Transcript: Episode #63: A Lifetime of Advocacy
Following is the full transcript for the interview with Michael Haack, which appeared on July 16, 2021. This transcript was made possible by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and has not been checked by any human reader. Because of this, many of the words may not be accurate in this text. This is particularly true of speakers who have a stronger accent, as AI will make more mistakes interpreting and transcribing their words. For that reason, this transcript should not be cited in any article or document without checking the timestamp to confirm the exact words that the guest has really said.
Host 00:51
Thank you for taking the time to listen to today's episode. As you know, the current crisis in Myanmar is extremely concerning. Can we appreciate that you're taking the time to be informed about what's happening. There's value even in just becoming aware and helping to inform others. So please consider sharing this episode so that more people may learn about what is really happening in the country, as it's critical to ensure that this issue remains present in the public discourse. For now, let's get on to the interview to follow
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06:34
Hey, everyone, I want to look away and have a
06:41
good day.
Michael Haack 07:06
When I was like 17, looking at universities, I went and did like an overnight admitted students day at American University. And I remember everybody on the floor, was talking about how somebody from the floor that I was staying at was at this giant protests in Quebec City, like those were the days of the, you know, anti corporate globalization, movement, globalization from below, and things like that. And, you know, the the massive protests in Seattle had just happened in 99. I think this was your 2001. And so I came and I chose American University for that reason, like, you know, expecting to get involved in the anti corporate globalization, movement, like I came from a strong union family, I grew up like knowing that sort of the Democrats and the Republicans had all kind of turned on unions during the 1990s. And, you know, these are ideas that that's sort of like globalization, and like a worker, like globalization has always been a center of my thinking. And so at that time, I was reading a book called no logo, which is sort of a Bible of that kind of anti corporate globalization movement. And I got picked to go to a conference in Boston. And there was a number of people quoted in the logo. One of them being Dr. sanguine, who is still lives here in Twinbrook, but is famous for having done sort of a peace treaty between the AV SDF and the of the peace treaty is already aware, but he he negotiated between the Quran and the students and etc, etc. So, um, so I was learning about Burma from this book, no logo. And I was learning about the divestment movements around Burma and at this conference at Oxfam International put on sitting right there in front of me with Simon villainous who currently is, is one of my bosses, I've maybe too many jobs. And he was was right there. And he was talking about the anti that sort of divestment movement around Burma. And I was like, oh, wow, like, this is that guy from no logo. And that piqued my curiosity. And then when I got back from my sophomore year, there was a trip to Thailand in Burma that someone had organized. So I did the alternative winter break there. And I just remember meeting all these people from the Thai Burma border, and they all say, you know, and of course, we ask all of them, like, what do you want us to do for you? They're all like, get us companies to stop doing business with the junta. And so I returned back to the EU and myself with free Burma coalition, you know, myself and a few other students at AU worked with rebond Burma coalition to develop this campaign to get me as the partners so our which, at the time on its major conglomerate on hex Lord and Taylor, David bridal, really, really massive company to stop sourcing from Burma. And, you know, after a couple of months really like the company agreed to pull out, you know, they like me legally binding statements and then all of a sudden, you know, I was like an incredibly awkward 19 year old that like nobody had ever been afraid of and no one would rationally be afraid of pretend like this, like massive like multinational corporation was afraid of me and listen to this campaign that I made and I was like, holy shit like this is real. And this is like, a place that like these sort of ideas about, you know, globalization from below and like International, you know, capital has its international and lightworkers need our own International. And that just became like very real. And it just seemed like a the right place to contribute. And so I really spent a lot of my college years and I did a Master's shout out his undergraduate like, you know, focused on Burma, at least working on things related to Burma. And when I graduated, I got hired at us campaign for Burma and and worked there for a few years doing our kind of congressional work. So that's sort of the long and the short of how I got involved in in Burma and Burma related Policy.
Host 11:31
Yeah, so it sounds like your background interest in Burma was kind of this combination of personal experience as a young backpacker internship when you were when you actually went to the country and met people combined with some of these policy policies, and advocacies, that were interested in interesting to you at the time that it all kind of came together in one place. And that set you on your path to what you've been doing since Is that right?
Michael Haack 12:00
Right. Yeah, absolutely.
Host 12:03
Right. And so after you had that experience of being this, as you said, an awkward 19 year old that was able to realize that you could actually do things that would have effect against a large multinational, affecting many more people and harming many more people that you were able to take an action that was able to limit or prevent this harm. You mentioned you went on to be involved in other ways in in Burma, your interests stayed there, as you continued on looking at other topics and research areas and advocacy. What What exactly did you do in the years following that?
Michael Haack 12:38
Totally. Yeah. So um, you know, after we did all these sort of divestment campaigns, the US eventually had an import ban from Burma. So there is no sense in continuing with the divestment work. And so we add us campaign for Burma, I did that sort of congressional advocacy, meaning I spent a lot of time on the phone, and the internet telling people to call their member of Congress to support particular legislation related to Burma. And, you know, that I did for a few years, things in Burma began to change the 2011. And our focus really changed when I first got involved. I conceptualize it as like the CMS sort of the anti apartheid movement, where you have this sort of global solidarity around what's happening in Myanmar. That's how novogo framed it. That's how I understood it. Then things began to change the sort of like an anti war Heim framework, which I think is fine, but it just didn't exactly like, like, doesn't quite speak to my politics in the same way. Particularly because like solidarity is being in solidarity with people a particular group of people. And it's it's a little bit more concrete, you're like in solidarity with like flawed people, because all people are flawed. Whereas like the sort of, like anti wartime approach, I think it's it's, it's an abstraction, right? Like the AV SDF has war crimes like the time and eyes war crimes then you know, every you know, so it just didn't make a lot of sense to me and and the hypocrisy of it, like given the horrible kind of crimes that US has been involved in at that time, especially I still in my 20s like really bothered me I didn't want to be a hypocrite so I these days, maybe I'm like less concerned about that particular thing, but I it's a time really bothered me. So, you know, I left verbal work for a while and went to live in in China and I, when I lived there, I would always visit Burma and I led some trips are like, particularly from Shenzhen to the way to for people learn about the sort of economic processing zones and stuff. But I didn't wasn't involved on Setting up like a international or national scale, I guess, around Burma policy again until this coup happened. It just so happened that right before the cue, I was interviewing mama Sandra yet, you know, a worker from the garment workers union. And it just happened that it was like, a week before the coup, I'd interviewed her for jacobin magazine. And then the interview came out like literally a day or two after the coup, and we had to like rewrite it rewrite the introduction very quickly to say this could just happen. And I remember at the time, the editor jacobin changed the well he he is the title he gave it was that workers are going to be the center of the anti crew struggle. And at that time, we had no way of knowing that that was going to be true, right? It was just like a assumption. Like, it was like literally, it's like February 2, I think, um, but then Wow. Like, in the next couple of days, it was like, Yes, like the workers ended this massive general strike, like just just came with the garment workers and, you know, the medical people. And you know, the rest is history, I guess I know. And I was like, wow, this is this is a pretty amazing thing. And I was really thinking about, okay, how can I use some my old skill set in order to get involved, again, and so at the time, I was both like writing these articles for jacobin, with my like, old colleague from us campaign for Burma, D. And I was looking to do a campaign and briefly launched a campaign, trying to get multinationals to pressure factories to not fire workers are participating in the CDM. And I had spoken to sort of these, like international campaigners, and I thought it was a winnable campaign and like, talk to the workers on the ground. And they said, yeah, this is what we really need, like, because workers are afraid to participate for getting fired. But if you can get the factory to say they won't fire them, cetera, etc. So it seemed like the perfect campaign and lots and lots of people were were signing up for it, different groups, international groups, but then you had the siege of fungi are, and just like the entire industrial sectors shutting down, you know, for a period of time anyway. And then at that time, you had the advocates kind of went in different directions. I was working at the time closely with a friend at the solidarity center and AFL CIO, and then, you know, they took the position of a lot of the workers on the ground, the worker organizers anyway, who were like, We were willing to die for this struggle, you know, we're definitely willing to lose our jobs, like get these multinational corporations, any dying to the regime, you know, even though government work doesn't really, as a percentage of like, you know, it's not the biggest source of revenue for the regime, but they're like, just get them out. Any, any money taken from their genome is good. gum up the economy. That's our strategy. You know, I haven't having had been involved in the import ban, you know, back in 2003, at a time when there was a lot less government working in Burma had, you know, I just didn't feel like we should go down that route, again, where you just completely cut the country off from Western markets, especially if it was going to be a long term struggle, which, you know, is going to be a long term struggle, unfortunately. So I both like didn't want to go against the workers. And I didn't want to do with the work. I should do. So. I just, you know, let other people take that on. And I started focusing on on Chevron and Chevron that brought me to sanctions again, like particularly the US sanctioning Myanmar, oil and gas. So I've been spending a lot of time over the past couple of months, you know, back again, doing congressional advocacy and getting people around the country to call their Congress members in order to pass up our mobila because it does have sections on emoji and that which could cut off the set of financial flows.
Host 19:34
Yeah, right. I want to go back to what you said when the coop broke about this article that you wrote for jacobin. About the the garment workers and I remember when that article came out, I remember seeing it and, you know, for me personally, it was a bit kind of off the radar and trying to understand the role that these garment workers were fitting in to the overall movement, especially as you mentioned, not not just fitting in, but actually being one of the leading agents of what was happening, because when when it first broke, I was looking at, like, what are the monks doing and what's,
Michael Haack 20:09
you know, oil and gas is the biggest contributor to, I believe, like, like sort of international trade in Myanmar. But the next two categories are both different categories of textiles. The you know, as China has developed a lot of the lower kind of wage, you know, textile manufacturing, has moved to Southeast Asia, and, you know, Burma opened up at a time, when a lot of capital was looking for other places to invest in, in garment work. garment work is very often, you know, sort of the first phase of incorporation into the global economy, like sort of like, you know, transition to a particular model of capitalism. And so, it's just a really interesting sector to look at. And it just employs a lot of people. I mean, there's probably 700 1000s, before the coup is probably 700,000 garment workers, almost entirely young women, almost entirely who, you know, migrated to be part garment workers. So it's, it really is like a center of a lot of, you know, different dynamics going on, you know, rural to urban migration has a lot to do with urbanization, remittances, you know, global capital. So, I think they're important because they stand at the intersection of all these different things. And they're, you know, able to gum up the economy in a way, because they are an important contributor to international exchange. And because they're from all over, like, they have connections all over, right, like, they're really connecting a larger part of Myanmar than simply just the industrial sectors, like the industrial sectors have a lot of reach. So I think for all those reasons,
Host 22:13
and what have the garment workers been doing these last four or five months since the coup?
Michael Haack 22:18
Yeah, well, so when it first happened, you know, they had already been organized, at least portions of them. Burma had experienced a major strike wave in 2019, which is sort of like typical for this stage of development. And you have a lot of like Wildcat strikes, meaning there wasn't a formal union going in and creating these strikes, you know, the workers that sort of organically organized, you'd have these sort of like worker centers that would help workers organize, and then they would go on strike, and then they would form unions that way. And, you know, you hear from a lot of the workers I interviewed, like this feeling of agency that they got from participating in these strikes, from actually getting demands from their bosses from having, you know, more respect from their bosses after the strikes. This is something that I heard a lot from workers that I interviewed, that was taking place prior to the coup. So like, during the period of democratic opening, so the workers really strongly identified at least once I talked to you, with the democratic opening, like they really, really believed that this had improved their lives, particularly because of the right to strike. And when the coup happened, I think they just really, really didn't want to go back to the old world, right, like, first of all, like the factories are, to some extent, a result of opening. And then the, the movement, like the ability to have a workers movement was also to some degree, a result of the opening to a large degree. I mean, there were also strikes prior to the sort of opening and, you know, I can hear our friend who teaches about this in Singapore, whose name is escaping who Campbell criticizing me for not pointing that out. So it wasn't all due to the opening already strikes before that. But the workers themselves very much like attributed to the opening, and their ability to improve their own situation. Not that they thought that NLD was perfect, like the NLD had a lot of problems when it came to workers rights, but like they they all saw it as so much better than the country they grew up and especially because of the ability to change. And when they felt that it was going to go back that they can no longer strike they can no longer you know, fight for their rights. Think they just wouldn't have it. And that's why you had these like, massive. You know, what walkouts and workers participating, um, that said, like around the siege of hongtai, or like when when the army basically went to war with the industrial sectors of the country, you had a lot of factories shutting down, not because of labor activity, but because the ports had shut down. Orders had stopped being made, or at least like, you know, have the finished orders that were made, but the ships are literally not docking and yeah, gone. And so that like, kind of shut the whole, not it didn't grind it completely to a halt, but really, really stopped industrial activity. And from what my understanding is, it has been trickling back over the past more recently, but none of the factories are running at the old capacity. You know, some workers have even gone and, and to the mountains to be trained for PDF and such. So. Yeah, it's a lot of things going on. Okay. very dynamic. 700,000 people, mostly Young Living.
Host 26:17
Right, right. Yeah. And that that was what I was just gonna ask about, we know how the regime is targeted doctors, people, medical profession, Gen Z students, even monks, you now have these largely female factory workers that are leading strikes and supporting unions and supporting various kinds of at least in the early stages from cordonnier articles, nonviolent resistance to just not being not contributing to the economy and wanting to sit it out. At a personal stake, what, what were the risks that they were running by, by by leading these strikes, and encouraging people not to go to work factories,
Michael Haack 26:56
I mean, huge risks like that, like, existential risks to their persons. I mean, they, they end the the amount to which, you know, and I know that a lot of people involved in the movement, I think everybody involved in the movement has had this experience where you're talking to somebody, and all of a sudden, they're like, I'm willing to die, and you're like, they are serious, they are ready to die. I mean, that they, they people's houses were rated, I mean, that some of the early massacres were in the industrial districts. I think home tire was the first worst one at about, I think, 40 people killed in the street, you know, in one day. And so, yeah, I mean, they're risking it all. I mean, you know, at different levels. I mean, being an organizer, obviously, you're, you're risking your life, the the lower level people that are risking their jobs, you know, it's just like very important, like people live, you know, very much paycheck to paycheck, they're like, if they're lucky, they're sending money home. I've even heard stories of people who, like, you know, they don't even make enough to send money back home, and maybe that's what they hoped they would be able to do. And so, it wasn't a particularly good situation, you know, before, you know, the COVID had been rough on workers union that was sort of used as an excuse to cut wages and crack down on them. So they're already having a rough go of it materially. And yeah, I mean, at minimum, people are risking their jobs and, you know, at maximum their lives. And what's the current state of the strike movement at the factories? that's a that's a great question. Um, you know, I think it has gone from being Central. I think the public sector workers continue to be central and the, and that sort of leader articles I've written about have been on the railway workers. I like the most recent article on South China Morning Post, I had the jacobin are both interviews with railway workers. I think that continues to be central, I think the private sector, you know, you haven't had these like giant because the workers have been striking and then participating in these giant marches. And as we all know, it's the the movement has moved from giant marches to like these more, sort of sparse, kind of flash marches and such. And so I think it's a little bit less central right now. I think a lot of the organizers are sort of regrouping and figuring out exactly what what role they're going to play or or have maybe incorporated into other groups. You know, the, the factory economy is sort of like I I believe, you know, trucking along at but just had a much lower sort of output. And you know, these are those kind of jobs with like guarantees of anything in particular like, like garment workers work as long as there are orders. And if there aren't orders, you don't have a job. And the whole sort of, it's always been like as very precarious living. And so, you know, a lot of them have gone back to their hometowns to I mean, a lot, just a lot of different things that happened. I mean, that when the when the siege happened, you did have like a major, lot of workers fled. went back home, some of them have been like, trickling back.
Host 30:48
Yeah. So you were talking about this goal of gumming up the economy and making things difficult in terms of how just the state was able to operate. And one of the ideas I've heard thrown around is that to weaken the generals, that there should simply be an effort to completely disrupt if not destroy tank, the Myanmar economy to make it all but impossible for any kind of financial or economic thing to happen. A pushback I've heard against that is that the generals have almost unlimited cash and resources coming from other places that are able to hold out and it's really just going to be the Burmese people that are suffering from an economy that is just a version in Detroit completely. So
Michael Haack 31:35
yeah, I mean, so I feel like one of the strongest tool that workers have is the strike, and the ability to go on strike the ability to withhold their labor. So I don't believe that, for example, the US or the EU should put an import ban, like they did in 2003, meaning that you couldn't export things to the United States or EU, which, like, you know, continue to be large markets for textiles. Simply because I think that allowing the factories to persist, and allowing the workers to, you know, still be workers, and, and, you know, participate, go up the economy as much as they want to, but also have the option, I think is important. People will push back on that from different perspectives. One, just from sort of the International labor movement perspective, if you're going to make a T shirt in Myanmar, which is now back to being an authoritarian state, where you no longer have the right to organize, or another country, like maybe Indonesia, or Vietnam, which which does have like a somewhat functional labor movement, they've actually, you know, are opening up like they're allowing more workers rights in Vietnam. As as time progresses, do we really want that to empower or, you know, dedicate capital to a country that is, is going to be like so oppressive of its labor movement, because in a way, like that hurts everybody else, right? Like that brings down wages everywhere else that it forces, pits workers against each other everywhere else. So if your most important thing is just just worker organizing, maybe that is a reason to pull out. I would say, though, that there's like a different responsibility once you've already invested. And and also, so I think you want to think about is, is is a sector resource intensive, or is it labor intensive. So oil and gas is it's resource intensive, it's capital intensive, like there's not that many people who work in oil and gas, but it gets a whole lot of money to the government. So I think as much as possible that you can cut that off, you should cut that off. I think that something like textile manufacturing, which is labor intensive, but are capital intensive, it gives a lot of people jobs, and you know, unfortunately, people will probably need those. So, yeah, again, I guess I want to have labor movement to be able to have the tool. So I don't I don't think the international community should just like tell companies to not make t shirts at Burma anymore. But I think the CDM obviously is the most important thing that's happening and still happening and I had a party the other weekend where we raised some money that was donating to the train workers but railway workers because, you know, they need to stay alive on this day on strike.
Host 35:05
So it sounds like in terms of the individual factory workers, you're more of the opinion that the possibility of withholding their labor should be left up to them that exactly international actors shouldn't make that decision for them. But it should be placed on them to understand their needs and their priorities and their sacrifices in order if they want to lead strikes, if they want to work for their families, if they want to leave all together and join some other kind of resistance movement. And that really, it should be that they should be given the tools to make those decisions. Is that right? Yes. And so what are you hearing about what it is that they're deciding to do? I'm sure it's not monolithic. And there's different groups doing different things for different reasons. But now that we're past the first couple months of just the shock of the coup and the initial reactions, and suddenly and into a new kind of reality in Myanmar, what are those mainly young female factory workers beginning to do in responding to having a very difficult set of choices?
Michael Haack 36:05
Ah, man, so I, you know, I'm not as up to date on this as as I as I should be. Again, cuz I've been having more trouble just getting information about that. My understanding is there's a combination of people who've just gone back to their hometowns, people who are working reduced hours, and people who like continue to fight them in different ways, including people who've, like gone to the the border areas, liberated areas in order to receive training. And that would be like more than that, sort of like organizers. So I think the center of the CDM at this moment is is really the public sector workers. Yeah.
Host 36:50
So how would you say what is going on right now in Myanmar, with these factories, and what has been going on over the last several years, fits into this wider view of what you've been working on your advocacy and study of anti capitalism, the growth of globalization? For you, of course, the AFL CIO and unions for you, of course, you're not looking at these issues specific to a local context in Burma, but you're bringing this much wider context and historical analysis and economic study and bringing that into specifically what's been going on over the last 10 or 20 years over the last few months in Myanmar. So what connections are you finding between some of the bigger shifts and studies that you're making and how these are actually playing out in the ground?
Michael Haack 37:39
Excellent question. Um, I think that, you know, it's in a way, like a familiar story. What happened in in Burma with the opening, and the sort of, you know, problematic praise from Walter Rossdale the sort of launch phase of sort of international capital where, you know, all of these companies started investing, and you have urban to rural migration, you know, a lot of people who are displaced by Cyclone Nargis, I, you know, came up and became factory workers. And that's fairly typical. I mean, there's usually some kind of big kind of displacement that that then creates a proletariat like proletarianization. You know, in China, that was facilitated through, you know, the sort of like poucos system and systems of household registration that allowed for mass migration to the factories. You know, in, in pre industrial England, you had the sort of enclosure acts that enclose the commons and created these sort of people that could then become the proletariat work in factories, he's no longer laboring on the comments. And so, to a large extent, like this is sort of a very typical story. And, and, and sort of, you know, for lack of a better term, like low level garment work, light industry being the first wave of sort of like, international investment. It's just, it's, you know, since the kind of post war world, you know, this has repeated itself over and over again. I mean, I found the Burma's movement, very inspiring. You know, even prior, obviously, prior to the coup. And you know, that's why I chose to wrote that write that jacobin article about it. What I found inspiring about it was just how spontaneous the organizing was that there was just like, there seemed to be a thirst for the organizing and I don't know if that was partly due to the fact that like, sort of democracy and ideas of democracy were in the air and like, people felt like, okay, we finally have democracy and now, you know, but this, but, you know, no democracy without democracy in the workplace, right? Like you spend most of your time at work, right? Like, your boss has a lot more control over you than, you know, most other institutions. So, you know, there's this feeling of like, Okay, well, this is how we're gonna get our respect. And I think, to some extent, you know, the workers, remember, I interviewed this one worker, he said, you know, yeah, in the rural areas, we had to wear a lodgy to our toe, but now you know, I'm in the city, and I can wear what I want. And so I'm, I think it's like, an extra, it's just a lot. I lived in Shenzhen, China, next to the factory, where they make the iPhones and like spend a lot of time, you know, about a year with Foxconn workers, like almost hanging out with them all day. And, you know, they said the same thing. Like there's like this feeling of like, sort of massive change, you grew up in this rural area, you know, and now you're like, in the city and Yangon, I think felt like that, or areas around had gone to a lot of workers. And even though their physician was like, quite miserable, I mean, they make that much money they didn't have, you know, even just measuring it by like how much food they consume, or like how comfortable their living situation is, this is nothing we would wish upon anybody. And it's not what we would consider, like some kind of empowered existence that we would, that we would hope for people. But you know, that I think the experience of change, you know, was sort of in the air and like, both personally for workers and, you know, for the country. And I think that led to like a really militant labor movement, that I found very inspiring to you to learn about.
Host 41:52
One thing I've noticed in the 2000 10s, was there was this incredible experience of kind of warp speed in so many different areas. I mean, the country went from basically not having any kind of mobile phones, or data or internet except very expensive and very hard to find to, you know, everyone having access just on their phones everywhere, cheaply. And it was the same with the banking industry of not really no one having any kind of bank account, all of a sudden, there were ATMs and credit cards that were in use. And it was just kind of sector by sector, there was this I living through that time, it just felt like this warp speed of things that people were completely shut off to one day, and then it felt like the next day, they suddenly had access to it. And the day after that they were, you know, using it, like pretty similar to how it was used in the modern world outside. And so when hearing you talk about the growth of this labor movement in union and organizing and just consciousness as well of like, what one expects, and being in a company, what rights if anyone has and what what risks one is willing to take, I wonder if this kind of warp speed that I've referenced in some of these other areas, you've also seen over the history of how workers are starting to go into factories, which are being built and are more common now than they were before. But the modernization and industrialization are you finding any any kind of similarity with certain ideas or practices that were really not very commonly found before and suddenly are now something just taken for granted? And something that, you know, many people are now bringing in with them in the younger generation that we didn't see before? Absolutely,
Michael Haack 43:27
yeah. And just imagine, I mean, there's like, 10s of 1000s of workers, like, you know, only a decade ago, another 700 workers, so it's like, a garment worker, you know, or like industrial garment workers. So it's like a massive, massive expansion that happened really, really quickly. And yeah, I mean, you know, I would wager to say, none of those workers grew up with with mobile phones, and the, you know, drop in price of SIM cards from, you know, 2000 US dollars to have a working mobile phone to being accessible. That, yeah, I mean, I think that that works speed really helped to see the labor of of that, from what I understand.
Host 44:17
Right. And you reference also being involved in not just with factories, but also with striking railway workers that are on CDM. Can you share a bit about what you know, of what these railway workers are doing and why it's important overall for the movement right now.
Michael Haack 44:33
Um, so I that it was a really interesting project, getting to know railway workers, I learned that it's almost impossible to know how many miles of track is in Burma for example. But you know, they they join the CDM probably in in the largest percentages. second only to to the medical workers is, is what we were told. And, you know, when they started their their strike, they were a few weeks into the strike, and they all got kicked out of their housing, right, like a lot of the railway workers live in government housing, it's a, you know, kind of goes back to the wins period. And when they're trying to create sort of like a socialism of Burmese characteristics and you had, you know, the different or, I'm sorry, the Burmese way to socialism. And you had the, you know, the the, literally like the government built government housing for government workers. We still were we workers were at our and the railway ministry, during the brief quasi democratic period was led by civilians, it wasn't one of the government controlled ministries, and it had experienced a lot of progress during that time, like and I think the very workers felt that and they felt that they were sort of part of this like modernization that was happening in the country that you talked about the warp speed and particularly the ones in Mandalay, which a lot of people focused on and interview. And so, yeah, I mean, they just they, they participated in the general strike, they shut the whole railway down. The railway is not the primary way that goods move in Burma, but it is a major way that that goods move in Burma, especially the certain like regions that are hard to reach other ways. And there's a circle lying around Yangon, that I think most of you who have been to Yangon are aware of, they completely shut it down. And, yeah, it's a sort of a amazing group of people to get to know a tiny bit. And they continue to be on strike, right? Like it's, as well over 100 days. And their their major struggle is just simply like eating. So it's a important group to, to give money, if you I mean, if they're really helping gum things up, which is good.
Host 47:36
What is your understanding of how operable in general the railways? Are there enough people that are left on their jobs to be able to basically run it? Are they trying to train new people to learn how to operate it? or How are the trains working these days,
Michael Haack 47:52
I've heard and I hesitate to say anything definitive, like, you know, being 1000s of miles away in Washington, DC, but from what I've heard from interviewing the workers is a few things we can very hard to just get the railways running again, in any way that feels normal. One is that they're actually fairly specialized positions to be able to run railways properly. And so the fact that the workers have gone on CDM. And then the government, the workers pointed this out themselves, like the government and kick them all out of their housing. So if they had like, kept them in their housing, maybe they could have, you know, coerce them back to work. But they kicked them out of their housing, and then they all scattered. And so it's incredibly difficult to get the railway back running again. And anyway, that that resembles how it was running previous to the coup. So I think it is still a very effective wing of the CDM. From what I understand and
Host 49:03
how essential are these railways? What is it that they're typically carrying from one place to another? And how debilitating is it if they're not able to run as they want to?
Michael Haack 49:11
Hey, really excellent question. Um, and and I was never able to find like a definitive answer to that. Um, again, there are certain kinds of like, like, particularly like harvest and stuff that they do over the rail. There are a lot of them move people, right, like in Yang gone, like it's 100,000 people a day use a Circle line so that they're not able to do that. So that is, to some extent, gumming things up in a good way. It's a, you know, you I don't know what I don't know, is how easy it is to just shift something from being moved by a train to being moved by a truck and I don't know how The trucks are doing right now. I and so that like, that's, that's an important question. I mean, the the Myanmar military, I've heard like, has tried to use the rails for other things. And it's just difficult because it's shut down for moving well, weapons and such. And I have heard like, particularly in the sort of harder to reach areas like where the roads aren't very good that that sometimes the train is is preferable. I mean, the train itself has a lot of problems like especially rainy season and such. You know, definitely
Host 50:37
there's this amazing sense of sacrifice and of, of commitment that we're seeing, we've mentioned just two groups, the the the CVM, railway workers, as well as the factory workers, there's so many more and so many different sectors of society. But going back to these factory workers, another thing that you've mentioned you've identified is how many of them are young women. And of course, we've seen young women playing outsized roles in the early protests and leading, leading leading some of these protests, leading some of these movements and being on the front lines, they're taking the megaphone, behind the scenes organizing and planning. And, of course, women have also been at the forefront of the risks posed to them of sexual violence and assault. And we've already started hearing some really terrible stories about the women that are being imprisoned and tortured, and, and much worse. And of course, we know that the terminal has this reputation behind them everywhere they go this stain of every group they interact with of rape and other kinds of sexual assault. And so looking at the women that you've been in touch with, you've interviewed you've supported through that have led these factory strikes. What do you think? Is it about this moment that so many women are now taking this role and breaking these glass ceilings that have been there to, to lead what's happening and just incredibly brave and courageous ways right now, in spite of these terrible risks are in front of them?
Michael Haack 52:11
That is excellent question. I think that it is partly due to the real changes that took place in the prior decade. I mean, you wouldn't, you just wouldn't have had that many young women all together in the industrial zones, you would have a much smaller number of young women together in the industrial zones. I and so like, you know, not to be sort of doctrinaire, but like it, you know, Mark says activity precedes consciousness. So I think that like the fact that ever all these young women were gathered, like their place in society literally changed, right, like, moving from the rural areas, coming to the city, all being together in the factories, it just gave them a different position in society. And then they demanded the sort of rights that they associated with that position. And so I think a lot of them sort of got their cut their teeth on the labor movement. And, and, and it's, it's just sort of had to do with, like, where they were and their feelings about right and wrong, that I think probably, you know, changed due to their change situation. I mean, that said, I do think that sort of, like incorporation into the global economy, and then my sort of like, you know, expansion of sort of the palette of ideas that they could access. I think I'm sure that matters as well. But I think the real the real difference is just the material difference, right? Like they're, they're in a place together, where they can organize together and, and demand the sort of like, rights that they associated with liberalism and like the liberal regime, under the NLD. So I think at least that's the case for the for the factory workers, I would imagine sort of like urban intellectuals, it's, it's a different story.
Host 54:12
Isn't that ties into something that I've seen that many point that many people were making is that one of the reasons why this current movement and protest and attempted coup was so different than before is that everything before it was trying to change the status quo, there was a certain kind of role that the military had had that was not unchanged, but that definitely was from year to year since 1962, was they were firmly in control and you were trying to disrupt that. And the big difference with right now is that they had something you're now trying to take away something that they have enjoyed whether it's a consciousness or interaction or communication with outside ideas or people or whether it's material things, whether it's the potential of trying to be or do something that that that was not possible before and so At this moment, you're trying to take away something that is tangible when they have had or no they could have versus other periods where they were trying to strive for some unknown reality that basically no one had really ever known.
Michael Haack 55:14
Yes. And I 100% believe that that is why people have fought so hard and they've sacrificed so much. Because it's, it's like, it's much harder you give somebody a taste of something and a promise and hope. And then the feeling of that just being pulled out from under you like a rug. I think that that is is 100% with the with the organized workers were experiencing and so many people in the country and yeah, I mean, really tragic. I mean, I you know, having from worse on this from the outside, I remember, going back to Yangon, the first time when things are opening up a bit, I can't remember exactly what year it was, it's 1112 or 13 or something. And I remember walking down the street and I walked by a copy of the Irrawaddy being sold. And I was like, holy shit, like I used to, you know, I think, you know, like, I remember like, I don't know, like 2002 or something like, staying in their house, in, in, in, in Thailand. And that just all just seemed like such a dream, that any of that would add up to anything other than a bunch of people selling a newspaper that is hard to, you know, read only so many people read, you know, but then all of a sudden, it's like, wow, like this is being sold everywhere. And in Yang gone. Like I was just like, and then for whatever reason, my flight and like had, like I opened the new light, I think it's a new light of Myanmar or whatever the title is now that government run paper and like Dave Matheson was on the cover, like for human rights law, and I was like, Oh, my God. But I don't know. And you know, and to some extent, those things are a bit superficial. But then once you start going deeper, and you talk to the workers, and they talk about how much how much better they feel it is under that the new regime or the now gone regime? Yeah, I mean, I think that sometimes that's missed, especially by a lot of my friends on the left who are really quick to like and rightly criticized liberalism, criticize all the contradictions criticize a horrible way that the rohinga were treated, you know, I mean, having worked on sort of democratic politics in Burma from outside and particularly promoting Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's image, like, I do feel I have a degree of blood on my own hands on that. Because we all knew it was tough to get into this, but like, I remember, like going to the border, like in like, you know, early 2000s. And people would be like, the white white people and be like, you know, Women's League of Burma. They've got all the ethnic groups, exceptthe Rohingya wink wink, dirty secret. Like, we all knew that it was gonna be terrible if and I remember my old boss in 2008, saying to me, you know, if the democratic forces ever get power, the Rohingya still fucked. I think you've literally said that. And like, it's just like, we all knew that like, and so that's, it's and it's terrible, like, but to some degree, like, it's like, it sounds horrible. But I guess one of the thing with all the contradictions of the opening, and all the ways that sort of people on the left, like rightly criticize it, it, um, it was so much better for so many people. And I think it's easy to miss that. U m, and I think that, especially this, like, recent engagement with the workers, like has really, really brought that home for me
Host 58:43
so much, and what you just said, there's actually two main ideas I want to follow up with, and I'm figuring out which one I want to go with first, but I think the area that we have to go with right away is just what you brought up with the ring guy. And that was a question I was I was thinking of, as you were describing all this is where does that Rohingya crisis fit into everything else and all the other work you've done with the anti globalism, with the reforms in the 2010s, with the unions and everything else? I
Michael Haack 59:11
think one way it ties in is is you and I were just talking about this incredible hope and optimism and work speed feeling that the reform period brought, I think, to some degree that helped blind a lot of people, I would definitely say, you know, Burmese here in the United States, but you know, all over there, I believe in Thai Burma too, but you know, I would fall on my sword about this, but that they that there was this feeling of like hope and optimism and like, Hey, we're finally out of this. And they just didn't want to hear it. You know what I mean? They didn't want to hear that, that that their hero was, you know, you know, at best. covering up, you know, at worst sort of in a accomplish and are in, you know, terrible, terrible the worst crimes. And to some degree, like I feel that a little bit I mean, I, you know, it's talking about doctors saying when in here, you know, the MC mgv, like the old government in exile and like, you know that family like sacrifice, like so much, you know, like they literally were like homeless for a period and such, like while they were doing their advocacy and like, so many people sacrificed so much to get on some Fujian power, I think they just didn't want to hear it when it became clear that she was as bad as she was, or at least on this subject. I mean, maybe she just didn't want to lose Rakhine State like and you know, the end, and eg is now made the decision to be, you know, like to reform the laws around their hinga. Like the MDG is like, much better than the NLD was ever. And they seem to be moving in the right direction, at least partly because they're being pushed by the West. But they're, you know, have to choose between making some events with our hinga and getting the support in the west or having the support of you know, many in Rakhine State, and they, they've made their choice. But I think that like there was, I think part of it is like, it's like a downside of optimism. Yeah, a lot of critical theory from like, the 1960s, like, adorno. and stuff is sort of just talking about, like, how, like optimism and fascism and like this, you know, red tide. And I think you saw that, um, I think that, you know, how does it tie into advocacy right now? You know, I think that, you know, it's, it's been honestly, the biggest barrier in Congress. And I spent a week out in Hollywood, just a couple of weeks ago, because all these like Hollywood celebrities used to support us campaign for Burma. So I went, like, re approached a bunch of their agents and stuff like, Hey, did you think they want to do this again? And, you know, a lot of them were like, We don't want to support the CDM or like, the crew, or any, we just want to deal with Burma because that woman was so terrible, you know, because that's all anybody knows about Burma, right? Like, they know that there was somebody named Antoine Soo Ji that used to we used to think was inspiring, but then turned out to be an accomplished with genocide, I would say that's what most America educated people know about Burma and they know nothing else. And so it's it's been a big barrier for advocacy. And and I think it's, it's really cost the movement like, untold amounts. And it's it's I it's, it's the primary reason that the Congress has been recently slow to move on, this is the primary reason it's been hard to get all like celebrities and stuff back involved in this. And so, yeah, really, really hurt. Not just the Ro hinga, but the entire country. And it's tragic. How does it like tie into like an a materialist reality? Or like understanding of the world? I don't quite know. I mean, like, you could make the argument and, you know, some people have made this argument, but then I've been highly criticized for it that like, you know, as property rights became more solid, like you have competition over land that made it like more desirable to like, kick out their hanga. I feel like a lot of pushback to people who made that argument. I don't really know what's true about that.
Host 1:03:41
The other thing that I want to go back to and what you said a few minutes ago, I mentioned there were two themes in there that I found really important to discuss. And the other theme, aside from Moringa was that you were just talking about the the rapid growth of change that was taking place and you referenced flying into the country after being out for a while and being amazed by some of the things you found. And you also referenced some of your some some arguments that came from the more extreme left of kind of criticizing that change. And I wanted to give something in my background, that my personal background, as well as another sector that kind of coincides with what you were saying see where they all come together. So from my background, I was when the changes started, I was actually in Myanmar for most of that time. But I had something really interesting happened in my life that gave me a different perspective on it. Up until the time the reforms began. I was living and working in Yangon. So I was very much involved in just in, in what was happening in the news and in society and everything else and up to 2012 nothing much really happened. I mean, things moved really slowly. Like I just tell the friends now is joking, but it's actually it's very true. If um, you know, once every six months there'd be like, a new coffee shop or a new, some new store that would open and everyone would talk about it because that was the only thing that had At that time, there was a such slow progress anywhere that if a new hotel went up and everyone thought it was just incredible and wanted to see the design and where it was located because there was a such slow progress on every front, in 2012, I had left my job. And at that point I was much more interested in wanting to pursue meditation, Burmese language study the monasteries learn about monasticism. And so for a few years, I was really tucked away at remote monasteries. And I didn't really have a sense of the changes taking place. But every I don't know every you know, month or three months or whatever it was, I would have to come to Yangon to do something to see a friend or see a doctor take care of these are, you know, just something that had to happen. And so every time so I was basically going back to my home city where I had all these years and a community and knew every inch of areas of the downtown and what you know, a new house, slow things were moving. And yet every time I would go It was like a new city like it was it was like, you know, I go one time I go and it was like, Oh, my God, their cell phones now. And next time I go, and it's like, well, now there's ATMs. And another time I go, it's like, well, now there's new cars on the road. Because of course before the reforms, the only time you saw cars that were in any working condition, they were either diplomats or military or cronies. There's no one else who could afford a car that even ran any kind of decent shape. And so every time I would go, there would be like some huge sector of society that just been opened up where it's just like, oh my god, okay, now modern movie theaters or whatever, whether it was big or mundane or anything, it was just like the city that I knew so well. It was just changing in front of my eyes. And because I wasn't living through those changes, I was just getting snapshots every two months. It was like, Okay, well, now they have this and they never in their history, they never had this. And now they have this going forward. And I remember when one of my Burmese friends was like 2930 years old, came to the monastery where I was staying at. And he proudly showed me his ATM card and bank book. And it's like I was the first time he'd ever owned anything like this. And he had $100, or something in there. And he was just so proud and happy that he had this this kind of mobile banking, which he had never existed up to that point. So I'm just seeing all these changes start to take place. And as I'm seeing them. So what's really interesting is you're talking about the pushback and the reaction from some of the more progressive left and extreme left and Western circles. The pushback I saw was from Westerners who would come to me and Mar to intensively pursue meditation or monasticism. And for them, they had seen me and Mars kind of this golden land, this unchanged golden land, where the conditions for practice and for Buddhist study and life mirrored in some ways the Sunday, they would some people would say this outright, the conditions are 2500 years ago in India when the Buddha actually lived. And so the way the Buddha would talk in the sutras and the conditions of people on the ground and the villages, this would actually, there, you can live in some places in Myanmar that were really, you know, and up to 2010, that were really not much different from what the Buddha was describing 2500 years ago and ancient India. And so there was this, this real rejection of modernity and all of its problems and trappings in a way to just really live simply in this environment, that that was not possible in many other places in the world, and even in primitive places that didn't, didn't have a Buddhist background and generous giving supporting of the spiritual life and the path that they wanted to follow. And just to give a couple of examples that illustrate that. I remember one of my friends who was a monk, a Western monk complaining that one of his supporters had now had risen enough in society to own a car. And that by having a car, they were now going to be going here and going there, and maybe taking leisurely trips. And it was this kind of like this modern distraction, that complicated life, when it was so much simpler before. And I was really put off by that. I mean, that really made me uncomfortable, because I felt it was really inappropriate for someone coming from a Western background that was privileged with, you know, education and opportunities and health and everything else. And you chose, you choose to reject that and to go back to a simpler life, to just wanting to dictate when entire people should or shouldn't have rights to and with that, in my mind, I remember one time I went to Yangon and I mentioned all these, these changes that are taking place in the city and these like, you know, 123 month increments. Some of those are profound and important changes, like the existence of banks, some of them are just kind of silly and mundane and list together. It was really my feeling going forward that, you know, we whatever opportunities we've been blessed or cursed with in the modern world, we don't really have the right and coming from and having benefited from them and chosen how we want to integrate or not beneficial and destructive forces into our lives that we don't really have the right to then dictate to others what and how they should be using that they've never had access to before whether one is coming from a more Marxist and Western liberal background or whether it's coming in whether one's coming from a more religious spiritual monastic background of a kind of simple country that one would like to go to, to pursue a meditation practice, this is the reality that these changes are taking place, they're taking place rapidly, that people to a larger extent than before, they have certain agency to make decisions in their life that can create opportunities for wellbeing they've never had before. And they also as NGOs, with freedom, they also have a greater right and ability to make choices that are more destructive, and, you know, non productive and wasting time with internet or whatnot, gaming, whatever, that that they didn't have before. But this is the reality. And this is something that I think those of us who have come from a background where we've enjoyed these, the ability to choose what we want and how we want it, that, that we don't have this right to dictate to others what they should let in and how they should let it in and everything else so. So yes, it's just interesting looking from these different sectors, yours with the Western left and mind more with monasticism and seeing how people in modern countries have, from their own backgrounds wanted Burma to represent something that that they've lost and not really having the right to trap up people and your vision of you know, how you want another country, your people to develop?
Michael Haack 1:11:29
Yeah, I I wholeheartedly agree with that. Yeah, that's, that's really well put and really interesting, I appreciate you sharing that actually, looking
Host 1:11:37
at it from your side and hearing from colleagues on the left who are living in a, in a modern, liberal society. And then making these criticisms on the way that Burma is developing. Can you share a bit about what criticisms they're making, what their concerns are, and your own reaction or feeling about the validity of what it is they're saying about the way the brain was developed?
Michael Haack 1:12:05
I guess a few things that I push back against. And I don't think this is only a tendency of the left. But I think this is actually more of a tendency of sort of, you know, just liberal culture in the US. Who again, like no two things about Burma, like if you're like, like a educated American, you know, that they're, like, used to be on CG as an inspiring person symbol of democracy. And then she, like, you know, became an apologist for genocide. And that's basically all you know, and you, maybe this fits some, like bigger vision of the world do you have about like, sort of like the trials and tribulations of democracies faced in recent years? And obviously, I think that we should center stories about their hinga. I mean, it's very horrible what's happened to them. I mean, I went to the IDP camps in 2017. And like, like, two months later, they're all burned to the ground or is forced across the borders. So it's, like, this horrific thinking about. But I also think it's, it's, it's wrong to then sort of like, I mean, I literally have encountered this, like a, you know, especially among, you know, people who don't know that much about Burma used to support the democracy movement, and back in the day, you know, like, I don't want to get involved anymore. Look at what happened last time. And I feel like that's the problem. It's like, look at what happened last time, like, okay, that happened. That was horrible. But also, like, lots and lots of people have had access to, you know, you know, even simple things like, like better sanitation, like, you know, more choice over their life, like, I don't know, like, it's just hard to, uh, to me, I think in what's interviewing all these workers have really brought home is that these people really felt like their their lives has have been improved. And and it's, you know, it's a country of 54 million people. So that, I mean, I think there's a general skepticism of like capitalist development by, you know, a lot of people on the left. But I don't know, I think that honestly, that's just sort of bad Marxism. I mean, Marx himself felt like capitalism as a step toward a better world. And there's also a bita there's different readings of marks when it comes to that, but yeah, sorry, I don't have a great answer because because I don't want to just pick somebody instead of like, like strong in that person. But I do think to say, I guess what I see a lot of Okay, this is here, what I'm talking about, like right when the coup happened, and this continues, there's a certain group of people that just said, this shows there never was a transition. And they had a point, right? Like, it's like The military never really gave up all that much power. And they could take it back at any moment, which is what we saw. So they're right in that sense, but they're wrong in the sense that subjectively so many people in Myanmar experienced that transition. So to say that there was no transition is to literally just like Rob huge swaths of Myanmar society, definitely the majority, like other their lived experience, right, their agency, their their understanding of what had happened over the last 10 years. So I don't and I roll my eyes and say this, I roll my eyes at the articles that say, this shows there is no transition, because I think that just it trivializes what was very, very meaningful for so many people. Yeah, that's
Host 1:15:51
really important. And that actually hits up this wider area that I don't even know if you were intending but this concern that there have been some articles and scholarship written by non Burmese outside of the country with their own theories and their own understanding that has not only been grossly inaccurate or misunderstanding, certain things that many people on the ground would grasp instantly, but also quite damaging, and destructive to the movement and to what people are doing. I mean, we saw within weeks of the protests happening, that there were articles that came out in major publications that for title thing, you know, sensational, kind of clickbait headlines of like, you know, why the people can't win, or you know, why the top dog will prevail or something like that. And it was just like, this is so insulting. And this is not just insulting for in terms of the motivation and the morale of what the people were doing. But it's also like just being inside one zone, mindset of study and separated from what people actually living through through. So I think, you know, I think that's right, like to write something like that, that there there is, you know, the shows there really was no transition Well, okay, maybe some of your points have some accuracy. And we can break those down and look at why there might have been a facade in some areas of things that we thought were moving in some way, but weren't. And now that this has happened, it shows that, you know, things weren't as, as advanced as, as maybe we hoped. But to take that argument to then be that you said very passionately to rob people of what they actually experienced, which I think goes back to what we were saying earlier that they have something they don't want to take it away. Well, if this was all a facade, and all fake and nothing really had progressed in any way, then I don't think we'd be seeing this level of consciousness and activism and sacrifice that we're seeing right now. And so I think this really does hit at why media needs to be including those Burmese voices, whether it's, you know, activism or scholarship or journalism or whatever the media platform is, like, we need to be talking to those people that are on the ground and making sure that whatever our specialty is that it has been informed by, by people that are directly impacted by this and hopefully more than informed hopefully being authored and investigated by those voices that that that are much more in touch with no more than than those that are outside.
Michael Haack 1:18:16
Absolutely. And that you know, that's why I've tried to like do that with the jacobin articles on the South China Morning Post articles like really center the voices of the people I was interviewing, and and yeah, I mean, there's a reason why like Dante reserved a special ring and how for those who claim to know the future right, like those those analysts, professional analysts and articles about this is why the people can't win and stuff I mean, you know, and I it's Yeah, I found that infuriating and and i think that it doesn't come from a position of knowing because they don't you don't know what's about to come? I mean, did any of those people predict the coup and then the massive uprising like no, I it's it's it's just the arrogance beyond arrogance that I think some people who are split out of the elite Western institutions like just can't seem to separate themselves from
Host 1:19:12
right and when you when you mentioned talking to local voices, one of those local voices you talked to and recent article was Dr. Sasa so what did you learn in talking to him and was there anything that surprised you a question?
Michael Haack 1:19:24
I mean, his story like hit like, how he grew up and chin state and the, the amount of just like, like the DEA who I interviewed him where I've kept saying, like, well, we got to write down his story and sell it to Hollywood or something. I mean, like, he's like, goes to going gone is like a, you know, farmer and then you know, and just like, has that like kind of gets abused and all these different places that he stays in? And, I mean, it's an amazing story, and I think it it really tells a story about VMR, too. I mean, I Ah, I suppose anybody who lives in Myanmar telling their story is going to, you know, you can help you understand a greater reality about what has happened there. But, but just the the amount of resilience, the amount of like, sure, he's a very curious person. I found that you know, he like not by that, I mean, he has a lot of curiosity, I think about the world and that and that he and his ability to sort of learn and adjust. Yeah, I found really, really, it was fun to talk to him. He's a, it's a really incredible guy.
Host 1:20:37
Yeah, what what stands out to me is that this is almost by accident, just because, you know, he was with on Santucci. When the coup broke on that morning, he disguised himself as a taxi driver. And then and then made it took three days escaping India. So it's really this kind of happenstance thing where he's landed in this role. And this is the way that history works. I mean, this is, this is how things have always happened that sometimes the moment finds you, and it then tells you what kind of person you are, and broadcast that to the world and sometimes in it's only in those moments that you really know what you're made of. And Dr. Sasa is a man of that moment where he's found himself in that and he's learning about himself, and we're all learning about him and the way that he's responding to something unprecedented. But the thing that really strikes me is that, given who he is, his background, his community, his, what he's done, he is one of the first fresh Burmese voices that is not hampered by the sins of the past, you can say, you know, that his is able to emerge cleanly, from around I should say, has the potential to emerge cleanly from these kind of traps of certain ways of thinking and certain dynamics and is able to, you know, has the potential to be able to break out of those in and not having to be an apologist for certain things that have happened. And, you know, having been able to make a clean slate and a clean break, and, you know, to have someone like him as the spokesperson, at this time, I think it just it It leaves wide open certain possibilities of what he can do for, for for leading all of this forward in positive ways.
Michael Haack 1:22:16
Apps. Absolutely. Yeah, that's how I really like how you put that, like, you do get I did get the feeling from talking to him, and I hadn't articulated to myself into a you just said it, like, you feel this this possibility, you know, like, he thinks he's about 40, he doesn't even really know we didn't write down his birthday, you know, but, um, but yeah, and and it is a new generation and somebody who happened to find himself in that position. I really like how you said that. Yeah.
Host 1:22:46
Right. So I want to go back to what we were talking about just a moment ago, and looking at some of the, the the international analysts that have and people in solidarity with the movement and how they've been responding, particularly on the left, and in terms of the work you've been doing with the unions, not just now, but over your whole career and the AFL CIO, I certainly know that there's historically, you know, not looking at the past couple of decades, looking at the past couple of centuries. There's just enormous solidarity with union and union s and pride in that. And so, as this union culture and consciousness started to grow within Myanmar, has there is there been any solidarity or support from unions in other countries that are seeing their fellow brethren of what they're of how they're standing up? And these the most difficult of times? And as new as union questions might be in Myanmar? Has there been any international solidarity or support from other other sectors and fellow unionists and other places?
Michael Haack 1:23:48
Yeah. Um, so one thing there is Group here in the United States, which is part of the AFL CIO, which is focused on Asian and Pacific Islanders, and they have really an impressive, young gentleman working for them. And she set up a solidarity Fund. The solidarity Center, which is also part of afl-cio, I believe, was doing a lot of work on the ground prior to the coup and continues now. There have been a lot of I mean, I think you probably saw the French railway workers, you know, did a little action for the railway workers and VMR. The International Labor, the ILO, you know, refuse to recognize the sack as the legitimate government of Myanmar, the International Labour Organization. So there is Yeah, there is a lot of solidarity. Obviously, there's like room For more, but but yes, yes, there's been a lot Asian Pacific Islander peace. AFL CIO has done some fundraising for the the striking CDM workers, French unions expressing solidarity or to the railway unions. So there is a feeling of worker solidarity, there's still a piece of worker movements and every country that are focused on sort of Workers of the World uniting so. And in that spirit, people have have done a lot, I think.
Host 1:25:38
Right. So all of this references the the union base strikers that are taking place, in the very beginning of our conversation, you made a distinction between the, the the labor of those on the ground that were making t shirts as the example you said, and some of the bigger players that are more resource based, like moje. And like Chevron, and we haven't talked about that so much code. So can you share a bit about what's going on with some of those larger natural resources and how things have been progressing, why their role is so vital in this and what update us about what their response has been since the coup.
Michael Haack 1:26:17
So um, you know, the major source of revenue for the regime is extractives. Chevron until the towel being the two Western companies that total being the majority owner, Chevron, being the minority owner, the you, Donna pipeline, and it's just a massive amount of money that goes to the regime, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars a year, if not more. And there's been a lot of campaigning around this. I myself, not too long ago, was standing in front of Chevron's lobbying office in Washington DC with a pen yada with Chevron's lobbyists face pinned to it, whacking the piano. And then by the way, this guy is like, particularly terrible. he'd spent 5040 times I spent 20 years at the State Department, working on Southeast Asia policy. And you know, after 20 years, you can retire with a pension. And so he did that. And he decided that the next thing you should do after 20 years of public service is become Chevron's lobbyist, Kenny Craig Hall, but I just can't imagine that kind of, I don't know, so ever making a choice like that, I think is very commendable. Like, I mean, at least, like people within the Tasman dollar, like they, you know, you can't understand like they get trapped or like the you know, they're afraid that their families will be literally, you know, have a lot of harm come to them if they desert but you know, somebody who's built their life in public service. And then the guy also has a PhD in religion, which I also find like saying that you could have a PhD in religion and then spend your life defending Chevron and, and the New York Times did a really good expo's a on Chevron, everyone should read it. It's by their, the founder of pro publica can wrote a really great word piece about all the sorts of ways that Chevron is trying to undermine the sanctions. And the sorry, so that's the opposition. The good side is that there has been some movement. Senator Rubio and Senator Cardin sent a letter to the administration asking for moje to be sanctioned. And there's an upcoming bill that and this would like prevent Chevron from making its payments to the the regime to hotel and Chevron themselves have said that they are going to suspend what amounts to about 10% of the payments that they make every year, which is mostly just the token thing. They their next payment that that is due and this particular revenue stream that they are suspended is not due until next March. So they probably have time to sort of wiggle their way out of that. So it's a way that we can deny money to the regime. My own personal bitterness, I guess is like you know, back in 2003. What the US did is they banned imports from Burma, which is labor intensive, right like it cost people their jobs, but never really touched the this aspect of things like the oil and gas which again, is capital intensive, so it doesn't get that many people jobs. And it goes straight to the a lot of the money given to the regime go straight to those games. So, um, and, you know, there's been like sort of a lot of trickery from Chevron. There's some, like really brilliant researchers kind of every time Chevron comes up with an argument, they come out with a counter argument. And people have been working really tirelessly, whose names I can't share, because they've friends in Burma, but just I've been really blown away by some of the amazing research that people are doing against Chevron. But yeah, this is something people can get involved in. If you live in the United States, like you should definitely be contacting your member of Congress asking them to support the vermox being written by Senator Cardin because it will push the administration on this particular issue to get Chevron to pause its payments the regime? It would be you know, I don't think it would, it would be the linchpin, but it would definitely contribute to taking a certain revenue, a major revenue stream from the Burmese military.
Host 1:31:13
Yeah. Yeah, well, right now, every single thing counts. So everything that we can do from any area, it all matters. And that was actually going to be next question for you is looking at, for listeners that are concerned about this issue that are outside of the country, you know, you've had a lifetime of advocacy, and you're very involved in that. Now. You mentioned one thing people can do is to write their if they're American citizens to write their local representative and reference this Burma act. What for lists for other listeners that are outside of the country? What else would you recommend that they can do from their own walks of life?
Michael Haack 1:31:48
Yeah, great, great question. Um, so I guess I'm going to address the 300 million Americans. So America has a very particular role in the global economy, like 88%, of international transfers of $1. On one side, right? The there's some really great work on the global economy that my friend Sean stars in Hong Kong has done, which shows it like, you know, despite all the hype, you know, almost every major sector is dominated by US companies, globally, Americans like on the vast majority of global capital. So what the US what rules the US puts on global companies on its own companies on the Security and Exchange Commission, and all these different institutions are really impactful in a way that I think no other country can be impactful, like we hear from our French colleagues that totaal is more afraid of, you know, American sanctions and French government actions, like for obvious reasons. So if you're in America, you don't have to be American, you can be a refugee, you could be undocumented, if you currently reside in the United States, I think you have, and you know about this issue, you have some responsibility to try and influence the way the US is reacting. The best way to do that is to actually don't write your member of Congress, get on the phone call, your senator asked to speak to the person in charge of foreign policy. Very few people do this. Very few people, lots of people call Congress all day, all day. Most of them are somewhat crazy. But if you call and you are very polite, and you ask the talk to the right person, who is the staffer in charge of foreign policy, and you follow up, if they don't get back to you, I guarantee you, you will eventually get to talk to the staffer in charge of foreign policy. And if you're very nice about it, you tell them why you're concerned about what's happening in Myanmar. And you give them something that for them is actually a fairly low ask like there is bipartisan support for the democracy movement. But there's and it's like the political will to do anything. So calls in this sense can be really, really impactful. Like when I worked at us campaign for Burma. We literally got our legislation had 63 co sponsors in the Senate. For those of you who know how the American senate works, there's only 100 senators and 60 is a veto proof majority of votes. So we had a veto proof majority of people co sponsoring the bill, which basically meant it was going to pass even before is voted on and even if the president happened to disagree with it, he couldn't veto it. So it's huge like in the we were able to do that is really it was just like a few people in every state who were trained up how to call Congress Do it in like a smart patient way that got all these senators, you know, it was the bill was sponsored by Dianne Feinstein to liberal democrat and Mitch McConnell who is a conservative head of the Republican caucus. So this is it's written really like political will matters a lot here. So I've been spending a lot of time just trying to encourage people to call it a member of congress if you're listening cuz your member of Congress tell them to support the the Burma acting written by Senator Cardin and you see what other thing. That Act has almost everything that the movement wants in it, it has sanctions on oil and gas, it has, you know, calls for more humanitarian support, support for Burmese civil society, which is CDM, all kinds of things. The one thing it doesn't have in it, but the movement, I think, really wants is a new g recognition. I strongly think that's because the people who wrote this bill are like human rights activists who like to, quote unquote, hold people accountable, including the new GE, and they don't really like to give them a lot of resources. So the I think it's just been kind of wrongheaded in the drafting of this bill, to not include something like a call for energy recognition, the Congress can't decide that anyway, the State Department has to decide that, but I think you want the Congress to at least have the tools to be able to pressure the State Department, which you could do through legislation. And so what I've been encouraging everybody to do is call their senator, tell them to support the Burma act, and then with Senator Cardin is drafting and then ask them to put a new g recognition in the bill, which would, again, not be a very big ask, I think it's more has to do with who wrote the bill, versus, you know, any, like, the fact that the Congress wouldn't agree to it. And, and, and, you know, let's try and get this passed, like we're going to be spending the next couple of months on this. So there's a long answer. I also think quality, quality engagement is more important than quantity. So sometimes I maybe answered too much, but, you know, trying to keep everyone informed.
Host 1:37:33
No, that's great. Because I mean, you're someone coming from this background. So this is a great opportunity for for us and our listeners to be able to get such a specific and actionable piece of advice on what they can actually do. And I think that it also reminds me as hearing this, that everyone can has different limitations and strains, given who they are, their background, where they are, and that, I think one of the things I keep coming back to is, in the first month of the protests, you had so many Burmese that were going out on the frontlines, the protests day after day, and after some time, people started to realize, well, I'm not really so well suited for being the guy in the front lines, I'm better at doing this organizing, and this facilitating, or the strategizing. And there's a certain kind of draw to feeling that, you know, literally being on the front lines, you feel like you're on the edge of the action, and you're making sacrifices and risks that you know that you know that that or at least it feels that you're doing something that is the most essential and important thing in that moment, but has things drought, people start to realize that there are other kinds of actions they could be doing, given who they are and where they are. And I think whether people I think people listening could feel a sense of like not being in Myanmar not having a lot of time in their day or not, not being in just being very far removed from everything happening. And this really highlights that. Whoever you are, and wherever you're located, there's something that you can do. And that thing that you can do might be something that Burmese cannot do for themselves, that in the luxury and the safety of where you are and the freedoms that we might take for granted that there are things that we can do, that are just if not more valuable than someone in the middle of the struggle that they're they're just simply not from where they're at. They they're not able to do what what we can from the safety of our homes. So, you know, really to reinforce among listeners, just how active one can be. And I think you really, really want to emphasize what you said that it's not about quantity so much as quality. So it's not about you know, doing things for morning tonight or feeling guilty that you're not doing enough. It's about what whatever action one is deciding to do that. That whatever the size of it, whatever the frequency, those things count, everything counts and from, you know, just picking up the phone and calling if you're an American citizen calling your local reference Then it is trying to talk to the correct person, as you advise calling back taking notes, this is something, you're just talking about a half dozen calls over a couple week period that could certainly one one single call could, could could be discussed and reported within that office. And you know, you're talking about more calls, and it's gonna have a bigger impact. And so, you know, these are just important things for all of us to keep in mind about all that we're able to do.
Michael Haack 1:40:27
Absolutely, yeah. And you know, and I would even say, like, you know, use the word American citizen, like, if you you don't have to be a citizen, if you leave in the United States, like the US Congress represents you, it doesn't matter if you're a student here for a master's degree, or you're a refugee, or you're undocumented, or the what they want to know is that you live in their state. Really, that's, that's the criteria. And, and because I encounter this a lot with, you know, Burmese refugees, like, who, who are hesitant to call, but I say no, like, You're, you're here, this is your home, like the future of the state of Maryland matters to you. And to some extent, you know, that the representative also, they, they represent you, they're there to represent the state of Maryland, we have territorial representation in the United States. So the So yeah, I mean, I've really spent a lot of time encouraging people to call and then a lot of it's just a confidence game, you know, like, like, the members of Congress, really. And their staff really do want to hear authentic stories of the people who live in their states and districts. And, and what matters to those people. So, just a lot of things people don't think about, like if you're a chin refugee, and you go to a chin baptist church with, you know, a few 100 people. That's an important voting bloc for the for the member. And, and now, though, to some extent, you're doing that member of favor by by outreaching to them. And so, yeah, I mean, I really can't stress it enough. There's a lot that can be done. And I liked what you said about, you know, a song having different roles, and, and then quality mattering. And, you know, not that, that people should be discouraged if they produce something that's not of quality, you know, but, but that, you know, it's something to strive for, at least.
Host 1:42:36
Yeah, so I want to close with asking you something about your personal experience in relation with the country or the people, so much of this conversation has been more about ideas and movements and your study. And so I think it'd be nice to close with something of the personal if there's any personal anecdote, or, or memory or something that ties you that can illustrate to listeners, why personally, not in terms of some of these ideas or theories, but personally, what, for so many years and decades has tied your life into this Southeast Asian country?
Michael Haack 1:43:14
Oh, yeah. That's a really profound question. I mean, the first thing was that it fit into this, this international movement that I had, joined and, you know, wanted to be part of. And what's kept me coming back is like the, and I feel like this is a little cheesy to say, but it's like the fighting spirit of the people. It's just like, it's, it's amazing. You know, and I also want to say, like, you know, whenever I show up and the Burmese community in Maryland, I get fed. I don't know. I mean, it's like, I sort of, like politically reject the idea of sort of, like an essence of like Burmese society or something like that. Right? Because, like you said, it's dynamic, like any other society, and it's got, it's like, you know, ups and downs and, and to some extent, you know, it just happened to view what I happened upon. But it can't simply be that right, because, like, I happened upon a lot of things as a college student. It's just, it's really, there's a piece of my heart that it occupies, and, and I can't, it's hard for me to pin down exactly why I mean, like, I feel like it's something I'm just very thankful for that I that it's been such a big part of my life. And yeah, I mean, it's, it's very special to me. And in a way that's very hard for me to articulate exactly why.
Host 1:44:56
certainly seems evident with everything you've been doing. And thanks so much for Coming on here and just talking about some of these topics going into some detail in depth that I think will be really ideas that people can take away, and can learn more about not only what they can do, but understanding the different aspects of the movement and different ways. So, and thank you all. So just for your continued advocacy and so much that you're doing, how involved you are with, with some of these more details, the many of us can't quite understand or grasp that your educational career has given you the tools to be able to do and to use them in this way. So thanks so much for all of that.
Michael Haack 1:45:36
Thank you so much. I really appreciate hearing that. And yeah, and I love this, this podcast. So thank you.
Host 1:45:59
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