Episode #494: “Any one, any countries, any government, who recognize the results of this elections, they are made a fool by the junta!”

Myay Thet is a co-founder and leader of a Myanmar nonprofit research organization that operated inside the country before the 2021 coup and now continues its work through pseudonyms and a distributed network of local researchers. She describes an ethnographic approach she calls Myanography, built to document life under dictatorship not through results and statistics but through daily mechanisms of coercion, fear, and forced accommodation. The election, in her account, is not only fraudulent as an outcome, but also as a process that presses people into visible compliance while keeping punishment close and ambiguous.

She explains that the election research was conducted with community ethnographers across Myanmar’s states and regions, alongside civil society partners, beginning two months before voting and tracking the three phase structure. She places the work inside a longer ethnographic project that began after the coup, when researchers themselves experienced “a very forceful political rupture” and began recording how oppression reorganizes ordinary life. In that setting, refusal is not a clean political gesture. It is a risk calculation made under the gaze of local authorities and paramilitary auxiliaries embedded in neighborhoods.

Myay Thet draws a sharp divide between rejecting the election from outside the country and living inside it, where “the people inside Myanmar have to accommodate this oppression.” Economic collapse intensifies the pressure, and a single arrest or conscription order can destroy a household, making surface compliance feel like a form of protection even among those who privately resist. She describes subtle resistance continuing under the surface, but argues that the election’s real work is to force visible participation through threats, proximity, and bureaucracy rather than persuasion.

Episode #493: The entry point was children. During the reform period, as the Myanmar military and other armed groups feared making concessions that would affect the battlefield, international mine action specialists sought common ground by emphasizing civilian protection.

"The civilians were the victims, and everybody could see that it was not a good thing to have young children being killed or wounded by the mines," says Pascal Simon, a veteran humanitarian mine action and national capacity development officer. “Everybody wants to save lives and protect civilians, in theory.”

In this episode, Simon reflects on his work in Myanmar from 2016 to 2020 and the delicate process of expanding mine action education in contested space. He describes how it was importantto "try to remain open and neutral" in an attempt to focus on prevention rather than blame. Simon says this neutrality allowed mine risk education to be gradually integrated into education and social welfare networks, including in EAO-controlled areas and refugee communities in Thailand.

Progress culminated at the 2019 National Mine Action Conference, which brought together civilian ministries, military representatives, international organizations, and ethnic actors, putting "the government in the leading seat" to discuss landmines as a national humanitarian issue. The workshop concluded with the need to establish a National Mine Action Authority.

The proposed authority never materialized. When the 2021 military coup abruptly ended the transition period, it dismantled both the coordination infrastructure and the trust that had been built.

Throughout the interview, Simon returns to the importance of trust, consistency, and neutrality, engaging with all actors. Engagement with the military, which risks legitimization, remains a critical tension for international organizations. "We have to talk to everybody, at least to try to and, of course, we have to make sure that they’re not using us," Simon says.

Episode #492: Wong Chen, a Malaysian Member of Parliament active in international relations as Malaysia held the ASEAN chair, argues that the Myanmar crisis will not be resolved through moral appeals, symbolic diplomacy, or repeated Western advocacy alone. He maintains that the Myanmar military is far more resilient than many outsiders assume and largely unmoved by external condemnation. In his view, meaningful progress will come only when the junta faces real leverage generated by coordinated internal resistance, supported by pragmatic regional engagement. Without such pressure, he suggests, dialogue risks becoming performative and ultimately serving the military’s interests.

Wong Chen situates this argument in Malaysia’s 2025 experience leading ASEAN, a consensus-based organization with a rotating annual chair. When Malaysia assumed the role, he initially felt optimistic, given Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s human rights reputation and ASEAN’s existing Five-Point Consensus on Myanmar. That optimism faded as Malaysia adopted what Wong Chen describes as “pragmatic engagement” with both the junta and resistance groups. While he accepts that communication with all parties is unavoidable, he stresses its asymmetric effects because the junta is not a good-faith actor. For example, junta-controlled media reframes such meetings as “recognition,” even when this is far from the case.

He also argues that ASEAN’s institutional design undermines long-term crisis management. Unlike short, bilateral disputes ASEAN has mediated successfully, Myanmar requires sustained, multi-year engagement. Rotating chairs shift operational control to new national bureaucracies, reset personnel and priorities, and prevent the accumulation of institutional memory. The junta exploits these recurring reset points by re-litigating settled issues and using the sheer quantity of engagements to claim legitimacy. Wong Chen therefore calls for a permanent, well-resourced ASEAN mechanism dedicated to Myanmar, one that is not affected despite the changes inherent in the rotating chair.

Beyond ASEAN, Wong Chen identifies China as the pivotal external actor, motivated less by ideology than by stability and trade. As long as Myanmar’s opposition remains fragmented, Wong Chen points out that China will usually default to dealing with the junta. He criticizes the National Unity Government for strategic stagnation, internal rigidity, and overreliance on Western moral appeals, urging greater unity, clearer goals, and stronger use of diaspora resources.

While cautiously optimistic that geopolitical shifts—potentially involving U.S.–China rivalry and even unconventional actors like Donald Trump—could create openings, Wong Chen ultimately places responsibility on Myanmar’s resistance and opposition to unify around a shared vision and leadership in order to create the leverage needed to force a resolution. External actors can assist, he says, but “you have to do it yourself.”

Episode #491: The third episode in our five-part series features conversations recorded at the 16th International Burma Studies Conference at Northern Illinois University, where scholars, students, researchers, and practitioners gathered around the theme Dealing with Legacies in Burma. Held amid ongoing political turmoil and humanitarian crisis, the conference created a rare space for open dialogue and shared reflection. Insight Myanmar was invited into this environment to record conversations with a wide range of attendees, produced in collaboration with NIU’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies. We hope these episodes bring listeners into the atmosphere of the gathering and into conversation with the people who continue to shape the field today.

Naw Moo Moo Paw, a PhD candidate at UMass Lowell, grounds her research on disability caused by political violence during her own upbringing. Raised in the conflict-ridden Bago region amid landmines, forced labor, and death, she witnessed numerous civilian injuries, including of her own father. She completed a master’s in Japan, where the quiet environment triggered long-suppressed PTSD stemming from her childhood experiences. Her current research examines post-injury political participation, social inclusion, and cultural interpretations of disability. She emphasizes that disabled people in Myanmar seek acceptance and community support more than financial aid and warns that unaddressed trauma may lead to future societal instability.

Aye Minn discusses his work with an online university in Myanmar, which was formed after the 2021 coup to provide a learning space for teachers and students who left the state system. He characterizes his work as combining parahita, the Buddhist principle of acting for the good of others with atahita, or acting for one’s own benefit… which Burmese culture often views negatively. He argues that self-improvement is inseparable from service, especially in a country where opportunity is rare. The university now operates largely on unpaid volunteer labor, reflecting Burmese society’s long tradition of service and its scarcity of financial resources. He champions equity, urging Western scholars to recognize their privilege and consider more culturally adaptive academic standards. As he puts it, “We should bring more scholars who are underprivileged onto the table.”

Grace, a master’s student researching rare earth mining in Kachin State, explains that these minerals are essential for global technologies and green energy, but their extraction causes severe environmental and health damage. In northern Myanmar, communities face rising cases of skin disease, respiratory problems, and digestive disorders, intensified by post-coup instability. After restricting domestic mining, China shifted to Myanmar, where a complex mix of militias, the military regime, and the Kachin Independence Organization control territory. China pressures these groups to maintain mineral supply chains while Chinese investors conduct mining with little oversight, leaving toxic waste behind. Local resistance exists through petitions and faith-based organizing, but militarization and poverty limit effectiveness. Many villagers depend on mining for basic survival, reflecting longstanding resource-curse dynamics. She references recent reports of U.S. interest in sourcing rare earths from here, which could be of interest to Kachin leaders as it offers them a lifeline away from China.

Episode #490: Matt Walton, a political theorist and scholar of Buddhism and politics in Myanmar, and author the acclaimed Buddhism, Politics and Political Thought in Myanmar, argues that Burmese political life cannot be understood through secular or Western democratic frameworks alone. He contends that struggles over democracy, authority, nationalism, and pluralism in the country unfold within a shared Theravāda Buddhist moral universe whose internal logics remain consistent even as they produce sharply divergent political outcomes. Ethical life, political legitimacy, and social order are deeply embedded in Buddhist moral reasoning, shaping how political ideas are articulated and contested.

In his undergraduate years, he developed an interest in meditation, which took shape during his first visit to Myanmar. Initially going as a backpacker, he joined a demanding 21-day vipassanāretreat in the Mahāsi lineage in the Sagaing Hills. That retreat proved pivotal for him both as practitioner and professionally, sparking his interest how embodied Burmese Buddhism plays out in social, cultural and political spheres. Subsequent travels through Myanmar helped crystalize his awareness that democratic aspirations and rights discourse in the region operate within Buddhist concepts of causality, responsibility, and ethical conduct rather than liberal political theory. He devoted himself to the study of Burmese language, Buddhist philosophy, and political thought.

Central to Walton’s analysis is the relationship between lokī, the mundane sphere, and lokuttara, the supramundane orientation toward insight and liberation. These are not opposing realms but relational categories that structure political reasoning. Burmese discourse recognizes that ethical practice depends on material conditions, while also warning that excessive supramundane focus can undermine worldly governance. Political legitimacy emerges from negotiating this tension.

Walton shows how Buddhist texts can generate competing political interpretations, supporting both hierarchical authority and participatory responsibility. Across history—from U Nu and Aung San to Ledi Sayadaw, Buddhist nationalism, and contemporary pluralist debates—Walton emphasizes that the same moral universe underlies empowerment and violence alike. Understanding this coherence, he insists, does not imply moral endorsement but is essential for grappling with Myanmar’s political crisis and imagining more inclusive futures.

Walton cautions against assuming secularism would offer a neutral alternative, noting that secular governance elsewhere remains shaped by Christian histories, and instead calls for explicit, critical engagement with Buddhist moral reasoning to identify resources for genuinely inclusive coexistence.

Episode #489: Neo grew up in Yangon, living a simple life—running a small convenience store, taking remote jobs, and spending his nights with friends, music, and beer. “I work and I play and I drink. Life was good, but things change,” he says. On the night of January 31, 2021, as he finished a hip hop track mocking junta supporters, the internet went dark. “They cut off every connection,” he recalls. “Telephone lines, internet, everything; yet my Wi-Fi didn’t get cut. Maybe they forgot that service.” Through that one fragile signal, Neo confirmed the truth: “They really did a coup.”

His father gave him a choice—leave the country or fight. “I immediately answered, ‘I’m going to fight back.’”

Soon after, Neo left Yangon for Myawaddy and joined the resistance. At the jungle camp, life was stripped bare: “We were not well prepared, except our mental. We only had our spirit.” Between training drills, he wrote lyrics. “Some days I got four or eight bars; somedays I got the whole verse.” His songs—Pinkies vs. Guns and Nonprofit Soldier—became battle anthems of defiance.

Frontline life hardened him. “If we had something to eat in the kitchen, we didn’t have to go hunt,” he says. “That’s the killing part.” Yet amidst the brutality, he found unity. “If you’reBuddhist, Christian, Muslim—that doesn’t matter. Everyone’s the same.” Neo insists their fight isn’t about revenge. “It’s not about how many you kill, it’s about how many you save.”

War changed him. “I can’t say I’m a good man, but I can say I am trying not to be bad.” His name—taken from the protagonist of The Matrix—became both a shield and a vow: no going back. “I think I’ve already chosen the pill,” he says quietly. “So there’s no going back.”

Episode #488: Veteran journalist and human rights advocate Chris Gunness describes Myanmar as “an extraordinarily fascinating country,” one that shaped both his early reporting career and his later work on international justice. Following events from London in the mid-1980s, he saw a nation marked by colonial legacies, ethnic fragmentation and civil war, yet so closed that major crises went unnoticed abroad. By 1986, Myanmar had become the center of his reporting as he tracked growing instability. In spite of his inexperience, he was sent undercover by the BBC to report from the country in the buildup to the 1988 uprising.

Ordered to report openly, he filed news dispatches from a dilapidated Rangoon hotel. A day later, a hidden message from student leaders—coordinated by a prominent human rights lawyer—summoned him to a secret meeting. Blindfolded and taken to a safe house, he recorded interviews with organizers, a banker and a soldier. These tapes, smuggled out through diplomatic channels, were broadcast by the BBC on 6 August 1988. One interview inadvertently announced the precise moment protests would begin. At 8:08 a.m. on 8 August, millions marched across the country. The entire Burmese populace was informed ahead of time as a direct result of this reporting.

Deported to Dhaka as a result, Gunness continued reporting, producing dispatches that became Myanmar’s primary source of national information during the uprising. Though he rejects credit for sparking the movement—calling the Burmese people “the real heroes”—the experience taught him how shared information empowers political action.

Gunness later founded the Myanmar Accountability Project (MAP), using universal jurisdiction to pursue legal cases against junta leaders in Turkey, the Philippines, Indonesia and Timor-Leste. He also challenges junta attempts to gain legitimacy abroad, including a current case in the UK. Despite deep skepticism toward international justice and the UN’s failures in Myanmar, Gunness believes accountability efforts can preserve evidence, empower victims and reinforce the illegitimacy of military rule. Ultimately, however, he argues that Myanmar’s hope rests with its people, whose resilience he describes as “the indomitability of the Burmese spirit.”

Episode #487: Noor Azizah, a Rohingya genocide survivor and the founder and leader of the Rohingya Maìyafuìnor Collaborative Network, argues that violence against the Rohingya is still an ongoing reality shaped by military force, armed groups, legal exclusion, and regional inaction. She insists that Rohingya rights must be central to any future political settlement involving Myanmar, rather than treated as a secondary or humanitarian issue.

Azizah places Rohingya persecution within a long historical trajectory beginning in 1942, when Japanese forces exacerbated tensions between Rohingya Muslims and ethnic Rakhine; before that, Rohingya and Rakhine communities had lived peacefully side by side. Following Myanmar’s 1962 military coup, anti-Rohingya violence intensified, causing a large and growing displacement, mostly towards Bangladesh, which now hosts more than one million Rohingya refugees. The 1982 citizenship law was another defining moment, rendering the Rohingya stateless and imposing severe restrictions on movement, education, and healthcare. Finally, the 2017 military “clearance operations” represented the most extreme escalation, forcing more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee as villages were burned, civilians killed, and mass rape used as a weapon of terror.

Azizah emphasizes that propaganda and hate speech have played a central role in this violence. Coordinated campaigns have portrayed Rohingya as illegal migrants and existential threats, amplified through Facebook and extremist Buddhist networks. She adds that economic interests, including infrastructure projects in Rakhine State, continued alongside mass violence.

She discusses the International Court of Justice case brought by The Gambia against Myanmar as a landmark effort to enforce the Genocide Convention and stresses the failure of regional bodies such as ASEAN to protect Rohingya. Azizah concludes by describing the work of RMCN, a women-led organization providing humanitarian aid and advocacy, and reiterates that Rohingya rights are non-negotiable, and essential to Myanmar’s future.

Episode #486: Daniel M. Stuart, a Buddhist studies scholar and vipassana practitioner, rejoins the podcast to describe his growing interest in Dr. Leon Edward Wright, a Black Christian theologian whose brief but potent connection with Burmese meditation master U Ba Khin has been nearly erased from histories of modern Buddhism and mindfulness.

Stuart uses Wright’s story to illuminate a world where meditation, anti-colonial politics, ritual therapeutics, and visionary experience intertwined—far from the later scientific and universalist framing of the Goenka lineage. He situates Wright within Asia’s anti-colonial landscape, where independence movements fostered solidarity across communities. These movements influenced Black intellectuals in the United States, and Wright, already thinking about race, empire, and religion, saw global traditions as resources for liberation. Part of his time to Burma thus appears as part of a broader search for tools to support oppressed communities.

Stuart highlights how Wright’s experiences fit within Burmese cosmology shaped by Ledi Sayadaw, in which modern medicine coexisted with protective chanting and ritual healing. U Ba Khin adapted this framework, diagnosing afflictions through elemental imbalances and energetic blockages. Wright’s visionary experiences—light, fire, a hand offering a yellow rose—made sense to him through Christian symbolism, and Stuart notes that “it's not at all surprising if he had some of those experiences, that he would interpret them through the lens of his own tradition.” In contrast, Goenka leans publicly on a secular presentation, but his lineage emerged from a lineage whose earlier layers were steeped in an esoteric cosmology. Ledi framed meditation, healing, and protection within a universe populated by unseen beings, karmically charged diseases, elemental obstructions, and the ritual power of chanting—what he called methods for “warding off” afflictions. U Ba Khin adapted that worldview into a system that treated ailments through energetic diagnoses in addition to teaching meditation. Goenka, however, reframed phenomena once explained through cosmological forces as natural law, and teacher-mediated energetic work was eliminated in favor of promoting the concept of a “non-sectarian” technique. Yet the tradition’s underlying course structure—chanting, the teacher’s position, the atmosphere of protection—still reflects its origins.

For Stuart, Wright exemplifies cross-racial and cross-religious solidarity: a Black diplomat and cultural attaché in newly independent Burma bringing meditation back to Black communities in the U.S. He concludes that “I do think he's an important figure that deserves more attention,” not only for his own story but for what it reveals about the complex origins of modern mindfulness.

Episode #485: “I am not talking as a representative of Anya. I am just a normal person from Anya,” says Saw Bosco, a Myanmar peace process practitioner, grassroots educator on federalism, and political economy researcher. Drawing on his life as a Catholic from Myanmar’s central dry zone, he connects faith, identity, violence, and economics to argue that peace cannot exist without dignity, inclusion, and material survival for ordinary people.

Bosco was raised in a small Bayingyi community, descendants of Portuguese settlers long absorbed into Burmese culture. Although culturally local, their Catholic faith marked them as different within a state that rigidly links race, religion, and citizenship. Growing up as a “double minority,” Bosco learned that marginalized groups often try to blend in to survive, even when doing so offers no real protection under the law or in society.

He explains that Christian identity is lived differently across Myanmar. In Christian-majority ethnic states such as Chin or Kachin, religious life is practiced publicly, even if under state constraints. In Buddhist-majority regions, however, Bamar or mixed-heritage Christians do not fit the state’s standardized race–religion templates, leaving them subject to heightened bureaucratic scrutiny over identity documents, education, employment, and mobility. After the 2021 coup, this vulnerability intensified into targeted violence in places like Sagaing, where Christian villages were destroyed not only for resisting military rule but because religious difference made brutality easier to justify.

Bosco situates these experiences within a broader critique of identity politics, federalism, and peacebuilding. He warns that opposition politics remain organized around ethnic categories that fail to represent newer regional and post-ethnic identities driving resistance today. His skepticism is shaped by his earlier involvement in the National Ceasefire Agreement, which he describes as an elite-driven process disconnected from civilian lives.

At the center of his analysis is political economy. Across the Sagaing region, farmers face debt, land insecurity, and military attacks that have turned agriculture into a battlefield. Bosco rejects narratives that celebrate this suffering as “resilience,” insisting instead that peace without economic justice merely reproduces inequality and leaves survival mistaken for stability.

“We need to listen to what is happening in the central area as well, like why we are struggling at the political level.” he says in closing. “Of course, everything is very important, for every single political movement and for everyone. But the life of the people from central area is also a unique experience, like the other ethnic people out there.”