Episode #44: A Screeching Halt: The Military Coup Shoots Down Reforms
Maw Htun Aung appeared to be a leader right for his time. He was the kind of progressive champion who could take elected office as the new Myanmar Parliament convened, helping move the country towards a promising future heading into the third decade of the 21st century. Instead of this dream, however, a nightmare unfolded instead, and the February elections that Maw Htun Aung had hoped for turned out far different than anything he could have imagined.
Born into a Kachin family in Myitkyina and raised as a Christian, he attended school in Yangon and grew up with close friends of many different ethnicities and religions. In 2010, he studied at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and was pleased to return home and find his country going through positive reforms. “Although it was not a fully democratic institution,” he notes, “it had a lot of elements of democratic practices, like checks and balances.” Several years later, he went to the U.S. to study public administration, and when he returned to Myanmar again in 2015, he delved into public policy reform, focusing on natural resources.
For Maw Htun Aung, this was a key aspect of his country’s future. If managed properly, it could go a long way in ensuring peace between the government and the country’s ethnic minorities. As most of Myanmar’s precious minerals and natural resources are found in ethnic territories, the military has historically endeavored to control these areas, which has resulted in forced displacement and organized assaults on various ethnic communities. Maw Htun Aung also points out that the profit generated by those raw materials has rarely, if ever, been put back into these regions to assist the development of their infrastructure and society.
So for Maw Htun Aung, while the execution of his vision was may not have been simple, the solution was: “in the allocation of the budget, we can have a better system that treats its citizen more equally, rather than systematically sidelining or discriminating the ethnic state.” Although actual reform did not come easy, given the powerful players at the table with high stakes in the operations, he did see progress, and notes that he would never have even attempted such work in previous years. He was hopeful about where the previous government was headed, even if there was quite a bit more work to do. And he had real hopes that if a more equitable system of allocating natural resources was put into effect, it could potentially help end what is the longest running civil war in the world!
In 2020, he felt he might be more influential as a legislative member as opposed to NGO manager, and so he ran under the ticket of the Shan National League for Democracy. He notes that his progressive style of politics pushed back against the commonly held belief that “Myanmar is often strongly associated with the politics of identity.” He says, “There is some belief that people will only vote to someone whom they can relate to, in terms of their own identity. But for me, who believes in progressive politics, I do not believe that in politics there should be a strong adherence to reference to identity such as age, gender, ethnicity, and religion.”
Although he felt the campaign went well, he ended up losing the election, but personally witnessed numerous accounts of voter fraud. He was in the process of taking legal steps to challenge the results when the February coup upended everything, and he has said he will not serve in any government post even if they continue to hold power.
Instead, he has been awakening every day into a nightmare. Still, he sees some optimism: “The good thing is that people woke up from the dreams and the illusions that relying on one’s leaders is not going to do any good for the country's democratic journey.” He is moved by the unity and selflessness felt throughout the movement, as well as by the courage demonstrated under the most dangerous and violent of circumstances. But he acknowledges the tremendous mental and emotional struggles, and PTSD, that weigh on the Burmese people now.
He closes with a wish for the international audience: “I think the first and dearest thing is, remember us in your daily prayers, and also your daily meditation. And send positive energy, or whatever it is that you're doing, include us.”
In this short excerpt, he describes how he came to see the proper allocation of natural resources in Myanmar as being critical to providing peace and reconciliation going forward, and ensuring stability and security to the country's ethnic populations.