Transcript: Episode #236: Debbie Stothard
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Host 0:16
The the thank you for joining us for the next hour or two in this episode of Inside Myanmar podcast. In an age of nearly limitless content, we appreciate that you're choosing to take valuable time out of your day to learn more about what is happening in Myanmar it's vital for the story to be heard by people around the world and that starts right now with you knee knee chip
Debbie Stothard 1:54
so most people expect some white woman when they you know when you meet Debbie started it's it's a very Anglo white bread. It's actually Scottish. But that's because I'm, I'm Asian, but I have a great grandfather who was the original started from Scotland. Alright. And so I would say that I'm a product of capital, colonial capitalism, because in those days, you know, young enterprising white men with connections would get sent out with a little bit of capital set up a business in this case, he started up rubber plantation in northern, what was known as Northern Malaya at the time. And and in the Kedah and what's now known as Kedah. And I think it was for Guthrie's and rubber plantation paid off. And so he gets to he got to keep, he got to ordinating about half a certain percentage of it, and name it to start at a state but actually it was owned by gas race. And he settled down with a rather mysterious woman thought to be from Thailand. And then eventually when he got older, he retired back to to Scotland while this lady and hast and their son stayed on in Penang. So that's how this that's where the startup name came from. And when people meet me, they just assume I'm Burmese. And a lot of various people also assume, yeah, so I have to keep insisting that I'm not. I'm not from Burma, and I'm actually an outsider. But, you know, it's just one of those things that I've been lucky and been fortunate in that I can move around most of Asia and people think that I'm a local. But nowadays, Malaysians don't think I'm a local, which is somewhat ironic.
Host 4:05
So you're a Malaysian who came into this whole Burma bubble and involvement. How did that happen?
Debbie Stothard 4:12
Well, well, it goes back to being an activist. So my first full time job was actually a crime reporter in Malaysia for national newspaper. I was very, very interested in journalism. And I written a short news article anonymously for the paper when I was a school girl, which solves a huge problem for the school the mind for me and my fellow students. And in our principal actually scolded me she she is she pulled me out of class and said, I know you're the one who did. And that's not the way to solve things, but it did sort of thing. So I was convinced that I wanted to be a journalist. So, as soon as school is over, well, everyone was on holidays. And I actually turned up at the university, the newspaper concerned and said, Here I am, pay me. And they agreed to take me on as a stringer. And so I was a crime reporter. And even after a few months, they actually gave me a full time job. So I often joke when I give human rights trainings that my first job was as a crime reporter, Chase the police. And now I'm a human rights activist, the police chase. Maybe you so eventually, my parents, you know, I was working in, in a field where there are very few women crime reporters at the time, this is the early 80s. And so what and most of the cops thought that I was much older, they didn't realize as a teenager at the time. And actually, in my beat, I was the only woman I was the only female. And my parents started panicking. Because I wouldn't go back to school. I was drunk with power and access. Look, the Malaysian school girl, you know, living in a very sheltered type situation. And then you are you unleashed into a world where you're chasing the police with stories, where politicians entertain you and show some respect, because your media, you know, you basically know what's going on in town, you you talking to the fire brigade, you're talking to the emergency to emergency workers, you know, you're checking out the lottery, you're just doing all these things. And so having that access and knowing what's going on is a certain degree of power. And you actually, it's quite dangerous to give that to a 17 year old school ago. So I refuse to go back to school, I was quite caught up in knowing what's going on and reporting the news and seeing my byline in the paper. And, you know, and so, and my parents were panicking because they felt that I should go to university, I should have more options in my life. And they were freaking out because most of the men are working with old alcoholics. River alcoholic, you know, very jaded men who so it was, it was not really a scene that they wanted me to be in. And so after about two years of doing this, I realized that basically, I didn't have a life, I basically was just all about my job. And I couldn't relate to my my friends or my age, because I probably could relate better to their parents and have those conversations, content, you know, talk shop with the parents rather than with my friends. Sure. Yeah. And, and my, my parents made me an offer I couldn't refuse. They said ever went back to school, they paid for at least the first year of university in Australia. Okay. Yeah. So I was like, okay, that's an offer that's a bit hard to refuse. And so then I went back to school. And I ended up, I ended up doing the BA in communications at what is now known as the University of Technology, Sydney. And I refused to do journalism, I actually did video production script writing. But anyway, when I was in Australia, I teamed up with a bunch of overseas student activists from Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines and in the region. And we ended up doing a lot of anti racism campaigns. But we did in those days, what was then known as third world solidarity. So if there was a flare up or human rights crisis, or some type of crisis in an Asian country, we would go look for students from that country and say, let's, let's do something together. What do you need? Let us do it. And eventually, we had positioned ourselves at Student Unions in different campuses across Sydney. UTS, New South Wales University, Macquarie University, University of Sydney at those days, the main universities. So we actually had in our network between members of a collective access to resources across various campuses to be able to throw together an instant campaign. Right. So this was around People's Power in the Philippines when Marco Erwin Suharto was overthrown in 1998, during the Reformation movement in Indonesia, even the 1993 Thai coup at the time, and of course, ADA. So when at it happened, it really captured my imagination. Because as a school girl, I been very curious about Burma. I had met so many people from different parts of the world and in different parts of the region. But the only time the first time I met a Burmese was doing a ship self age, I was, you know, so this part of my job I was, you know, whenever I was, one of my beats was Port Klang, one of the biggest ports in the country. And so, when there was a problem with a ship, or something was happening in the port, I'd go cover it. And every time I went to the port, and I visited a new vessel, I'd say, hey, are there any Burmese here? Because I knew that there were people from Burma who worked on on the ships, and someone said, Oh, yes, our engineers are Burmese I think, can I meet him? And so then they were rather bemused and introduced me here. And this guy was quite shocked. And I said, oh, sorry, I just want to I'm a, I'm a journalist, but actually, personally, I'm interested in Burma. So I never met a Burmese before. So I just thought, if you just want to say hello, so he was a bit. It was a bit surprised. But for me, it's like, okay, I know I made a movie. He was, he was quite like, he didn't know what to make of it. Anyway. So when 8888 happened, it seemed to be it really captured the imagination. These were students rising up against a military dictatorship in a country, Burma, Burma, which was really mysterious, but also fascinating to me. I mean, by the age of 15, memorize where Pigou your mind or Kanuma was and what your how the Irrawaddy in the submarine fluid? You know, all my geography lessons basically focus on Burma. Really what it was that I'm that in, you know, in when I was 1415? You know, this is we covered Southeast Asia. So that was my country to cover.
Host 12:28
Oh, okay. So was just kind of a random.
Debbie Stothard 12:31
No, I was very, I was actually quite interested in Burma. I don't know why. But I had no idea why it was just one of those fascinating countries. And people said very strange things about it. Because it was a very close country at the time. Yes. Yeah. Well, yeah. And I mean, it was really closed. I mean, it wasn't just about not being able to meet people from Burma because Burmese people didn't freely travel at that time. They were either refugees, or they were. They were working on the ships, or they were doctors under the Colombo Plan. You know, there was no tourism. Tourism wasn't that easy between Burma and other parts of the of the world. And so, you know, amongst all my friends, their relatives, or their uncles, or they themselves may have traveled to Europe or Australia, or Thailand or wherever. But I think just, it was like, an uncle of a friend of a friend who went to Burma and said something bizarre, but it is that kind of mystery. So we saw an ad it happened, it was so compelling. Firstly, then I had this overall curiosity about Burma. And then we had this this image of students, my contemporary students like me, trying to overthrow a brutal military was also so compelling. During ADA hours, the international students officer at the University of Technology, Sydney, at the student Students Association, and I remember calling the international directory assistance and say, give me all the fax numbers you have for Rangoon University. Because I didn't know I couldn't find anyone from Burma. And so they gave me I think, four fax numbers, three or four fax numbers, and in those days, fax was the most the fastest way of communication. So I don't know how many bills I ran out for the students association, sending multiple faxes to all of those saying, you know, we're students from Australia, we support you, you know, you know, get in touch whatever, of course, who knows who got those faxes? Yeah, but you know, then we went and looked for students from the campus, different university campus and we didn't find Burmese students but we found a Burmese community. And we linked up with them. And, you know, it's the same way we linked up with Chinese students in Australia who were protesting against the massacre in Tiananmen friends from Sri Lanka who are dealing with military and military oppression and, and the wine in Sri Lanka and, and so on and so forth. chuchmah is in Bangladesh, student activist in Thailand, and in 1987, a very widespread crackdown in Malaysia called per se Lala, which shut temporarily shut down, temporarily shut down the newspaper that had worked for and had detained without trial, 109 people, including people that I had met through my job as a crime reporter. So I actually knew some of those people. So you know, so there's this whole thing of us going to university in Australia, and, and then that being secondary to the human rights work. So so that's how, you know of all of us. I ended up staying with the Burma community, and helping out with other movements, including with Tim molesting. But Burma was the the main event for me eventually. So what became clear to me was that ASEAN governments were colluding with each other to violate human rights and to surveil and persecute human rights activists. At the very least, they were protecting each other from international pressure for human rights violations. So that was one piece of what motivated me. The other motivation was I kept going back every time I went back to Malaysia for holidays, I organize a public meeting, a vigil, some kind of protests on Burma, and events and and that was very well supported by the Malaysian human rights community community because they knew me from a privacy law 1987. And, and so eventually, folks just told me, Look, every time you're here, we support you. But when you go back to Australia, there's no one here to carry on the work. Why don't you move to Malaysia and do this? And I thought, well, I hadn't been with my family. I've lived away from my family for 10 years by that time. Sure. So maybe it was time for me to come back. And I lasted all of three months in Malaysia, because I, when Malaysian prime then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir started talking about bringing Burma into ASEAN. I became very worried. We already had seen that I had already seen evidence and had already observed that ASEAN governments were colluding with each other to violate human rights and to protect each other for from pressure over the human rights violations, if Burma were to be brought in, that would really lower the bar for human rights in the region. Yeah. And the military regime of that day, would feel very empowered to make things worse for people in the country, because they would have that diplomatic protection of ASEAN. So we, I raised this at a time when Thailand was the champ RCN. So there was a little bit of a strategy. Every time we had a protest in Malaysia, on Burma, the Malaysian media may not necessarily cover it, because they were not at that time. They were rather ambiguous ambivalent about human rights causes. So what we would do was, we would send a press release and photos to the Thai media, like Bangkok Post in the nation, and they might cover it and then Malaysians would cover it very clever. So we worked out that if we got covered overseas, that it might be covered by the Malaysians. So we were we were trying to make sure that that that was that coverage. And then Thailand was the chair of ASEAN. So I happen to be in Bangkok and our and speak to the human rights activist saying, hey, why don't we have an alternative ASEAN meeting on Burma? Since there's going to be ASEAN meetings in Bangkok? And basically it's to say, we have people from ASEAN we have we are ASEAN to And we don't, we don't agree with the anti human rights positions of our government. And we focus on Burma, but it's also an assertion of our rights as people of ASEAN. And it was it when I tell people the story, they want to kill me because it's so hard to set up an organization. It's so hard to organize a conference. But I mentioned this to some activists, and they said, we liked this idea. And I said, So shall we do it in like six months time? And they said, no, no, no, you have to do it sooner. And I mean, like, oh, gosh, I have to talk to more people about this. And I spoke to cheerleader treasurer. And so at that time, she was in foreign Asia. And she said, Oh, yes, we have to do this. And I said, Well, I don't know have any idea of a budget, what what kind of budgets we'll be looking at. And she immediately and we were talking over dinner, she said, let's, let's go back to your hotel room. And we sat on the hotel room floor and worked out a budget. And then she said, Okay, you've got to talk to my boss at that time. That was some Chohan, lower human rights lawyer. And, and I said, you know, I'm flying out tomorrow. And she said, Don't worry, what time's your flight? And I said, Oh, it's in the afternoon. She said, Okay, you will meet some sushi calls of chai was 10 o'clock at night. And, and then she, she said, Okay, you're going to take it, you're going to check out of this hotel, and go and meet sunshine at his office with your luggage at ADM. And then you will take your taxi and go straight to the airport, so you won't miss your flight. Okay, fine. So I go at next morning ATM with our scribbled out.
Budget. And I introduced myself to some chai, and I said this is the idea. And he said, Yes, this is a good idea. We should do it. And I said yes. So they've been prepared on the move and say we should do it in three months time, which is October. And but I'm a bit concerned that we need a little bit of time to fundraise. And he said, No, we can do in October, we have the money and you can have it. Well, I was like what, and by some, by some fortunate timing. Because Tyrion was the chair was chairing ASEAN at the time. And forum Asia is was already working with the Burma movement. They actually had allocated funds 9096 to be the Burma campaign year, and then included an allocation for a regional meeting. But the regional meeting, which was happened supposed to happen early in the year didn't happen. So they had this unspent money. And I they they really liked this idea of an alternative ASEAN meeting. So so that's how it happened. And I had no idea how it was I had accidentally touched something, because I allocated like we anticipated bringing activists, politicians, media, people who we knew are interested from around the region. And we thought, okay, let's make it a little conference of 4040 participants. And I remember as booking the room and thinking, wow, this room looks a bit big. Well, every when people heard there was going to be this alternative ASEAN meeting on Burma. They found it themselves, different embassies wanted to come and in the end, we didn't even we were just overcrowded in the room that was hot belly room to move them. And people stayed in the room and had these active discussions. And at the end of the two days, they said that's it. We need an alternative ASEAN network of Burma, and that'd be your ear. And I was like, huh, so, so. So, at that time, I thought, Okay, well, this is what we are going to do. We want to make Burma an ASEAN issue because ASEAN governments kept dismissing it as a Western concern. I see. So we wanted to make this an ASEAN issue. We wanted to connect ASEAN stakeholders movements, media, interested politicians, academia with the Burma move. Yeah. And basically turn people into instant Burma experts. Okay, so that they felt confident speaking about it at domestic level. So I actually envision since we said, Okay, we're gonna set this up. I was like, Okay. I actually thought that it would be a good idea to design Olson Burma as a two year regional campaign. After two years, ongoing back to Australia to real to my normal life.
Host 25:03
So you thought, yes.
Debbie Stothard 25:04
So for people who are boomers or Gen X's, they understand this cultural reference when I say, in a way we were the Gilligan's Island of the bedroom. You know, Gilligan's Island is that they went for a three hour tour, and it becomes a seven year sitcom. So, so So, so here, here are my going, Okay, no, we don't want to be the gatekeepers, we want to actually connect people directly, let them go off and do their I encourage them to go off and do their own thing, and come back to us if there's a problem. So then we that means we will be able to facilitate much more direct connections and, and, and create the situation where there'll be more advocacy and more campaigns. Because it was just me, it was a one desk operation, there is no way I was going to be able to help run so many different side side projects and other things we wanted people just go away and do it. So that was exciting. But then, you know, one of the things that one of the things that inspired me and kept me in the movement wasn't just the students, it was this amazing story of Aung San su chi, this you know, this nonviolent activist who refuse to be intimidated by by by the violence and the brutality of the junta. And so, you know, I just went like, okay, and I used to teach the guys in the moment say, Yeah, you keep saying, I'm trying to cheat, like, even there's only one woman in your whole country, for goodness sake, you know, how were the rest of them. And so we saw at that time, Bangkok was this hub of Burma activism. But a lot of the Burma offices or ethnic offices were run by men, and the women in there, the few women that when they were usually the daughter, or the wife of the leader, and so we thought, well, we need to make support women in regional and international activists, advocacy and activism. And so since most of it, eventually, we had three staff, including me, and we were all women. And we were all feminist, is that okay? Well, let's make this space for women. And so, actually, some chai was really great. He said, Why don't you start some kind of internship program bring women from the border. So we started with one woman, and me too, and we thought, oh, it will be good to have a Burmese woman like from the Burmese women's union, and a woman from an ethnic organization so they can work together. And so I think the first was BW and current women's organization will be, you know, sending women to come and work with, with us. And, you know, these internships, eventually transformed into very structured training in house training programs, because the women who could, who had the knowledge or the confidence to do a traditional internship quickly, might very much dried out after a while. And so we had to make sure we had some knowledge and skill building in the internship program. So to this day, it's called the internship program, but actually, it's an in house training, it's an intensive training. And, and we encourage the women to take all the training materials that we used with them, to go and take it with them and replicate in some form in their organizations. And so eventually, that grew into groups of four women, and even Sikhs, and these were young women, many of them never actually lived or worked with their peers from an other, another ethnic group in their own country. And so and so we will just focus on making sure that they have the confidence and the ability to do advocacy. But actually, what we ended up doing was contributing to a generation of women leaders who worked across ethnic lines, and, and eventually there's so this was in 1997. And we were really pushing women's organizations to and youth organizations to work across ethnic lines. And so women's legal Burma was eventually formed and on the border, and that was at the end of 1999. Around and eventually, a lot of the women that we train became leaders of the room. Illegal Burma. And, and their position on impunity was extremely inspiring. So, you know, when the attacks against the Rohingya started in 2012, a lot of the human rights community in Burma Turn, turn a blind eye to that. But it was eventually the current women's organization leadership and a number of other women who are alumni of our program, who took a stand. And we're really proud and inspired by that, because we, you know, when you start this, when you start this work, you just say, we need to get women out there, you know, they have to be at the UN spaces, they have to be at the International and ASEAN spaces, we can't just have guys. And, and, and then but what happened in the way it was done was it actually created that space for women to have a very, to have the confidence and the courage to be principled when it came to combating impunity. So I think that's, you know, what's really exciting and amazing is that, so many of our alumni have become the not just leaders, but leaders and role models for other women, other young women, and they've, man, they've done work they've done, they've been innovative and creative and courageous kickass feminists who actually have done more than I could ever do individually. So it's, it's really great, too. You know, in those days, you didn't think how long was this program went to last? What's the strategic plan? What are the outputs and the impacts and blah, blah, blah? No, we're just saying, Oh, this needs to be done. Let's just do it. And, and, and what we tried to do was to respond to the movement to talk to the women's groups every no regularly to say, hey, what do you need? So, you know, the, the work transformed eventually, from bringing young women, a group of young women to go and do. less risky advocacy tour and public speaking in Indonesia, or Philippines to the leader saying, we need people who can do more project management. And so is that, okay, we're going to do project cycle management instead of the travel. And so there was, you know, we N, and as each generation of alumni, took our work and took our training materials and replicated it in the field, then we would have to upgrade and change up our curriculum as well. And so that kept that keeps things interesting. But yeah, I mean, we're really proud of the fact that our board members include alumni of our women's program, we're actually very strong on that. And so my colleagues who do the training, sometimes get freaked out, and they don't, they look at me rather skeptically. When I say, you know, we're not training these women just to be good activists, we're training these women to be our future bosses. And, and they, they don't get it and I said, Okay, you see these board members, this person, this person, this person, they are alumni of our program. So I'm actually mean literally, they are going to be our future bosses. So you have we have the responsibility to make sure that they have the basis or some basic skills in terms of leadership and decision making. So you know, when we say our focus is on not just on women's participation, but also women's leadership.
Yeah, so it's, it's really amazing when when the alumni come up to you and say, Debbie, we only really talk to you, you know, we really need to get this types this thing done and we need to get that thing done. And I remember scissor who was at that time, early leading Women's League of Burma in February 2020 say they will come over your urine in Rangoon. Okay, come over, let's let's sit down, we need to have a meeting I talk to you about something and we go to W lbs office. And you know, I'm just so happy to see like most of the WL lb lead leaders in the office, alumni of our program or who have attended other training programs of ours, and feeling like rather happy and smug and and then You know, Cisco saying we need a feminist policy for economic policy for Burma. So Debbie can also help us out with this. And we're like, wow, that's really ambitious. She said, look, we've had 10 years, nearly 10 years of transition, and it's not working for women. And economically, the women's jobs, the feminization of, of the women's jobs are not getting better. And women's economic opportunities aren't getting better. So we need a feminist economic policy. And I'm going to Okay, let's see how, what we can do about this. And then COVID hit, and then the cool hit, and w lb couldn't do this project. But you know, inspired by that, we actually started talking about this, and we got the resources for it. And so this feminist economic policy for Burma, has now transformed into the inclusive federal economic policy project for Burma. And we're halfway through this project. We're so excited because women and us from all around Burma have felt different organizations have already joined the project. We've had 225 sets of recommendations for economic policy, after the coup as a result reversed. And we're gonna get more because recovering, we're not just covering what economic priorities should be after the coup is reverse. We're talking about what are the solutions for natural resources, agriculture, industry and services, health and education, trade infrastructure, financing, public financing, private financing, and also doing a comparison of federal economic systems and other countries to be able to work out what people want participants would prefer in terms of how economic responsibilities are divided between national state and local government. And also looking at how we want to how to make policies come alive. Because, you know, even the NLD government had nice policies on paper, but they were just still on paper. So you know, how do we draft policies, so that it's not a top down approach? So you know, what's really amazing is how thoughtful, and how motivated young people and women are. We've had inputs from conflict affected zones, people feeling very strongly about this, but also understanding that, hey, this is what we are fighting for, you know, we're fighting for solutions at the end, what do we do, we don't want to stop back at, you know, doing the same or making the same old mistakes. Because in the end, while everybody's obsessing about what constitution to have, the majority of people still need to have a livelihood, they still need to eat, they still need, they still need to have access to health and education, they still need to have natural resource policies that don't displace them and push them out of their homes. And, you know, in in this picture, we also need to be more inclusive for people with disabilities. I mean, traditionally, people with disabilities in Burma have been somewhat invisible, iced and marginalized. And we already know, one of the negative one of the impacts of all this conflict is that a lot of survivors will have some type of temporary or permanent disability, whether it's a physical one or mental one. And so we need to think about that. We need to think about climate resilience. We need to think about just transition. And recognizing that can work has always been devalue. I wouldn't even say undervalued, but devalue, devalued. And how do we, if careworkers devalue, then women are devalued? How do we deal with that? How do we bring equilibrium to gender? So that's really one thing that's exciting. We've got very active LGBT folks involved in this. In this project. We've got people with disabilities involved in this project. And we've got young people in conflict areas also somehow, the thing that really is amazing is that we have 18 partner organizations. And we say partner organizations, this means they not just attend the workshops, but they take the training materials, and they take it out in the field and do consultations, and encourage other people to make recommendations. Now, there are about 12 to 15 other participating organizations. So they come to workshops, but they don't do that post workshop work. Out of these 18 purchase partner organizations in January 14 had already done the work by before the deadline. In peacetime, in normal situation, there will be amazing. But in a situation of conflict and disruption and displace forced displacement, we actually did. It's like America, but people but the young people involved saying, No, we're really motivated. This is what we need to talk about. This is what we need to create this future. Not just fighting for survival or fighting to overturn the military, it's actually what we're fighting for what happens after that. And so, you know, when we were doing the research for this project, one of the things and that shocked me was the the inter census data from 2019. men aged 34, and younger. And so males 34 and younger, and all the females in the country combined 82% of the population yet, or a lot of these serious economic policies and decisions are made by like 000 0.1. All the men, urban base, probably more military, making decisions for the rest of this population, more than nearly 72% of the population is rural. And yet, most of the economic policies are designed to benefit urban populations. So we already see that there is a compelling reason to talk about economics, without inclusive economic policies that are people centered, political transition is not going to be sustainable. That's basically the story. And and if we are thinking about the future, why are we fighting this junta, with everything that we've got, whether it's whether it's non in invite nonviolent means or violent or with arms? The thing is that we need to be thinking about what the next generation how the next generation is going to live. Yeah, we can't afford a rerun of 2011 to 2021. And another group, we really cannot afford that. Will.
Host 43:30
So you had concerns during that transition period of what you were saying,
Debbie Stothard 43:33
you know, it's not just me, it's people like quinoa from progressive voice, a whole bunch of other activists. Were saying, Look, this 2008 constitution is fundamentally flawed. The impunity is normalized. The military is is is not just economically powerful, but still politically powerful. And we need transitional justice. And, and there is a clause that allows schools to be held. And, and we were scolded not just by Asian diplomats, but also Western and say, Oh, of course, you know, your job is to you only have work if there's a problem. So you're, you know, you're looking for problems don't be so negative one step at a time. And then when the NLD took power, or they were elected to government in 2015, and we're gonna like, look in the ending areas, we still seeing conflict. And what's the story with all these land grabs and forced displacement? And, you know, the Rohingya issue hasn't improved during this tuition hasn't improved, it's actually getting worse. And then they say, oh, you know, let let the NLD have its second term in government, they can't really do everything that they want to. But after the 2020 elections, everything will be better. So, you know, there was so much pushback. I remember talking to this negotiator for the EU, Myanmar investment protection agreement, and investment protection agreement would build a lot more confidence by European investors to invest in Burma. And there was just going to be a standard, a standard human rights clause, which really didn't mean that much. And I said, you know, you need to understand what's going on the ground. And this negotiators is Oh, no, it's my job to protect the interests of the EU. And this is my job of negotiating this language like, Hello, excuse me, do you see the indicators here? A genocide is imminent, a genocide is imminent. And what I'm going to tell you this, this, yes, you may not give a damn about women, children, and men being massacred and subjected to human rights, violence, serious human rights violations and genocide, if you don't care about that, at least care about your job. And your job is not just to do this agreement, your job is to protect your department and your institution. When this genocide happens, when the shit hits the fan, the European Parliament is going to say who the hell made this investment protection agreement, who the hell decided to push through seeing all the indicators on the ground. So if you don't care about people dying, at least cover your own as you better stop this negotiation now. And I think the that that official totally did not expect the smiling Asian woman to be so forthright. But actually, it ended up in the in the end, they had to stop put a stop to everything. Because you know, the next meeting, we were meeting with the with the, with more senior people, a few months later, and I said, I'm really sorry, I do not like me, I do not like going to meetings saying I told you so. Yeah. But I told you so. So you know, you better? What else are you going to do now to make to prevent the military from having my access to resources. So that's the kind of stuff like when we do advocacy, of course, Burmese people have to be a little bit more polite, they have to play the good cop, but I'm not averse to playing the bad cop. If we have to actually speak truth to power, and we have sometimes people get so complacent, really, they don't get that sense of urgency, because we're being diplomatic and polite and respectful. Sometimes we just have to yell, and we have to use some strong words. So they wake up from their complacent sleep. And, you know, folks, over the years, various friends, you know, activist feel so to respectful. You know, when they see Westerners, especially well educated professors, and so on, you know, and they say, Oh, they're being told this can't happen, or you can't do it this way, or this is not going to work. And and again, but you know, all these very well educated expert, Hey, folks, you are activists, activists, make the history that these academics have to study.
Host 49:17
Can you give an example of what you mean, of something that a Western academic might say, this thing is not so possible or putting roadblocks there that activists have then gotten around and shown? Well, you know,
Debbie Stothard 49:33
this is like, this is showing my age. This is back in like 9099 or 1998. And at that time, Kim De Jong was the president of Korea. And he because he was a newly elected Democratic president and South Korea, he, he he actually wanted to create a space for pro democracy activists in the region to do their advocate to see and to exchange your views and come up with ideas. So we're in this workshop, and there's, I think he's dead now American academic, researcher, person, and he was considered one of the gods of, you know, one of the American Gods of Burma. And, and he from very prestigious university, and he was saying, Oh, I've been in Myanmar, Burma since the 60s and Yang in, you know, let's face it. The Burmese people need some kind of authority to keep them going and keep them together, we just gonna have to live with the military, whether we like it or not. And we just have to think about a generational change, an incremental change, revolution is not going to be possible at all, see how they killed off those people and ADA. And then come on her scene, and I use who was also speaking on that panel, and I hadn't met him before, I didn't know who he was, he was actually the former prime minister of Bangladesh. And, and then, and I thought, how is he going to support this guy? Or what? Like, what's he gonna say? And he said, you know, something? That's what was said to us? You know, in the 70s, you know, Westerners came and told us, this wasn't going to happen. And we were activist and we were too idealistic. And then two years later, as foreign minister. Oh, yes. So even people were saying there's, you know, there's not going to be people, people in Burma are too weak and too complacent. And to easily intimidated, they're not going to oppose the military. And then there was a Safar revolution. And the seventh revolution was actually also a response to the removal of petrol or fuel subsidies, which caused immense economic damage to people to the society. So that was one thing. And then after, after it was so brutally put down, because it's not going to happen again. And it was saying that Burmese people are so racist, they're never going to have any solidarity for the rager. They're never going to have any solidarity for the ethnics. And you know, it's over. And then when the coup happened, people were saying, Oh, this is gonna be a few weeks of protests, and then it's dead and people will learn how to live under the junta you know, all these experts kept saying these things, and they kept being proved wrong. Because you know, you cannot underestimate people, especially young people, you know, and you cannot, you know, you you cannot, but you cannot also underestimate the brutality of the military. Yeah. So, you know, we are, we actually, we actually used to have a joke about nonviolent resistance. If you don't resist, we will be, we won't be violent. So, basically, there is no such thing as nonviolent resistance, because at the other side, whether you're, you're armed or unarmed is going to come after you anyway. And I think that was the painful realization, because during the protest, when the coup started in February 2021, firstly, we were so amazed at how sustained and determined these protests were. People were told to stay off the streets and see what happens next. But people went out, the young people went out the grandmothers and the Auntie's and the moms, you know, bang up pots and pans, you know, and that was something that they did. And what was also amazing was how they took advantage of sexist norms. Like the, you know, hanging up the tomato, like, I remember so many times, people complaining about, you know, women hanging their jeans up about On a high a clothesline or the surrounds, and then and we were laughing at them and also laughing that even in a modern household in Rangoon, there might be two washing machines, one for female clothes and one for male, so that men, so that means a spiritual poem, their spiritual superiority wouldn't be, you know sullied by women's clothing. And here, women were hanging their teammates there, they serve their surroundings up on high lines across the road, and across the street, so that when the police came into the neighborhood, they would have to stop and command the most junior person on the truck to go and dislodge the terrain because nobody wanted to drive under that. And you know, that would have that would that strategy would have saved so many lives, people giving people time to run away. And then we started to see these amazing photos of encouraging state, women marching and they had bras and sanitary napkins and saying, at least, these given most give us more support in the military ever did and more support and more protection than the military ever did was like, Whoa, you know, all of those things that were so taboo. And we had our young women activists who had been vilified for doing protests, in solidarity, the Ringu now being becoming heroes, because they were leading the protests. And then, and then people actually having the people actually having the Grace or The realization or the humility to apologize in public to the Rohingya. Now, one of the very interesting things that I learned about Burma, and this is not just about Burma is basically about every ethnic nationality in Burma is that people don't like to apologize for political things. They might say, sorry, I didn't give you the right. Cake or whatever, that social apology that that those small apologies for personal inconvenience, but nobody would want to do a political apology. Sure. Yeah. You know, yeah. So the first person who did that was Otieno, the patron of the NLD. Who did that?
When he spoke at the ASEAN people's forum and Rangoon in 2014 2014. Yeah. And he said that he's basically said, I've done when I when I was in the military as a younger person, I did bad things to ethnic people. I was following orders. I now know that was bad. And I apologize. And he said that in public, to an assembly of Southeast Asian activists. But other people wouldn't do that. Not even politicians, not even military. So to have people admit apologize, on Twitter or and for doing political for political politics, for bad politics was really amazing. I mean, you feel a lot of hope that, you know, it's not if social attitudes can shift, then political attitudes will correct. political positions will come next. And and Rohingya people have, you know, the ones doing the advocacy in the outreach, have had to put up with all kinds of shitty attitudes and assumptions and casual racism, to be able to be respected for them to receive acknowledgement and respect and solidarity is it makes one feel optimistic and also gives them a boost in terms of, okay, we haven't been doing a 10 plus job because in the community because a Why are you You know, why humiliating yourself and why are you taking such an awful job to try and, you know, do the outreach people so people are capable of change, and that's one of the good things that we learned from the revolution is that people are capable of change, just as the military is capable of great brutality, people are capable of change. And, and, and we just, you know, you just cannot underestimate young people. I think in many respects, shutting down the internet was one of the had quite unexpected consequences when you don't have access So the internet you're gonna go on the street the N N mineral line was so focused on Aung San su chi. Yeah, he didn't realize that this generation is more dangerous than Aung San su Jia, more potent, more powerful, and less restricted in your attitudes. It's, it's one of those things when you, you, firstly, you cannot be a control freak when you're doing this job. You need to be a control freak about what you are doing, but you can't control others. And you're gonna have to recognize that if people are motivated, they're going to come up with solutions. I mean, yesterday, I was doing a training with some young people from northern Burma. And they asked me, how did you get involved in human rights. And, you know, it wasn't like, I woke up one morning and said, I want to be a champion for human rights. And this ideal, this noble ideal, basically, I just got, I became a human rights activist, because I was trying to solve a problem. So I think we do need to have a more pragmatic and understanding that, yes, we human rights principles are absolutely important. But we have to remember that at the center of this are human beings, we have to be human centered in a human rights approach. Number one, because a lot of people make the mistake of being law centered on the law. Secondly, I saw human rights as one of the frameworks that helped me solve problems, like what problems, you know, very often problems that we encounter is about power imbalance. People not having being denied access to their human rights because of power imbalance. And, and being able to say, hey, you know, they're these, there's a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that these mechanisms are these thoughts? You know, the things that you thought were unfair, it's actually codified, it's actually recognized under international humanitarian law. So let's go that way. And also understanding how we can use human rights, human rights as leverage in order to solve a problem. Yeah. So I think that's something that's quite important. And, yeah, and people also understanding, like when people talk about experts, and I learned so much from doing workshops with grassroots communities, and they say, Oh, what about this? What about that, and I'm gonna like, Hello, excuse me, you know that you're experts in your own right, your lived experience makes you an expert on this area, that nobody, no matter how many books they've read, who will have that understanding? And people are coming to you and consulting you. They're asking you questions, because they need to learn from you. So you shouldn't be thinking of yourself as having to learn from others. Learning is an exchange. You know, we learn from each other every time I deliver a training, every time I facilitate a workshop, I'm learning. Yeah, of course, very much so. And, and so, you know, you don't need to thank me for doing this. It's my job. Yeah, how do you need thanks. I'm probably getting as just as much as maybe more than what you're getting out of this process. So I have to be accountable for that. I think that that's something that's pretty important. When we do this work, and also, you know, there's always one part of us trying to be protective of people. And, and that's when you know, people are protesting, and you're worried they're gonna get shot, and they're gonna get arrested. And then when they're arrested, this is not a situation where you can call some friendly embassy and say, Send someone to go find out this person is okay. This is I mean, we've had panicking calls of mutual friends arrested and confirmed mean in an interrogation center and they say, what do we do? I said, I'm really sorry. Yeah, I'm really sorry. All you're gonna have to do is pray. Yeah, that this person goes to jail quickly. We are in a situation where you pray that they spend the minimum time possible in interrogation center, because this is where most of the harm happens to be announced a situation where we think of jail as safer than an interrogation center, you see hope that they get produced in court quickly so that the lawyers can have a look at them and make sure they're okay. And once they're in the jail system, then maybe you can send humanitarian aid. But basically, you this is the situation that we're dealt with. And of course, everyone's very, like, oh, how, what, you know, why did they do this? And why did you do that? And, you know, I can't tell people, you stay, stay non violent. I mean, or run away. I can't say run away. It's up to people to make those decisions, we have to respect them. The ability to make those decisions, no matter how dangerous they are, because they know themselves what they want to do. And, you know, that whole thing of wanting to protect people saying No, get out of there, don't do this, don't do that. We can't, this is a revolution. And fundamentally, this junta has been targeting unarmed civilians. At some stage, it is your human right to defend your life and to defend the lives of people you love. And I don't agree with that. I don't know that I would choose to do that. But I have to respect people's decision for doing that. Yeah,
Host 1:06:53
we don't we have no idea how we would act if we
Debbie Stothard 1:06:57
were exactly, you know. So, so that's the end. And we have, in so many ways, the privilege and the luxury of stepping away of taking a break of, you know, coming down to ensure that's not what people are facing on the ground. So that's the thing. You know, we lost a lot of activists who moved from non violence to armed resistance. And every time, you know, since 1027, oppression temporary seven was launched. And we see the victories, the military victories, we know that there's a price to pay for that. But there's still something you know, when when I hear 500 military bases destroyed, in you know, how many weeks and we're going like, number one with that we didn't realize there were that many military bases. And the other part is key, this is great, why I am not celebrating the fact that we're getting some back, our friends are getting something back. I'm just feeling hopeful that the fighting, eventually the fighting, they will win and the fighting will stop. And we can move on with rebuilding the country and the society. Because I don't want the situation to stretch out so much more than an entire generation of people is lost in armed resistance. Because once you keep fighting, and that becomes your habit, if armed resistance becomes a habit for a generation of young people, then the political transformation becomes so much harder. And the social transformation becomes so much harder does because, you know, political, being able to negotiate politically, having the rule of law is necessary for culture of peace, of course. And, you know, this is something that needs to happen. With it, I think the you know, who say Oh, yeah, Malaysia is not your country. Yeah, this is not my country. But, you know, the stakes are so high in Burma, not just for people in Burma. I think the stakes are very high for this region and internationally, because we want to be able to see transitional justice and a solution then makes the community resilient and makes the political and economic situation, resilient against the recurrence of conflict of outcomes. I'll say, and the recurrence of a military dictatorship. You know, when you know people from Burma, regardless of their background, and you hang out with them, you work with them, you just go like, they don't deserve decades of military dictatorship, my
Host 1:10:20
goodness, you know,
Debbie Stothard 1:10:23
they, they definitely don't deserve this. And we need to do, and we don't deserve to see our friends live like this. It's hard. It's hard. And so this is why he, for me, human rights is one of the ways in which we can solve this problem. You know, other people have other ways. But for me, doing the human rights work, and also supporting the growth of feminism is important.
Host 1:10:59
I want to come back to the statement, you said, to kick off this interview, when people meet you, they're often surprised that you're by your name, you're not a white woman, and you reference how you're in a field of activism that is dominated by men or by Western men or Western women, but you're somewhat of an outlier in that. And so I want to ask what, what coming from, from your background as an Asian woman into this battle and into this activism? How do you feel that you're approaching it differently, doing things differently seeing it in a divergent way, than perhaps the the the other types of people that are coming into it from their backgrounds? Well,
Debbie Stothard 1:11:42
you know, at this point in, when I started, back in the early 80s, the scene was very different. And we've seen the growth of human rights communities in the region, and there are so many Asian human rights activists. So you know, I'm very much part of the community. And then what we've seen also is the growth of a generation of people who've used the online space for activism, like the milk tea Alliance, who operates in very different ways. So one is, I think, it's hard to talk about the difference. In some ways, and in other ways, it is easy, because, you know, after a few years of doing this, you really start to question how much of our human rights perspectives are colonized? If if we are, we need to support voices from affected communities, we need to and we need to facilitate that. And we need to actually privilege that. Because often in human rights spaces, and I work in business and human rights, they bring people from affected communities from the ground. And what they want them to talk about is their personal experiences. And then we use that as the case study. And that's a very close realistic attitude. Because actually, we're exploiting those people as cases. We also saw that no, there's a tendency to overlook that the effective community, and activists and people who are affected from the affected community must be the source of the solution, we can't assume that the solution will come from some Western human rights organization. So there has to be a little bit more respect and understanding that the people who the people who are directly affected by human rights violations should also be the source of the recommendations and the solutions. And very often, you we cannot assume that we know what the solution is, we might be able to help communities understand that there's a broader spectrum of solutions, and help them do the risk assessment for working out what would could be the negative and positive consequences of certain courses of action. But in the end, they have that knowledge and that lived experience. And actually, it's their lives that are going to be impacted. So we have to have that respect. So I think that's one thing. That's quite important. And then the other thing too is sometimes when we look at how When we apply for funds and how we justify how we have to justify delays or changes in programming, etc, it's actually quite interesting because in, in some, some donors kind of treat us as potentially clueless or potentially potentially liars. You know, so, you know, like that, that we are unreliable or irresponsible and, and there's a kind of a lack of trust that accountability goes one way. I think, in this space, we need to understand whether your a donor or an AI NGO, or an NGO SES or effective community, accountability has to flow in all directions. It can't be a one way or a one way street. So that's, that's something that's important. And also being able to have that judgment that people on the ground are the best judges. And in terms of risk assessment in terms of what's possible. You know, you know, sometimes people feel so pressured, like, oh, we have to deliver this, this is the deliverable by this time. And then we are putting pressure on the community here, we got to get this done by this deadline. And sometimes we just have to stop and say, Okay, what's happening with you? And how much time do you need? Or is this still relevant to you don't feel the pressure to deliver because you've received money for this, maybe we need to renegotiate how this money is used, how these resources and we need to be empowered by our donors to actually feel that that's, that's possible. You know, so I think that that stuff is really quite important. And I think also, young people organizing differently. So what happened after the coup started was that if you're a young person, you might, from an ethnic area, you might join the existing ethnic group that's working on this issue. You might eventually start up an alliance, but a lot of urban young people from different backgrounds, they don't want to form organizations. They want to do their own thing, but as part of a loose network, and this is very much mirroring what the military alliance does. So you know, it's not, Oh, you must do this, this is our plan. And you know, that it's actually something, if those if those those net loose networks, very dynamic, loose networks want to work on something, they co create any CO design, and then we have to respect their process and how they deliver. But you know, very often, very often, we just can't cope with difference. I mean, I was in a meeting, I was in a meeting a few weeks ago, and someone said something that was really, that really provoked me. And it's the assumption that bigger is better, that somehow organizations need to grow in order to justify themselves. And also long longevity, that, and I will say this, ironically, because old CNS, nearly 22 is going to be 28 years old this year. But longevity is not as should not necessarily be the metric. We can't have. You know, we're not multinational corporations, we shouldn't be taking that colonialist, capitalistic view or approach. Bigger is not necessarily better. And a longevity is not necessarily should not necessarily be one of our goals. I'm lucky because in so many ways, ottomans been able to reinvent itself every few years. Because we try to be as responsive, as much as possible to circumstances on the ground, what movements need. And that's because we're a small organization. You know, if we are a big organization with huge amounts of resources, then it makes us less agile. So you can say, Do you want to do it, why don't you want to expand? Why don't you I do this and I know there are other groups doing that. We don't have to do what they already do it. Let's do something different. Let's see how can we innovate and how we can adjust ourselves? to what the movement needs. And it makes things much more interesting, less boring, because we're constantly renew constantly renewing ourselves. And you know, even organization doesn't work. And it falls apart, the people in it, the movements that are affected by the people who learn from it, they take that energy and go into other movements and other organizations. It's not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, if we try to be a giant, monolithic organization, that is what actually will kill us. True. Yeah. You know, because we come so easy as a target. Yeah. But also, we ended up using up so much resources just to sustain them on monolith. And we have less resources to work in the ground, right.
Host 1:20:51
You referenced the milk tea Alliance, I wonder if you can talk for our listeners that might not be might have a passing understanding of it not be so aware of what it is and also where you see Myanmar in your organization fitting into the milk tea lions? Well,
Debbie Stothard 1:21:06
I'm kind of a milk tea and tea. Okay. So yeah, so I'm very proud of the fact that I'm on milk tea, Aunty, in the sense that a number a couple of activists from the milk tea Alliance do work with us and sort of asked for advice and, you know, bounce ideas, you know, include us and stuff. So that's been an honor and a privilege. The Milty. Alliance started a few years ago, because some, I think there's some actors girlfriend, referred to Taiwan as a country, and became the target of Beijing cyber troops, Oh, wow. And then various other activists went to a defense and started counter attacking. And then it was all this sort of activism that galvanize In, in response or reaction in resistance to cyber bullying by China by Beijing, cyber pro troops. And then we saw that there were a lot of Hong Kong activists and there and other people in the diaspora. And we saw that people started having these loose networks. So there was this the multi Alliance friends of Myanmar, there's Multiliners, Myanmar, multi Alliance, Hong Kong, LT Alliance, Malaysia, and so on. And the and and the idea was that everyone drank milk tea from these countries. And so and so this kind of evolved into a very loose identity. And the, the members are sort of may vary. So the level of activism of individual members may vary, because it depends on what's happening with them and what so it's it's loose, but it seems to work. It's loose, it's organic. People convene, or converge on emergencies on crisis on certain issues on certain projects. And they may not necessarily be the same ones. But somehow there's this sense of drive and motivation. And I think, at the very basic level, it's basically human rights principles. And I think in some ways, is the ultimate democracy that people using online connections to keep things moving. So last year, we were very lucky to be able to work with the Milty Alliance friends of Myanmar, and the blood money campaign from Ghana, to put in a joint submission for China's EPR Universal Periodic Review, and honestly mentioned focus on the fact that although China agreed in the previous cycle, to set up a national action plan for business and human rights, and, and was encouraged to consider the impacts the human rights impacts of Chinese businesses, business activities overseas. They still hadn't done that. And in fact, in Burma, they had been working against conflict sensitivity principles of the UN guiding principles of business and human rights. So we've seen companies like wanbao host Pugh, sauti, Malaysia, junta Malaysia for training in their compound, and one bow was notorious because of the lead paddle copper mine is huge copper mine that displays are 1000s of people and with very little compensation and where the Burmese military committed violence, and even fire, white phosphorus, which is not actually designed for to use against humans, if I use the white phosphorus against unarmed protesters, including Marx, several years ago, people have died in confrontations over the copper mine. And so it was shocking that after the coup happened, that the company involved was actually allowing use of their premises and facilities to train pro junta militia who were committing violence against local people. There was also an African incident of landmines being planted to secure Chinese investments. So there's a there's quite a few others incidents. But we've we saw, we were lucky because, you know, milk tea Alliance friends of Myanmar, and but in my blood money campaign, committed to working with us on putting together this, this submission. And, and it's, it's important to note that because a previously in the first round of in a previous EPR submission, on cn worked with Myanmar alliance for transparency and accountability. And, and that was the first submission of mitre on business and human rights, which is a business new rights principles by China, in Myanmar. And that at that time, was one of the first submissions focus on business human rights on China. So I think there was a mining issue in Latin America, so So in the previous UPSR cycle, we supported Myanmar alliance for transparency and accountability, to do a submission on the business impact the the human rights impacts of Chinese business in Burma. And, and we did that, knowing that there were two other submissions from Latin America on mining, Chinese mining there. So that was the first round that of up are in which business and human rights issues were raised on China. And so this time, there's actually more so I think community in Indonesia and community in in Philippines also put in a submission on China's the human rights impacts of China's investments there. So you know, it's it contributes to this consciousness or to this understanding that, yeah, you know, it might not, it might not be earth shattering change. But people feeling empowered and courageous enough to put in an official complaint into the UN system against China's investments is important. Because for communities who are being told, you don't matter, to be able to see their complaint in writing or in the system is important see solidarity. Yeah. And they see solidarity, but they also feel validated that, you know, we that they are being acknowledged.
Host 1:28:42
You also referenced a little while ago, this growth of feminism were your words, that it's been exciting in Myanmar, to see this growth of feminism. And so I wonder if you can, because you have this institutional history of having looked back at me and monitor the 80s, and certainly through the 90s, when you became much more involved, if you can take us through your personal view and involvement of what you saw of how the shape that feminine feminism was taking in those earlier decades, if at all, and then the grin in your words, the growth, how the genesis of how it came about, and what your what form you're seeing today.
Debbie Stothard 1:29:21
Okay. I think, you know, when we talk about decolonization, we need to recognize that women in Burma had a lot more agency than we recognize. Yeah. And there are writings of Western, Western, evangelists, evangelists, and, and colonialists complaining of being shocked that women who are owning property and running businesses and sitting around smoking in public in in Burma when color meals first arrived, they were quite shocked that women had so much relative freedom. And in the 60s and 70s in western universities where women traditionally were enrolled in arts and education and nursing, you know, women that will women, leading law faculties and medical faculties that think the medical faculty in Mandalay was led by a woman. And they will also women lawyers, leading law faculties at a time where the they were kind of invisible very much in the minority in those spaces in the Western world. In Western academia. I think one of the older Auntie's I met was saying, Oh, we were really surprised. Why are these western people wanting to study under me? They had no idea they had assumed that these academic institutions around the world in the western world probably had more women leaders than them the end and this was not the case. Even Aung San su chi smother doc, he was ambassador to India. And Ambassador to India, the largest, the largest carnivory in country. And at that time, the era where I think there were very few if not only one, if I'm not mistaken, very few women ambassadors, even in the US diplomatic service, I think surely temples ambassador to one of the small African countries will not mistake it. But but you know, that that understanding that women when I had I knew Auntie's who were senior lawyers in the Attorney General's department, you know, this is in we're talking about 60s and 70s. We had women very strong out there in public life, women were being given government scholarships to do their PhDs and masters overseas and their families were funded to go and travel with to, to move with them. So there was it was kind of normal. But what we need to recognize is that that was partly because class had a strong, stronger determinants than gender. Yeah, yeah. Whereas in, in the Western world, gender was a stronger determiner than class. So if you were middle class and elite class women in Burma, you basically could go anywhere and do anything. Yeah. So this is something that's quite important to understand. And colonialization, and militarization really eroded the role of women. So you could see what I saw was, you know, when I became connected to the Burmese community in the late 80s, and early 90s, there was a huge gap between women in who had, who were adults in the 50s and 60s, compared to women who are adults, who became adults in the 80s and 90s. Huge, it was like they were not even from the same country, or really, because the older generation of women, the middle class, women would speak confidently, in English, very socially confident, spoke about world affairs, you know, they, they, they, they were just immensely empowered. And then we saw this generation born and brought up under military dictatorship, being very conservative about their, their behavior, being very careful, not wanting to say their mind in public, not having that confidence, not feeling supported to do that, that type of interaction and advocacy. And then you it really is a very visible evidence of what militarization and military regimes do to women. And but having said that, women in the ethnic areas had a whole had different had a different situation to deal with. And, you know, when your community is being subjected to military attack, routinely, for several decades, it becomes inevitable that your society also becomes militarized in order to resist that. Yeah. And then that also has an impact of the kinds of roles that you're stuck with or you're expected to fulfill. So, here we have that kind of situation. And when there's when women are so vulnerable to military attack and abuse, then the goals in the family and that being kind of protected or, or miss basically, social, they have to be married off as soon as possible, so that they're not vulnerable to rape, and sexual violence by the military. So there's that kind of marrying women of or subjugating them for their own protection, although people would admit that, but basically, there were so many tendencies to do that. And so when we see extreme violence, for example, in some of the ethnic areas, when military come into the village, they asked for the headmaster, and they asked for the teacher, the teacher is a threat. They burn down the school, nobody wants to be a teacher anymore. Nobody wants to be the head, man. Yeah. So then some of the communities that having had women, and it was the younger educated women who agreed to be the teachers. So some of these villages, you know, you finish 10 years of formal education, you become a teacher, because and so then you have to respect the teacher, even though she's a young girl. So you can see some of those out of desperation and emergency, how some of those dynamics have to change. Because people don't want those jobs because it's dangerous. So, so then, when we work with women, one of the funny things that happened was, first, they say, oh, there's no violence against women in our community, because they feel like they're, they have to be, they have to be loyal to the community. And they say the violence is only committed by the, by the military, then gradually, as they become more confident and say, Yeah, this is what we are suffering from, as well. And then and then they start to grapple with that and be much more honest. And also, when they see there's a safe space. And they're no limitations to what they're supposed to do. So they're going like No, no, don't cope, let's do project management. You know, when you're in this situation, this is what you have the right to say, if you don't like the situation, this is what you have you, you have a right to take up this grievance mechanism. And sometimes in our training program, I would create problems to provoke people into certain courses of action. So that they would have to coordinate with themselves and come amongst themselves and come up with present a solution to us, outside us. So those kinds of things happen, and then we start to see, actually, we don't have to give that much training, we just have to give opportunity. If you create the opportunity and the space, they will inevitably do something like that. So we saw that one of the one of the groups of women that we were working with, said, you know, rape is a problem Reverend sexual violence is a problem in our community. We want to do a project, a mini advocacy on that. And so I said, Okay, let's let's do do it, and how what's your approach? And then do some do some analysis and research. And then they realize that all the anti rape strategies in Burma is basically putting the responsibility on women to avoid situations where they may be vulnerable to rape.
Like don't go out alone at night, this than the other. And then, so then I said, Okay, what's wrong with this picture? And how can you do it differently? And, and then they realized that the way to stop rape is to actually get men not to rape.
Host 1:39:34
Makes sense.
Debbie Stothard 1:39:35
Since it seems so obvious, but nobody had taken that role. So they actually, they actually made a mini advocacy project called men can stop raping and trying to give men make men into anti rape allies and encourage men to publicly oppose rate because rape is not a woman. this issue and, and they even got Otieno the patron of the NLD, who's a former military general himself to hold up a little mini poster that said, Men can stop, right? So, you know, they had those kinds, they did those kinds of things. In 2010, the group of women that we were working with, wanted to oppose the 2010 election, because they didn't see that it was a guarantee to stop the human rights violations against communities. And especially since the NLD, and other ethnic nationalities were banned from the ethnic parties were banned from participating in the 2010 election. And so, you know, they say, we want to do something against this. And I said, Okay, what do you want to do, and let's do a risk assessment. So they came, they came up with all of these different ideas. And then they realized that some of those ideas might not work because people were still very afraid. And they came up on the idea that perhaps they have to do anti election jokes. Firstly, because when people laugh, they feel that left, they feel less afraid. But also a good joke. If the good Joke is good, people remember it and tell it to their friends. So you didn't have to pass around leaflets or anything, you just spread the joke. Yeah. And so they had to, it was a group of, I think six women and they had to workshop, they came up with 12 jokes. And I was really quite amazed. Because a lot of people don't realize how difficult it is to write jokes. There's actually a, you know, like, when you look at American or Western entertainment, there's actually teams of people are very experienced, knowledgeable, people who write jokes for, you know, TV anchors, and so on, right? And he had these women who were so humble, say, Oh, we don't really know much. And then with Andy came up with all these jokes. And so then I'd say, Oh, this was very funny. And they said, No, it's really funny in Burmese, and then I had to bring in a buddy string. So, so in the end, and we talked about how we have to live jokes with the daily concerns of people. So so they actually came up with quite a few jokes, I thought, five good jokes, or three got three or five good jokes will be good, but they actually came up with like, I think 10 or 12, very sound jokes. And the Burmese radio started broadcasting those jokes. So and that kind of inspired other women in W lbs network, to make their own joke videos. And, you know, this is interesting, because traditionally, in public comedians were men in Burns, right? So women were taking back the laughing space. So you know, sometimes we have to, we, we have to be no holds barred, or this and, and not tell people how difficult doing this, it's gonna be, we just say, okay, run with it, see where you can go. And, and it's been such a privilege to be able to provide those spaces for women to do that. Because, you know, obviously, families don't have a sense anymore.
Host 1:43:57
Break that that's, that's breaking it. But shattering the glass ceiling. And I'm pretty sure, yeah. So I have one last question for you. And that's, I know that looking in the post cool environment, and even transition period and such, one of the areas of focus that you and your organization has really looked at has been this issue of ethical business. And this is, this has been controversial in some quarters in terms of how it's been promoted by other parties. And you've alluded to that previous in the interview. And so I wonder if you can talk about your vision of what ethical businesses as well as how it's been defined by other parties, perhaps in some problematic ways that you've pushed back on.
Debbie Stothard 1:44:44
I think Business and Human Rights space has been kind of captured by corporations and, and blood money campaign inclusive development, international and old Sam I have actually tried to push back on that in terms of the ESG rating system. The ESG ratings are really about ethical trying to rate businesses. And so I said, yes, the ESG rating system is supposed to be a rating system that helps investors identify ethical investment around environment, sustainability and governance. And so what we found was three, the three top rating agencies, were giving high ratings to businesses, that were actually providing weapons or equipment to the military junta in Burma, which means then those ESG ratings are not worth shit. And if those ratings agencies need to be much more ethical themselves in and being constant conflict sensitive themselves, in how they rate companies, in terms of in how they rate companies, because having a high ESG rating puts a company at better chance of having millions more even billions more investment. So yeah, so we, we've made complaints using the OECD system against companies headquartered in, in the US and the EU, UK, and one with one of the subsidiaries in Netherlands, to basically make that complaint to hold these companies accountable, and make sure that they change their system accordingly. So that's one of the the things, but when the coup happened, there was all this pushback on businesses, not wanting to leave and trying to justify that somehow, they had a civilizing their presence was had a civilizing influence on the junta. And actually, that wasn't true at all. And it was the Burmese activists who are calling for some of these companies, especially the natural resource, the fossil fuel companies, to put the revenues for Myanmar in an escrow account, which means, you know, basically, these companies say, Okay, we don't know who's really in charge, who's the legal owner of these natural resources, and so we're going to still pay for them. But we put them in an account and hold that interest until it's worked out. Right, right. And that would starve the military of revenue that can be used to buy weapons. Some of these companies refuse to listen to the community. And some of them sold up their resources, their holdings, made their money and left. So and it's how some of them withdrew was very irresponsible, because they handed over data as some of the telephone telecommunications companies handed over data that could put people in danger of their lives and their liberty, data of customers and even data of their staff. So and, and some of those companies that have had, the national staff had been involved in the CDM and the protests themselves. So these are really unethical. And we saw some of the factories that stayed the employees that stayed took advantage of the conflict of the insecurity. They kept saying, Oh, at least we're giving people jobs, but then they will stealing the wages of the workers, they were reducing their wages, reducing their entitlements, and not paying not paying them salaries, when they undertook the legal right to go and go out on strike against people who were killed or disappeared or arrested workers. They there hasn't been any system to ensure that the factories get the wages that are due. So I think, you know, we do need to understand and this is very clearly stated. In 2018, it was 2021 or 2022. You know, in less than a year since the crew started. The UN Working Group on business and human rights, did a whole bunch of consultations and they said if companies are unable to comply with the principles or In the UN guiding principles and business advice, then you have no business being in Myanmar. So that's something that we need to understand. And what we've seen instead, is Australian companies continue to mine in conflict areas. Amazing, you know, so you know, it's not a, I'm not going to single out, you know, Chinese companies. In one case, when the workers came back from the protest of general strike, and they came to collect the salary, they realize that they've been so shortchange, and they demanded an explanation. And this is a Chinese shoe factory in Liberia, and they call the police on these on these workers. And the police came in shot seven people dead. So you know, you, you, you, you go like, yes, people need jobs, of course, they need jobs. But the way this economy is being so severely mismanage number one, investors don't want to come in. What are you doing? How are you? Why are you still in the country? And if in your in a country? Why are you still giving revenues to the junta? Why are you not protecting your workers? You say you're there for the workers? Why are you not protecting their work? Yeah, so I think those kinds of things we're going to be asked even more and more. And I think there will be a day of reckoning. Some companies have stayed in the country, local businesses have kept running because they continue to provide a service. But those companies who claim to be they're doing good and weren't, there's going to be a day of reckoning for them one day, you know, those companies who said, We have no choice, when it came to handing over millions and millions and 10s of millions of dollars of revenue to the junta, which is used to killed civilians, there's going to be a day of reckoning for them. There was a choice. And the choice was made clear by people from Burma. And they didn't necessarily. You know, I think, I think one of the learnings that we had because of this revolution also is understanding that human rights work is also about caring for each other. And one of the things we do know we do a cool watch the one of the first things that happen. So the story is, during the COVID pandemic, I thought, this is actually a good time to streamline the organization, we've been, we've already given like, you know, we've already been, we've already facilitated or delivered over 180 advocacy workshops are more than 20 something years. And so many of the people we train are doing their own advocacy doing their own documentation. So we don't need to do that. We'll just do trainings, because we train, we do trainings on atrocity prevention, and transitional justice, and peace and security, business and human rights, economic macroeconomics, different aspects of advocacy. So, you know, we have we are in demand our trainings on demand, because we're very oriented towards grassroots and we actually frame all of these content in the Burmese context, or in the regional context. So the Okay, what we'll do is, we won't fill vacancies, and then we'll train our team down to five. And we'll just do training. And that makes life much easier because we don't have to be fighting for funding.
Yeah, that's great. And then the coup happened. And now I 15. So one of the things that happened was, Oh, my God, the coup, a lot of our friends are doing the advocacy or going underground, or they couldn't do the documentation anymore. Every so many things were happening. So we just thought, Okay, we have to do this cool watch. So one of our intrepid colleagues said, Okay, we're gonna do a cool watch. And then, after about a year of doing it, she ran away, but other people came back in and helped out but because the number of reports coming out a month, can be out they can have they can be up to 500 News Articles of mature so sifting through that summarizing cross referencing and putting that in a coup watch, so that people can have a national overview and have an overview not just what the junta is doing, what resistance is doing. Where the economic and business So what's happening Economics and Business COVID Health and Education Weyermann what's happening with Rohingya? What are the different international responses to be able to condense that into a monthly Briffa? So we've been doing that since the coup started. And we're doing that in solidarity with several organizations. And coming out with occasional briefers, and then also stepping up our, our training game, to basically stepping up our trainings to be more oriented to what people need in terms of what's happening now and what they want to have happening in the future. So all of that is happening. And then understanding that, hey, if we're going through 500 news articles a month, and about 300, about them, it's about human rights, atrocities, conflict, then we need to encourage people to ask for help if they need it. And we need to actually divide the burden so that yeah, because for some of our colleagues, they're actually looking at what's happening in their hometown and in their, in their own state. This is a place that they know, happening to people that they're not. So it can be very painful. But folks are also very motivated, because they feel empowered, that they're doing something about it. So, you know, trying to balance there. And seeing how many of our friends who are killed, or were tortured and jailed and understanding that we are also hurt by that. Yeah, I think I think, you know, we need to move from self care to mutual care. We can't have self care at the expense of others, well, you know, other other people's well being, we need to have collective care. And that's something that has to be as a already part of how we do our work. That's one big lesson that we've learned since the school started.
Host 1:57:14
Great. Thank you for sharing that. And thank you for all your time here.
Debbie Stothard 1:57:17
Yeah, okay.
Host 1:57:34
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