Party At Midnight

Is it a party or a plunge into terror? Some of the images coming out of Myanmar can have us confused on that point. And the weird thing is, at least at this point, is that it is kind of both. This can certainly make some confusing and conflicting feelings in how we are to understand what is taking place.

First, the party. The exuberance, free spirits, and creativity being shown is literally jaw-dropping, perhaps in the history of protests. The dances are incredible, the signs are hilarious, the costumes are eye-popping, the life and color (and inclusiveness) of this community is simply stunning. This is not your mother's traditional Burmese society!

I think the creativity hits another vein as well, and this is how 2021 is soooo different from 1988 and 2007. This new generation is CONNECTED. They get the short attention spans, the endless online search for novelty, and the clever inside jokes all too well. And so they are perfectly positioned to provide live coverage in a way that can instantly resonate with youths especially around the world. In other words, this is not just a whole lot of fun, but it's also a brilliant strategy to find ways to immediately bring the rest of the world in on the deal, without laborious investments of time and focus. So the revolution will not only be televised, it will be turned into meme culture to boot.

And when you see all this, different feelings can come: "Oh, I wish I was there." "Boy, that kind of looks like Mardi Gras!" Or even along the lines of, "well, it can't be all that bad. These guys are having a grand old time!"

This is where it gets complicated. The joy bubbling up to the surface in these merry bands of protesters can lead you to a false complacency that terror and evil are not actually lurking around the next corner. And it is. So while we should celebrate the freedom and courage of this very novel type of protester, we should not forget the very real dangers that threaten their way. But it can be difficult to hold these two truths. I saw a post the other day about the personal trainers that said something like this: "With hunks this hot, no one will dare kill them!" I wrote a comment that innocent protesters are in fact being killed every day, and there was nothing funny about this. To the poster's credit, they changed it immediately.

I do post a lot of these silly photos, and I think it's incredibly important to do so for many reasons. One is to see how these guys are handling themselves. And don't underestimate the value of us feeling just a moment of lightness with these costumes, along with moments of humanity with the incredible acts of metta and dana we are witnessing as well; and with these, to be able to balance the weight of hearing China and Russia turning their backs on the Golden Land, of midnight arrests, of over 20,000 thugs released from prison to wreak havoc, of homes up in fire, and the worse that is to come. So it's ok to share a laugh that personal trainers seem to only be able to protest with their shirts off. But somehow we need to hold the severity of the threat of darkness hanging over them at the same time. And celebrate the life streaming out of them as they continue to cry to the world that they want to live in a society where they can continue to not just wear these silly costumes in the street, but also live stream them and endlessly produce them in new annoying videos, and like youth everywhere, can have the freedom to be self-absorbed instead of being plunged into something far worse.