The Emergence of the Milk Tea Alliance
Marc Batac was involved in forming the Milk Tea Alliance (MTA) after the Myanmar coup in February 2021 by leveraging relationships with fellow activists built over the years. He describes on a recent episode, how he was immediately contacted by Burmese activists, seeking his help in organizing support from MTA. Although there was no centralized structure for MTA, Marc suggested creating a platform for those who resonated with the goals of the alliance. This led to the establishment of the "Milk Tea Alliance Friends of Myanmar," a group that met weekly to share information, build trust, and coordinate both online and offline efforts in solidarity with Myanmar. It has grown from a dozen individuals to over 150 activists spanning across Southeast and East Asia.
“I knew what was coming. We were, of course, already active online with the hashtags of Milk Tea Alliance and speaking up for Myanmar. And so I knew that at some point, it was coming.”
“It was two strands that were meeting: Some of us were already also quite active online; so, we were also involved in using the hashtag. These are two strands that eventually converged together. If you remember the hashtag, I would roughly describe it as a coalition, but maybe a cross-pollination of Boys Love on Fandom and then of geopolitics.
It started as that, but then it shifted as well. It started as counter-trolling by Taiwanese netizens and Thai and Hong Kong netizens against CCP trolls, but eventually, the messages, if you look at it online, they shifted as well, to using the hashtag with other issues outside of geopolitics and the bullying of Beijing. One of the early hashtags that used Milk Tea Alliance in relation to Myanmar was, I think, about dams. The day after that, the hashtag of the Milk Tea Alliance was born!
So, these are opportunities for digital natives and digital activists to add meaning into the hashtag. That’s the concept of virality. It becomes viral because you allow for those who participate in it to add meaning to it, and to transform it. And eventually, that's when you see the messages.
After a few weeks and months, it became hashtags used against the Thai monarchical system, and also the repression in the National Security Law and the extradition law bill in Hong Kong. So, it became not anymore just about geopolitics, but now about domestic and indigenous issues that are in Southeast and East Asia; it's about state violence. It's about the militarized policing. It's about human rights and authoritarianism at home.
But many of us are involved, as well, in the organizing offline. Some of the peers who were involved, I've been in touch with them through the years. For example, one was quite a figure in the mid-2020s protests in Thailand, we were in touch. He was one of the folks who, through the years, I've been also in touch with. So, just to name that, some of us who were who were involved in digital mobilization were also connected to the offline mobilization. And that allowed for relationships as well that were being built in the offline space.
The goal now was: how do we synthesize a connection between the digital space and the offline space? Usually, I think, seniors think that it is a dichotomy for us. But for us, it's always an extension of our civic space, of our space to speak up when our space offline is restricted. You know? We turn online, and sometimes we even use optimized space that we have online to be able to organize more effectively and to spread information, to synergize our actions offline.
You can see now, as well, the access to information, learning from online, the tactics from Hong Kong and the symbolism. The three-finger salute, that was, I think, first originated, started, adopted by the Thai activists. The rubber duckies in Hong Kong, the symbolism of the milk tea in the Milk Tea Alliance and the movement from Taiwan, all of these were being synergized on different fronts, from those who are active in both but also active either in the digital space or the online space. This is now snowballing. I think the moment, it was a question for me back then on how do we now systematize in some way that fits with the organic newness and dynamism of movements, both online and offline? The opportunity came in the first week of the [Myanmar] coup in 2021.
In the first week of February, the coup happened. The day immediately thereafter, the Burmese activist, my friend who I had been in contact with, my brother with his youth network, reached out to me for an emergency meeting, an emergency call. I knew what was coming. We were, of course, already active online with the hashtags of Milk Tea Alliance and speaking up for Myanmar. And so I knew that at some point, it was coming.
So, this person who had come up in our block Marcos protests in 2017, now reached out to me, and their ask was: ‘Marc, Could you arrange for us to meet the Milk Tea Alliance?’
And I had to pause for a little bit. Because being involved in that past year, in the digital campaign using the hashtag and in some of the chat groups of the Milk Tea Alliance, it’s quite a dispersed movement. There's no singular Milk Tea Alliance. So, I told them quite carefully that ‘Unfortunately, it will be impossible to meet with the Milk Tea Alliance. There is no one Milk Tea Alliance. But I have a counter, another suggestion. Why don't build a meeting point for all of those who resonate with the hashtag and the name and symbolism and aspirations of the Military Tea Alliance?”