There is no going back. That is the message that is emanating from the ranks of the Generation Z fighters digging in their heels as they battle against the illegal military junta in Myanmar.
This is the assessment of US-Myanmar relations expert Dr Miemie Wynn Byrd in an interview we are publishing in the coming issue of Mizzima Weekly. As the Burma-born professor explains, in the discussion with the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (DKI APCSS) in Hawaii USA, Myanmar’s younger generation – Generation Z, as they are dubbed – have effectively grown up with democracy and a level of freedom that their forbears could only dream of.
The Gen Z - who protested on the streets or picked up weapons – were raised with the hope that Myanmar was opening up following the release of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi in 2010 and what appeared to be tentative steps towards full democracy - the chance for the people to choose their rulers.
Their anger at being betrayed by the generals in Naypyidaw when they seized power on 1 February 2021 is understandable. After decades of grim military rule, the last decade saw what appeared to be a dramatic swing from authoritarianism to the people’s choice – as seen in the results of the 2015 and 2020 national elections – and an opening up of the country to foreign trade and investment and a sea-change in how people communicate, with the dramatic growth in the use of smartphones and the internet.
Gen Z are tech-savvy and connected – not only to each other but also to the outside world and the possibilities for Myanmar if it were allowed to take its place in the world community.
The flickering hope was dashed on 1 February 2021. But, as experts like Dr Miemie Wynn Byrd explain, this is not the late 1980s or early 1990s when protestors were only able to take their resistance against the generals so far, before backing down – some fleeing abroad.
Today, it is clear that Myanmar’s resistance groups – whether the National Unity Government, Civil Disobedience Movement or the militant People’s Defence Forces – are not running away. The more brutally the Myanmar generals crack down, the more the resistance groups dig in their heels, even if outgunned.
This can be viewed as both good and bad. The people of Myanmar are clearly on the side of the freedom fighters, and those fighters – whether through militant action or civil disobedience – are seriously challenging the men in green who hide out in their bolt-hole capital of Naypyidaw.
But the generals have made clear their intent, as junta leader Min Aung Hlaing put it, that they were intent of “annihilating” the opposition – a pledge made on Armed Forces Day against a backdrop of military might.
What this means for those staring into their crystal ball is that Myanmar will likely descend further into civil war and the status of a failed state, while much of the world is distracted by the conflict in Ukraine, problems with supply chains, and the lingering troubles posed by the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
This means the acceptance of a tough reality. UN peacekeepers or the US Cavalry are not coming to save the people of the Golden Land. In many ways, their hope lies in the hands of Gen Z and their all-out battle for democracy in Myanmar.
