Episode #111: Visual Rebellion
Some weeks after the coup, the Burmese military began to attack peaceful protestors. Then they started attacking doctors, and other medical professionals who were treating those victims of their assault. Now they attack anyone who tries to tell the world about their violent ways.
Emerging from under decades of harsh censorship, local journalism and investigative reporting made great strides in Myanmar during the democratic transition in the 2010s. But all that was wiped out in a single blow when the military grabbed power. They began revoking licenses, arresting journalists, and torturing and even killing some in prison. This intimidation posed a real risk to anyone trying to document the current conflict, and forced many to go underground.
This is the backdrop to the formation of the media collective, Visual Rebellion. They describe their mission as follows: “Visual Rebellion is a platform for Burmese photographers, filmmakers and artists to display their work as an act of resistance against the military government. We work with and support Burmese creators, both in Myanmar and across the region, to carry on with their work. Our aim is to find them an international audience and keep the focus on the persecution of the creative community by the military junta. We believe creativity is one of the greatest weapons against oppression and a leading light on the path back to democracy. The simple acts of free thought and expression push back strongly against the military insistence of silence and compliance.” Two of the collective’s members appear as guests on this episode.
The first guest is Laure, a French journalist based in Bangkok. Laure had provided media trainings in Myanmar prior to the pandemic. As the situation grew increasingly dire following the military coup, Laure reached out through her network to former participants from her trainings, and soon learned the difficulties they were operating under. She also worked with several European colleagues who were following the deteriorating situation, and who wanted to help as well. This gave rise to the creation of Visual Rebellion, a platform which provides support for Burmese journalists and artists so they can continue reporting in a wide array of mediums, such as video, audio, text, and photography.
Laure feels the anguish of those young journalists she had trained, but whose fledgling careers were cut short, first by the global pandemic which severely limited travel, and then the brutal military coup followed by immediate suppression of all forms of media. This is the time, she feels, that they “have to be supported, because they're the only source for all of us to know what's happening in the country now.”
Visual Rebellion team members currently reporting from Myanmar have all assumed code names for their safety, and cybersecurity training has been organized for them as well. Any material they are able to smuggle out of the country—often accomplished at enormous risk to their personal safety—is immediately posted and distributed by Laure and her colleagues. Their reports address a broad range of topics, including IDP camps, textile factories, the Thai-Myanmar border, the spread of fake news through Facebook, and the exit of Telenor and steep increase in SIM card costs. “I think in our small scale, we produce, we train, we continue to report every day, we collect documents about what's happening in the country, check it, write it, and publish it in English but also in in Burmese.”
It has become clear to Laure just how fundamentally the ground has shifted under the feet for so many in Myanmar, especially those who have left their employment as part of the Civil Disobedience Movement. “There is no way back for a lot of those people who have chosen to walk out. I talk to [people from] quite a diverse social landscape now, from teachers to factory workers to agricultural workers, and some of those who made the choice to work outside, will never go back.” And she notes that this is the first political stand, and perhaps the very first political expression, that many people in Myanmar have ever taken, and urges the West to understand the stakes of the situation, and the sacrifices being made.
“CDM is a question of politics now, as is not putting your child at school,” she notes. “It’s the choice of most people, and it has to be respected! If the international community wants to have any role in this at this time, it has to integrate into this reality.”
Laure and her team have seen the positive impact of their reporting in Thailand, where youths in Bangkok have organized protests in solidarity in front of the Myanmar Embassy, a sight that she had never witnessed before. But it has been more challenging to find an angle which renews and sustain the attention of international media. Laure believes that this is less about the consumers of that media than the interest of the media outlets themselves. She proposes a symbiotic relationship between economics, politics and the media, in which a country’s media slants its choice of stories towards the lead and expectations of that country’s economic and political elites.
Following Laure, the journalist known as SMR103 joins the episode, discussing his role as a documentarian. He did not attend any college after high school, but heard about a media training course and was immediately intrigued. Laure later saw his photos online and reached out with an invitation to join the Visual Rebellion team.
As soon as the coup hit, SMR103 was out on the streets covering the weeks of nonviolent demonstrations. But a very dark incident shook him to his core. “One person was killed during the protests,” he says. “He was my friend, an engineering student. I saw it with my own eyes. On that day, at least 10 were injured, and I was the only reporter there. I was the only one with the camera, and I took a picture of the injuries.”
SMR103 has since faced other dangers in his reporting. He relates a particularly scary episode when was assigned to a story about an oil refinery. As he began asking questions and taking pictures, he was accused of being a PDF soldier, taken away, and interrogated. Still, with the help of the resources that the Visual Rebellion team is providing, he persists in doing all he can to tell the story of what continues to happen in Myanmar.
“Journalism will help to end the dictatorship,” he believes. “Of course, it is all about letting the world know what is happening in Myanmar. Journalism is important because it gives current and relevant information and news to the public, to regain the interest again from the international community. I will continue covering what is happening in Myanmar. There are not many journalists left anymore to bring to the world these kinds of professional images and videos.”