Earlier this year, Myanmar’s military junta staged a coup under the guise of voter irregularities, plunging the country into military rule yet again. This has been accompanied by media and internet blackouts, as well as the loss of income for millions. What started with the banging of pots and pans and honking of car horns has grown into a full-fledged Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) with support from the country’s civil servants and medical professionals. Now, bankers and other professionals in the private sector have joined forces.
So what?
In Southeast Asia, political instability has long been a critical barrier to any form of just transition or sustainable development. In resource-rich Myanmar, political instability often goes hand in hand with illegal resource extraction and the displacement of ethnic minority communities. Despite heavy state repression, the CDM has grown and the people of Myanmar are increasingly voicing their dissent in more and more innovating ways (see link below). This points to a new hope of a civil society that has a stronger voice in building an economically and environmentally just future.
Sources
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‘Back to the Stone Age’: Striking bank workers bring an industry – and an economy – to its knees | Frontier Myanmar https://www.frontiermyanmar.net/en/back-to-the-stone-age-striking-bank-workers-bring-an-industry-and-an-economy-to-its-knees/ -
Protest innovations from Myanmar’s civil disobedience movement | Hong Kong Free Press HKFP https://hongkongfp.com/2021/03/05/protest-innovations-from-myanmars-civil-disobedience-movement/
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