#what’s happening in Myanmar

[not-your-asian-fantasy]

THE PEOPLE OF MYANMAR ARE RISING UP FOR DEMOCRACY

Students, civil servants, nurses, and others are putting their lives on the line to resist tyranny. In order to sustain the movement, they need lost-income support for food, healthcare and housing.

Mutual Aid Myanmar (MAM) is a collection of activists, academics, and policy makers working to support the democracy movement in Myanmar.

Our deep connections in the country allow us to distribute funds efficiently and target activists with the most need and greatest impact.

[meemalee]

Yesterday was the 6th anniversary of Anthony Bourdain’s passing.

I wrote about him at the time for @eater London, especially how important his CNN Parts Unknown episode on Myanmar was to me.

Here are some of the best quotes from Bourdain’s Myanmar episode which show that he saw what was really going on out there, even in 2013 when it was supposedly a democracy.

Here’s the Parts Unknown guide to everything that Bourdain ate in Myanmar, where he ate it, and who he ate it with.

And here’s Bourdain’s full Parts Unknown episode on Myanmar!

If you’ve not seen this yet, you’re in for a treat.

It’s still one of the best pieces of journalism about Myanmar, showing an ephemeral moment in time filled with some fear, but mainly hope. Sadly, the balance has tipped in the other direction since the coup in 2021.

All photos by Josh Ferrell/CNN

[shamelessislamreligionhorse]

Worship should be done with the aim of attaining salvation (Liberation / Moksh). Worldly benefits, prosperity and good health are by-products of true worship. However one needs to have firm faith in true worship of God Kabir given by Satguru Rampal Ji Maharaj. They need to abide by the rules of Bhakti and keep patience and then one definitely reaps the benefits of Naam.

[ladyimaginarium]

reminder that asia is. fucking massive. btw

[vhstown]

its crazy how it's accepted that there's so many different types of white people but when it comes to POC and especially brown / desi people we're all just seen as like... indian or something . and not even indian just a stereotype of what people think indians are

[freedom-barricades-bighero16]

Shortlist of the issues I care about / support:

Movements that are part of the Milk Tea Alliance:

Free Hong Kong

Taiwan's struggle against Chinese encroachment

Thailand Protests

Myanmar anti-coup protests

Free Tibet

East Turkestan Independence

Black Lives Matter

Woman, Life, Freedom

Ukrainian resistance against Russia

Free Palestine

If you're asking me why I'm supporting Palestine, that's because I believe human rights should be for everyone in the world and not just for people who are like me. Whoever is under oppression and needs help, I will stand with them.

And my support for Palestine will not diminish my support for these other movements that I'm already getting behind.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[paleodictyoptera]

Can we stop having conflicts and genocides that force survivors to flee their homes and become refugees in a strange land, k thx

[humanrightsconnected]

Last week, as the junta released hundreds of political prisoners in Myanmar, the United Nations Human Rights Office called for the release of the thousands of others who remain in detention for opposing military rule. To learn more, read an article by UN News. 

➡️ https://bit.ly/3QnJit6 

📸 by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

[lyvm43]

African leaders are rising up and saying that they are through with western powers being in their country. They’ve had enough.

The situation in Myanmar started in February 2021 after a coup detat and has only gotten worse since. The military opposition was not happy with losing elections so they decided to take things into their own hands. They were a newly democratic country but now back under military oppression. I only knew of this because at the time I followed a woman and a male model on instagram who were both from Myanmar. The people of Myanmar protested and fought so hard and begged for the world and world leaders to pay attention and do something about it. The model I followed was a rising international model at the time but he immediately dropped everything and became a face of these protests and the resistance. He was using his platform in attempts to get the world’s attention. He was eventually arrested and to this day I still don’t know what happened to him. There were rumors and talks of how he was being tortured and then got very sick while he was detained and that he eventually got released years later but I still have no idea. The woman I followed is living in the US but her parents are living in Myanmar. Her parents even came to live with her for a short period after this started and I’m sure this woman is worried about her parents every day. The civilian death toll is over 6,000 but the overall death toll is more than 50,000. Junta (the military opposition) is now trying to force men between the ages of 18 and 35 and women between the ages of 18 and 27 into their military. Things have gotten so bad that Thailand has agreed to accept 100,000 refugees and this really shows how bad things are because Thailand rarely accepts huge numbers of refugees and doesn’t really get involved in conflicts around them.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/20/clashes-break-out-at-thai-myanmar-border-between-soldiers-armed-groups

[not-your-asian-fantasy]

At least 165 people, including 27 women and 19 children, were killed after Myanmar’s military junta bombed Kanbalu township in the central Sagaing region on Tuesday

[shamelessislamreligionhorse]

True worship can end the cycle of birth and death.

Take refuge in Spiritual leader Saint Rampal Ji Maharaj to attain salvation, eternal peace and happiness.

[methed-up-marxist]

If between what is happening in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Palestine, England and Venezuela you are still talking about the fucking US presidential election like maybe get some fucking perspective

[judaismandsuch]

An Open Letter to Dropout

@dropoutdottv I am disappointed in you.

I know that this will not change your policy, nor will you make a folloe up statement, as proportion wise the number of people you have lost from your last post, vs. the number of people you will lose should you make an apology and walk back the statement are not in any way the comparable.

But you have failed your Jewish audience.

A group of your viewers accused an openly and actively Jewish guest on one of your shows of being Zionist. Despite him not making any statements since the few days after October 7th.

So you made a statement, saying that no one you have had on identifies themselves as such. And that even if anyone did you would give them the room to grow, and learn, and repent from such a horrific view.

That you condemn the genocide. Which hasn't been found to be a genocide by the international court. Which has a death toll of combatants-to-civilians far less than even just the bombing of Dresden of WWII. An event can be horrific without being genocide. But calling it 'monstrous' or 'horrific' wouldn't have placated people.

Though I noticed that you haven't spoken about the genocide (or at least, wide spread persecution and inhumane treatment) of Uyghurs in China. But that may lead to you becoming completely banned in China. Which could impact your bottom line.

You will give more money to PCRF, and you encourage people to donate to UNRWA.

What is wrong with you?

What is it, that an accusation of 'Zionist', which can mean anything from "Israel exists now, and it no longer existing is bad" to the Kahanist definition, requires an immediate response and excuse?

You continue to recommend supporting UNRWA, despite documented proof that UNRWA members took part in October 7th.

In your first milque-toast response to your Discord's meltdown on the subject you supported JVP, and mentioned that there are several equally horrific events going on around the world.

But you haven't supported any of the other causes.

Several of them are far worse than what is happening in Gaza, but you haven't raised a cent for them.

You continue to tacitly support JVP, despite any affiliated Jew saying that they are clearly not Jewish. There practices show that they don't understand Judaism, and their founders and board of directors is mainly non-Jews. They have a page on ADL describing all the Antisemitic acts that they have done. But you still keep a pinned post in support of them.

Why aren't you fundraising for WCK? They do good work in Gaza, and unlike the rest of the groups you platformed, they haven't had a single accusation of association with Hamas.

But, you treat a baseless call of 'Zionist' as if it were a nearly credible call of 'Nazi'.

You make a post on this, the day before the American Election, but haven't even done a single 'go out to vote' post?

What is wrong with you?

Are you afraid that because @samreich is Jewish, if you don't get in front of demands that all obvious Jews you have on demonstrate their alliance with 'the cause', people will start to ask if Sam Reich is 'one of the good ones'?

To be clear, this isn't antisemitism.

This is performing for an audience that doesn't realise that a witch hunt for Jews, demanding that the Jews show that they are 'good jews' is in fact antisemitism.

This is focusing on one conflict to the exclusion of all others. Perhaps Myanmar and Sudan just aren't that important. Afterall, no one is talking about them.

Feeling the need to address baseless accusations thrown on obvious Jews that haven't performed well enough.

You have sent your message.

I am unwelcome.

I hope it was worth it

[jewreallythinkthat]

Something that honestly scares me is this maniacle belief that no one is allowed to have any joy or enjoy anything because bad things are happening in Gaza. Like people will disrupt anything fun or happy to make sure everyone is aware what's going on.

I've never seen suffering appropriation like this before. Not while Azerbaijan cleansed it's entire 400,000 person ethnic Armenian population, not while China enslaved and is still enslaving Uyghurs, not while there are genocides in Sudan, and Myanmar, and the ongoing hutu-tutsi fighting on the Rwanda/DRC boarder.

Literally every person knows what's happening in the middle east. It's been plastered on every screen for months. The idea that no one is allowed any joy because of that is baffling and counterproductive in so many ways

[fuck-hamas-go-israel]

Ethnic cleansing? Genocide? Apartheid?

Throwing around these buzzwords to describe the Israel-Hamas war because you’ve seen them on social media doesn’t make you right, and it doesn’t make you an activist.

It makes you ignorant, intellectually dishonest, and lazy for parroting biased talking points with no concept about what these terms actually mean.

What is apartheid?

Well, it was first used to describe the political system in South Africa and today’s Namibia whereby racism was institutionalised. This manner of governance meant that clear racial segregation would occur, in a manner that benefited the white race and would actively oppress those who had darker skin.

This meant that there were white-only spaces, white people would get prioritised when it came to education and jobs, and relationships/marriages between white peoples and coloured people were illegal.

Is Israel objectively an apartheid state? There are no laws that actively favour one group over the other. There is a sizeable population of Israeli Arabs that can thrive in the same way as the Israeli Jews can. There are laws against discrimination on the basis of gender, race/ethnicity, and sexual orientation.

Palestinians from Gaza are allowed to work in Israel through a work permit system. There are about 150,000 Palestinians working in Israel, most of which live in Israel and some come from Gaza/the West Bank. They aren’t denied rights institutionally.

Is it harder to get a job or education in Israel if you’re a Palestinian from Gaza? Sure, because of different governments. It’s like how it’s a lot easier for you to find a job in your own country (in terms of paperwork and bureaucracy) than overseas. But you’re not denied the right to apply.

Of course, if you have a history of violence, a criminal record, or your family has ties to terrorists, then it’ll be a lot harder to get an approved work permit. But that’s not apartheid. That’s common sense, and a regulation practiced by all countries that minimally desire to protect their own population from danger.

Ethnic cleansing and genocide

These two concepts can go hand-in-hand. Ethnic cleansing refers to the mass expulsion or killing of a group of people based on their ethnicity. Similarly, genocide is the purposeful killing of a group of people solely with the intention of annihilating them.

Famous examples? The Holocaust, of course, where the Nazi regime believed in the superiority of the Aryan race and decided to declare genocide on the Jews, Romanis, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, people with “Asian features”, and many many other groups. Anyone who they didn’t think was “pure”.

Their aim was to ensure that the Aryan race propagated without having “impure” blood affecting the bloodlines. They even started a eugenics programme called Lebensborn to ensure that more pure Aryan babies were born.

More recent examples? The Rwandan genocide where the Hutus attempted to wipe out the Tutsis on the basis of ethnicity. They mandated that Tutsis mention their ethnicity on state-issued ID cards in order for the Hutus in power to be able to identify them and then kill them.

Or the Yazidi genocide which happened so recently, in which ISIL killed, raped, and sent thousands of Yazidis into conversion camps on the basis of their ethnicity. They also took Yazidi women as sex slaves and raped and tortured them.

Or the Rohingya Muslims in the Rakhine State in Myanmar, and how there was a mass killing and expulsion of them from the country, forcing them to flee to Bangladesh to take refuge, crating the world’s largest refugee camp.

Or how ISIS killed thousands of people from Christian groups in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Libya because of their faith, leading the US, EU, and UK to label this as religious genocide and condemned their actions.

Has Israel been practicing ethnic cleansing and genocide on Palestinians all these years?

Well, the birth rate of the Palestinian population in Gaza, the West Bank, and in Israel has been steadily increasing all these years.

So, no. No ethnic cleansing, no genocide. They are free to have as many children as they desire.

The UN Genocide Convention

The United Nations has 5 actions that constitute genocide.

1. Killing members of a target group

Israel is targeting Hamas officials with the aim of wiping out the terrorist group and ensuring that such a deadly attack on Israeli soil doesn’t happen again. I suppose you could call it genocide against Hamas, but they’re killing Hamas because they’re terrorists, not because they’re Palestinian. Shouldn’t everyone believe in genocide against terrorists?

But look at Black Saturday. Look at Hamas’ rhetoric. They repeatedly call for the annihilation of Israel and genocide of Jews. When will the media start believing what they say, word for word, instead of trying to spin it into “hmm maybe they want to kill all the Jews because they’re freedom fighters!”

War has collateral damage. Of course the innocent civilians don’t deserve to suffer just because of the actions of their government, but there have been warnings given to the Palestinian civilians prior to Israel striking the areas. There are consequences of attacking a country first, and then having that country attack you back.

2. Causing people of the group serious bodily or mental harm

The UN refers to sexual violence as the prime example of non-fatal harm.

Sexual violence has occurred. Hamas have kidnapped and raped women and even paraded the bodies of half-naked women around. But I f Israel had done the same, it’ll be the first thing appearing on everyone’s BBC push notifications (without even being confirmed as true).

3. Imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group

Many people refer to the blockade that Israel imposed around the Gaza Strip as an example of this.

This blockade was imposed by both Israel and Egypt in 2005. Its aim was to prevent smuggling of weapons into Gaza, and isolate the reign of Hamas to the region. This was to ensure the safety of Israel and Egypt.

Did this blockade pose serious challenges to the Gazan civilians? Of course. But that’s a consequence of having a terrorist government. If you have a terrorist group running your country, don’t be surprised if neighbouring countries are extra careful about who or what they allow in or out of the borders.

Many authorities from other Arab nations have also expressed approval of Egypt’s border restrictions, and even encouraged Egypt to flood the terror tunnels that Hamas has dug under the city. As a side note, other Arab nations have not historically been very kind or welcoming to Palestinians. Syria has killed over 4000 Palestinians, and many Arab countries are now refusing any refuge for Palestinians. But no one cares about that because it doesn’t make Israel look bad. All they do now is use the images of dead Palestinians under the hands of Syria and reuse them to propagate fake news.

The blockade has been labelled as a human rights violation because of collective punishment. Many humanitarian organisations believe that the blockade has caused the Palestinian civilians disproportionate harm.

Contrary to popular belief, Israel isn’t disallowing humanitarian aid from coming through the borders. Fuel, food, hygiene products, clothes, and shoes have been coming through the borders regularly for years. The Gaza Strip also has electricity and internet access and water.

Do all these items reach the Palestinian civilians? Well, there has been evidence that Hamas has been intercepting a lot of the supplies sent by humanitarian groups. This is not surprising since the UNRWA tweeted that Hamas has stole fuel from hospitals in Gaza in order to launch more rockets at Israel (but quickly deleted it after realising that it goes against their agenda to paint Hamas in a bad light.) In addition, the returned hostages have mentioned that there are many aid supplies hidden in the terror tunnels by Hamas. Instead of giving them to the civilians, they are hoarding it for themselves.

There has also been video evidence that some people are reselling these aid items in stores at exorbitant prices in order to turn profits. This has been well-documented for the last 10 years.

Is blockading the region to mitigate terrorism a disproportionate response? Well, it’s like asking if heightened security and stricter border control at airports is a disproportionate response after 9/11. Is being cautious and worrying about the security of your country an irrational reaction to the constant threat of terrorism?

4. Preventing births

Gaza’s population growth rate per annum is about 1.99%, which is the 39th highest in the world! Their population is allowed to propagate freely.

Israel isn’t preventing births of Palestinian babies.

5. Forcibly transferring children out of the group

No, Israel hasn’t been taking Palestinian children and forcing them to convert/keeping young Palestinian girls as sex slaves. Like I said, if this was truly happening, all the news outlets would be so quick to publish the story before verifying it.

Can we trust the UN Genocide standards?

The UN is known for corruption and have been exploiting the Palestinian people by selling them the humanitarian supplies instead of distributing them for free, which they should because these supplies literally are donations.

The UN also has differing standards of what they would label as genocide. For example, they refuse to call what China is doing to the Uyghurs in Xinjiang as genocide, even though the situation does fit many of their own criteria.

Hence, to all of you out there overusing these terms without knowing what they mean, make up your own mind about things. No one can force you to believe anything and no one can force you to change your mind.

But at the very least, do your due diligence and educate yourself before spouting tired buzzwords. Repeating misinformation doesn’t help anyone and can be very harmful.

[humanrightsconnected]

Be sure to read the latest Myanmar Internet Project's Digital Coup Quarterly. It summarizes the digital oppression incidents that occurred between November 2022 and January 2023 in Myanmar.