Silent Lonesome Man

A day ago, I heard that the ethnic Karens, a Christian minority living in the Southeast bordering Thailand, had fled into the Thai border trying to get refuge in Thailand. Then, only a few hours later, a new report surged that the Thai government had instructed its soldiers to expel any kind of refugees fleeing to Thailand under the pretext that "the border is safe". And this came after the Karen National Union addressed its support for anti-coup protesters in Myanmar and its assault on a military outpost that killed 10 Tatmadaw soldiers. The Tatmadaw, or Burmese Armed Forces, has been retaliating violently and dispatching over 4,000 troops trying to crush the Karens, like how they're doing to its own citizens. Thus, Thailand's reaction has been very much appalling and is harmful to the Karens. For the wider international community, this move is condemned and it shows that Thailand is complicity in helping the Burmese junta in killing Burmese citizens; only weeks ago,...

When people are talking about the widespread uprising in Myanmar nowadays against the junta, so many people try to draw parallels with some kinds of other dictatorships. Some think of South Korea's military junta. Some think about the reformed communist dictatorships in Vietnam and China. Some look at the old Indonesian, Filipino juntas or current Thai monarcho-junta. There are even comparisons to the strongman rule based on monarchial power like Cambodia, or isolated outcast North Korea. Well, yeah, it is not wrong to compare, but there is a major problem. And we need to address it immediately. The root For most of its history since independence from Britain in 1948, Myanmar, or also known as Burma, has always been beset with military coups and violence, as well as government's mismanagement. And this is what led to the downfall of Myanmar from grace. In the history of ancient and medieval Burma, the country produced three major empires, the two latter, Taungoo and Konbaung, w...