Insight Myanmar

Episode #154: When Kory Goldberg was just nineteen, he spent a year studying in India. After the program ended, he traveled around and kept “seeking out whatever I was seeking out,” he recalls.He attended daily lectures given by the Dalai Lama, and later visited a socially engaged meditation center in the tradition of Lama Zopa. Then after some other explorations, he sat a vipassana course in the tradition of S.N. Goenka. The result was transformative. “The first time I heard Goenkaji’s voice, it just sounded familiar, it resonated!...I hadn't felt that at ease in a long time.”Back in North America, he began sitting and serving vipassana courses at centers in Quebec, Massachusetts, and California, among other places, often following his practice with hikes deep in nature that lasted up to two weeks. Some years later, he serendipitously ended up meeting his future wife, Michelle Décary; they have been together for twenty-three years, sitting, traveling and raising a family together.On top of that, Kory and Michele eventually wrote a book, Along The Path: The Meditator’s Companion to the Buddha’s Land. For seven years, they periodically trekked all over northern India, refining their book and researching the history of the various sites, as well as soliciting tips and submissions from meditators taking their own journeys in the region…and all the while somehow maintaining a very busy professional and personal life.Following the book’s publication, Kory led pilgrimages to the special sites he had written about. As he also attended and supported various pilgrimages to Myanmar, he has unique insight into the contrasts between leading meditative journeys into the two societies. “Myanmar is way more complex,” he notes right away. “There's so many living traditions and itineraries… you have this whole buffet that you can choose from!”Kory feels deep gratitude for the people of Burma who were so welcoming and generous to him, which makes it all the harder for him to follow what is now transpiring in Myanmar. “I can't possibly imagine what it's like to be in such a horrible situation,” he notes sadly. “[But] when I see what the people in Myanmar are going through right now, some of them are just responding in such courageous ways that, I hope that if I'm ever in that position, that I could be as strong as they are.”

10 Mar 20232h 25min

Episode #153: Rahel and Damon Lam founded A Cup of Color in 2014. It is an organization with the goal of “bringing art to places where there is brokenness.” They have created art in public spaces in many places in Asia, and recently they carried out a project in Zurich, where they live, about the suffering in Myanmar.Their involvement was precipitated by a request to them from Raise Three Fingers, an artistic collective resisting the coup. After getting city approval for a large mural, they then went about soliciting Burmese around the world about the messages and images they might want to express. In the end, they designed a mural whose central image features “a woman holding up the three fingers, and it's a woman who is mourning for her family member who got killed.” Calling the finished piece “Tears Matter,” the woman is surrounded numerous words and other images, which came from the many submissions that were sent in from around the world.Besides the work’s obvious message, they set out to capture a sense of common humanity, represent a sense of perseverance and encouragement, with the hope that the piece would move people to start paying more attention to the situation in Myanmar.“[Burmese in the diaspora] are really not suffering loudly, but they're very silently suffering…[and it] is very, very deep,” says Rahel. “Myanmar people can make jokes about the darker things. That's kind of a way they survive, which helps you to be with them in the really difficult times. But seeing their silent tears, it's very heavy.”

7 Mar 20231h 4min

Episode #152: Kristina Simion’s book, Rule of Law Intermediaries, looks at the complex transition period of the 2010s in Myanmar, when dramatic changes were sweeping across the country. Simion notes how even though real substantive change actually didn’t take place, there remained a sense of optimism that finally there would be some pathway leading out from under the military’s half century of oppression.Simion weaves her narrative primarily through the perspective of the “rule of law.” While development actors usually see transformational rule of law policies as way to help create a more equitable society, many Burmese actually felt quite differently. They were generally suspicious after decades of oppressive military rule, when “the law was always seen as a tool from the rulers to oppress the population.” Ironically, military figures delighted in the concept, which they took to mean “law and order,” and which they appropriated to justify their stranglehold on individual freedoms and liberties.In trying to better understand the exploitative nature of military rule, Simion examines the system they inherited from the colonial period. The British imposed less a legal system than a type of “regulated control and brutality.” Many colonial laws, including the more restrictive ones, stayed on the books after independence, and the Tatmadaw later operationalized them to justify and strengthen their oppression—and which they have once again resorted to since the coup.Simion’s study also centered on the “intermediary.” During the transition period, with the lack of formal systems yet in place, the rush of foreign development actors who flooded into the country needed to rely on personal contacts—intermediaries—to get their projects off the ground. Intermediaries not only guided conversations, but were responsible for finding the appropriate personal connections and making necessary introductions, etc. Simion wryly notes that it begs the question of who was actually leading the projects!Since the coup, Simion has been impressed with how activists have shown a keen interest in the rule of law and transitional justice mechanisms. Incredibly, even as they are resisting the Tatmadaw and simply trying to survive, many are taking virtual classes with Simion on these complex yet important topics. She conducts training courses with people hiding in the jungle who want to learn more about principles for lawmaking, and tutors others about Constitutional reform, who are already looking ahead to ensure that ethnic minorities are protected in a new, post-Tatmadaw Myanmar.

3 Mar 20232h 3min

Episode #151: Tomas Martin is a prison researcher who presently works with DIGNITY, the Danish Institute Against Torture. His interest in prison research was first piqued when he heard about ten-day vipassana meditation courses in the tradition of S.N. Goenka being conducted in Tihar Jail outside of New Delhi. He is now focusing on how imprisonment in Myanmar, and its ramifications, and not only the prisoners, but the staff as well.Besides the violence which often plagues incarceration, Martin pays close attention to the everyday experience of prison life. One of the more unique areas of his research has been a study of the usually foul prison air and its psychological and physical affects. He has pushed for new prison designs that encourage better ventilation, to improve the overall quality of life for prisoners.On the subject of human rights within Burmese prisons, Martin points out the tragic truth that torture has long been used by the military regime to punish political dissidents. After they go through unfair trials, Martin explains how they then have limited contact with family, and their access to food and medicine is restricted. In addition, they are often either placed in extremely overcrowded conditions or kept in solitary confinement, two extremes that are equally detrimental to mental and physical health.Martin has observed a paradoxical relationship between the revolution and the regime’s attempts at oppression. “Prison is where revolutionary actors and protests are being quelled. People are being locked up and even killed, to destroy the revolution. But the prison is also a place where there is opportunity to collect revolutionary actors and to produce revolutionary action and spirit!”

28 Feb 20231h 5min

Episode #150: Joining the podcast over a year after her previous interview, Thiri returns to update listeners on her own personal story, as well as to discuss the state of the resistance and the democracy movement.Thiri describes living with debilitating stress and constant fear until finally she decided she had to flee the country. It was not an easy decision, and transitioning to life in a new country has been traumatic. Separated from her family and community, from her country, and with no possibility of returning while the military regime remains in power, she also feels guilty for abandoning the fight. At times she even feels that she has lost her soul.In spite of the pain that has overwhelmed so many Burmese, it’s important to Thiri that the international community not reduce the Burmese people to a one-dimensional caricature of a devastated population in shambles, which she strongly believes robs them of their humanity.Yet even from a place of safety, Thiri often finds herself triggered, her mind jumping back to the constant fear and dread of her life in Yangon. She has had to compartmentalize these intense emotions in order to complete tasks. In looking back over the past year, Thiri notes how the increasing brutality and violence of the military eventually resulted in many youths fleeing the country, joining the armed resistance, or going deep into hiding. She is dismayed to hear criticism that the resistance movement shouldn’t take up arms to defend themselves. She says, “I am not a violent person, and also I don't like war.” But it soon became apparent to many activists that there was no other way to resist the oppression and tyranny the military was trying to impose on the country. Thiri believes the democracy movement should be an inspiration to people around the world. “A threat to democracy in our country can be a threat to democracy in your country… This is beyond a political strife of brown people in Southeast Asia, it's broader than that… And we are telling you to join us in this fight together, so that we all can live in a society where fascists and dictatorship cannot have a space.”

23 Feb 20231h 54min

Episode #149: Nandar Min Swe is a fundraiser for the government in exile. She helped sell NUG bonds, as well as facilitating the sale of subdivided plots of land owned by Min Aung Hlaing and other the military, which can be redeemed upon a successful end to the revolution. These days, she is working on facilitating a cryptocurrency which can circumvent the military regime’s control over the national financial system.Nandar identifies a developing problem, however, in that most fundraising efforts are directed at Burmese donors. “Why are we digging deeper into our own pockets, and our own pockets are not that deep enough, no matter how much we dig into?” she asked herself. She thinks this is due, in part, to Burmese cultural values. Nandar agrees with Phillipp Annawitt, who expressed on a recent Insight Myanmar podcast episode that the “culture of sacrifice” that has long existed within Burmese democracy movements is not a sustainable form of governance, and this is reflected in the Burmese focus of fundraising efforts—the same people give over and over until they can’t, while volunteers are beginning to feel overwhelmed. Nearly two years into the attempted coup, the Burmese diaspora still continues to have to shoulder nearly this entire burden, unable to find a way to break through to a wider audience beyond their own bubble.Going forward, Nandar makes clear she is seeking a new and better country, rather than advocating for a specific party or policy. “I'm not an NLD supporter or a Daw Aung San Suu Kyi supporter. I feel myself to be more like someone who wants to liberate Burma any way I can. And the only way I can right now is by fundraising.”

20 Feb 20231h 4min

Episode #148: Melody Mociulski’s first trip to Burma was in 1974, during a round-the-world backpacking trip on the so-called “hippie trail.” A fellow traveler at one point convinced her to see Burma. So with little money in her pocket, flew to see for herself. It was the height of the hot season and swarming with mosquitoes, but Melody nonetheless was profoundly impacted by her brief stay in the country.Melody returned to Burma numerous times in the years following, a deep connection continuing to pull her back. The reason for her growing attachment was partly that Burma’s challenges seemed to be ignored by the international community more than other places, but mainly was just how moved she was by the Burmese people. So she founded Clear Path International, a nonprofit that provides medical assistance landmine victims and supports their reintegration into the local community.Eventually this led to female empowerment, which Melody describes as the central core of her passion and activism. In furtherance of this goal, she co-founded Educational Empowerment, whose main mission is to invest in girls’ education because of its positive effect on many aspects of women’s lives. Their work is perhaps most important now, as women are especially at risk during this time of conflict.Melody’s organization also works to provide better lives for children in various ways. For example, they fund children’s books to be printed in ethnic languages, featuring local folk tales, so that the children’s traditions and languages can be preserved. They also allocated funds for a school to be built in the Delta. Understanding the dangers of repeated flooding during monsoon season, they arranged for it to be constructed two feet higher than other buildings. Melody notes with pride that it is one of the few buildings in the area that always remains dry, and that it operates as a kind of emergency hub during heavy rains. Beyond this, her group has also established a number of libraries throughout the country, which offer courses in digital literacy and even job placement.

17 Feb 20231h 49min

Episode #147: Many years ago, Jesse Phenow signed up to be a volunteer at a resettlement organizing, initially thinking he would be “the friend and ally and welcomer that that they've been needing.’” But he found something quite different! “This family didn't need me; in fact, in a lot of ways, I was the welcomed, not the welcomer. That family’s posture and sense of welcome was something that I desperately needed, and hadn't really experienced before.” Jesse was completely taken not only with the sense of hospitality of the Karen family he met, but also their savvy, gritty resilience.While in college, Jesse took what would be his first of many trips to Karen refugee camps, and he chose to write his senior thesis on the Karen Revolution, which filled with a much deeper sense of the people and their complex history.After graduation he moved to Minneapolis, where he worked in an office providing mental health services to immigrant communities. “There's a lot of trauma,” he acknowledges. “There's not a Karen person in Minnesota who doesn't have a story about a family member or a friend being harmed, raped, killed, tortured, or a village burned.”Jesse bought and renovated an older building nearby, which he transformed it into a communal space called “The Urban Village.” Its goal is to support Karen and Karenni youth struggling with their sense of identity. “We're hearing from elders a genuine fear around a growing disconnect between them and their kids,” Jesse says. “Our hope is that that connection really starts with a connection to themselves and to their identity, whatever they come to believe that to be, but that they feel a sense of connection.”The aftermath of the coup has exposed an additional manifestation of the generation gap. While the elder generation had to survive near constant assaults from the Tatmadaw, the latter do not have that personal experience, and their different perspectives strongly shape their outlook and sense of possibility.Even since the coup, Jesse has continued his relief trips supporting health and education projects back in Burma and around the border regions. While there, he also helps to document the on-going situation, and interviews elders with the aim of building a historical archive. As tumultuous and challenging as the last two years have been, he says, “The entire country is really fighting back, and I think this type of unity probably hasn't been seen before.”

10 Feb 20232h 9min