mashrou3-ummi:afp-photo:MYANMAR, Letpadan : Myanmar students shout slogans during a protest mar
mashrou3-ummi:afp-photo:MYANMAR, Letpadan : Myanmar students shout slogans during a protest march in Letpadan town, some 130 kilometres (80 miles) north of Myanmar’s main city Yangon on March 4, 2015. Students have rallied for months over a controversial education bill that they say is undemocratic and have collected support from ordinary people and monks in their march, which began in the central city of Mandalay in January. AFP PHOTO / Ye Aung THU We should take note to locate these protests within a broader continuum of a) student protest in Myanmar (dating back to the 1920 student protests and strikes), b) student protest in Southeast Asia more broadly and c) the participation of Buddhist clergy in Burmese political activity, specifically in popular protest. The current round of protests has taken the form of a march from Mandalay to Yangon, which has come under threat of military intervention and crackdown while en route. The location is also important- Mandalay is a historic center of Burmese student political activity, dating, as above, back to the first student protests. These protests furthermore are descended from the way that Burmese student politics was necessarily expanded in scope from targeting the university system as a structure to the state as a whole, specifically the military apparatus. Though we can see many protesters holding flags of the National League for Democracy (the main opposition party of Aung San Suu Kyi), the party itself has come under criticism for not being more overtly supportive of the student protests, likely because of their rapprochement with the military regime. So these protests are not merely over a “controversial education bill” that is “undemocratic” but represent the trends of Burmese popular protest over the course of the last century. Some other interesting things to note are the way in which Western powers are complicit in the protests and the State reaction to them are carried out. These protests were met with harsh retaliation, and the student protesters were attacked by riot equipment and techniques provided by the EU. Given what has happened the EU basically spent $11 million teaching police how to beat and arrest peaceful protesters. And their reaction to the violent crackdown is to say that the police need more training. In a similar strain, President Obama has visited the nation twice, has largely lifted sanctions n the country, and has proven unwilling to criticize the Burmese government for it’s restrictions on free speech, genocide of ethnic minorities, illegal drafts, and a whole host of other problems. Instead we see him praise surface reforms that largely benefit the privileged classes in Myanmar, and foreign nationals and companies looking to make money here. -- source link
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