This 23-year-old protester was born in Kachin but grew up in Yangon. She tells The Kite Tales that now the whole country is feeling the anguish that the military has caused in ethnic minority areas. And she hopes that if people work together they can beat dictatorship once and for all

I have been involved in the movement known as the “Spring Revolution” since Feb 1 when the military staged a coup and detained the country’s top leaders. There are two main reasons why I am enthusiastically and actively involved. The first is that I see this movement as an opportunity and the second is because this situation hurts so much.

I believe this is an opportunity because this is the last time we will fight to oust the dictator, with such a mass of people and so loud a voice. I feel if I don’t participate now, I won’t have another chance.

This time we are all working together to oppose and beat the dictator. Our voices are the same and our identity is the same, so it gives me a lot of strength. 

Everyone is hurting at the moment. But it’s not the same. As a Kachin youth, I believe the hurt I feel is different from the hurt felt by a Bamar youth. You know why? It is only now that the majority Bamar are starting to understand a little of why the minority groups like Kachin, Kayin, Kayah, Rakhine and Shan have been taking up arms and fighting the Burmese army for a very long time. So the hurt is not the same. 

Right now my Bamar friends in this movement are hurting because the country’s top leaders and elected representatives have been detained. They could not stand for the coup so they came out on the streets. 

We have more pain. I can feel that hurt in my veins. There has been fighting in Kachin since I was a kid. Churches were burned. Houses were burned. Young women, pregnant women were raped, my relatives were also victims. There’s also a case that we all know - the two volunteer teachers who were brutally raped and murdered. That case has still not been solved. There has not been justice for minorities. And that’s not just in Kachin State. The same things are happening in other areas where minorities live. 

Every time something like this has happened we protested. I’m in Yangon at the moment but my mind is in Kachin. When there were about 5,000 displaced people trapped by the army, we protested. When there was the case of the two teachers, we protested. But nobody cared at that time. We were very sad. Our young people were murdered. The Bamar people couldn’t understand us. At most only one or two understood. When I hear now, “Oh, you must have felt a lot worse than we are doing now in the minority ethnic areas”, I don’t know if I should be happy, sad or thankful. I don’t have any words to respond. We have a big wound.

Our voices weren’t heard or listened to. But today, the voices aren’t just from Kachins or Kayins or Rakhines. It is the whole country’s voice. For the minority groups, this voice doesn’t represent just a single party. It’s about eradicating dictatorship and abolishing the 2008 constitution that gives cover to the dictatorship. This gives me so much strength. 

Everyone knows that Myanmar is a union of ethnic groups. So why would the majority refer only to the minority as ‘ethnic groups’? I can’t comprehend it. I want people to become aware that we are all the same, we are all united, and we are all ethnic groups who have suffered under the military dictatorship. The term ethnic group doesn’t only mean the minorities. The Bamar are an ethnic group too. I want them to have this awareness. 

I want the social injustice that says “we are the majority group so we get to enjoy more rights” to end. I want us to take this as an example and prevent ethnic divisions in the future. We are now divided because of words that are designed to divide and rule. I believe that this generation will finally be the ones to overthrow the dictatorship and unjust rule that has lasted for many years.

For us minorities, dictatorship doesn’t just come from the military. Even after the democratisation, the democratic leader and elected representatives used modern dictatorial methods to oppress the minorities. Because democratic countries are ruled by the majority, the minorities’ voices are then dimmed. We need federal democracy in the ethnic minority regions where we can rule our own region independently. And finally, the ethnic minorities are calling for the immediate release of those detained illegally. This is my own voice as well as the voice of ethnic minorities. I wanted to highlight this.

Main picture courtesy of Richard Horsey. Artwork with thanks to https://www.artforfreedommm.com/