They are between 17 and 30 years old and are part of “Generation Z”, a globalized term to define the last age group to have reached the stage of political maturity. Here, they are born rebels. Too young to have known the previous military regimes and the bloody repressions of 1988 and 2007, they grew up in the intoxicating atmosphere of the democratic process that began just ten years ago, after the ruling junta carried out, in 2011, to its “self-dissolution” – thus ending forty-nine years of dictatorship.
The coup d’etat of February 1 and the image of the great step backwards that this military takeover symbolizes, the young people of “Gen Z”, as they say in Burma, are not ready to digest it.
They are the ones who are on the front line of the ongoing peaceful insurgency against the dreaded and feared “tatmadaw” (“armed forces”): “I am at the head of a small group of about thirty people” , explains, over the phone and in perfect English, Kyaw; “If tomorrow the army cuts the Internet and prevents us from organizing on a larger scale, I have already planned meeting places to continue the struggle.Son of a soldier, he recounts being angry with his father, adding: “We do not agree on our respective political views. ”
Le Monde newspaper, online publication February 15, 2021 – Translate from French
You might also like
Leave a reply