It is Day 20 of Myanmar under the military coup. This is the third coup that has happened since the British gave up power in 1948 and as a country, we are pretty worn out. Our country’s infrastructures are not designed for prolonged fighting especially in the middle of a pandemic.
We have extremely fragile banking, transportation, and medical systems in place even before the coup and pandemic. I dare not to imagine what the future holds for the country after everything is over. How do we begin again? How do we regain the trust of foreign investors? And trust that the military would not go rogue again? These are all the questions that keep us awake at night.
We do not have any answers right now — because we are living moments by moments. As a middle-class citizen in Myanmar, I have a safety net during these times. I have a roof over my head and three meals a day which the majority of the civil servants on strike are risking. These people are the real troopers and it is time we realize that real heroes are always the ones in disguise. And I question myself every night if I could give up everything in my life to fight a war?
Before February 1st, we had so many dreams simply because we could. We dare to dream of futures in which every citizen lives above the poverty lines — it is a difficult thing but at least we were working towards it. We had dreams to fight COVID-19 and open up businesses again. And the dream that our voices were being heard through the democratically elected representatives.
I grew up under a military dictatorship and moved to the States for college at 18. After spending a couple of years in the “land of the free,” I tasted freedom. There were a few restrictions on personal freedom when I moved back to Myanmar in 2017 since it was still a quasi-civilian government. On February 1st, 2021, all my personal rights were stripped away without any proper cause. How do they expect us to go back into the dark after tasting freedom? We are put under martial laws, unexpected internet cut-offs, and threats of violence.
We are simply scared when night falls. In the dark, the country is lawless. Thugs roam around, people get arrested, fires start, and small cities could be under attack by the defenders of the country.
This coup takes a big toll on our mental health. We are afraid — but we all have this little hope in us. Everyone I know is working towards achieving this little hope. All we want is to get our country back. The fragile banking, economy, and transportation. We want to fix those fragile things through our chosen representatives. We will happily accept this mess and build the country again. We want to make sure our next generation could thrive and not take democracy for granted.
TGM
