Myanmar: The Umbrella Policy

Insight Myanmar

“We can’t go back to the normal life, because our country is not even normal,” says Tone Tone, a former psychology student from Yangon, speaking to the Insight Myanmar Podcast (see link below). In this conversation she is joined by Libera, a civil engineering graduate who became a strike organizer, and they talk about their story, how the 2021 military coup in Myanmar ended any possibility of a private, apolitical life for them, and how the violence that followed transformed two ordinary young people into underground organizers willing to risk imprisonment and death.

Both describe themselves as unremarkable students. Tone Tone was in her final year at university, the only child in a family that ran a silk-screen printing business. Libera had already graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering in civil engineering and later pursued vocational training in Building Features and Equipment. Neither had a political background. The military seizure of power on February 1, when the armed forces detained the elected civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other officials, changed that. At first, they joined mass street demonstrations in Yangon, believing peaceful protest would be enough to convince the generals to respect the democratic process.