The Weight of Freedom
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“You know, I'm not a superwoman or anything, but at least I can do what I can do.” Humble and understated, Moe Thae Say’s quiet confidence belies her courage. She lived a comfortable life in Yangon, surrounded by friends and family who even in the fog of wartime continue to enjoy the luxuries of a middle-class lifestyle. Soon after the coup, the war raging on, something began to stir in her. Soon enough, Moe Thae Say found herself in the jungle, having committed herself to helping and training with the People's Defense Force (PDF).
Before the coup, she was deeply embedded in the Yangon creative industry, a digital creator who rose to become a Creative Director. During the pandemic, a new entrepreneurial side emerged as she created a successful business crafting unique decorative items from concrete and cement. Moe Thae Say’s life was on a clear trajectory, but when the military took control in February 2021, she was unwilling to normalize the dictatorship.
Feeling unable to stand by while her fellow civilians suffered, she made the irreversible decision to leave Yangon, joining her comrades at the border. She used profits from her business to support the resistance efforts, ultimately sacrificing her livelihood to join the PDF. Her journey began with a grueling two-month combat training course deep in the jungle.
Disconnected from the world, she faced extreme psychological challenges, struggling with pre-existing PTSD and the harsh physical demands of the camp. Training was led by Myanmar military defectors, giving Moe Thae Say an unprecedented look into the inner workings, weapons and tactics of the professional army she was now preparing to fight.
At first, the most challenging experience was handling a weapon. Having never touched a gun before, she recalled feeling terrified, being told by one of the trainers that her heart was beating “louder than the gunfire.” Discrimination was also rife, as she was one of only seven women among sixty trainees. The leaders initially attempted to segregate them, assuming they lacked the capacity for frontline service. But she and the other women challenged this prejudice directly, determined to be treated equally and undertake training alongside the men. “Most of the service women in the military, they just worked in the backline,” she notes.
Even after Moe Thay Say completed her combat training and expressed her wish to go to the front line, gender norms continued to restrict her ability to contribute to the struggle. Her service shifted to essential management, medic training and administrative support – vital yet unglamorous work. Despite the hardships, the presence of her fiancé and the overwhelming sense of purpose carried her through the most extreme period of her life.
Moe Thae Say describes her time training in the jungle with a mix of humor and sincere respect for the tireless work that she and her comrades undertook. She describes going slightly mad during the dark, sleepless nights, pondering bizarre conspiracy theories and even contemplating the war from all manner of perspectives. “What if the junta is right?” she remembers thinking at during one of those moment, asking herself whether she may in fact be on the wrong side of this war. But never did she feel like she wanted to give up on her training. “I enjoyed it,” she says. “I'm thinking that my life is meaningful over there.”
Moe Thay Say’s experience sharply contrasts with that of her former social circle in Yangon. Her elite and middle-class friends mostly chose to live under the dictatorship, continuing to party and frequent cafes. She observes their lives on social media with a profound sense of otherness. While they are untouched by the struggle, she regularly sees the suffering of villagers and questions her friends’ apathy. “They didn't really care; they didn't really watch [the villagers].”
Moe Thae Say was largely spared the direct trauma of seeing dead bodies or taking a life. Nonetheless, the sound of an airplane's engine, which she once associated with travel and joy, became a source of paralyzing fear, forcing her to sleep each night ready to flee. “Even when I was sleeping, I always put my shoes on.”
She did, however, witness the profound trauma of her front-line comrades. They struggled with PTSD and sleepless nights. Their team developed a protocol: never touch a sleeping comrade. “Whenever they sleep and someone touched them, they are afraid of being killed. In our team, if we want to wake someone up, we have to shout, ‘Hey, wake up! Wake up!’”
After suffering with heart problems and the mental toll of the conflict, her therapist advised her to rest. She is currently recuperating, but her commitment remains absolute. She feels a deep responsibility and emotional connection to her suffering comrades, waiting for an “order” from her team's network organizer to return to the conflict. When asked if she is afraid of dying, her almost blasé response is both startling and unsurprising. “I am not really afraid of that. Because my opinion and my ideology is, in the end… everybody will die. And once I die, I won't remember anything, and I won't know anything. It just vanishes and disappears.”
Moe Thae Say's connection with her now fiancé deepened unexpectedly amidst the chaos. They were long-time partners who didn’t ever see the point in marriage. “We didn't believe in the paperwork, marriage certification, anything else legally,” she adds. But facing repeated airstrikes and near-death scenarios in the jungle brought them even closer. “Any time we could die,” she says. The final decision to commit came spontaneously: their comrades, starved for joy, urged them to throw a party. In the end, they chose to marry as a celebration of their bond and their survival.
She holds a nuanced and somewhat critical view of the revolution's current state. While acknowledging the immense sacrifice of those at the bottom fighting on the ground, she expresses a lack of confidence in the decision-makers at the top, referring to the National Unity Government ministers. “Instead of going around the world and having meetings and stuff like that, they have to come on the ground and listen!” She urges these leaders to stop operating in a vacuum and instead the real concerns and challenges that she and her colleagues are facing.
Regarding her own involvement, Moe Thae Say rejects the term “sacrifice.” She frames her actions as something she is choosing to do with her own agency, driven by an emotional refusal to sit comfortably while others suffer. Her greatest reward is the sense of being guilt-free, filling her mind with the joy she feels from contributing to a cause larger than herself. She stresses how she is doing this not for personal glory, but for future generations and the poor citizens who bear the brunt of the military’s brutality. “Don't thank me! I'm just doing what I want to do,” she says as a response to those who offer her praise for her efforts in the war.
Moe Thae Say is keen to discuss her compatriots who have decided not to join the revolution, dividing them into two groups. The majority group is not overtly pro-military, but rather people from elite and middle-class communities in Yangon simply choosing to live a comfortable life while ignoring the suffering outside the city. The second, smaller group consists of actual military sympathizers. Some cannot cut ties with the junta even if they wanted to, she says, fearing financial ruin.
Moe Thay Say argues that the resistance must stop underestimating the military's propaganda, stressing that the revolution must effectively engage this entire middle group by using counter propaganda delivered through art. “I say that people are dying over there in the villages because of the air strikes, and they say, ‘I don't really want to hear you’. But if I let them listen to one song, the outcome will be different. Maybe they can feel through the melody or through the lyrics. It will be more effective if we use art.”
Moe Thae Say's closing statement reveals a personality defined by both an intense sense of purpose and a striking modesty. Her final plea is a call for empathy and unity over division. She urges those in the resistance to understand the motivations of military sympathizers and those in the cities to acknowledge the revolutionaries' cause.
For her, this shared understanding— a bridging of the emotional and ideological gap— is an indispensable ingredient for the revolution. One essential to gain the strength it needs to secure change for the next generation.