access to
any of this. They learned what they could off the
internet and tried to protect themselves as best as they
were able with gear they purchased from an air soft store.
The afternoon we spent practicing skills. Wasn't nearly enough, but
until they can travel safely more than a few miles
from the border, it was better than nothing. Their little
apartment had one way in and one way out. If
(01:52):
the cops came, there was no escape. They had a
plan for that too. Yeah, So our plan was literally
just to burn the at fucking door down so then
it would be difficult for them to come in, and
then you know, we'll do I don't know, whatever we
can with the weapon we had um, but we weren't
going to make it out, you know, and having to
plan all that with these kids, like it's like funked up.
(02:13):
There were times that like they wake up by night screaming,
like they you know, they I think now it's better, right,
It's been a year and a half and we are
like we're better at coping with it. But at that
time it was very, very scary, so that they'd be
prepared to burn their door and the rest of their
apartment down around themselves. The boys kept a stockpile of
molotovs mixed and ready by the front door at all times.
(02:36):
They lived in a state of permanent readiness to commit
revolutionary suicide for weeks on end. Eventually they decided they
had to flee. We should probably talk history here for
(02:57):
just a little bit. Me and mar is a noon
aim for a very old land. Over the centuries, it's
been ruled by a series of empires and dynasties. The
Mongols took over for a while in the twelve hundreds
and thirteen hundreds, and when they left Lower Burma had
a warring states period of its own. The modern nation
of Burma didn't start to come together until the sixteen
hundreds and seventeen hundreds, and things didn't really congeal into
(03:20):
a state until the reign of the last two Burmese kings,
who industrialized the country and reformed its military enough to
win a series of wars against neighboring groups like the Arakan.
This is what brought them into conflict with the British
Raj right at the turn of the nineteenth century. Their
wars were sending refugees into India, and the Burmese king's
designs on Thailand and British controlled Bangladesh led to a
(03:43):
policy wherein the Bridge supported insurgent fighters who struck out
at Burmese positions. A series of near clashes between British
and Burmese forces followed, and in January of eighteen twenty four,
the Burmese King Bagada gave his generals the order to attack.
A pair of brutal jungle wars followed, and despite winning
several victories early on, Burmese troops were crushed comprehensively whenever
(04:06):
they engaged British forces in conventional battles. In January of
eighteen eighty six, British forces entered the capital, Mandalay and
brought an end to Burmese independence for almost sixty years.
These are the broad strokes of the story, as you'll
find them summed up in almost any history book. As
with most colonial history, the reality is somewhat messier than that.
(04:29):
The Burmese Empire the British destroyed was dominated heavily by
the Bumah people, who gave the colony its name, but
there were other peoples in the territory. They claimed the Shin,
the Karin, Urrakan, the Rohinga, and dozens. More Like most
empires dominated by a single ethnicity, they were brutal. Father
San Germano, who lived in pre raj Burma, wrote of
(04:51):
the king, he is considered by himself and others absolute
lord of the lives, properties, and personal services of his subjects.
He exalts into presses, confers, takes away honor and rank,
and without any process of law, can put to death
not only criminals guilty of capital offenses, but any individual
who happens to incur his displeasure. It is here a
perilous thing for a person to become distinguished for wealth
(05:13):
and possessions, for the day may easily come when he
will be charged with some supposed crime, and so put
to death in order that his property may be confiscated.
Every subject is the Emperor's born slave, and when he
calls anyone his slave, he thinks thereby to do him honor. Hence,
also he considers himself entitled to employ his subjects in
any work of service without salary or pay, and if
(05:34):
he makes them any recompense, it is done not from
a sense of justice, but as an act of bounty.
And while Bagudah was a fairly modern king, brutality like
this went back hundreds of years in the region. Most
of the kings and princes and other people who ruled
the land we now call me Anmar did so with
brutal force and an awful lot of conscription. This is
(05:55):
broadly true of much of Southeast Asia. Western histories of
this region tend to flatten life into kingdoms and empires
and assume life in the region coincided politically with the
lines drawn on maps. This was never the case. Much
of mainland Southeast Asia, from the central highlands of Vietnam
through Myanmar, northeast India, and several southern Chinese provinces, is
(06:16):
filled with terrifying mountains and brutal hills covered with the
densest jungle imaginable. Standing in Masot and staring across the
border into Myanmar, all you see is a vast expanse
of jagged, deep green peaks rolling endlessly on. James and
I are both experienced backpackers, and neither of us would
have wanted to take on that terrain without quality gear
(06:37):
and weeks of endurance training. In an era before planes,
helicopters or satellite communications, this area was practically ungovernable. People
were aware of this at the time, and for roughly
the last two thousand years, this chunk of highland Southeast Asia,
known to political scientists as Zonia, has been a refuge
for people pushed out and put down by the great
(06:58):
state powers of the area. Empires and kings would stick
to the coasts and the flat plains, perfect for cultivating rice.
When they taxed their subjects too hard or conscripted too
many of them into the military, some would flee to
the hills to take their freedom. As James C. Scott,
a Yale policy professor, writes, the frontier operated as a
(07:19):
rough and ready homeostatic device. The more estate pressed its subjects,
the fewer subjects it had. The frontier under wrote freedom.
He calls the people who chose to inhabit this stateless
zone barbarians by choice. While many of these ethnic groups
were mocked for their lack of so called civilized values
like widespread literacy, Scott argues that this lack was actually
(07:42):
a conscious rejection. The refusal to educate themselves in a
manner acceptable to the powers of the day was a
rebellion against the legitimacy of those powers and their standards.
Human history and our modern globe is filled with places
like this. Muddied areas at the borders of great powers
were the detritus of war. Refugees and beaten soldiers can
(08:03):
congregate without fear of the state. The term for these
places is shatter zones. Rojava, the radical feminist enclave in
northeast Syria, would be one example of a shatter zone
and the unique political potential such places have. Myanmar is
by land mass, mostly shatter zones, and since nineteen forty nine,
different ethnic armed organizations have existed in a more or
(08:26):
less constant conflict with the state. This includes the Karin people,
whose territory borders Thailand. When the young millennial and Zoomer
protesters in the cities realized they were going to have
to flee their homes to continue the fight. Karin territory
was a natural place to retreat to. People had been
making versions of the same decision for two thousand years.
(08:46):
The current situation between the Kuran and Myanmar's military junta
actually owes a lot to the British Empire. When they
took over in Myanmar, they had to figure out how
to govern it, and they went with the tactic that
had served them well all across India and Africa. They
picked a minority ethnic group to act as their colonial
shock troops. In Uganda, there preferred warrior race were the
(09:07):
Kaqwa people, from whom future dictator Idi Amine descended. For
their colonial troops. In India, the Brits used Sikhs and Gurkhas,
and in colonial Burma they used the Karin. Ever since
the British left, the Karin have wanted as little as
possible to do with the central government and Napoda. Instead,
they fought to maintain cadule, a land without darkness, as
(09:28):
they were promised in Burma's nineteen forty eight constitution. Today,
they might not be recognized by the UN or the
US but the Karin have their own schools, hospitals, and army.
They have been at war since nineteen forty nine. Andy,
whose father is Karin, only really found out about the
struggle for Quadule, a home for the Karin language peoples
when he became a refugee. He moved into the camps
(09:51):
along the border after the Saffron Revolution. He was only
eight years old. The border is dotted with camps, some
of them more like towns, but they're always timber rary
and while the Thai government tolerates the Karin presence, people
there are seen as temporarily displaced. They can't build solid
homes and don't have the identity documents they need to
travel even internally in Thailand. Despite not growing up there.
(10:14):
Andy's identity cards, says Karin. It doesn't take a pH
d in history to know that ethnic identity cards issued
by imperial and formerly post colonial governments are bad news.
But if you need more information about that, maybe google
i D cards Comma Rwanda. Like most people in most places,
(10:35):
the young people from Mima we talked to you had
thought relatively little about the injustices on the edge of
their world. They tend to think of the karen Is
terrorists up in the hills rather than freedom fighters. But
once the Topmodoor started unloading machine guns into crowds, people
were confronted with the reality of a situation that they've
been able to ignore before. Suddenly they saw that the
(10:56):
Karen and other marginalized ethnic groups were victims of the
same violence that they now faced, and now the scales
had fallen from their eyes, they were going to do
something about it. The main majority of groups people they
are current people, which is another ethnic groups from New
More and they they had a different view, right because
(11:20):
obviously the military. While we were like because we were
born in the city, we were more like you know,
like we didn't suffer that much, even though it wasn't
that great, you know. But then for them, the military
come to their states, the military come to their villages,
They burned the villages, they kill the people, they read
the people, you know, they do all these atrocities. Um.
So then they have a very different view on the
(11:43):
Miamar military and how the country is you know, working
doing and um so that's when I started learning, oh, ship,
like there is some other stuff going on in the country,
but you know, like you kind of just you kind
of just live with your life. You know, you your kid,
you're trying to get by iddity like, so you didn't
really think about it. And for me that god on
(12:06):
that go that went on for a long time until
the military will happen in the present revolution is not
the only flara of interethnic violence in the country. The Tatmodor,
under ming A Klan, began a concerted campaign of genocidal
ethnic cleansing against the Rehina people, a largely Muslim ethnic
(12:26):
group who live in the country's or a kind state.
The Tatmodor, claiming the Rehinia were variously terrorists or illegal
immigrants native to modern day Bangladesh and hence not native
to me and Mar, spent months raping, killing, and burning
the villages of the Rehanga people. While the world, perhaps
distracted by a neoliberal consensus which demoniedes both migrants and Muslims,
(12:47):
did funk all to stop them. In Myanmar, nobody spoke
about the genocide, at least not in those terms. Most
people didn't even speak about the Rehinda in those terms.
Because Tatmodor propaganda was so affect to the citizens in
Yangon really believe that Hina were migrants and terrorists coming
from Bangladesh. Government newspapers like The New Light of Myanmar
(13:09):
published daily stories linking them to groups like ISIS or
al Qaida, who, despite their best efforts, remain totally irrelevant
in this story. Box popped up on Facebook, which is
basically synonymous with the Internet for many people living in Myanmar,
and fed a steady diet of anti Rahana hate speech
into political discourse, gradually shifting the Overton window towards the endocide.
(13:31):
And without better information, most people believe them, and these
Western friends, probably weirdos like me who had crept into
his d MS at some point, started to ask him questions.
So the rein thing happened, and he done seventeen. I
was seventeen, and you know, we started hearing it. I
started getting phone calls from my friends in the western countries,
(13:52):
like Westerners. They would be like, Hey, what's happening in
your country? Why are you killing like all the Muslims,
and I mean, like mess out thaily and I'm like,
I don't know what you're talking about. I've never heard
anything like that, right, um, and so yeah, and then
I like I try to learn a little bit more.
But everyone has so intense opinions about it that at
(14:13):
some time I'm like a funk, I don't I don't
know anymore, you know, because the military was in control
at that time still kind of so they control the news,
they control the media, they control it's the same thing,
you know, like they control who was saying what, and
so we never hear about it that much. If you only,
if only you care so much and you're following everyone
that is saying you know the truth, then you know.
(14:37):
But otherwise you you didn't know. It was all very blurry,
very so that that's another time when I'm like funk,
like I don't know what to do. I'm just gonna
you know. And then one on in my life, um
and yeah, I never I never realized how much, like
how much they had to suffer and they are still suffering, right,
no number of international protests stop the ethnic cleansing of
(14:58):
the Rainer. As they huddled hidden in their apartment, Andy
and his brothers began to embrace the need for deadly
violence against Sarah Pressu's We never had any plans. Actually,
we were just like no, I think I remember, it's
like that was not really planned it was like they
killed our people who were fucking hurt them back, you know.
It wasn't too get their guns or shoot them back,
(15:20):
Like we didn't even know how to use any of that,
you know, And honestly, we didn't even want to kill them.
We just want to be like, you can't do these
things and not feel, not feel any any anything, you know,
not not feel any consequences of that, Like we're not
fucking we're not animals, and you know, you can't just
come in and killed one of our friends and think
(15:43):
that we're not going to do anything back, you know,
like if we let that happen, then they're never going
to stop, you know. You they were trying to scare us,
and we were trying to scare them back, but they
actually kill people. We didn't. We never wanted to kill anyone.
You know. Andy's situation felt hopeless at this stage. Trapped
at the capitol and watching his friends disappear one by one.
(16:04):
It seemed like he was running out of options. Thousands
of young people and me and Mark felt the same,
and some of them decided to take an option they
hadn't even known existed. A few weeks earlier, while we
were in Messat, we conducted a phone interview with a
former rebel fighter named Alex. Like everyone else we talked to,
he woke up on the first of February to find
(16:24):
out that his phone didn't work and the Internet was out. Yeah,
I thought like it was just you know, like something
wrong with my phone. And then like I started talking
to my friends, and all my friends are having the
same problem. So we looked down and everybody is like
watching down to the market because we live close to
the market. Like they were like you know, like doing
like like buying lots of rise and like full until
(16:48):
I stop, because no one knows what's gonna happen. Like
everyone else, he wasn't into politics, but he was absolutely
not into having the military funk with every aspect of
his life. So he got into the streets first, Like
we are not like that into the politics and stuff.
So we didn't know. But you know, like they can't
(17:09):
even like shut down the Internet is kind of like
controlling our life, right, so like if they can't even
do that, like you know, like we cannot imagine like
what other things they can do and which they did,
like killing the innocessive billions and stuff. So yeah. At first,
were just like, oh, yeah, we need to do something
about this and enjoy the protest. He and his friends
(17:31):
later found a shop to buy gas masks, tasers, and goggles,
but even with all their gear, they were powerless against
soldiers with guns and tear gas. He said that the
next few weeks were hard. Protests were less and less safe,
but nobody dared to talk about their plans to take
the fight to military. Everyone was worried about informants and snitches.
We didn't really like actually talk about those stuff. Like
(17:54):
we're only like discussing about you know, like a protests
and also like how to get attention from the like
embassies and stuff. But for like fight fighting bag and
you know, like going on the wars. Like I think,
like almost everyone they just decided on their own unless
they have super like trust their friends. By April, he
(18:16):
says he's seen people die in the streets. He decided
the protesting wasn't working and he needed to pick up again.
Any problem was he didn't have one, nor did his friends.
He knew some people who had guns and hated the
top of the door, but he had been raised his
whole life to think of them as terrorists. Before this,
we be you know, like brainwashed by the military like
(18:38):
pretty much our whole life. So you know, we always think, oh,
ethnic groups are like like you know, they were okay,
like wherever they see or and he didn't like it.
Just terrorists terrorists, right, that's what like the military like
make us believe our whole life. And I was kind
(18:58):
of scared to like join them because yeah, I didn't
know like you know, how to live there or like
if they're gonna came in just because like I don't
speak her. And so yeah, it was bizarrely his boss
who hooked him up with the rebels in the hills,
but he couldn't tell anyone he was going, okay, say,
got captured or turned out to be a snitch. Instead,
(19:20):
he packed his bag with some of his old clothes,
didn't even say goodbye to his family, and took a bus.
He got off that bus, waited until a man in
the car picked him up. By that night, he was
in the jungle. During the first night, they're like, you know,
we have to go God, like one of the leader
from the junger, like you know, like trainers by you
(19:41):
like walking in the dark in the forest. So we
have to walk to like somewhere we don't even know.
We have to sleep in there, like deep Gunger. He'd
read about the PDF on Facebook, but suddenly found himself
among them. Technically they were distinct unit fighting for a
return to democracy, but in practice their aimed and equipped
by the current National Liberation Army who have been fighting
(20:03):
for federal democracy for decades. Pretty soon his opinion of
the Kurren had changed. But like during my time, I
did some observation about them. Yeah, it was like obviously,
like the government is not the current people fighting the cup.
The military. The military has been like you know, like
invading the Karen villagers like Karen Land. H Yeah, they
(20:27):
were like banning down. They're like villagers like waving the womors.
You're like killing the people for like many years. So
they cannot do anything but to fight back. You know,
they have to fight back to prove that their land,
just like or the now deceased rebel soldier who interviewed
for our last series, Ilex received rudimentary training. He never
(20:49):
fired a gun before, and supplies are very limited, but
he's still got a kick out of sending a few
rounds down range, like not even in my dream, like
I never that, like I will be like houlding it
again or I shouldn't should in it. So it's be
pretty good. Yeah. Do you what kind of gun was it?
Was it a point to too or was it? Yes,
(21:11):
the first one was a point to two? Was it
hand homemade, handmade? Or was it you know, no, it's
not made, but it's kind of really old. Even in
the jungle, they were worried about males. It took a
while to make friends, he says, but eventually he fell
in with a cop who had defected, a photographer, and
a construction worker. The plan, he says, was a train
(21:34):
up in the jungle and then go home and find
the cities. Like our idea was like we one there
and training for a few miles and they'll go back
to the city like we thought, like it's gonna be
like a huge wars in the city is like Yango
or mentally and also like everywhere Yama. But yeah, it
(21:54):
it turns out like that. But instead he found himself
pulling sentry duty in the jungle for a city kids.
It was scary alone out there in the night with
a gun, surrounded by potential threats. I felt like you know,
like okay, like it's gonna happen tonight, Like they're gonna
come to our base tonight, so we I'm gonna have
to shoot that, I have to product my people find.
(22:15):
But it didn't happen. Yeah, I'll expend eight months in
the field putting sentry duty and learning the skills of
a soldier, but without arms and ammunition, there wasn't much
you could do. And his whole time training, he says,
he only fired five shots. I've kind of usels because
we don't have like enough guns, you know. Like so
(22:38):
by the tide, like there was a like astra happening,
uh like a goo. I thought like, oh, we're gonna
have to like go and you know like fight them now.
But instead, like we have to pack our staff and
move to a diva Jenko. So we were like kind
of like reputies with uniforms. But yeah, you know, if
(23:01):
I'm just keep staying there like we if we are
just going to keep running away like this, like I
don't want to stay there. I want to do something
about the needs, like the main needs in our candles,
the ribbons gainst. So I want to like come here
and like work for that the transition was hard for
eight months in a light bulb or flashing toilet. Now
(23:24):
he crossed the river, and everything seemed normal, every kind
of weird, like you know from the jungle and metal.
It's just a small river across and they're like the life, Yeah,
it's totally different. Like peoples are living their normal life
and now having to like worry for like any things
or like it was like the whole time I wasn't younger,
(23:47):
you know, like we have to worry about our country,
and like we don't want to live a normal life
and take them make you like the military's gold so like,
but they're like here, everyone is living in normal life
and it just only a way out across. Now that
he's across the river, we won't say, well, he's still
(24:07):
part of the revolution. He's raising money and doing interviews
like this, trying to organize medical supplies and hoping that
one day he can return to his country, not as
a refugee with a uniform, but practice a soldier liberating
his people, or better yet, as a citizen in a
free democracy. Yak wasn't ready to be a refugee quite yet.
(24:37):
He quickly found a role for himself in the militant
side of what had become a full fledged civil war.
Before the coup, he had been studying engineering at university,
and he liked to understand how things worked. Although Alex
and his comrades had a critical shortage of weapons, Yak
didn't only make guns at first. He made bombs too,
using knowledge that he had gained after traveling into the
(24:59):
jungle in getting training from Karin experts and explosives and
as he told us, they were very effective. Do you
think the explosives took out any soldiers? Of course, explosives.
It's all for the bathing, same explosive for their base.
Some are the trouble. So you know they came and
pick the ball and trying to cut off the ball
(25:20):
and just a slow so they die. So my trying
to cut off the cut off the wire bone wire, Yes,
but they die anyway. So it's like, oh, my best
memory is that we are using and the very first
e t N E t N in and in thanangel h.
(25:44):
Now this revolution everything is the holdings are arrest there.
It's very sad. When they made May made the idim
bawl uh we we had that the ambulas ambulus aulus
quite and less unless land it's like fight fight ambula
(26:05):
track is coming here. Okay, I think this is my
best momvie. Yes, wow, okay wow. So like the bomb
goes off and they have to send in five ambulances. Yes, yes, yes,
was it soldiers or police soldier? Soldiers? Yes? That the
soldier who who checked the rope? Yeah, it was just
bombs that the young rebels learned about. They also shattered
(26:26):
many of their misconceptions about the roles of men and women.
Yeah yeah yeah. As a woman like a mirror, stepped
(27:01):
up to the front lines and fought alongside their male comrades,
it became hard to ignore the sexism which underpinned much
of traditional Burmese culture. The music you just heard from
a Yangon punk band called Rebel Riot. They gave a
submission to use it here. They have some great songs
about the Spring Revolution, and this one focuses on the
role of women. In the video, you see young women
(27:23):
in the streets and then you see them in the
jungles carrying him sixt Me and Mama might previously have
had a woman leader, but gender equality had been far
from universal. And he told us a story about this
and we recorded it. But it was our last night
in the country and we were on our way to
another spectacular hangover, one that would see me vomiting with
(27:44):
such ferocity of the flight. The elderly tie lady took
pity on me and gave me her shopping bag once
I filled up my sick bag. In the second month
of the revolution, and he said when they were in Yangon,
the protesters would build giant barricades to keep the police back.
We've seen videos of these. They're pretty impressive, huge amounts
of palettes, boxes and burning tires. We've got some other
(28:06):
audio of him describing them. No, we could never get
close to the military. Um, it was never it was
never attacked. It was always defense. So later on, when
we started seeing how military cracked down these protesters, we
started building these gates and like sandbags in our every
(28:27):
base in the in the Young Melody, whatever across the country.
We started building these barriers so that the military trucks
cannot just come in. And it's actually crazy because sometimes
to build these things, you have to take over the
road first, so like like a main road or a highway.
So then what we do is all these little groups
will gather, so one street, two street, through street, you know,
(28:51):
and then we will go to that street, or we
will walk down the street saying we're gonna try to
take over the street. Please come join. People will calm down,
people will come down from the street from the buildings,
and then we go to the next street. We say
the same thing, and then people would join. Nothing they
did could stand up to a tank, though, just as
that shopping bag couldn't stand up to James's vomit. The
military started using human shields to get through the barricades
(29:13):
and the groups of people throwing molotov's. Usually we would
defend our places, right, we will use molotov sling shots, uh,
and we will resist like we were attacked, like we
will be in the behind the gate, but we will
kind of make them cannot come too too far, you know.
But when the military have someone that they're gun pointing,
just a normal civilian and making him move, we can't
(29:36):
do anything man like, we can't go through a molt
off like, you know. So that's when the military clean
out all of that. In Yangon, I think there was
a time when it was packed. It was every road
had it, every street had it, and everyone was guarding
that right. But then when the military started and then
they said it in the statements, they were saying, if
(29:58):
that's near your house, your response. Then they came up
with a better idea. In Burmese culture, men fear passing
under women's clothing. If it's hanging on a washing line,
they'll go around rather than under it. It is, as
Andy told us, bullshit. So they decided to turn that
bullshit back on the troops and they grabbed as many
women's launches, a traditional garment worn around the waist like
(30:19):
a sarong, as they could and hung them up above
their barricade. It worked, he said, and just like that,
a generation of Burmese kids realized that sexism hurts everyone
who perpetuates it. Miak told us an interesting story about this.
He said, the first time he met his fiancee, he
thought that she was pretty sharp for a girl that
he says now was his bad. Myanmar, he says, has
(30:42):
some gender hang ups, but he soon realized that she
was the bravest person he knew. They went to protest together,
and when something needed moving from one town to another,
they took advantage of those gender hang ups and her
bravery and she risked her life carrying weapons in her
bags on inner city buses. We'll let him tell you
how they met. It's like we we met on a maiden,
(31:03):
like you know, we started making. Maybe it's in a
very first week, first week on match making. Very very
very very respect their memories that the name of the
media is prince tell me, okay, prince tall me. The
name of the media is brainstall me die. She she
(31:23):
is very you know respected. She said the very thoughtful things.
I oh, she is, you know, so so thoughtful. I
don't even think, you know in the memoir culture is
there's a ganda, you know, so why is always good
like people? You know, something like this. So I thought
she's really good, or that she is a kid. That's
(31:44):
my bad some jianna I do die. But but later
I met with her on the project, so I saw
she is so beautiful. I thought she just dont think
years a days. But we know later, so we keep
doing together the things and she she is my bad. Dad.
(32:05):
I was ground like this and whatever I have I
have in danger all the contact her. We asked him
if you worried she get arrested while she was making
trips into the mountains with guns and bombs, but he
said no, was it hard to leave her to go
to the jungle because she could get arrested? You could
get no. No, she is very clear, but so I
(32:26):
never worry about her and just boy about mindself because
she is more you know, secret, and she is more
clayver than me. So she only teached me how to
be clear much let me out and Marry was falling
in love as well. Her relationship was a bit different though.
At first we were in a crowd chat. Yeah, but
(32:47):
then did you make the private y? Yeah? Private he
started the private chat? Did I think I did? Because
at that time, I feel like, oh, she is so
young at time, she she's not even a team. She's
seven seventeen years old and she's leading the one of
(33:07):
the forecast team. So I'm like, wow, this girl is
like amazing. Right, So that that's how I met her,
and then that's how I you know, try to hit her. Now.
Admittedly t K a security guy is translating here. He's
(33:29):
also her boyfriend and for now he's here with her
to make sure she's okay. When we met them both,
it was just weeks after he'd arrived in Thailand and
the two had met in person for the very first time.
It's a kind of story you can't help but find touching,
two people in opposite side of the world, united by
a fight for justice the bonds of revolutionary care. At least,
(33:51):
it's a nice countweight to all the stories of death
and violence, which will have more of you tomorrow on
part four in this series, It Could Happen Here as
a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from
cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com,
or check us out on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
(34:14):
find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at
cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening
Sitting at a pool bar and Mason listening to covers
of cretent songs by the house band and losing a
pool against Andy and the boys. It's hard to think
of them hold up behind a barricade clutching molotovs. But
not so long ago, the choices the boys face were
pretty stark. Every day, every time they went out from
their little apartment, they knew they might not come back.
(00:24):
But I think the most fucked up thing that we
had to plan was what if someone get shot one
of us and the other person have to go carry
um who do you go? Who gets hits? You know?
And we had to kind of like what we did
this now? But like, okay, if I get hit, you
know two of you this, this, and this person will
(00:46):
come out and you know, do this to me because
it's it's um, I don't know. I think we were
planning because it just it's just good to have that,
you know, because if someone gets shot and if all
of five of us go ran in there, there's more targets,
you know what I mean. So then like if someone
would wait last weight get shots, then you know, this
person go. If someone heavier get shot, this two person
(01:09):
go something like that. When Andy says like we did earlier,
he's talking about a small stop the bleed type course
that we had given the boys. Most journalists operating in
war zones will take at minimum a week long Hostile
Environment and first Aid training or heath at course. Many
of us will take extra courses. James and I both
refreshed our Wilderness first Responder certificates once we had this
(01:31):
trip planned. Andy and his brothers didn't have access to
any of this. They learned what they could off the
internet and tried to protect themselves as best as they
were able with gear they purchased from an air soft store.
The afternoon we spent practicing skills. Wasn't nearly enough, but
until they can travel safely more than a few miles
from the border, it was better than nothing. Their little
apartment had one way in and one way out. If
(01:52):
the cops came, there was no escape. They had a
plan for that too. Yeah, So our plan was literally
just to burn the at fucking door down so then
it would be difficult for them to come in, and
then you know, we'll do I don't know, whatever we
can with the weapon we had um, but we weren't
going to make it out, you know, and having to
plan all that with these kids, like it's like funked up.
(02:13):
There were times that like they wake up by night screaming,
like they you know, they I think now it's better, right,
It's been a year and a half and we are
like we're better at coping with it. But at that
time it was very, very scary, so that they'd be
prepared to burn their door and the rest of their
apartment down around themselves. The boys kept a stockpile of
molotovs mixed and ready by the front door at all times.
(02:36):
They lived in a state of permanent readiness to commit
revolutionary suicide for weeks on end. Eventually they decided they
had to flee. We should probably talk history here for
(02:57):
just a little bit. Me and mar is a noon
aim for a very old land. Over the centuries, it's
been ruled by a series of empires and dynasties. The
Mongols took over for a while in the twelve hundreds
and thirteen hundreds, and when they left Lower Burma had
a warring states period of its own. The modern nation
of Burma didn't start to come together until the sixteen
hundreds and seventeen hundreds, and things didn't really congeal into
(03:20):
a state until the reign of the last two Burmese kings,
who industrialized the country and reformed its military enough to
win a series of wars against neighboring groups like the Arakan.
This is what brought them into conflict with the British
Raj right at the turn of the nineteenth century. Their
wars were sending refugees into India, and the Burmese king's
designs on Thailand and British controlled Bangladesh led to a
(03:43):
policy wherein the Bridge supported insurgent fighters who struck out
at Burmese positions. A series of near clashes between British
and Burmese forces followed, and in January of eighteen twenty four,
the Burmese King Bagada gave his generals the order to attack.
A pair of brutal jungle wars followed, and despite winning
several victories early on, Burmese troops were crushed comprehensively whenever
(04:06):
they engaged British forces in conventional battles. In January of
eighteen eighty six, British forces entered the capital, Mandalay and
brought an end to Burmese independence for almost sixty years.
These are the broad strokes of the story, as you'll
find them summed up in almost any history book. As
with most colonial history, the reality is somewhat messier than that.
(04:29):
The Burmese Empire the British destroyed was dominated heavily by
the Bumah people, who gave the colony its name, but
there were other peoples in the territory. They claimed the Shin,
the Karin, Urrakan, the Rohinga, and dozens. More Like most
empires dominated by a single ethnicity, they were brutal. Father
San Germano, who lived in pre raj Burma, wrote of
(04:51):
the king, he is considered by himself and others absolute
lord of the lives, properties, and personal services of his subjects.
He exalts into presses, confers, takes away honor and rank,
and without any process of law, can put to death
not only criminals guilty of capital offenses, but any individual
who happens to incur his displeasure. It is here a
perilous thing for a person to become distinguished for wealth
(05:13):
and possessions, for the day may easily come when he
will be charged with some supposed crime, and so put
to death in order that his property may be confiscated.
Every subject is the Emperor's born slave, and when he
calls anyone his slave, he thinks thereby to do him honor. Hence,
also he considers himself entitled to employ his subjects in
any work of service without salary or pay, and if
(05:34):
he makes them any recompense, it is done not from
a sense of justice, but as an act of bounty.
And while Bagudah was a fairly modern king, brutality like
this went back hundreds of years in the region. Most
of the kings and princes and other people who ruled
the land we now call me Anmar did so with
brutal force and an awful lot of conscription. This is
(05:55):
broadly true of much of Southeast Asia. Western histories of
this region tend to flatten life into kingdoms and empires
and assume life in the region coincided politically with the
lines drawn on maps. This was never the case. Much
of mainland Southeast Asia, from the central highlands of Vietnam
through Myanmar, northeast India, and several southern Chinese provinces, is
(06:16):
filled with terrifying mountains and brutal hills covered with the
densest jungle imaginable. Standing in Masot and staring across the
border into Myanmar, all you see is a vast expanse
of jagged, deep green peaks rolling endlessly on. James and
I are both experienced backpackers, and neither of us would
have wanted to take on that terrain without quality gear
(06:37):
and weeks of endurance training. In an era before planes,
helicopters or satellite communications, this area was practically ungovernable. People
were aware of this at the time, and for roughly
the last two thousand years, this chunk of highland Southeast Asia,
known to political scientists as Zonia, has been a refuge
for people pushed out and put down by the great
(06:58):
state powers of the area. Empires and kings would stick
to the coasts and the flat plains, perfect for cultivating rice.
When they taxed their subjects too hard or conscripted too
many of them into the military, some would flee to
the hills to take their freedom. As James C. Scott,
a Yale policy professor, writes, the frontier operated as a
(07:19):
rough and ready homeostatic device. The more estate pressed its subjects,
the fewer subjects it had. The frontier under wrote freedom.
He calls the people who chose to inhabit this stateless
zone barbarians by choice. While many of these ethnic groups
were mocked for their lack of so called civilized values
like widespread literacy, Scott argues that this lack was actually
(07:42):
a conscious rejection. The refusal to educate themselves in a
manner acceptable to the powers of the day was a
rebellion against the legitimacy of those powers and their standards.
Human history and our modern globe is filled with places
like this. Muddied areas at the borders of great powers
were the detritus of war. Refugees and beaten soldiers can
(08:03):
congregate without fear of the state. The term for these
places is shatter zones. Rojava, the radical feminist enclave in
northeast Syria, would be one example of a shatter zone
and the unique political potential such places have. Myanmar is
by land mass, mostly shatter zones, and since nineteen forty nine,
different ethnic armed organizations have existed in a more or
(08:26):
less constant conflict with the state. This includes the Karin people,
whose territory borders Thailand. When the young millennial and Zoomer
protesters in the cities realized they were going to have
to flee their homes to continue the fight. Karin territory
was a natural place to retreat to. People had been
making versions of the same decision for two thousand years.
(08:46):
The current situation between the Kuran and Myanmar's military junta
actually owes a lot to the British Empire. When they
took over in Myanmar, they had to figure out how
to govern it, and they went with the tactic that
had served them well all across India and Africa. They
picked a minority ethnic group to act as their colonial
shock troops. In Uganda, there preferred warrior race were the
(09:07):
Kaqwa people, from whom future dictator Idi Amine descended. For
their colonial troops. In India, the Brits used Sikhs and Gurkhas,
and in colonial Burma they used the Karin. Ever since
the British left, the Karin have wanted as little as
possible to do with the central government and Napoda. Instead,
they fought to maintain cadule, a land without darkness, as
(09:28):
they were promised in Burma's nineteen forty eight constitution. Today,
they might not be recognized by the UN or the
US but the Karin have their own schools, hospitals, and army.
They have been at war since nineteen forty nine. Andy,
whose father is Karin, only really found out about the
struggle for Quadule, a home for the Karin language peoples
when he became a refugee. He moved into the camps
(09:51):
along the border after the Saffron Revolution. He was only
eight years old. The border is dotted with camps, some
of them more like towns, but they're always timber rary
and while the Thai government tolerates the Karin presence, people
there are seen as temporarily displaced. They can't build solid
homes and don't have the identity documents they need to
travel even internally in Thailand. Despite not growing up there.
(10:14):
Andy's identity cards, says Karin. It doesn't take a pH
d in history to know that ethnic identity cards issued
by imperial and formerly post colonial governments are bad news.
But if you need more information about that, maybe google
i D cards Comma Rwanda. Like most people in most places,
(10:35):
the young people from Mima we talked to you had
thought relatively little about the injustices on the edge of
their world. They tend to think of the karen Is
terrorists up in the hills rather than freedom fighters. But
once the Topmodoor started unloading machine guns into crowds, people
were confronted with the reality of a situation that they've
been able to ignore before. Suddenly they saw that the
(10:56):
Karen and other marginalized ethnic groups were victims of the
same violence that they now faced, and now the scales
had fallen from their eyes, they were going to do
something about it. The main majority of groups people they
are current people, which is another ethnic groups from New
More and they they had a different view, right because
(11:20):
obviously the military. While we were like because we were
born in the city, we were more like you know,
like we didn't suffer that much, even though it wasn't
that great, you know. But then for them, the military
come to their states, the military come to their villages,
They burned the villages, they kill the people, they read
the people, you know, they do all these atrocities. Um.
So then they have a very different view on the
(11:43):
Miamar military and how the country is you know, working
doing and um so that's when I started learning, oh, ship,
like there is some other stuff going on in the country,
but you know, like you kind of just you kind
of just live with your life. You know, you your kid,
you're trying to get by iddity like, so you didn't
really think about it. And for me that god on
(12:06):
that go that went on for a long time until
the military will happen in the present revolution is not
the only flara of interethnic violence in the country. The Tatmodor,
under ming A Klan, began a concerted campaign of genocidal
ethnic cleansing against the Rehina people, a largely Muslim ethnic
(12:26):
group who live in the country's or a kind state.
The Tatmodor, claiming the Rehinia were variously terrorists or illegal
immigrants native to modern day Bangladesh and hence not native
to me and Mar, spent months raping, killing, and burning
the villages of the Rehanga people. While the world, perhaps
distracted by a neoliberal consensus which demoniedes both migrants and Muslims,
(12:47):
did funk all to stop them. In Myanmar, nobody spoke
about the genocide, at least not in those terms. Most
people didn't even speak about the Rehinda in those terms.
Because Tatmodor propaganda was so affect to the citizens in
Yangon really believe that Hina were migrants and terrorists coming
from Bangladesh. Government newspapers like The New Light of Myanmar
(13:09):
published daily stories linking them to groups like ISIS or
al Qaida, who, despite their best efforts, remain totally irrelevant
in this story. Box popped up on Facebook, which is
basically synonymous with the Internet for many people living in Myanmar,
and fed a steady diet of anti Rahana hate speech
into political discourse, gradually shifting the Overton window towards the endocide.
(13:31):
And without better information, most people believe them, and these
Western friends, probably weirdos like me who had crept into
his d MS at some point, started to ask him questions.
So the rein thing happened, and he done seventeen. I
was seventeen, and you know, we started hearing it. I
started getting phone calls from my friends in the western countries,
(13:52):
like Westerners. They would be like, Hey, what's happening in
your country? Why are you killing like all the Muslims,
and I mean, like mess out thaily and I'm like,
I don't know what you're talking about. I've never heard
anything like that, right, um, and so yeah, and then
I like I try to learn a little bit more.
But everyone has so intense opinions about it that at
(14:13):
some time I'm like a funk, I don't I don't
know anymore, you know, because the military was in control
at that time still kind of so they control the news,
they control the media, they control it's the same thing,
you know, like they control who was saying what, and
so we never hear about it that much. If you only,
if only you care so much and you're following everyone
that is saying you know the truth, then you know.
(14:37):
But otherwise you you didn't know. It was all very blurry,
very so that that's another time when I'm like funk,
like I don't know what to do. I'm just gonna
you know. And then one on in my life, um
and yeah, I never I never realized how much, like
how much they had to suffer and they are still suffering, right,
no number of international protests stop the ethnic cleansing of
(14:58):
the Rainer. As they huddled hidden in their apartment, Andy
and his brothers began to embrace the need for deadly
violence against Sarah Pressu's We never had any plans. Actually,
we were just like no, I think I remember, it's
like that was not really planned it was like they
killed our people who were fucking hurt them back, you know.
It wasn't too get their guns or shoot them back,
(15:20):
Like we didn't even know how to use any of that,
you know, And honestly, we didn't even want to kill them.
We just want to be like, you can't do these
things and not feel, not feel any any anything, you know,
not not feel any consequences of that, Like we're not
fucking we're not animals, and you know, you can't just
come in and killed one of our friends and think
(15:43):
that we're not going to do anything back, you know,
like if we let that happen, then they're never going
to stop, you know. You they were trying to scare us,
and we were trying to scare them back, but they
actually kill people. We didn't. We never wanted to kill anyone.
You know. Andy's situation felt hopeless at this stage. Trapped
at the capitol and watching his friends disappear one by one.
(16:04):
It seemed like he was running out of options. Thousands
of young people and me and Mark felt the same,
and some of them decided to take an option they
hadn't even known existed. A few weeks earlier, while we
were in Messat, we conducted a phone interview with a
former rebel fighter named Alex. Like everyone else we talked to,
he woke up on the first of February to find
(16:24):
out that his phone didn't work and the Internet was out. Yeah,
I thought like it was just you know, like something
wrong with my phone. And then like I started talking
to my friends, and all my friends are having the
same problem. So we looked down and everybody is like
watching down to the market because we live close to
the market. Like they were like you know, like doing
like like buying lots of rise and like full until
(16:48):
I stop, because no one knows what's gonna happen. Like
everyone else, he wasn't into politics, but he was absolutely
not into having the military funk with every aspect of
his life. So he got into the streets first, Like
we are not like that into the politics and stuff.
So we didn't know. But you know, like they can't
(17:09):
even like shut down the Internet is kind of like
controlling our life, right, so like if they can't even
do that, like you know, like we cannot imagine like
what other things they can do and which they did,
like killing the innocessive billions and stuff. So yeah. At first,
were just like, oh, yeah, we need to do something
about this and enjoy the protest. He and his friends
(17:31):
later found a shop to buy gas masks, tasers, and goggles,
but even with all their gear, they were powerless against
soldiers with guns and tear gas. He said that the
next few weeks were hard. Protests were less and less safe,
but nobody dared to talk about their plans to take
the fight to military. Everyone was worried about informants and snitches.
We didn't really like actually talk about those stuff. Like
(17:54):
we're only like discussing about you know, like a protests
and also like how to get attention from the like
embassies and stuff. But for like fight fighting bag and
you know, like going on the wars. Like I think,
like almost everyone they just decided on their own unless
they have super like trust their friends. By April, he
(18:16):
says he's seen people die in the streets. He decided
the protesting wasn't working and he needed to pick up again.
Any problem was he didn't have one, nor did his friends.
He knew some people who had guns and hated the
top of the door, but he had been raised his
whole life to think of them as terrorists. Before this,
we be you know, like brainwashed by the military like
(18:38):
pretty much our whole life. So you know, we always think, oh,
ethnic groups are like like you know, they were okay,
like wherever they see or and he didn't like it.
Just terrorists terrorists, right, that's what like the military like
make us believe our whole life. And I was kind
(18:58):
of scared to like join them because yeah, I didn't
know like you know, how to live there or like
if they're gonna came in just because like I don't
speak her. And so yeah, it was bizarrely his boss
who hooked him up with the rebels in the hills,
but he couldn't tell anyone he was going, okay, say,
got captured or turned out to be a snitch. Instead,
(19:20):
he packed his bag with some of his old clothes,
didn't even say goodbye to his family, and took a bus.
He got off that bus, waited until a man in
the car picked him up. By that night, he was
in the jungle. During the first night, they're like, you know,
we have to go God, like one of the leader
from the junger, like you know, like trainers by you
(19:41):
like walking in the dark in the forest. So we
have to walk to like somewhere we don't even know.
We have to sleep in there, like deep Gunger. He'd
read about the PDF on Facebook, but suddenly found himself
among them. Technically they were distinct unit fighting for a
return to democracy, but in practice their aimed and equipped
by the current National Liberation Army who have been fighting
(20:03):
for federal democracy for decades. Pretty soon his opinion of
the Kurren had changed. But like during my time, I
did some observation about them. Yeah, it was like obviously,
like the government is not the current people fighting the cup.
The military. The military has been like you know, like
invading the Karen villagers like Karen Land. H Yeah, they
(20:27):
were like banning down. They're like villagers like waving the womors.
You're like killing the people for like many years. So
they cannot do anything but to fight back. You know,
they have to fight back to prove that their land,
just like or the now deceased rebel soldier who interviewed
for our last series, Ilex received rudimentary training. He never
(20:49):
fired a gun before, and supplies are very limited, but
he's still got a kick out of sending a few
rounds down range, like not even in my dream, like
I never that, like I will be like houlding it
again or I shouldn't should in it. So it's be
pretty good. Yeah. Do you what kind of gun was it?
Was it a point to too or was it? Yes,
(21:11):
the first one was a point to two? Was it
hand homemade, handmade? Or was it you know, no, it's
not made, but it's kind of really old. Even in
the jungle, they were worried about males. It took a
while to make friends, he says, but eventually he fell
in with a cop who had defected, a photographer, and
a construction worker. The plan, he says, was a train
(21:34):
up in the jungle and then go home and find
the cities. Like our idea was like we one there
and training for a few miles and they'll go back
to the city like we thought, like it's gonna be
like a huge wars in the city is like Yango
or mentally and also like everywhere Yama. But yeah, it
(21:54):
it turns out like that. But instead he found himself
pulling sentry duty in the jungle for a city kids.
It was scary alone out there in the night with
a gun, surrounded by potential threats. I felt like you know,
like okay, like it's gonna happen tonight, Like they're gonna
come to our base tonight, so we I'm gonna have
to shoot that, I have to product my people find.
(22:15):
But it didn't happen. Yeah, I'll expend eight months in
the field putting sentry duty and learning the skills of
a soldier, but without arms and ammunition, there wasn't much
you could do. And his whole time training, he says,
he only fired five shots. I've kind of usels because
we don't have like enough guns, you know. Like so
(22:38):
by the tide, like there was a like astra happening,
uh like a goo. I thought like, oh, we're gonna
have to like go and you know like fight them now.
But instead, like we have to pack our staff and
move to a diva Jenko. So we were like kind
of like reputies with uniforms. But yeah, you know, if
(23:01):
I'm just keep staying there like we if we are
just going to keep running away like this, like I
don't want to stay there. I want to do something
about the needs, like the main needs in our candles,
the ribbons gainst. So I want to like come here
and like work for that the transition was hard for
eight months in a light bulb or flashing toilet. Now
(23:24):
he crossed the river, and everything seemed normal, every kind
of weird, like you know from the jungle and metal.
It's just a small river across and they're like the life, Yeah,
it's totally different. Like peoples are living their normal life
and now having to like worry for like any things
or like it was like the whole time I wasn't younger,
(23:47):
you know, like we have to worry about our country,
and like we don't want to live a normal life
and take them make you like the military's gold so like,
but they're like here, everyone is living in normal life
and it just only a way out across. Now that
he's across the river, we won't say, well, he's still
(24:07):
part of the revolution. He's raising money and doing interviews
like this, trying to organize medical supplies and hoping that
one day he can return to his country, not as
a refugee with a uniform, but practice a soldier liberating
his people, or better yet, as a citizen in a
free democracy. Yak wasn't ready to be a refugee quite yet.
(24:37):
He quickly found a role for himself in the militant
side of what had become a full fledged civil war.
Before the coup, he had been studying engineering at university,
and he liked to understand how things worked. Although Alex
and his comrades had a critical shortage of weapons, Yak
didn't only make guns at first. He made bombs too,
using knowledge that he had gained after traveling into the
(24:59):
jungle in getting training from Karin experts and explosives and
as he told us, they were very effective. Do you
think the explosives took out any soldiers? Of course, explosives.
It's all for the bathing, same explosive for their base.
Some are the trouble. So you know they came and
pick the ball and trying to cut off the ball
(25:20):
and just a slow so they die. So my trying
to cut off the cut off the wire bone wire, Yes,
but they die anyway. So it's like, oh, my best
memory is that we are using and the very first
e t N E t N in and in thanangel h.
(25:44):
Now this revolution everything is the holdings are arrest there.
It's very sad. When they made May made the idim
bawl uh we we had that the ambulas ambulus aulus
quite and less unless land it's like fight fight ambula
(26:05):
track is coming here. Okay, I think this is my
best momvie. Yes, wow, okay wow. So like the bomb
goes off and they have to send in five ambulances. Yes, yes, yes,
was it soldiers or police soldier? Soldiers? Yes? That the
soldier who who checked the rope? Yeah, it was just
bombs that the young rebels learned about. They also shattered
(26:26):
many of their misconceptions about the roles of men and women.
Yeah yeah yeah. As a woman like a mirror, stepped
(27:01):
up to the front lines and fought alongside their male comrades,
it became hard to ignore the sexism which underpinned much
of traditional Burmese culture. The music you just heard from
a Yangon punk band called Rebel Riot. They gave a
submission to use it here. They have some great songs
about the Spring Revolution, and this one focuses on the
role of women. In the video, you see young women
(27:23):
in the streets and then you see them in the
jungles carrying him sixt Me and Mama might previously have
had a woman leader, but gender equality had been far
from universal. And he told us a story about this
and we recorded it. But it was our last night
in the country and we were on our way to
another spectacular hangover, one that would see me vomiting with
(27:44):
such ferocity of the flight. The elderly tie lady took
pity on me and gave me her shopping bag once
I filled up my sick bag. In the second month
of the revolution, and he said when they were in Yangon,
the protesters would build giant barricades to keep the police back.
We've seen videos of these. They're pretty impressive, huge amounts
of palettes, boxes and burning tires. We've got some other
(28:06):
audio of him describing them. No, we could never get
close to the military. Um, it was never it was
never attacked. It was always defense. So later on, when
we started seeing how military cracked down these protesters, we
started building these gates and like sandbags in our every
(28:27):
base in the in the Young Melody, whatever across the country.
We started building these barriers so that the military trucks
cannot just come in. And it's actually crazy because sometimes
to build these things, you have to take over the
road first, so like like a main road or a highway.
So then what we do is all these little groups
will gather, so one street, two street, through street, you know,
(28:51):
and then we will go to that street, or we
will walk down the street saying we're gonna try to
take over the street. Please come join. People will calm down,
people will come down from the street from the buildings,
and then we go to the next street. We say
the same thing, and then people would join. Nothing they
did could stand up to a tank, though, just as
that shopping bag couldn't stand up to James's vomit. The
military started using human shields to get through the barricades
(29:13):
and the groups of people throwing molotov's. Usually we would
defend our places, right, we will use molotov sling shots, uh,
and we will resist like we were attacked, like we
will be in the behind the gate, but we will
kind of make them cannot come too too far, you know.
But when the military have someone that they're gun pointing,
just a normal civilian and making him move, we can't
(29:36):
do anything man like, we can't go through a molt
off like, you know. So that's when the military clean
out all of that. In Yangon, I think there was
a time when it was packed. It was every road
had it, every street had it, and everyone was guarding
that right. But then when the military started and then
they said it in the statements, they were saying, if
(29:58):
that's near your house, your response. Then they came up
with a better idea. In Burmese culture, men fear passing
under women's clothing. If it's hanging on a washing line,
they'll go around rather than under it. It is, as
Andy told us, bullshit. So they decided to turn that
bullshit back on the troops and they grabbed as many
women's launches, a traditional garment worn around the waist like
(30:19):
a sarong, as they could and hung them up above
their barricade. It worked, he said, and just like that,
a generation of Burmese kids realized that sexism hurts everyone
who perpetuates it. Miak told us an interesting story about this.
He said, the first time he met his fiancee, he
thought that she was pretty sharp for a girl that
he says now was his bad. Myanmar, he says, has
(30:42):
some gender hang ups, but he soon realized that she
was the bravest person he knew. They went to protest together,
and when something needed moving from one town to another,
they took advantage of those gender hang ups and her
bravery and she risked her life carrying weapons in her
bags on inner city buses. We'll let him tell you
how they met. It's like we we met on a maiden,
(31:03):
like you know, we started making. Maybe it's in a
very first week, first week on match making. Very very
very very respect their memories that the name of the
media is prince tell me, okay, prince tall me. The
name of the media is brainstall me die. She she
(31:23):
is very you know respected. She said the very thoughtful things.
I oh, she is, you know, so so thoughtful. I
don't even think, you know in the memoir culture is
there's a ganda, you know, so why is always good
like people? You know, something like this. So I thought
she's really good, or that she is a kid. That's
(31:44):
my bad some jianna I do die. But but later
I met with her on the project, so I saw
she is so beautiful. I thought she just dont think
years a days. But we know later, so we keep
doing together the things and she she is my bad. Dad.
(32:05):
I was ground like this and whatever I have I
have in danger all the contact her. We asked him
if you worried she get arrested while she was making
trips into the mountains with guns and bombs, but he
said no, was it hard to leave her to go
to the jungle because she could get arrested? You could
get no. No, she is very clear, but so I
(32:26):
never worry about her and just boy about mindself because
she is more you know, secret, and she is more
clayver than me. So she only teached me how to
be clear much let me out and Marry was falling
in love as well. Her relationship was a bit different though.
At first we were in a crowd chat. Yeah, but
(32:47):
then did you make the private y? Yeah? Private he
started the private chat? Did I think I did? Because
at that time, I feel like, oh, she is so
young at time, she she's not even a team. She's
seven seventeen years old and she's leading the one of
(33:07):
the forecast team. So I'm like, wow, this girl is
like amazing. Right, So that that's how I met her,
and then that's how I you know, try to hit her. Now.
Admittedly t K a security guy is translating here. He's
(33:29):
also her boyfriend and for now he's here with her
to make sure she's okay. When we met them both,
it was just weeks after he'd arrived in Thailand and
the two had met in person for the very first time.
It's a kind of story you can't help but find touching,
two people in opposite side of the world, united by
a fight for justice the bonds of revolutionary care. At least,
(33:51):
it's a nice countweight to all the stories of death
and violence, which will have more of you tomorrow on
part four in this series, It Could Happen Here as
a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from
cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com,
or check us out on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
(34:14):
find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at
cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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