Monday Mini: "The Princess Protests" in Myanmar

Anney and Samantha discuss what's going on in Myanmar after a military coup resulted in thousands of people protesting, many of them in costume.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff
I've never told you production. I heart radio, so I
wanted to ask you today's Samantha questions. And I'm pretty
sure I already know the answer to but I would
be delighted if I was wrong. Do you remember what

(00:26):
the last thing you dressed up as was? I thought
you were gonna ask me if I've ever been in
a pageant? Oh? Yes, yes, tell me that too. Yes,
I have, actually one. I did not do well to
last thing I dressed up as well? I think it
was when you and I did our little Halloween thing

(00:47):
and I was the Onesie shark and then he just
also had a shark hat on which I was watching
again to lifefully as you were Hella. Yes, but I'm
sure have you dressed up since then? Even? Yeah, Like
I think I have worn more costumes than real clothes
during quarantine. I actually I love it. How many times

(01:08):
have you wore the Spider Man Onesie? I've only worn
that one once, because, as you know, Samantha, Onesie's kind
of a commitment. It really is. I'm a single lady.
I gotta reach with the zipper. There's all kinds of
contortions happening. You don't really have to zip yourself up,
just put it on. I want to look good. There's
no one around to see it, but I want to
look good, So what the cost to you? Have you

(01:31):
dressed up in? Recently so I have been working on
my Luke Skyworker cosplay, So some of it's just testing,
right of like does this fit and how does this look?
And one of the issues I'm sure anyone else who's
like cosplate or like even just bought costumes that were
made with men in mind, is that they're big and
like weird places, so I look kind of boxing. So

(01:52):
having to deal with that issue, and I'm not much
of a sewer, so it's been interesting. Interesting, you know,
I have to have problems to people who are really
good at cosplay and are able to sew their own stuff,
but not only that to make it look good because
I have no concept of that creativity. Yeah I don't

(02:13):
really either, Like I have my skill set and sewing
is not one. So I've resorted to like tape and glue,
like all kinds of interesting solutions, and then you're like
crossing your fingers, like please don't change in size? Right?
My favorite thing is the needless soul less hymns where
you can just iron it on and patch it on.

(02:34):
It doesn't been a dream, Yes, those our dream. And
I can't do some really basic sewing like my Winter
Soldier costume, like the silver arm that's sewed on and
the other that is sewed on, but it's like it
doesn't look good. It's mostly covered up. It looks good.
The only song I really do is if it's like
a hole in a T shirt and I can get
that together, and then performing surgery on all the toys

(02:57):
that Peaches has destroyed. Oh yeah, toys or yeah, they
don't look good. Yeah, that's about where I am too.
And I also wasn't pageants. I have no clear memory
of it though, but I have a picture with Miss Georgia. Yeah,
I did not get that far. I can't remember. I

(03:17):
mean literally, it could have just been she was there
and I was there. I don't remember it at all.
So today we are talking about me and mar and
I promise this question will make sense if you're curious
as to why we're talking about costumes and princesses and pageants,
and because this is a very rapidly changing situation. But

(03:38):
the date on here, Lord, I don't know what it is.
It's February. I hate that. Oh gosh, you made me
say it on purpose. In you so I February. It
is within that area at the very least, because I'm
just stressing you, I have no idea. So we wanted

(03:58):
to do a brief overview of what is happening in
myan mar and the situation is really complicated to say
that at the start we could come back and do
an entire episode on it. Maybe we will, But the
focus in particular for this many is the protests, the
protests that are happening there. So on February one, a
military coup overthrew the democratically elected government of on San Succi,

(04:21):
claiming without evidence, the results of the election held a
November were fraudulent, and internet access was restricted for an
entire day. And actually when I first was researching this,
it was still pretty new. Lately, the internet has been
restricted several more days right as in fact, there was
a whole blackout. I remember seeing many of people tweeting like,
I don't know how long this is gonna last, but

(04:43):
just to let you know, this is what's happening. This
is what we're seeing. And even to the point, I
don't know if you've seen that now it's become a meme.
The woman trying to do her workout video and she's
doing it in front of the capital and then has
the stage is happening. She doesn't realize as she's dancing,
and it's like, oh my odd. Could you imagine being
this woman and be like I'm doing something fun and

(05:03):
we're gonna work out, and oh my god, we're like
the whole places under siege and the coup just happened.
Which also just to kind of point out here too,
in response to that, a lot of the people in
the US try to compare their own coup to what
is happening with me and Mark stating that they took
it from the US and that the US was trying
to do the same. So it was a whole it's
a whole mess. So it definitely does seem like there's

(05:26):
a correlation in the spread of this information of stolen elections,
for sure. Yeah, that was definitely a conversation that happened
of like I mean, even just saying that it feels weird,
it feels very similar. So in response to this, coup.
Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets

(05:47):
to protest, despite a curfew and a ban on large gatherings,
including a lot of young people in costumes holding why
signs like my ex is bad, but the mean mar
military is worse. I still can't believe I have to
protest the wedding gown dictatorship. Thank you, next Marvel characters,
Harry Potter characters, those dinosaur outfits that I love and

(06:07):
I'm going to get one day. I love them so
and right now they feel they feel like maybe useful bodybuilders,
and so so many women in ball gowns or wedding gowns,
so hints the pageants and costume questions at the top.
One female protester explained, we want to show that young

(06:28):
girls are also participating against the military coup. We thought
these costumes were the most obvious way to do that.
And yea, some beauty pageant participants even protested in their
evening gown and trs. And there has been some conversation
around because the princess is such a loaded like when
it comes to women, kind of has this history of

(06:49):
being sexist or being like this really stereotypical woman. So
there's been there's been discourse around that, but it is striking,
Like if you haven't seen pictures of this, it's striking.
And a few people have described an almost carnival like
atmosphere at these protests. Many people sat in these small

(07:09):
inflatable pools and groups of three or less two pope
fun at the emergency law prohibiting gatherings of more than
five people. So you'll see like groups of three people
holding signs and costumes in these little pools. And yeah,
because so many women have shown up in these princess
costumes or wedding gowns or just evening gowns, some people

(07:32):
have called this the princess protests, And I actually that's
how I because I've been following kind of what was
happening in me and mar but I was like, what
are the princess protests? I'm even know what that is,
and they're the same thing. So if you've heard that,
that is what people are talking about, right, I don't
think it's really interesting to note that as this protest
is happening, and there's so many protests that have been
happening around the world, and maybe just because we're finally

(07:53):
connected and so I'm able to see it through social
media and therefore it's coming to light. But it is
It's interesting to note a lot of them have been
headed by women in very obvious clothing, whether it's in
India and they're writing their bright clothing and sitting in
front of the line at the farmers protests, or whether
it's me and mar and the fact that they are
in these brightly colored gowns being called princesses and this

(08:15):
is the Princess protest. I think it's really really interesting
and earns a lot of credit to what the women
are doing in these protests. But part of the reasoning
here is to garner again the international tension that we
talked about. Some of the signs are in English, and
protesters have used the three fingers salute from the Hunger Games,
which I've seen a lot to show their dissent, and
their demands include releasing their civilian leader, restoring her civilian government,

(08:37):
and rejecting military rule. Of course, this is again that
bigger conversation that we talked about before of what has
happened previously under her leadership and some of the atrocities.
I will say like that under her again leadership, not
necessarily her by her commands per se, but under her time.
So there's a lot of big conversations there. But of

(08:59):
course having something being under a military dictatorship could be
even worse. So, right, there's a lot to talk about there.
And yeah, and for a little while, and I don't
think they know where she's at for the most part.
She's a house arress. Okay, okay, I know. And again
it's been a minute. But when I started following at
the very beginning, it was very concerning. Everybody's like, what's

(09:21):
happening to her? Where is she? What is what? What
came about this? Who started this type of whole conversation?
By the way, these are the large protests in this
country since the Setfron Revolution led by the Buddhist monks
in two thousand seven, and these protests led to democratic
reforms that are right now at stake. Yes, and the
police have used force against the protesters, including water cannons

(09:42):
and guns, and one woman who was shot and is
in a critical condition as of this recording, and some
of the country's news outlets have blamed the protesters for
the violence. I will say as happens a lot in
situations like this. There's a lot of like news outlets
reporting different things, and even with a woman there was

(10:02):
was she shot by a rubber bullet? Was a real bullet?
Was she shot at all? Like? It's hard to get
to the facts of these things when there's so much
misinformation disinformation out there. But there's certainly been violence for decades.
My m R was under military rule that didn't shy
away from violence to keeping their citizens in line. But
younger generations have grown up more used to freedom because

(10:24):
of these past protests, and they are fighting to keep it.
One protester said, as part of Generation Z, we are
first time voters since this is our first time to
protest as well, they negated our votes and this is
totally unfair. We do not want that. We hope they
release our leaders and implement a real democracy. People protesting
risk losing their jobs, and of course it's a pandemic,

(10:44):
so there's that. The leader of the u N International
Labor Organization called on me In Moore's military government to
quote ensure that workers and employers are able to exercise
their freedom of association rights in a climate of complete
freedom and security. Free from violence and threats. The US
introduced a just against Me and Mar and New Zealand
has cut off military and high level political access, and

(11:05):
the U and Human Rights Council held a session on
February twelve to discuss quote, the human rights implication of
the crisis in Me and Mars. Is definitely good to
know that things are happening around the world. Yeah, yeah,
and they're still happening, like as of today when I
was checking to make sure, the U N is still
very concerned about the situation and with the actions the
military have been taking that there will be mass arrest

(11:27):
and violence. And of note, like you were saying, Samantha
Succi is a very complicated figure. Her party won by
a landside in this last election. She was a Nobel
Peace Prize recipient. We mentioned her for her work for
democracy in Myanmar, but she drew international condemnation for how
she handled the Muslim or king get minority. Yeah, so
that's part of this whole complicated situation that we could

(11:48):
unpack in the whole episode. But as of now, new
charges have been brought against her by the military regime.
Entertainers who have been publicly supportive of the protest have
been charged with things the milit terry has used to
blackouts on the internet to maintain control, and more than
people have been taken into custody without charge. So protests

(12:09):
continue with tens of thousands marching in the street. Yesterday,
which was yes Wednesday, February seventeen, was the largest day
since it started. This is all happening even as the
UN does warn of a possible military crackdown, so that's
something we're going to keep our eye on. And as always, listeners,
if you have any resources or if you're on the

(12:30):
ground there, please let us know. And for everyone protesting,
we hope that you stay safe. Yeah yeah, well definitely
be watching. If you would like to email us, you
can our emails Steffidia mom Stuff at iHeart media dot com.
You can also find us on Instagram at stuff I

(12:51):
ever told You are on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast.
Thanks as always for our super producer, Christina, Thank you
and thanks to you for listening. Stefan never Told you
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