"Burma's Voices of Freedom", by Alan Clements

Following is an announcement from Alan Clements, regarding the completion of his 4-decade, 4-volume series on Burma:

Burma’s Voices of Freedom is a four-volume series of in-depth, feature-length interviews conducted as conversations between Alan Clements (author of The Voice of Hope and Burma: The Next Killing Fields?) and dozens of leading figures at the heart of Burma’s “revolution of the spirit.” Eight years in the making, these books present a definitive account of a decades-long nonviolent struggle for democracy and universal human rights.

Spanning 2012–2020, these rare conversations cover the historic national election of the National League of Democracy (NLD) to Parliament, the Rohingya crisis, the nature of totalitarianism and the efficacy of nonviolence, the radicalization of militant Buddhist monks and the role of Islamic terrorism, interspersed within the jagged landscape of a nation's ongoing struggle for freedom, rule of law, and national reconciliation. At the core, this unprecedented body of work illuminates the mindset and conscience of the nonviolent revolutionary at the same time as it attempts to decipher the psychology of dictatorship.

Combined with extensive archival material spanning over 30 years and drawing upon Clements’ lifetime of personal connections within the country, Burma’s Voices of Freedom is unique in both its depth and candor, conveying the struggle of Burma’s peaceful revolutionaries in their own words.

From Aung San Suu Kyi and the co-founders of the NLD to multi-award winning writers, from veteran student activists to notorious artists, and including some of Burma’s most respected religious figures, politicians, and activist-comedians, these voices describe in vivid detail the courage and conviction required to nonviolently confront injustice, whether on a stage, in a demonstration, or in solitary confinement. As Burma’s transition to democracy hangs tentatively in the balance, and with an estimated four billion people globally living under some form of dictatorship, these voices have never been more important.