Myanmar is now a Dictatorship! What can we do? | Sohail Khan

 

Myanmar is now a Dictatorship! What can we do? | Sohail Khan 

Hello, friends!

A democratic country can turn into a dictatorship,

in numerous ways.

The most common is when an elected politician turns into a dictator.

The aptest example is, Adolf Hitler.

On the other hand, it may so happen that

the democratically elected Government is overthrown

by a separate group of people.

And this separate group of people can be the country's military,

a terrorist group, or the political party of the opposing ideology.

The second case is called Coup.

Pronounced as 'coo' but spelled coup.

If a country's military does this, it is known as a military coup.

That is seen today in Myanmar.

On 1st February 2021, Myanmar's military overthrew

the democratically elected government in a military coup.

Because of this, the situation there is very unstable now.

Let's understand this properly in today's article.

                              Coup d'etat is a French word that means 'blow against the state'.

To overthrow a Government illegally and unconstitutionally.

Myanmar is now a Dictatorship! What can we do? | Sohail Khan 

To carry this out, a lot of physical power is needed.

So most coups are military coups because only the army

has this amount of physical power and weapons to demolish a government

But like I told you, a coup can be done by any political, religious, or ethnic group

You might wonder about the difference between a revolution and a coup.

In a revolution, the civilian citizens participate as well.

Whereas it is not so in a coup.

Myanmar is now a Dictatorship! What can we do? | Sohail Khan 

Like the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution,

where the participation of the civilian citizens was remarkable.

Contrarily, when you hear about military coups, like in our Pakistan,

Myanmar is now a Dictatorship! What can we do? | Sohail Khan 

there were many attempts of military coups, or the one in Myanmar that's happening

the civilian citizens do not participate. The military, army carry it out.

Interestingly, a military coup does not necessarily lead to a dictatorship.

In rare cases, it is seen that a military coup is carried out

to bring democracy to the country.

And to overthrow the existing dictator.

We got to see this in 2019 in Sudan

where the Sudanese dictator was overthrown by the military coup

and it is hoped that the military ruling there now,

will establish democracy in the country.

But it is a rare case.

In most cases, the military coup is followed by a dictatorship in the country.

Where the military becomes the new dictator of the country.

Also interesting is that it is very common for coups to happen across the world.

But globally, after the second world war,

there have been more than 500 attempted coups, of which 200 were successful.

Thailand has the most cases of successful coup attempts. More than 13.

In our homeland  Pakistan, there were 3 successful coup attempts.

In Myanmar too, there was an attempt before this as well.

Let's talk about the situation of Myanmar now.

One year after India's independence,

Myanmar too got independent of British rule in 1948.

The party in power after independence was the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League.

The story was quite normal till 1958.

But in 1958, their military started to get involved in their politics for the first time.

The AFPFL party split and the Chief of Staff General Ne Win became

the interim Prime Minister.

He remained the Prime Minister for two years

and elections were connected again after 1960.

He handed over the power to the winner of the election.

Again, after two years, in 1962, he took away that power in a military coup.

After this, his military dictatorship continued in Myanmar for decades.

And he forcefully imposed his ideology on the citizens.

Because of this, the economic and social condition of the country was terrible.

Till the 1980s, Myanmar was considered

as one of the least developed countries by the UN.

In 1988 General Saw Maung replaced General Ne Win,

by then the anger of the citizen about the country's condition had peaked.

Here enters the most famous political leader of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi.

She was the daughter of the freedom fighter Aung San,

who had significantly contributed towards getting the independence of Myanmar.

Because of this, he is referred to as the Father of the Nation in Myanmar.

Around the same time, end of the 1980s,

she formed the party, National League for Democracy. (NLD)

Myanmar is now a Dictatorship! What can we do? | Sohail Khan 

Its main aim was to bring democracy back to Myanmar.

And the military dictatorship is removed.

The military put Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest in 1989,

to suppress her voice but by then the anger of the citizen had reached such levels that

even the military was forced in 1990 to conduct elections.

Obviously, in the 1990 election, Aung San Suu Kyi's party NLD won by a landslide.

But the military refused to accept the result.

And the country continued to be under military dictatorship.

The next wave of protests was seen in 2007

when large numbers of Buddhist monks protested.

Myanmar is now a Dictatorship! What can we do? | Sohail Khan 

This is why it is known as the Saffron Revolution.

The citizens were angry at the rising fuel prices and the economic situation.

This time the military was forced into drafting a new Constitution.

It happened in 2008.

Even though, in the new constitution, they included that 25% of the seats

would always be reserved for the military in the Parliament.

And 75% of the votes in favor would be required to alter the Constitution

effectively giving the military veto power.

After a long time, elections were conducted again in 2010.

In which the military-backed party USDP won.

So a military-backed government was back in power after the "election"

and finally, Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest in 2010.

Later in the 2015 elections, Aung San Suu Kyi's party won by a landslide.

For her years of struggle, Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded a Nobel Peace prize as well.

But in 2017, her international image suffered after the Rohingya crisis.

Myanmar is now a Dictatorship! What can we do? | Sohail Khan 

Like you know, almost a genocide of the Rohingya Muslims was conducted

in Myanmar around 2017.

This genocide was conducted by Myanmar's military.

But people blame Aung San Suu Kyi because even on international platforms,

she didn't speak out against the military.

But her supporters argue that she didn't have many powers to speak out.

Had Aung San Suu Kyi spoken out against the military,

the military would have carried out a coup to overthrow her government.

Here you can say that she spent the last 5 years trying not to aggravate the military.

This is often an accusation levied on the politicians of such countries.Moving ahead, an election is held in November 2020 in Myanmar

in which Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD won in an even drastic landslide.

Additionally, last year Suu Kyi had said that

she wants to bring such constitutional changes in the country,

that the 25% rule of reserving seats for the military in Parliament be scraped.

But, to bring this Constitutional change, the military's support is required.

And the military vetoed it.

But after losing to such a large majority, the military is scared of losing its powers.

Because the military could see that the citizen's support was shifting to

Aung San Suu Kyi's party gradually.

And soon the military could have been removed from the Constitution.

This is the exact reason, friends, why in February 2021,

Myanmar's military carried out yet another coup

and overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi's party from power.

With the excuse that there was election fraud committed in the recent elections.

And a military coup had to be conducted.

But in reality, the international organizations that oversaw this election

stated that the election process was very fair and transparent

and no frauds were committed.

After this military coup, the side that the citizens are supporting is evident.

A new wave of protests has been seen in Myanmar in the last month.

Peaceful protests by students, doctors, and people from different fields,

against the military in Myanmar.

Myanmar is now a Dictatorship! What can we do? | Sohail Khan 

The symbol of the protest has been the three-finger sign

that was seen for the first time in the movie The Hunger Games

when Katniss protests against the dictator in the movie.

Myanmar is now a Dictatorship! What can we do? | Sohail Khan 

The military's response to these protests has been very violent.

The protestors were open fired on.

Every day's news brings the death count of the lives lost to the open firing.

Protestors are wearing helmets when protesting

and asking for help and bulletproof jackets from international people.

Internationally, other countries and their governments can't do much in this situation, unfortunately, to help the people of Myanmar.

Some countries have declared economic sanctions, like the UK and the US,

but to do more than this will be very controversial.

Some people are proposing that the US military be sent to interfere

to overthrow Myanmar's military.

But this again becomes a complicated situation because the US government

has tried to do this in many other countries, like in Iraq,

and everyone knows what happened there eventually.

Secondly, few people proposed that weapons be airdropped for the people.

This is also a problematic solution to this situation because

it too had been tried in several countries leading to 'terrorist organizations'

Like the Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Here I'd like to ask you what do you think?

What would be the best way to help the citizens of Myanmar

and to establish a democratic rule there?

Several people have tried to help the people in Myanmar in different ways

like the toolkit published by the Hong Kong protestors

you heard it right, a toolkit was published to support the protestors in Myanmar.

I don't know how anti-national will the toolkit be considered by Myanmar's military

but useful techniques have been shared in the toolkit to peacefully protest.

And how the protestors can protect themselves while protesting.

If you want to know, I'll link to it in  below.

Some protestors in Myanmar suggest freezing their economy.

To close their shops, restaurants, businesses, everything

so that the economy of the whole country comes to a standstill.

The military government may be coerced into leaving if people don't work at all.

But it is to be seen how people would continue their struggle.

I hope that you found this article informative friends.

If you liked it, please share.

Link to Myanmar Toolkit: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z...