The Emotional Toll
Sometimes we get so lost in the headlines of the news that we lose sight of the human toll. My interview with Thurain went a long way in exposing the emotional cost being extracted even from those survivors. The senseless destruction is now onto its fourth month, and we hope that those like Thurain can again know the taste of freedom soon. For more about Thurain’s story, take a look at this Mother Jones piece about him.
“We all cannot sleep well, we cannot eat well, everything we see just looks to be dying.”
Host: Right after the coup hit, when you were spending that first week or two trying to adjust to the new reality and trying to figure out how to respond to it, what were you thinking, what were you doing?
Thurain: Hopeless. Disappointment. Just kind of feeling, I know no future, I feel that it's all black outside. We feel like, ‘How dare they just kill the futures of the people in Myanmar!?’ Because people have been putting all this positive energy and everyone is trying so hard, working for themselves and the country. We are so much behind in the region and also globally. We are one of the poorest countries. So we tried to worked so hard during the times [of the democratic reforms, when the country began to open.] It is really such a cruel thing. This is how I felt.
Host: So it sounds like you were kind of in a depression at that time. Is that right?
Thurain: Yeah. Not only me, everyone, like all my friends as well. We all had the same feeling.
Host: So as you were depressed, were you doing things, were you active? Were you planning or was it just kind of a time to work through the depression and almost like a therapy to try to talk and have conversations and to try to come out of that despair? What were you actually doing during this time?
Thurain: You know, we were just depressed. Basically I was like, ‘Holy shit, everything is gone!’ We felt that way. But then at the same time, we're motivated, we want to do something, and we want to fight back. And we are very determined that this is this must be the last fight! This must be the last fight, otherwise we will have to hold the hands of our daughters and sons and protest again, when we are getting older. I don't want to let that happen!
Host: So that decision to, on your part, to want to resist and take some action about the coup, when did that come about? Right away after February 1?
Thurain: Yeah, sure. We all cannot sleep well, we cannot eat well, everything we see just looks to be dying. Even when we see the green color of life, like the green colored trees outside, we are seeing they are dying, in our feeling. Everything's dark. We just want to bring some light in our life. And we want to see the very clear future in our lifetime.