Episode #261: From the Ground Up
“Our standard of treating the population that we govern has to be right!” exclaims Saw Kapi. “We cannot just treat them differently because we have guns and control the area. If we think that political authority comes from the barrel of the gun, then we are heading towards dictatorship. But if we believe that our authority to govern comes from the consent of the governed, we are heading in the right direction.” A veteran of the 8888 Uprising, Saw Kapi gives his insights on the slow process of democratization in Myanmar, and his own journey from revolutionary student to educator, to a builder of civil society.
Saw Kapi’s second year at a government technical college in Taungoo was significantly impacted by the 1988 student uprising. On September 18, the military launched a coup to retake power; Saw Kapi fled along with his ABSDF (All Burma Students' Democratic Front) colleagues to join the resistance in Karen state. Reflecting on the student movement's dynamics in working towards the common cause of democracy, Saw Kapi notes,“We accepted each other. One commonality was our political consciousness, the reason we wanted to establish democracy.” He continues, “It wasn't only Bamar students at the time, but there were students from different ethnic backgrounds who participated in the student movement. But they didn't really make their identity known, meaning the protests at the time did not take [on] an ethnic dimension.”
He believes this was also a result of the country's isolationist stance during those socialist decades. “The country had been very closed to the outside world for a long, long time, almost 26 years,” he says. “Therefore, people at the time did not mention their ethnicity." Saw Kapi uses himself as an example of how identities were negotiated. “My identity as a student was a lot more important and a lot more politically significant than my identity as a Karen. I do have dual or even triple identities. However, in terms of political movement, political consciousness, and participating in these democratic struggles, my identity as a student was at the forefront at the time.”
Although Saw Kapi had fled to his cultural homeland adjusting to life there was challenging. He had grown up in a more urban environment, so this experience felt to him something of a cross between“coming home” while simultaneously being stuck in an alien environment. “I started learning about the ethnic struggles when I joined the student movement in the jungle. We didn't get to read a lot of these histories when we were in the city, so we did not know. But I started learning.” Yet at the same time, he faced challenging living conditions, and widespread misconceptions, as the local population initially mistrusted Saw Kapi and his companions. But with his background, he played a crucial bridging role, eventually establishing trust and understanding between the students and the local population.
In 1994, Saw Kapi migrated to the United States as a refugee. “I simply started everything from the very beginning again!” he exclaims. “I had been a college student in 1988, but of course, I didn't bring any evidence. We had to reestablish our own identity when we migrated.” He began his new life by attending adult school to improve his English and basic skills, eventually obtaining a GED. He then enrolled in a community college before transferring to San Francisco State University, where he studied international relations. This journey required significant effort and resilience. “One has to be very diligent and have focus and say, ‘Okay, I'm going to try to finish my education!’ Because by the time I started my college [in the USA], I was about five years older than most of my classmates. But we understood the value, the importance of education, especially in the revolutionary setting."
Beyond education alone, however, Saw Kapi also realized the vast cultural adjustments necessary in relocating to an entirely different country: “I felt like my body was in the United States, but my mental state, or a lot of my thinking was still in the jungle and with resistance, with most of my comrades in the jungle at the time.”
After several years, he landed a position at the University of San Francisco, marking the beginning of his professional career in higher education. Yet Saw Kapi left behind his promising career path in 2013, instead choosing to return to Burma, where he was motivated by the desire to contribute to the country's development. He was saddened, but not shocked, to see the significant degradation in the country’s educational system, a result of prolonged, military rule. However, while the political environment was still restrictive, the energy and inquisitiveness of the youth was encouraging. “I quickly realized that when I started talking to young people in the country, they have so much energy, and are so intellectually inquisitive,” he recalls. “And that inquisitiveness triggers me, like, ’Okay, we need to make sure we jump on to this energy, and try to do whatever we can in order to bridge that energy with real opportunity. Because even though they are intellectually inquisitive, there is a big gap between the actual opportunity and where they currently are. And that’s how I began to see my role and our role.”
And as he pondered the depressing situation, an idea came to him: “I saw what the gaps are, and many gaps are areas we can fill!” To address those shortcomings, Saw Kapi created programs targeting marginalized communities in particular. “We gave emphasis to [providing] opportunity for marginalized young people who are from other parts [of the country] or outside of Yangon." His work was running bridge education programs through the B Education Foundation, which prepared students for overseas studies. Their courses emphasized critical thinking, social sciences, and English proficiency—the tools students need for academic success and civic engagement.
This work was especially critical because, even when the NLD took power in 2015 and introduced changes in national education policy, these changes often failed to gain traction at the local level (an observation shared by Spring University Myanmar founder, Thura, on a previous podcast episode). “The transition wasn't ideal at all,” Saw Kapi notes. “But we wanted to give ourselves a chance to try to do whatever we can, so we went back. But we were not really welcomed by the political elites, or people who were politically in charge of the country at the time.” The powers-that-be did not see his and his colleagues’ efforts in education and youth development as a priority, or one that even aligned with their own political agendas. The lack of official support made these educational reformers’ work more challenging; they had to operate independently, without the backing or endorsement of the government. “I went back into the country fully aware of the fact that education can be highly political and politically contentious,” he says. “We wanted to do this in preparation of preparing the next generation; not to damage or destroy or cause troubles to the country, or to the political process as a country."
Nevertheless, Saw Kapi remained undeterred. He recognized that true change would come neither from the approval of the political elites, nor attempts to transform the country from the top down, but from empowering the people from the bottom up. Following the coup, while he was at the Thai-Burma border, he realized that a unique opportunity to enact his vision had presented itself, in spite of the challenging situation. He instituted a training program that would help build capacity for local governance and public administration, and in an area—an ethnic region—that his prior educational efforts had not really touched. In this sense, Saw Kapi's narrative underscores the transformative power of education in helping shaping political consciousness and fostering democratic values. By educating and empowering especially young people, he is helping to lay a foundation for a more politically aware and engaged population in the future, helping create a true, federal democratic union from the ground up.
This current initiative involves consulting with the community, proactively and empathetically accounting for the diversity present in a township, making decisions that reflect local needs, and providing public services. “In some cases, what we are seeing is not a perfect democratic process,” he acknowledges. “But for organizations that are engaging in revolution, this is a very impressive democratic process that these organizations are going through.” Indeed, he finds this process to be effective in helping revolutionary organizations better understand how to consult with the public good governance practices, provide public services, and prioritize the protection of the public in the context of strategizing military operations.
Saw Kapi contrasts this vision for local governance—one that emphasizes empowerment, inclusivity, and accountability—with the centralized, exploitative model that has long been practiced by the military regime, and can be characterized by unregulated extraction of resources and a lack of accountability.“The people can establish a local level governance structure!” he affirms. “And who will take charge of or be a leader of this local level governance, are elected by the different localities, and people and the different local levels. They will act and do things in the interest of these particular communities that they will have to administer.” The fulcrum of decision-making for military leaders, on the other hand, can be summed up in one word: control. “First and foremost, when you are a trained military personnel, and you come into the civil, local governance sector, what they think about 90% of the time is to control the population, to control the resources, to control the income or the revenue,” he says. “So that's what they are very good at, and that's what they have been doing all along … People who came from military see their accountability upwards only. They do not see that they are accountable to the people! Downward accountability is not at all in their mind.”
Saw Kapi does acknowledge that at times there is tension inherent in the dual role that Ethnic Revolutionary Organizations (EROs) are being asked to play, as both resistance fighters and now, local governance. But he is convinced that, despite these bumps in the road, helping build the capacity of EROs to govern effectively can only contribute to the broader goal of democratization. “The process may not be perfect, but their attitude, mentality, and desire to pursue certain ways and approaches, shows us that these institutions are doing their very best to protect the people and take them into account."
Saw Kapi provides examples of successful initiatives in regions like Karen State, where local governance structures and public administration handbooks are being developed with the support of the Karen National Union. In Karenni state, too, state-level governance is being developed where different townships administer themselves, and different models of administrations are emerging.
The shift in political mindset from relying on top-down control to one focused on inclusion and serving the public is crucial to building a sustainable and democratic future for Burma. He acknowledges the criticisms that have been made of some EROs, noting that not all have embraced democratic practices in the past. “I am fully aware that there are some EROs that are still in a very early stage, and are unable to initiate this kind of this democratic process in the areas that they control,” he says. “My only recommendation is to get the fundamentals right at the very beginning, because if you don't, we may never get it right! The system may not be perfect, and I understand that they are in the revolutionary stage, but still, being in the stage of revolution should not be an excuse for us to not listen to the people.”
He argues that empowering and supporting those committed to democratic governance creates a positive, ripple effect: by strengthening organizations and their ability to provide effective governance, the influence of any that do not wish to align with democratic principles will diminish. Saw Kapi also highlights the importance of international support in this process. While insisting that such external actors cannot impose change, he believes they can provide valuable resources and expertise to help build the capacity of local governance structures. “Empowering and building the capacity of the good EROs—the ones on the right track and truly representing their people—is crucial!” he says. “If we support them to do more of what they do, other less aligned EROs will fade."
“I see this as an opportunity,” he says in closing. “It is important for our country’s people to hear positive stories and realize that it is possible for them to rebuild the country, or to build a new country from the ground up! That potential and possibility is a big hope for everyone in our country.”