Burning Norwegian Wood
Coming Soon…
“I was not political at all until 1988,” says Dr. Maung Maung Myint, the National Unity Government’s (NUG) representative to Norway. Speaking from Oslo, he opens up about his personal story of activism, which is bound up with Myanmar’s democratic struggle. His decades of resisting the junta in exile have only deepened his belief that the military regime will eventually fall.
Born in 1958, Maung Maung Myint grew up in an environment defined by dictatorship. After General Ne Win’s 1962 coup, his family’s house and business were seized during the nationalization campaign. “They confiscated everything!” he recalls, adding that they also took household items like ceiling fans and the telephone, before opening the family’s safe and taking its contents, and then forcing them out of their home altogether. Despite this, he focused on his education, graduated as a dentist in 1983, and began practicing in his hometown. He says that politics, though always present in the background, were not yet part of his life.
That changed with the 1988 pro-democracy uprising. The country’s widespread poverty, state propaganda, and anger over the military’s killing of two students convinced him that the system could not be reformed. He became president of his local student union, organized demonstrations, and published an underground newsletter. For a brief moment, he believed the regime might actually be forced to yield; communities organized their own security and administration as soldiers withdrew from the streets. But when the military retook control, its crackdown was as swift as it was brutal. He later learned that, under the 1962 censorship law, he was sentenced in absentia to four years in prison for his newsletter.
A government-appointed lawyer secretly warned Maung Maung Myint’s father: his son’s arrest was imminent, so he needed to flee! Fortunately, he already held a passport, and through Norway’s honorary Consul in Yangon, was able to obtain a visa. He left for Norway in early 1989. “I thought I would go back in a year,” he says. But when the junta nullified the results of the 1990 election, his hope of an early return faded, and exile became his life.
In Norway, where he counts himself as only the third Burmese citizen to settle in the countyr, he reestablished his political work. He joined the Norwegian Burma Committee, began publishing newsletters, and helped establish the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB). He also later became a journalist for Radio Free Asia. He says that Norway’s support was decisive at that time, particularly its role in hosting the NCGUB (National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma), Myanmar’s government-in-exile, as well as for its funding of DVB. “That was the biggest thing that happened for us,” he says. He recalls that when Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, he was the only Burmese person present at the ceremony, and that this represented a deepening of Norway’s commitment, giving Burma’s democracy movement greater global visibility and stronger diplomatic backing.
Maung Maung Myint says that one thing his years of activism taught him was to be wary of false hope. After the 2010 election and the Thein Sein government’s reforms, many Western governments believed Myanmar was entering a genuine transition. Maung Maung Myint, however, was skeptical. He saw the 2008 Constitution as ensuring military dominance, regardless of any perceived political openings. “They were just holding power in a different form,” he explains. Norway, among many others, invested heavily in the peace process during this period. It funded The Myanmar Peace Center (MPC), supported federalism training, and encouraged dialogue between the NLD, the military, and ethnic armed organizations. But Maung Maung Myint describes how their engagement was deeply and inherently flawed from the start. He argues that many talented Burmese who returned to work on peace initiatives ended up co-opted by the system, calling it “a process with no soul.” Instead of empowering those who resisted military control to seek a new way forward, it cemented military dominance into the government.
His criticism of that era also extends to domestic politics. He remembers how in 1988, students like himself supported Aung San Suu Kyi because she embodied the democratic aspirations of the people and carried the legacy of her father. “She was a great leader,” he says, “very clear with her vision for the country,” he says. But he also believes the NLD’s later dominance came at a cost. By not creating space for younger leaders, including those former student activists from the ’88 Generation, the party left Myanmar’s political opposition overly dependent on one figure, without a strong system underneath her—and so was all the more vulnerable when the 2021 coup shattered the constitutional order.
The coup, he says, has begun to alter the way some in the international community respond to Myanmar’s humanitarian needs. Norway, for example, has begun quietly shifting its strategy: instead of channeling most of its humanitarian assistance through the UN— when, in his view, aid tends to “end up in military hands”— it has tentatively looked for ways to support local civil society organizations who can bypass the regime. For Maung Maung Myint, this is nothing short of a breakthrough. “They are thinking out of the box!”
He believes that this more flexible approach aligns with the nature of Myanmar’s post-2021 resistance. Unlike the 1988 uprising, which was driven mainly by students, today’s opposition includes civil servants, grassroots networks, ethnic organizations, and young urban activists, all working in collaboration. He says this broad-based mobilization has transformed the struggle: “This is a new movement,” he explains, one that no longer depends on a single party or leader.
Yet for all its promise, this new phase of resistance is also defined by displacement. He describes how members of the diaspora, including those who returned to Myanmar during the brief democratic opening, have once again been forced out. Some even went so far as to renounce their foreign citizenships when returning to their homeland, only to find themselves now trapped in border areas or back in exile since the coup. For others, family obligations keep them abroad. Still, he insists that the diaspora remains politically engaged, but also that it is up to parents in the diaspora to keep this alive with their children.
After decades in Norway, Maung Maung Myint sees the long arc of the struggle more clearly than ever. He acknowledges the cycles of hope and repression but believes that each wave of resistance strengthens the one that follows. The student networks of 1988, he says, passed their knowledge and determination to the younger generation that rose up after 2021. That continuity, he argues, is why the military’s rule cannot last.
For him, the lesson of a life in exile is simple but unshakable: authoritarian regimes endure until they collapse… which is often when they seem the strongest. He sees signs that the generals are losing control, from their reliance on forced conscription to the growing strength of armed resistance and the parallel administration built by the NUG. He remains convinced that sustained pressure— from within Myanmar, from the diaspora, and from allies like Norway— can bring that collapse closer.
As the conversation ends, Maung Maung Myint says simply, “We just have to keep going. Because this is the only way. We cannot give up.”