Myanmar

Myanmar protest in support of movement in China

In Laung Lone Township, Dawei District, Myanmar, young people staged a protest on 3 December showing their support for pro-democracy protests in China. China is one of the most significant countries for Myanmar in regional politics. Following the fall of dictatorships throughout the world in the 1980s and 1990s, China established a new type of capitalist dictatorship, which fascists all over the world are now attempting to imitate. China has only been a detriment for Myanmar since 1989. However, efforts to create a regional democracy movement without China have fallen short. In an effort to...

U Nu and Burmese political Buddhism

U Nu with US President Dwight Eisenhower According to the Indian social reformer Ambedkar , Buddhism is based on reason, morality, egalitarianism, and progress; it would he hard to make that claim for Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or Hinduism. However, the same religion has been interpreted to serve racist, sexist, xenophobic and discriminatory ideas by monks from Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand. For Burma, the development of political Buddhism can be traced back to its nationalist movement of U Nu, the first prime minister of Burma. During the colonial period, U Nu reconciled Marxism and...

Myanmar’s sham election plan

The Myanmar military’s preparations for maintaining its hold on power have been quite simple since soon after its seizure of power in February 2021. On the front page of the government-run Global New Light of Myanmar , they printed their proposed Five-Point Road Map. The first and last points say: • The Union [i.e. nation-wide] Election Commission will be reconstituted and its mandated tasks, including the scrutiny of voter lists, shall be implemented in accordance with the law. • Upon accomplishing the provisions of the state of emergency, free and fair multiparty democratic elections will be...

Thakin Soe: Burmese Trotskyist?

Thakin Soe (on right) Thakin Soe (1906-1989) is known as one of the founders of the Communist Party of Burma. He was also the leader of the Red Flag Communist Party of Burma, a radical split from the CPB. Since Thakin Soe was critical of Stalinism, Mao Zedong’s thought, and the CPB’s leadership, he was called a Trotskyist dissident by most Stalinists, Maoists, and so-called Burmese communists of his time. In the 1930s, Thakin Soe became a member of the nationalist Dobama Asiayone (Our Burma Association). In 1939, he founded the Communist Party of Burma with some other left-wing activists. At...

Myanmar: reconciliation or revolt?

The Association of South East Asian Nations, ASEAN, favours the compromised “dialogue” between all the stakeholders in Myanmar’s politics, including the People’s Defense Forces and the military junta. This reminds me of a quote by Ghassan Kanafani of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine: “a conversation between the neck and the sword”. If reconciliation is the path in post-revolution, Myanmar will be back to the neoliberal pathway to corporate capitalism where NGOs, CSOs, and some other neoliberals will cosplay as leftists to create new political situations where a newly created...

Armed struggle in Myanmar

Hein Htet Kyaw continues his series of articles on the struggle against the military coup in Myanmar.

Myanmar: the need for mass strikes

Hein Htet Kyaw looks back at the potential shown by the movement against the February 2021 coup in Myanmar. In February 2021 a revolutionary-scale movement was set in motion by the coup. The extensive and expanding strikes as well as the protest movements unleashed demonstrated how determined the general populace was to prevent the military from seizing power. Clearly, the military junta misjudged the strength of the opposition they would encounter. During the coup attempt, the military junta ensured that the electricity was turned off. Additionally, they restricted communication. They used...

Exploitation rises in Myanmar

In Myanmar, even though open protests are not common any more as they were after the February 2021 military coup, the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) is still in action. A lot of state employees are no longer actively working in their positions. A small number of student activists and workers still protest, though in guerrilla style to avoid being arrested. On 24 August 2022, the military regime detained Vicky Bowman, a former British ambassador to Myanmar, and her husband Htein Lin, a Burmese artist and former political prisoner, on immigration-related allegations. In July 2022, four...

Myanmar solidarity action in August

Since the military coup that took place in Myanmar in February of this year, the workers’ movement in that country has been leading a fight for democracy. The trade union movement in Myanmar has burgeoned since 2011, when the semi-military government first relaxed anti-trade union laws. The result has been a decade of strikes and organisation, centred in the garment factories of Yangon. Now, those organisations are fighting to end the coup government. At our summer school, Ideas for Freedom, 10-11 July, Myanmar trade union leaders Khaing Zar Aung and Moe Sandar Myint reported on the movement’s...

Myanmar solidarity protests from 24 July

In Myanmar, the workers’ movement is continuing the struggle against the military dictatorship which was installed by a coup in February this year. Moe Sandar Myint and Khaing Zar Aung, leaders of Myanmar trade unions, spoke at Ideas for Freedom on 10-11 July to report that military repression against trade union activist in cities like Yangon is extremely harsh. Trade unions have issued a united call for all international brands to cease procuring any products from factories in the country, in order to strike a blow against the military Tatmadaw regime. In the week beginning 24 July...

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