Episode #72: Resiliency in the Face of Terror
“Myanmar people are very resilient,” Meredith Bunn says at the start of the conversation. These opening words help frame the almost unfathomable situation in Myanmar for the listener, to better understand how the population has been able to put up with such a nightmare scenario as long as they have. “They have the older generation who lived through so much already. And very luckily, in a way, those people have explained to them, ‘Well, this is what we used to have to do. Let's do this again.’”
Resiliency of this magnitude is probably hard for most of us to imagine. However, Meredith has spent much of her life in this country, surrounded by people operating with this level of courage and sacrifice. Still, she encounters scenes evoking a horror that is hard to truly describe. From children so hungry they are literally eating dirt, to young girls mysteriously disappearing, to the military deliberating sending COVID-infected patients into high population areas to intentionally spread the pandemic, to depriving oxygen for those infected patients literally suffocating with the illness. It doesn’t end. Truly, it is difficult to imagine a people undergoing a greater test at this moment.
As cruel as the Tatmadaw is, Meredith observes that they are stretched very thin in this protracted conflict, and estimates their fighting forces being as low as 90,000 men. Still, their weaponry is far more advanced than what local resistance fighters have had to make by hand, and so she encourages activists to be smart in their strategy. She also points out that these newly formed resistance groups are made of ordinary citizens who have almost no background in the guerrilla campaigns they are now undertaking.
This has led her to wonder aloud if the experience of the EAOs (Ethnic Armed Organizations) have been somewhat overlooked and under-supported as key players in this conflict. She notes, “The university students, as hugely admirable as it is that they are laying their lives down and trying to help as much as they can, we have to remember that how much support we give them, is how much danger they will be put in as well. So we have to think about if it is really worth putting hundreds of 19 year olds in almost undeniable danger, then it would have been to support the very well trained and very capable groups that were already in place.”
Just mentioning these groups charged with defending their local communities (as well as those carrying out offensives against the military) brings up, by default, the role of violence in the struggle. Since the start of the movement was non-violent, it is a reminder that as the country has entered the 8th month of the conflict, the Myanmar people have come to accept the fact that a force without conscience is not at all moved by nonviolent resistance. On this point, Meredith does not hold back, noting that for those outside the country, “When you're sitting in a position of safety, it's easy to say, ‘Don't be violent!’ When you're not the one being hit in the face, when you're not seeing your daughter being shot in the head, it's easy to say ‘Don't be violent.’” She feels that the majority of Burmese are not animated by revenge but rather the need for basic security, and notes that this basic right to self-protection is recognized in almost every country in the world. Meredith is equally discomfited by foreigners who attempt to draw comparisons with life under the coup in Myanmar to recent events in their own countries, such as Black Lives Matter in the US or various forms of social unrest in England.
She also notes some have reached back historically for comparisons, such as to the Nazis, in describing the presence of a kind of living evil that the Burmese people are confronting. As someone so deeply connected to a country and a people enduring this suffering, she is clear on who she holds responsible. “I don't hate the Tatmadaw. I don't hate everyone in it. I hate Min Aung Hlaing. I hate him because he's the leader. I hate the puppets that he has inside.” And while she understands that not every soldier is courageous enough to defect or refuse commands, there can also be a level of cruelty for which there is simply no excuse. “Is it an order to kidnap an 11-year-old girl and hold her for several days, and then burn her to death because you assaulted her? No, that’s not an order.”
While Meredith appreciates any foreigner who has decided to stand with the Burmese people at this time and help in any way they can, she has also found herself uncomfortable when those living in safety have offered judgment on what activists should or should not be doing, such as one well-regarded Western woman who asserted that CDM is inhumane because workers are deprived of full salaries. However, Meredith refutes this.“They’re not going to work because it's a national strike,” she says, “and yet you, in your privileged position, say it's inhumane, because what? You think they're not going to paid? There was already a promise beforehand, that if they were in on CDM, they would get some quantity of funds. And, obviously, due to lack of research or something quite embarrassing, and as she was quite a prominent person in her field, and obviously a lot of the Myanmar people turned on her.”
Meredith is concerned by what she identifies as a kind of voyeurism. “If you're a foreigner,” she says, “and you want to come into the country, just to have a look around, it’s almost trying to look at a dead body for no reason. Like, are you a mortician? Are you a coroner? No! Then, why are you trying to look at this? This isn't for you.” Equally troubling to her are those foreigners who dispense uninformed opinions, instead of researching and listening empathetically.
The conversation ends with a focus on the worsening COVID pandemic, and what Meredith’s team has been doing to support the people, which includes the importation of vaccines and oxygen concentrators, along with various medicines. They also operate various mobile medical clinics, which must be done deep ‘underground’ as the Tatmadaw attacks them with impunity. Managing a raging pandemic where doctors are targeted, medical supplies are contraband, and millions of people are now either displaced or in hiding, is certainly no easy task. This has also provided a new opening for the military, as Meredith observes, since now “no one is focusing on what they're doing in the outskirts, so they're able to shoot people down the road. No one notices they're able to burn down villages and have these mass graves, and no one is noticing because they're focused on COVID-19.”
With all this, Meredith certainly has her hands full, but her mind and her heart are clear, and the Burmese people are fortunate to have such a person on their side. “One thing I will say is ever since I can remember, all I wanted to do is help people. Some people have that position where they think, ‘Oh, I really want to help. I don't know how, but I’m going to try and help.”
To support Meredith’s work, please consider giving a donation to her organization, Skills for Humanity.
To read the poem shared in this episode, go here.