Revolution is not a Part-Time Job
The words that follow are of a reluctant resistance leader, reflecting on where he finds himself amidst childhood memories from a broken country. The raw honesty forms a power to this words in which their profundity lie behind an apparent simplicity. I hope that one day he can be free, and I hope that prose as clear as this can find its way to an audience far beyond this humble blog.
I have been unwell lately as the place I am staying right now does not have any medical facilities.
Especially, it has been difficult to find treatments for some of my chronic diseases, such as the rheumatoid arthritis and a few others.
Regardless, the main factor that affects my health might be the lack of sleep.
I wish I could do the revolution as a part-time job.
As it is, from my every waking moment, it is like a full-time job and I find it impossible to rest, considering so many battlefronts are occuring every day.
I am worried about our urban guerrilla forces and local defense forces scattered throughout many divisions and states.
Should I not be available for them, I won't be able to arrange logistics and evacuation in time.
Other times, they need me for reconnaissance or just mediation between different parties.
Well, that should be it about my current lifestyle.
So...
I am the youngest child in my family.
Like everyone else, I am fond of making friends and just playing around.
When I was young, I remember some silly things such as trying to register an online game only to be banned in doing so.
I was very puzzled when that happened and I asked my father about it.
He told me then that it was due to the international sanctions that I could not play region-locked games.
At that time, I felt that it was really unfair when our people did nothing wrong to face sanctions, you know.
Like, the junta.
The sanctions often work minimally on them as they would get around those by trading with the ASEAN countries.
So I see no point that the civilians have to suffer because of the junta’s wrongdoings.
At that time, of course, I only saw the video games.
Later on, I found a pained expression on my sibling's face when the cost of merchandise hiked up due to sanctions yet again.
I was disinterested in politics, but politics is a reality for any one of us.
We can't avoid it and it comes to us head-on in this revolution period.
Like, you cannot avoid your loved ones being murdered because you exerted your rights to freedom of expression.
It is really sudden and hurtful for us, considering they did this coup d'état in the middle of Covid-19.
Covid-19 was not scary until I lost a friend to it and I feel really bad that I will not be able to see him again even if we were to win this war.
Likewise, I feel horrible when I think about some of my comrades who were captured in the early period of the revolution.
To outsiders, it may seem like we are winning with little to no casualty.
In fact however, we have so many casualties in the form of arrest and not a small number among them has been sentenced to death.
When I think of my comrades in prison, I remember their words of encouragement for me and I remember how they made me feel safe.
Now, there is so little of us left and it is a depressing thought.
My greatest wish is to win this revolution and break the prison in time.
Only then, my comrades will be truly alive and I can't imagine anything else that can alleviate the grief in me.