WEBVTT - How To Build A Revolution: Myanmar, Part One 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:11.240 Dime, no. 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:20.360 Demo crazy, I wordam my josh Oa. 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:23.360 In twenty twenty, millions of Americans took to the streets 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:27.000 to protest police violence. They were met with police violence 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:31.360 on a massive scale. Shootings, vehicle attacks, and assassinations occurred 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:35.239 alongside these protests, often in defense of the police, and 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.959 in total, at least twenty five Americans died. We now 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:42.320 know that President Trump repeatedly urged General Mark Milly to 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:46.480 deploy US military forces to crack down violently on demonstrations. 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:49.440 Milly claims that Trump told him to have his soldiers 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:54.360 crack skulls, beat the fuck out of and just shoot protesters. 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:58.600 In the end, we were all lucky. Military leaders, including 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:02.440 General Milly, resisted to use their men to suppress domestic descent. 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:06.120 National Guard were called in to police several major cities, 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.120 but in many cases their behavior was tame compared to 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:13.000 the militarized police who were reliably shot and beat protesters. 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:16.880 For millions of Americans, twenty twenty was their first exposure 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:20.320 to the violence the state will do to avoid change. 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:24.240 And then Trump lost the election. He and his followers 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:26.760 tried to carry out a coup but failed. For now 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:30.240 and millions of Americans who'd taken to the streets mostly 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.560 went back to their lives. Some were satisfied justice had 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:36.440 been done, others were furious to have stopped short of 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:39.320 instituting real change. But at the end of the day, 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:43.119 business went on as usual. A version of normal prevailed. 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:47.520 In twenty twenty one, the military of Myanmar, known as 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:51.760 the Toatmadaw, overthrew the elected government in a coup. Hundreds 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:54.240 of thousands of citizens, most of them young, gin z 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:57.640 and millennial men and women, took to the streets. Police 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:02.280 responded with tear gas, water cannon, and eventually bullets. The 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:05.920 international community expressed its horror at the brutality of the Tautmda, 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:09.640 but that's all they did. Over the course of several months, 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:13.160 the military pushed protesters mostly out of the cities, and 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:16.400 a protest movement against the military coup turned into a 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:20.640 civil war. Now those same protesters, mostly kids who wanted 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:24.240 nothing more than a normal life, have become revolutionaries. With 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:27.440 home made guns, three D printed rockets, and stolen rifles, 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:30.400 they battled the tot MADA. Some of them fight in 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:33.040 the jungles, some of them fight in the cities, and 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:39.519 some of them fight on the internet. This is their story. 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.600 We're sitting in a large suburban home in Mysout, Thailand, 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:46.600 a small city on the border of Menmar. The boys 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:49.320 singing and playing music around us range in age from 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:53.079 seventeen to twenty two. Their existence in Thailand is a crime. 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:55.640 If they are caught here, they'll be forced to cross 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:59.240 the border into mi Anmar, whose government executed their friends 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:02.639 and sold the old organs for profit. But tonight they're 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:06.400 playing music. We're drinking beer. Later, James Stout and I 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:08.560 will play pool with them and get our asses just 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:10.320 catastrophically wrecked. 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:16.920 We met Andy, aged twenty two and head of the 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:20.200 family for his Instagram page. That's not his real name, 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:24.080 but for obvious reasons, we can't identify him. We first 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:26.040 met when I send him a DM asking if we 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:28.120 could buy one of his photos for our first series 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:30.800 on Me and Ma. He was a bit skeptical, but 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:32.360 I tried my best to get him to see we 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:34.360 just wanted to give him money and promote his work. 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:37.440 Over the next six months or so, we weren't from 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:40.640 talking on the phone to messaging almost every day, to 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:43.520 Robert and I booking tickets to Thailand to sitting on 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:46.240 the top floor of their house. It used to be 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:49.200 his landlord's office, but now it's home to Andy and 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:52.600 his partner, Sarah. That's also not her real name, because 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:56.240 she's a citizen of a Western nation working in Thailand. 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:59.560 The boys we talk about are the brothers, his cousin 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:02.920 and friends. They live at a small building across the garden, 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:05.200 and in the daytime they sit under a gazebo and 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:08.760 play their guitars. The first night we met Andy and Sarah, 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:11.720 we sat behind a bar in an unpaved alleyway. We 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:14.880 drank beer out of sippy cups because selling beer is 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:17.680 still banned at the local COVID regulations, but apparently the 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:20.640 cops don't check sippy cups. We drank far too much, 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:22.560 in fact, and the next day I work up with 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:25.719 a headache and a blurry photo of me, Robert and 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:28.200 Andy engaged in a pose which was half hug and 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:31.760 half mutual support structure. We walked home and according to 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:34.159 my phone, at some point we took photos of a puppy, 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:37.760 and in a hopefully unrelated incident, at some point I 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:41.680 started bleeding. It was immediately obvious that Andy needed the 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:45.280 chance to blow off some steam over the last year. 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:47.880 In Change, he is chronicled every stage of the coup 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:51.680 in its aftermath. In early videos we see joyous protests, 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:54.760 moments of resistance, and splendor in the streets of cities 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:59.919 like Miawiti. Later we see violence, death, and guerrilla warfare. 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.560 And he didn't have what you would call an easy childhood, 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:06.080 thanks in part to me and Mau's long history of 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:10.280 revolutions being crushed by the army. People there, like people everywhere, 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:13.560 want to be free and determine their own futures. And 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:16.839 so each generation has its own uprising, and each generation 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:20.080 has its own massacre in very little progress to show 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:20.440 for it. 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:24.960 I was born in two thousand, so when I was seven, 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:27.480 two thousand and seven, there was a revolution. It's called 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:31.240 Saffron revolution. It wasn't it wasn't like this, you know, 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:33.800 it wasn't like what happened now, But like, there were 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:35.200 a lot of people that were involved in it, a 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:38.000 lot of people that kill and a lot of people 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:41.479 left yarmar and came to the refugee camps in here, 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:44.000 and we were one of the families that came to 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:47.920 the refugee camps. And yeah, in mess out Thailand. 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:48.520 Yeah. 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:51.560 Andy's mother is Buma, the dominant ethnic group in me 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:53.839 and Maar due to their decades long control of the 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:57.800 military and government. His father is Krin, the ethnic group 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:01.000 once used by the British government as soldiers. Since nineteen 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:03.000 forty nine, the Karin have fought a war in the 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:06.880 mountains against the top Mada. Their name is often anglicized 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:09.520 to be spelled just like the English name Karen, which, 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:13.480 given present Internet trends, makes explaining the conflict sometimes awkward. 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:18.600 Andy primarily identifies as and was raised Bamah. His family 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:21.560 left after the Saffron Revolution. They did not flee to 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:25.600 escape political repression, but because the economy had collapsed. This 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.240 put them in an awkward position in the camps, which 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:31.400 were filled mostly with Karin people who had fled state violence. 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:36.160 We weren't refugees, right, We were more like, how do 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:39.560 you say, like economic refugees. You know, we go because 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:42.360 not because our village has been burned down and our 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:45.120 family has been killed, you know. So then if we 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:47.760 were to go back to Yangon, we still could find 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:50.920 a job, we still could fine, you know. But then 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:55.039 for these current people, like this place is the only 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:57.159 place that they could exist at that moment, right and 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:01.360 probably still now too. So yeah, so they say that, 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:05.280 but that education wasn't very good there. The life wasn't good, 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:08.240 you know, it wasn't It wasn't. It was very bad. Honestly, 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:10.200 it was very bad. It was a lot of violence, 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:12.920 a lot of hate, a lot of understandable, you know, 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:15.200 like these people have gone through so much shit and 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:18.760 so much trauma that and nothing. No one is coming 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:21.680 there too, but fix that. So they had a lot 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:24.440 of anger. They had a lot of problems. But my 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.280 mom said, yeah, we're going back because the education he 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:30.440 is very bad. And if you go back to Miami, 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:33.280 at least, you know, if you do like the thing 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:36.560 that people do, maybe you'll get somewhere. Yeah, in the future. 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.120 Here there's no future, so she said, So we went 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:43.120 back and I stayed in yourmar for like four years. 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:46.600 Andy had never been very political. His family was more 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.280 or less neutral, tending to side with the military more 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:51.720 often than not. Out of a sense of inertia. Me 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.520 and Mar attended to cartwheel between attempts at democracy and 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:58.239 military dictatorship. So when the world media celebrated their first 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:02.440 democratic elections in twenty five years in twenty fifteen, Andy 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:04.240 was not particularly excited. 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:08.480 Yeah, So, I mean we did realize that there was 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:12.040 a change in the country, right because we grew up 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:15.160 in the military to take your ship. But then one 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:19.880 intensity takeover took over. There were some changes, like the 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:23.640 phones got cheaper, the internet got cheaper, and if you 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:27.680 look back then you can see big, big changes. But 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:31.120 the thing is it was never real democracy, and I 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:35.720 think a lot of people in the Western countries thought 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:38.640 that it was democracy when al Sensergi took over. 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:42.840 Ansongsucci came to prominence during a nineteen eighty eight uprising 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:45.520 against the military, which ended in bloodshed in the streets 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:48.640 of Yangon, and she'd been a long time democratic activist. 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.160 As Andy noted, westerners celebrated her election as the first 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:54.840 democratic head of state for me and Maar. She even 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:57.800 won a Nobel Prize. But the agreement her party had 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:01.559 made with the military gave the generals significant permanent control 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:02.560 over the government. 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:04.600 But I think most of the people in the country 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:08.880 knew it wasn't real democracy because you know, the military 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:12.520 always had twenty five percent twenty fight seats in the parliament, 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:14.920 right like they were always they were in charge of 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:18.920 electricity and all these all these big things, a weapons army, 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:21.520 like the military itself, they are in charge of all 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:23.400 these things, and they make it very clear. 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:27.040 And even with a Nobel prize on Soongsuchi did not 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.280 fight to stop the top Mada from pursuing their decades 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.640 long wars against the ethnic armed organizations in the Hills, 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:36.520 nor did she act to stop their ethnic cleansing of 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:39.360 the Rohinga people. In fact, she and others in her 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:43.000 party didn't even call them Rohinga. They called them Bengali 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:46.760 and insisted they were illegally residing in Myanmar, despite mountains 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.280 of evidence documenting a group by that name living in 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:52.600 what is now the Rakian State. I think most Americans 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:55.360 and Westerners in general can empathize with the feeling of 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:58.959 electing someone who promises change and then getting very little 0:09:59.000 --> 0:09:59.920 of what you'd expected. 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:03.520 I think Alsensucci used to be this hope that that 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:06.480 was like the opposition against the military. But I think 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:12.120 when she got power, she couldn't do all the things 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:15.640 that she promised to do, or like you know, we 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:19.560 looked at her before, we looked at her as something, 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:23.559 you know, something hope for everyone, you know, for all 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:26.880 the ethnic groups and for everyone in the country. But 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:31.680 then when she became empower she mainly focused all these 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:37.079 changes for the Bama people. Well, you know, the mainland people, 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:40.840 Like the military was still fucking killing people and killing 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:44.120 ethnic groups. Did they do something, you know, like, so 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:46.760 then for the ethnic groups, what's the difference? 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:49.679 And so while Andy was hopeful that his country might 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:52.280 take a better path, he was not exactly convinced that 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:55.600 things were going to get better. Conflict within his family 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:57.800 eventually pushed him to make the decision to leave. 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:00.719 My dad was very abusive, right, he would be the 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.320 shit out of my mouth every day like that. It 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:05.439 was fine, Like it was fine when we were younger. 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:07.160 We couldn't do anything, you know, we just kind of 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:09.600 watched it, right, But the older we got, the more 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:13.120 we involved, the more we try to stop it. But 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:15.520 then we were fight with him too, you know, And 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:18.520 so at some point it became too much, and so 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:23.240 I left my home, I think in twenty sixteen, just 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:25.400 by myself, and I was like, I've been to Messad, 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:27.120 I will go back here, you know. 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:29.840 So Andy lived across the border on his own for 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:32.600 more than five years. He'd fallen in love gotten a 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:34.560 home with his own and set himself up in the 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:37.040 sort of odd jobs you can do without papers or 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:40.199 legal residency. And that's where things were for him when 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:42.280 the top MA dog carried out their coup in early 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:43.400 twenty twenty one. 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:47.760 Twenty twenty one February. First, I was a messout I 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:51.040 was here and yeah, in the morning, I woke up, 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:54.000 called me my girlfriend and as she said, the military 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:56.760 just did a coop in your country. You should call 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:57.240 your family. 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:00.320 The military claimed voter fraud and used that is the 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:03.480 pretext to stay in power. It's a situation that should 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:07.280 be unsettlingly familiar to most of our audience. For a while, 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:10.040 Safe in Maysat, Andy watched it in horror as he 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:12.320 texted with friends and family across the border. 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:15.360 They arrested Ansen Suji and all the big leaders right 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:17.360 at the top. So we were kind of like, okay, 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:19.480 is someone going to tell us what to do? And 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:23.120 especially for us, we didn't have any experiences. We didn't 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:26.600 know anything about any of this that I'm talking about 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:29.200 right now. I didn't have any knowledge of that. But yeah, 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.319 so after I think six day the most you cut 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:35.280 off the internet, like for like two days and I've 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:39.040 lost all contact with everyone inside, my family, my friends. 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:41.680 And that's the night I started playing it. Like I 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:43.560 started thinking, oh fuck, I should go back and like 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:47.839 and I saw the protest photos from Yangon. They looked amazing, right, 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:49.720 and I'm like, I'm a photographer. I should be there 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:50.959 and you know, document that. 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:10.080 While Andy was staring at the protest photos from the 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:14.079 capital of mianmar Napodor, as well as Miawiti and the 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.200 largest city, Yangn, wondering he should take his camera and 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.480 document yet another rising for democracy in his home country, 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.040 a young woman named Amiror was in the thick of 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:27.280 those protests and Yangn when the coup started. A mirror 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.559 age seventeen, had just finished high school. She was looking 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:34.760 forward to university and more pressingly, looking forward to playing 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:38.120 futsal with her friends. She liked to spend her days crafting, 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:41.360 she says, making little things to gift or to keep, 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.000 Like every other day. When she woke up, she spent 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:48.000 ten minutes in medication before facing the world on the 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:52.400 first of February. Hansomsduki was her hero, she says. In 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:55.719 our interview. Her boyfriend translated for her. We'll get to 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:58.840 their story later. But when the coup began, they lived 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:02.040 a world apart. They joined the whole generation and feeling 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:05.160 in rage by Tatmador trying to rip the freedom their 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:08.360 parents would fought for from them, A mirror took her 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:11.520 rage into the street. Someone gave her a bullhorn. 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:14.880 Because of her voice, and then she became the leader, 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:17.120 you know, with the the bullhorn. 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:19.800 Yeah, what kind of stuff would you say to the 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:20.840 boat through the bullhorn? 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:35.560 Hello, you don't want you She's saying, uh, this is 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:41.360 anfeil and then uh, this is uh that the arresting 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:44.920 that SUCHI is a anfel not fair? 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:48.960 Okay, yeah, okay yeah. 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:54.080 And then and then she believed that, Uh, she believed 0:14:54.080 --> 0:15:00.120 in what San Succhi said, like everything is paused the 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:05.200 wall and we haven't do anything. We haven't studied yet, 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:07.960 and then but when we study and then we can 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:13.400 finish it, so everything is possible. So that's what she 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:16.680 believe in. So she went on the road and then 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:17.880 she brought us. 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:21.280 Across the city from a mirror. On coup day, Miok's 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:23.640 girlfriend woke him up with the news that the government 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:27.120 they'd voted for had been arrested. We're calling him milk 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:31.000 here because that's his name. In the revolution, everyone has one. 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:36.360 Amr's his baby because she's so young yet so fierce. Mewk, 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:40.560 if you're wondering, means monkey. These revolutionaries who have risked 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:42.920 life and limb for each other, didn't know the legal 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.720 names to the people. They call their revolution family because 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:49.320 it's safer that way, and we don't either, meowk could 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:52.160 spend the night well, I'll let you hear Harry phrased it. 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:56.560 Actually, I would just like our tailing with my a 0:15:56.680 --> 0:15:57.840 scare for you know. 0:15:57.880 --> 0:15:58.600 Our tailor. 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:05.280 And we were you know, Nephlis and Chae generary netflist 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:07.640 and I think it's a Sunday. I think it's Sunday 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:10.840 Nephla and ch and we we slid together. 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:13.640 If you didn't catch that, there were Netflix and chilling. 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:14.120 You know. 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:18.360 I was literally not wakere but any louder show. I 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:21.840 was so sleep but but at the full am there's 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:25.360 a po rings and I suddenly wake here there's phone 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:29.560 ring from my girlfriend, her anti call call Call, call Heart, 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:34.040 and she said there's a cool de feast. Oh and 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:36.880 she wake her and she told me there's a cool 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:40.520 of I didn't you know I don't believe it. 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:41.320 I believe it. 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:43.560 I didn't believe it, so other than I chat the 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:47.560 social media, oh sh or may I actually do this? 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:52.240 I'm so angry and I'm so angry, you know. I 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:57.000 was going down downstairs and I told to my family, 0:16:57.240 --> 0:16:59.960 there's a cool of everyone's angry and I those times 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:01.520 the internet they cut off. 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:04.320 The next revolutionary we're going to mean is a fellow 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:08.400 will call doctor Wonder because that's his revolution name. When 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:10.960 the coups started, he was just waking up after a 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:13.320 twenty four hour shift at the hospital in Yangon where 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.480 he worked. Doctors were some of the earliest and most 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:20.800 visible dissidents in the protests. Their rarity and therefore their 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:23.439 relative value to the regime made them a potent symbol 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:27.040 of the pro democracy movement. But as doctor Wonder made 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:30.400 clear many older medical professionals, we're not at all certain 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:32.280 that resistance was a right move here. 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:37.120 At the morning, I saw the news that bad news, 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:38.879 really really bad news for us. 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:47.400 It was how would I say that they bro you know, yeah, 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:48.800 they broke our future. 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:52.760 Doctors were some of the earliest most visible dissidents in 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:57.040 the pro democracy protests. Their rarity and relative value to 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:00.679 the regime made them a potent symbol of the Protomok movement, 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:05.800 But as doctor Wonder made clear, many older medical professionals 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:08.560 were not at all certain that resistance was a right 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:10.760 move on that money. 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:15.720 We go back to our our society, our hospital. 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:22.480 We are shen guys, you know, all professors or concernders 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:27.400 did not much interest about that because they told us, 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:34.080 you know, whoever rules our camfe is not our business, 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:39.760 it is one of our seniors, doctors from our society 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:41.240 for our department pool us like that. 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:47.120 But we reply him, no, it should be the last time. 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:50.119 If didn't catch that, he said it should be the 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:52.919 last time, the last time kids had to die in 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:56.199 the streets. They didn't want another generation to have to 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:59.200 go through the same thing. So they got together a proposal, 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:03.600 a sort of manifesto for peaceful, nonviolent resistance, and they 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:04.920 submitted it to their seniors. 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:10.800 We negotiated with our ship you know, young resident, our society, 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:16.480 and we discussed about that, and we plan to start 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:19.840 with one of our prior movement. 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:21.040 Before save a disagreement. 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:24.800 We have got our Red Ripon movement, of course, because 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:30.480 we want to write peacefully on the media. Okay, we 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:36.320 started like that, and then uh, some of our seniors 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:41.520 from our society, they were from Mendally Hospital. Okay, they 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:47.359 accept our propose there, Yes, because our generation has already 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:53.679 passed that difficulties before, but not your generation shouldn't accept that. 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:57.840 Three days before the queue, TK got off a plane 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:01.040 in San Francisco. He's from me in Ma, but he 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:04.600 lives in the Bay Area. Now, before you ask, he 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.040 says that the Burmese restaurant there is not as good 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:08.080 as stuff back home. 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:13.320 It's only three days three days before, three days before 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:16.719 I went back to the to the United States, and 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:20.879 I wish I'm staying a youngle and doing the revolution 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:25.719 and a participate in a everywhere that I can, but 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:29.120 that I couldn't do from the from the long distance, 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:29.600 you know. 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:32.359 So that's all I can. 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:32.920 Do for now. 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:36.119 TK had just been in me and Ma. He had 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:39.000 connections to many people on the ground there, his friends 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:42.560 with it, his family were it. When the government cut 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:45.440 off into thee access, he remained able to get good 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:49.360 international reporting on the situation in his home country. Slowly, 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:53.000 he found ways to communicate with his friends and a 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:56.159 growing core of the protesters, taking to the streets. 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:58.320 I was a keyboard fighter. 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:03.159 I have no idea about a politic I have no 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:06.040 idea about the military stuff. 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:09.560 This is a single most common sentiment we've heard across 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:12.960 all the revolutionaries we've met. None of them considered themselves 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:16.119 to be very political. Prior to the coup. They started 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:19.040 marching in the street because the military coup was obviously bad, 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:22.239 but they stayed there because the violence dished out by 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:25.320 the state was so horrific. Save at their house in Maso. 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:28.320 We talked to the boys and these brothers and cousins, 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:30.720 all of whom were living in Napo door when the 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:33.480 coup kicked off. It didn't take him long to try 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:34.080 and join them. 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:36.320 Then I went in. I went to Nyawiti, which is 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:39.960 across the border in your marside, and I was there 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:44.160 for a week and it was it was something else 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:47.000 like I've never been to protests now, I've never been 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:50.440 involved in any of this thing, and I never thought 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:53.120 I would be, you know, like I don't know. I 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:54.920 always thought like I wasn't going to be a part 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:57.040 of it. But when I went there, the first day 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:00.000 I arrived, there were two hundred thousand people on the street, protest. 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:03.359 And then it's like and this big group of people 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:06.720 walk in streets after street and everyone coming out of 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:09.680 their house and we have this symbol like three fingers 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:14.919 from Hangergang. I think, yeah, yeah, so that's like our 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:19.600 symbol for democracy now or our movement now. And everyone 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:22.080 come out of their house doing that and you know, 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:26.679 like giving us water, food, everything. It was beautiful, like 0:22:26.720 --> 0:22:29.080 it was something else. It was something else. And then 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:31.520 from that day I was like hook. I was like, Okay, 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:32.600 this is what I'm going to do. 0:22:32.680 --> 0:22:32.880