Episode #76: The Side Effect of a Revolution
Burmese artists are rightly gaining global recognition for their courage and bravery, standing up for freedom of expression against a murderous regime. This is somewhat of a new phenomenon for the younger generation of Burmese artists, but Darko has actually been at the intersection of protest and music for some time. He formed his indie band, Side Effect, almost two decades ago, and his musical career has spanned— and reflected— his country’s changing political tides.
Darko notes that early on, Side Effect released a track called “Secret.” The title hinted at a truth the singer was afraid to say explicitly: that the military had destroyed his country, and he hated them with a passion. “It was very vague in terms of meaning,” Darko says. “But now I can totally recall that I was young, I was scared to talk about the serious issues. It was about the military, actually. Everybody hated the military back then, and nobody dared to talk about it. I was one of them, too. I was afraid that I could be arrested and be put to jail. So I was secretly trying to express myself.”
Alongside music, Darko’s other passion in life has been spirituality and meditation. However, he doesn’t see himself as a traditional Burmese Buddhist. Like Kyaw Kyaw from Rebel Riot, an early relationship with punk music reflected the type of practice he gravitated towards; he found himself becoming increasingly skeptical with any form of organized religion, and his skepticism worsened when the Rohingya crisis unfolded.
Like many Burmese, Darko didn’t know what to make when he first heard of the country’s anti-Rohingya activities. So he decided to travel to the camps to see for himself—and what he saw left him stunned. He realized right away that the reality was far worse than what was being reported online and in the news. Being there made him feel “kind of like a white guy in a colonial age,” and he was overcome by guilt upon realizing his privilege. He was heartbroken to see how the Rohingya were being treated, and was especially distressed at meeting a girl who had excelled at high school but due to her ethnic and religious background, would not be allowed to attend university. “I was also angry at myself. How could I not know, how could I believe all these mainstream media narratives?” he asked himself repeatedly. On returning to Yangon, he made it his mission to educate those around him to the reality he witnessed.
He periodically returned to the camps, encouraging friends to accompany him so that they could also learn first-hand what the media was refusing to report. This experience led to his song “Meiktila”, named after the city where terrible anti-Muslim violence had recently occurred. “It was the time that I actually woke up. I was really sad and I wanted to do something about it… the song was my only release.”
For many Burmese people, the February coup was a wake-up lesson in the dangers and violence of the Tatmadaw, but for Darko, it was a lesson he had learned many years before. “The atrocity is now right in front of our eyes. And people woke up, like, all these stories that they did not believe… [they realized] it could have been the truth.” In other words, Burmese society as a whole was going through the inner reckoning that Darko had awoken to years earlier.
“After 2015, after I had that experience [with the Rohingya], I questioned my own society, my own community.” And when he heard Burmese Buddhists referencing the Buddha to justify violence against Muslims, he began to question everything about how organized religion was manipulating— and perhaps even perverting— the Buddha’s teachings. The final straw for him was when even well-known Buddhist monks supported this rhetoric. “I needed to let go of my religion,” he recalls simply. In truth, he wanted to let go of every aspect of his identity. “I also want to denounce being Burmese too but I don't know how to! I'm a global citizen, and I'm just wondering how can we transcend all these classifications by the human beings?”
Ironically, moving away from Burmese Buddhism is what allowed Darko’s nascent meditation practice to really take off. Starting with just ten minutes a day of guided practice from YouTube videos simply to seek out some help with stress reduction eventually led to a greater personal interest with the historical Buddha, and what he stood for. “The Buddha did not invent meditation. He used the techniques. He walked the path, and you can do it too. For me, it's actually the ultimate rebellion, an ultimate revolution inside. I would call it inner revolution.” From here Darko became fascinated with “brainwave entrainment,” which explores how brain waves can be synced with auditory or visual stimuli.
Darko doesn’t have a proper meditation teacher, but finds inspiration in Alan Watts, as well as the Satguru philosophy. Essentially, his practice can be boiled down to simply observing the mind without judgment. The results can be profound. “I get lost in the sense of yourself, like no there's no ego or self, and you are something know beyond mind and body.”
Like so many meditators, the coup has presented Darko with an extraordinary challenge. For someone who practices a non-judgmental observation of unfolding reality, the military’s behavior has been hard to accept, to put it lightly. While he recognizes that humans have been killing each other since the dawn of time, living through this reality and experiencing it directly has been a profoundly difficult task.
Not only has it been hard for him to meditate since the coup, but for some time after February 1st, he was unable to engage with music in any way. “I could play a song for a minute, and then I would feel weird, or I would be guilty; listening to a song and trying to enjoy it. And then I would stop and I would do something else.” However, eventually Darko remembered that his vocation was more than a hobby, and could be useful in this moment. “I’m a musician, and I believe in creative intervention. Through creative activism, it brings motivation to the protesters, and also to the resistance, and keeps the revolution going.”
Darko grew up under the prior military regime, when one could be arrested for simply expressing oneself, and so has been well-trained in the art of hiding meaning and keeping a low profile. Not so for the younger generation. “There is a small group of young artists who are really radical and who want to push the limits on what we can talk about.” Some in this younger generation want to confront a conservative society that often doesn’t value their opinion as young people, while others just want to become famous. Darko expresses some disappointment that younger musicians don’t appreciate how hard he and his generation of artists had to struggle against the limits of censorship not even that long ago, and how they take that hard-won freedom of expression for granted. Yet in spite of that, Darko continues to support their creative expression not only by his 20 years of ground-breaking artistic work, but also through creating platforms and opportunities for younger artists to get their voices out, at a time when the revolution needs to hear from creative rebels more than ever.
And not just from within Myanmar, but Darko also calls on artists around the world to show their support at this time.
“It would make Myanmar people feel supported, that we are visible, because now we feel like the whole world, they don't care about. We are going through these horrible situations and we feel like no one cares about us. So if you if you can do some graffiti or a poem or whatever, whenever we see something that from the other side of the world, it gives a signal that they care about us.”