Stirring Up Freedom
Marc Batac defines the role of the Milk Tea Alliance (MTA) as a platform for grassroots solidarity and activism that transcends borders, uniting diverse groups against authoritarianism and state violence across Southeast and East Asia. For Marc, who appeared last year on our podcast feed, the MTA serves as more than just an online movement—it is a space where digital and offline actions converge, allowing activists to share information, strategies, and support in real-time. He emphasizes that MTA is not just a reactive force to external geopolitical pressures, such as the tensions between the US and China, but rather a movement defined by the lived experiences of its participants. Marc highlights the importance of maintaining independence from external narratives, ensuring that the MTA's positions are shaped by the collective analysis of the region’s struggles. Whether addressing issues like militarized policing or human rights abuses, MTA provides a means for individuals to define their resistance on their own terms, free from imposed Eurocentric perspectives, and to collaborate in building a shared vision for liberation. It’s a dynamic, evolving movement that continues to crystallize its purpose through ongoing dialogue, regular check-ins, and grassroots actions.
“If we are not in intentional in defining what Milk Tea Alliance stands for, all other forces will define it for us. They are already doing that for us!”
“Rather than being sandwiched, our analysis is based on our ongoing material analysis of what's happening where we come from; it's not something that was imposed by Western media or by Western-based NGOs. We would engage them, but at the same time, we would disagree when we think that their perspective on what's happening here in Southeast Asia and East Asia is centered again on Eurocentric analysis.
For example, how does the Milk Tea Alliance position itself between the US and China? For us, we are conscious of this, of the geopolitics of this, but we do not want to be the puppets to both imperial powers. That's why, when it comes to issues, we would call out, and we will take a position not based on those two camps. Because those two camps do not exist as our camp, as the liberation of our peoples here, the solidarity and linking of our struggles here in the region.
For example, we have spoken on the issue of the Uighurs, and the issue of Tibet, on the issue of the bullying of Beijing, when it comes to territorial disputes here in the South China Sea and West Philippine Sea. But at the same time, we've also spoken up against the hypocrisy of Western powers and the United States when it comes to the issue of Palestine. We've had internal discussions, as well, using our experience, our lenses: how do these issues relate to us? Rather than using what was being poised as meanings for what the Milk Tea Alliance is, why don't we make much of ours? That's why we have to work hard in regularizing our check-ins and meetings and discussions, because if we do not work harder - that's what I would tell peers - we would usually just release multiple statements here and there. But the point of those joint statements is not primarily for a policy change; it would be useful for that, of course, and in awareness, but primarily, we are making joint statements as mile markers for what is the consensus so far within the group.
If we are not in intentional in defining what Milk Tea Alliance stands for, all other forces will define it for us. They are already doing that for us. In the early days and up until now, they are doing that. That's why there's always the imputation of being net funded, even if we are primarily volunteer resourced. The only resources that we could gather are only because we are an organization. So, we pool resources; we fundraise out of our own pockets in our communities. The imputation of color, of being color revolutions, again, that imputation is based on a Eurocentrism, that the only legitimate, the only primary battle, and the only battle that is happening right now, is from the point of view of a new cold war. But our lens is based on what our analysis is here.
So, as Milk Tea Alliance, that is what we are doing more intentionally. We have to define what we stand for, analyze what's happening in the world. What's happening in Palestine? What's happening in Ukraine? What's happening and how does that relate? That's why in our statements, it would refer to how that speaks to our own experience of militarism, of militarized police, state violence, here the country. What are the links in those forces with what's happening here and how the authoritarians in our own military and our police are being transferred, are being propped up, here in the region?”