Update 2/8/2021:
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The memes are happening. This one critical of the notoriously unreliable state owned media:
The result of state media control under dictatorship, especially going back to when they were successfully jamming signals of any outside broadcasts (e.g., VOA, BBC and a brilliant group of exiles who were broadcasting from Norway as “Democratic Voice of Burma”) is similar to what has transpired within the QAnon/Trump cult: a rumor mill, a constant effort to decode what may be written between the lines, difficulty in determining truth from fiction and lots of misinformation or what may be an established truth elsewhere taking on a weird form as it goes through the “operator” game. For decades in Burma, people were reliant on word of mouth and smuggled tape recordings and accessed the accessible state run broadcasts and newspapers with a grain of salt. Like in North Korea, those were filled articles about ministers visiting their government enterprises. But the educated class never forgot and worked hard to educate their own families. Booksellers would keep the publications by and about Aung San Suu Kyi tucked under the counter, pulling them out only if asked for them. -
I saw a small discussion about the widespread symbolism of the NLD, whose symbol is a gold/yellow fighting peacock on a red background, which was asking people to consider wearing black instead of red, in order to convey that it isn’t really about one political party but about a military regime invalidating the results of a fair multi-party election, which threatens people of all beliefs. Again, this is in a small circle so I don’t know if it will gain any traction.
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The best backgrounder I’ve found on why doctors and nurses are finding it necessary to walk off the job is this FB video put together by the medical professionals themselves. In a country whose educational system has had to rebuild numerous times after shutdowns (literally every 2-5 years since 1988 and every 5 to 8 years from 1962-1988), doctors are regarded as some of the most educated people in the country. They are leveraging their reputations to tell everyone in every other profession that the gears must grind to an absolute halt to generate an overthrow of the regime. So, red ribbons are all fine and dandy but if you’re wearing those to work, you’re not doing enough.
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Just days ago I believed people would mostly just protest by banging pots and pans at night from their own balconies and honking their horns when military vehicles were nearby. That has not held. The people are not showing fear. They are now protesting in the streets en masse.
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Many who have returned to the country after living in asylum abroad are making sure that current generation knows that they cannot rely in any way whatsoever on the international community to help. So while there are generic “please support us” messages going out, most of the energy is going internally.
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The chants at the protests invoke some old ones (“Democracy, Duoh-Yeh!” = It is our duty) with a phrase I haven’t caught enough of to transliterate but loosely “We oppose the military for our future and demand a return to Democracy.” That’s a video from a protest on Insein Road in Yangon (which leads to the eponymous prison where many generations of protestors have been held and tortured). Heads up. You’ll hear a ton of instant message pings - it’s not your devices, it’s the video.
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Facebook being re-enabled is huge. While FB was rightly criticized for becoming a tool for fomenting hate speech, the current situation is more like its role in Arab Spring. It doesn’t mean that Facebook -did- anything. Just know that it is used more than Google as both a messaging platform and the replacement of the country’s yellow pages. (Yelp etc. are for foreigners)
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Monks seen joining the demonstrations today. If they do what they did in 2008 (which was termed “the saffron revolution” for the color of their robes) it will be very significant. Will say more about this in the future.
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Seeing images of the dictator with a red X through his face. Note to self: talk about the dogs.
