The power of revolutionary art in Myanmar’s civil war

Mizzima Film Review

It is no secret that beyond the armed resistance of revolutionary movements, the arts can serve as a poignant and powerful weapon in the fight to overthrow oppressive systems. Through such forms as music, poetry, and painting, “artivism” (art as political activism) seeks to speak to traumatized populations while simultaneously imagining a future free of violence and carrying with it the wishes of the people. This is the message at the heart of Thabyay: Creative Resistance in Myanmar (henceforward referred to as Thabyay), a one-hour documentary featuring the role of art and artists in Myanmar’s current fight for democracy.

Thabyay was directed and written by Jeanne Hallacy and produced by Gregg Butensky.

Artistically beautiful, it is worth watching Thabyay simply for the artistry and imagery – the telling of modern Myanmar’s travails through creative means. One of the strongest images of which comes toward the end of the film, depicting a musical performance paying tribute to those who have fallen in the fight against military dictatorship. While at one point earlier in the film the screen is emblazoned with the artistic rendering of a Myanmar youth tenderly praying with an automatic weapon. This latter image strikingly mirrors the cover of Marwan Hisham’s book Brothers of a Gun, the story of Syria’s descent from peaceful protests to high stakes civil war and how it too played havoc with the lives of so many.

For its part, Thabyay chronicles the stories of four Myanmar artists from the country’s Bamar majority. They are each uprooted from their lives in Myanmar and forced to seek refuge along the Thai-Myanmar border. And they each, in their own ways, continue to incorporate art into their struggle.

There is musician Phoe San, who originally led an anti-coup protest of over 100 violinists through the streets of Yangon. Today, he continues to cross back into Myanmar to bring music to the war zone, while teaching music in the Thai border town of Mae Sot to heal trauma, and performing for displaced persons in Myanmar. And, while non-violent in his protests and means of standing up to dictatorship, he also uses his music to raise funds through YouTube to support revolutionary forces in the jungles of Myanmar.

This includes the Bamar People’s Liberation Army (BPLA) founded by poet Maung Saungkha, who opines, “You can arrest only the poets, not the poems. Never.” At the same time, however, there is no question of avoiding armed opposition, as there appears no other choice. It is a philosophy which seems to at least partially echo the thinking of Frantz Fanon. Namely, the implementation of violence as a cleansing force, serving to provide agency to the oppressed. It’s certainly not the non-violence long attributed to Aung San Suu Kyi, but it is where Myanmar is today. While it might have been possible for Myanmar to gradually stumble forward to a better future through the pre-2021 national political make-up, the February 2021 coup irrevocably shattered any such possibility.

In the words of organizer/activist Thet Swe Win, “We the people, we don’t choose the armed struggle, but the revolution chose us.” The sheer brutality of the military’s response to the original peaceful protests, so the argument goes, offered no choice but a turn to violence in a bid to create a more just social and political order. This should come as little surprise, for by reluctantly choosing violence as a last resort, they act as countless others have in the history of oppressed peoples.

And, tellingly, these are not individuals prone to a quick turn to support revolutionary violence. Both Thet Swe Win and Maung Saungkha are depicted in Thabyay protesting alleged injustices during the decade of “democratic transition” from 2011-2021, with the latter arrested for a poem said to mock the president. This speaks to the troubled democratic experiment in Myanmar, and its many faults, which helped to set the stage for February 2021’s ill-fated coup. Today, Thet Swe Win runs Independence Café in Mae Sot, an endeavor that seeks to combine art and activism, its walls decorated with Burmese poems and portraits of political prisoners.

Finally, Thabyay looks at the saga of Susanna Hla Hla Soe, a painter, former MP, and current Minister for Women, Youth, and Children Affairs in the National Unity Government (NUG). Through her art and activism, she looks to provide dreams and hope for Myanmar’s young people, who too often have been robbed of their youth by the experiences of war. Her story is also used to raise the profile of Myanmar’s ethnic minorities. Having escaped to a region of Myanmar under the control of an ethnic armed organization, she is exposed first-hand to the plight of the country’s ethnic minorities, who in many instances have been in the crosshairs of the Myanmar military for decades. In this sense, Myanmar’s revolution – and again not unlike countless revolutions throughout history – has brought people face to face not only with their oppressors, but with one another.

And it is the union of Bamar and ethnic resistance to the current dictatorship in Myanmar that is often heralded, including in Thabyay, as an inspiring vision for the future of Myanmar. The aim of the revolution is, after all, said to be to build a future better nation for everyone, not just defeat the military. At least that is the hope. But Thabyay does not wrestle with the complexity of the ethnic question, or, for that matter, with other difficult questions such as the role of regional and international actors. It is instead concerned with chronicling how Myanmar’s artists conceptualize what freedom should look and feel like, in a bid to unite people around a common cause.

Will Myanmar’s artists be successful in “using music, poetry and art to bring about a peaceful, free, democratic and truly inclusive future for all people in Myanmar,” as the trailer for the film says? Ensuring that all those who have given their lives or limbs for the cause have not done so in vain. At the very least, it is inspiring to see how Myanmar’s artists have risen to provide both hope and healing for the country. And Thabyay does leave the viewer both cheering for Myanmar’s youthful revolution and wondering how they could possibly fail.