Insight Myanmar

Episode #434: “I don't see how there could be a new social contract for a post-war, post-conflict Myanmar.” With this stark observation, Henning Glaser sets the tone for his analysis of the country's turmoil. Glaser is a German legal scholar based at Thammasat University in Bangkok, where he co-founded the German-Southeast Asian Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance. His work spans Asia, but Myanmar has become one of his deepest commitments. Since the early 2010s, he has organized dialogues and seminars on the country's political transition, and after the 2021 coup, his institute shifted to documenting and analyzing the descent into conflict. Glaser describes the future in bleak terms. The junta shows no sign of collapse, while the opposition remains fragmented. Ethnic armed groups pursue divergent roadmaps, preventing unity around a federal constitution. Glaser admires the energy of younger activists and local governance experiments, yet doubts these can form a coherent national framework. He cites Kurdistan in Iraq as a warning: local stability without broader resolution. Geopolitics, he stresses, makes matters worse. “It is inevitable that a primary focus on geopolitics is creating tension and border conflicts and wars. We see that everywhere,” he says. Myanmar, he argues, is reduced to a pawn in a larger contest between China, Russia, India, and an increasingly disengaged West. The result is proxy struggles that entrench the conflict. Organized crime further compounds the chaos. Scam centers, narcotics, arms smuggling, and trafficking create a criminal economy that fuels the war. “If you have this involvement of organized crime and an organized criminal economy, then you can sustain that for a very, very long time. And that is also why a long stalemate,” he warns. Glaser dismisses upcoming elections as hollow and recalls Myanmar's earlier transition as a “democratic façade with a military heart.” Despite his dark assessment, he ends by saluting the resilience of activists and diaspora communities, whose determination to master law and policy remains, in his view, remarkable. “I totally admire all the young people, middle-aged people, and older people in the diaspora who put incredible efforts to keep up and to gain legal knowledge, to draft laws, to understand how to translate policies into law, how to interpret laws. That is remarkable.”

Episode #433: Raul Saldana's journey began in Guadalajara, Mexico, where he grew up in a Catholic household. As a teenager, he questioned the rigidity of Catholicism and turned to nature, finding inspiration in the vastness of the outdoors. Music also became a powerful part of his life, leading him into diverse spiritual practices. In his twenties, Raul joined an ecological community and was introduced to Native American rituals like the Vision Quest; he later explored Sufism, Hindu meditation, and, ultimately, Buddhist practice, which provided the answers he sought. Under the guidance of S.N. Goenka, Vipassanā became a major turning point for Raul, fostering personal insight without blind faith. During a world music tour that stopped in Macau for a performance, Raul met his future wife, Heidi, and they together they became serious Vipassanā meditators. They traveled to Myanmar for deeper spiritual exploration. There, they began to practice under Sayagaw U Tejaniya. Raul felt pulled to become a monk, and ordained (and then disrobed) three times before finally choosing to remain a monk after the fourth ordination. He is now Bhikkhu Rahula; his wife supports his decision, though it changed their relationship in many ways. Their partnership has shifted from marriage to one of spiritual camaraderie, with Heidi continuing as a lay practitioner. Bhikkhu Rahula's current plans include the establishment of Paññābhūmi Monastery in Mexico, a center aimed at sharing Dhamma practice and teachings. “What happens with Buddhism, this faith, I could hold it! Otherwise, I would have run away very quickly. I love it. Buddhism does a different approach: It tells you the reason from A to B, cause-and-effect, cause-and-effect, cause-and-effect, and you arrive here. Finish! With the faith that arises from it, it is because of the understanding. Faith has no questions anymore. Faith is not vague. Faith is based on the fact. Man, do I love that faith, because that is powerful.”

Episode #432: Myanmar researcher Lin Jin Fu investigates the rise of scam compounds that blend human trafficking, digital fraud, and organized crime. His study, Scam haven: Responding to surging cyber crime and human trafficking in Myanmar, traces their expansion from Chinese “scam houses” into a transnational industry stretching across Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos. Originally rooted in China's underground economies, these groups migrated outward as Beijing cracked down and the pandemic restricted domestic activity. They flourished in lawless borderlands such as the Golden Triangle and northern Shan State, where weak governance allowed them to create fortified compounds that combine physical captivity with online deception. Scam centers now anchor wider illicit economies— drugs, gambling, black-market banking, and prostitution— worth at least $37 billion a year. In 2023, the Three Brotherhood Alliance, with apparent Chinese backing, attacked major compounds in Laukkai during Operation 1027, rescuing trafficked Chinese nationals and handing over several ringleaders who were later sentenced to death. At the same time, Beijing launched a domestic campaign, flooding WeChat and Weibo daily with anti-fraud messages. Yet the system persists. Frightened operators briefly suspended work elsewhere, then reopened on the condition that they avoid targeting Chinese citizens. Every compound, Lin Jin Fu explains, survives by securing protection from an armed host—usually the junta or allied Border Guard Forces— while some ethnic armies tolerate or tax them. These networks adapt easily. Big bosses flee by helicopter; smaller scams need only laptops, generators, and internet. The old “pig-butchering” crypto fraud now employees sophisticated AItools, and online-gambling scams targeting countries across South America dominate Tachileik. Sadly, for many impoverished young Burmese, scam centers are the only escape from conscription and joblessness. Meanwhile, inside the compounds, workers endure coercion, sexual abuse, and debt bondage. Surrounding towns boom briefly, then collapse into ghost cities once crackdowns hit. Lin Jin Fu warns that for scam centers to fully cease operations across Myanmar, the military junta has to go. Beyond that, he emphasizes that absent legal migration routes and alternative employment, the industry will continue to endure. “For drugs, people had an alternative— grow coffee instead of poppy,” he says. “For scams, what is the alternative?”

Episode #431: “I'm a sniper,” says Maui, deputy commander of the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF). He and four top commanders describe being pushed from peaceful protest into armed resistance after the 2021 coup. They say nonviolent methods failed when the military answered with bullets, mass arrests and village burnings, leaving youth to choose between submission or taking up arms. Maui—once an organic farmer and environmental activist—explains the moral conflict: killing is deeply uncomfortable and can become addictive, yet they fight to prevent future generations from inheriting tyranny. The KNDF emphasizes discipline, training and strict protocols around weapons and landmines to limit civilian harm. Recruits start with bamboo-stick drills and brief, intense training between frontline rotations. Command structure, community support and unity among groups transformed disparate volunteers into a more effective force. Khine Sitthu, the drone operator, recounts improvising an air capability from agricultural drones, adapting online resources and AI tools to rig and navigate munitions. Drones shifted the battlefield, offering local “air support” and enabling strikes that conserved scarce ammunition, though the military later fielded jammers and heavier equipment. Innovation, resourcefulness and local backing explain KNDF's tactical successes, including downing military aircraft and overrunning battalions—despite persistent shortages of weapons and ammunition. The commanders stress ethics: they target military forces, avoid indiscriminate bombing, and maintain post-conflict responsibilities (clearing mines and humanitarian support). They call on the international community for noncombat material support, including sanctions on military supply chains, while arguing that external assistance could shorten the conflict and reduce civilian suffering. Above all, they insist their struggle aims to build a democratic, nondiscriminatory Myanmar, not perpetuate violence. They remain open to negotiated outcomes if the military permanently relinquishes political power, insisting any settlement must guarantee civilian rule and institutional reform.

Episode #430: Ngu Wah is a Research Fellow at Knowledge Circle Foundation and a PhD candidate at Chiang Mai University focusing on migration and political economy. In this episode, she speaks about the struggles of Burmese migrant workers and the crucial role of remittances in Myanmar's economy, shaping the vision she has for her country's future. She explains that Myanmar remains largely resourcebased, dependent on extractive industries and agriculture. The State Administration Council (SAC) controls the formal sector, while a significant informal sphere involves both state and nonstate actors. Weak infrastructure—roads, transport, and telecommunications—continues to weigh heavily on national development. Migration, she stresses, is “in [her] heart,” a personal commitment rooted in family background and her belief that migrant workers are the “unsung heroes of Myanmar.” Before her PhD, Ngu Wah studied returnees to learn how families managed remittances and supported rural agriculture. Later, while conducting research in Thailand, she uncovered evidence of a gender wage gap: women earned less but remitted more. She attributes this to side income, skillssharing, digital networks, and community living that help women stretch their resources. Yet, women also face greater obstacles than men in finding jobs when contracts expire and in reintegrating once they return to Myanmar. Many hope to start small businesses, making remittances essential as savings and seed capital. Documentation remains another critical burden. Although official fees are low, bureaucratic hurdles and language barriers push workers to use costly agents. Some fall into debt, while others risk working without papers. Yet documentation is vital for protection, services, and bank access. “We need to be very practical to solve that issue,” she says. “We need to think for the migrant workers.” Remittances accounted for about 4% of Myanmar's GDP in 2018 and have only grown since the coup. But scams and tightening controls make safe transfers harder. She calls for flexible, secure mechanisms that also consider migrants' habits. While many describe the Burmese as resilient, she cautions against romanticizing hardship. Survival, she insists, comes at a cost. Still, after recounting these struggles, she closes with her most powerful reminder: “[the Burmese] always find a way to survive.”

Episode #429: Emmanuel Flores' journey into meditation began at the age of nine in Rio de Janeiro, seated before a candle. His formative years were marked by a quest for positivity, but without a solid practice. This changed at 20, when a friend's recommendation led him to a vipassana meditation course in the tradition of S.N. Goenka. This course was transformative, and sparked an interest in the histories of Ledi Sayadaw, Saya Thet Gyi, and Sayagyi U Ba Khin. Emmanuel's fascination with Burma's spiritual heritage deepened, and he decided to travel to the Golden Land, staying with an uncle who had just been appointed as the Brazilian Ambassador. After a course at Dhamma Joti, Emmanuel chose to ordain. He felt a special gravitas and protection once he put on the robes, which intensified his conscientiousness and dedication to the practice. Guidance from an elder monk expanded Emmanuel's understanding, stressing the importance of scriptural wisdom alongside meditation. His teacher's memorization of the teachings inspired Emmanuel to internalize the Dhamma himself. The 2021 coup was a jarring contrast to his spiritual growth, the distress of his teacher conveying the gravity of the situation. Although Emmanuel left later that year, his warm memories of his time in the Golden Land remain strong. “I'm left with a thankful feeling, with lots of love towards all the people of Burma that I met, because it enriched my life, and it enriched my practice!When practicing mettā, I always try to remember them… Burma is still in my mind, and I really wish I can go back there again, and learn from that place more.”

Episode #428: This panel gathers five voices from Myanmar's unraveling present—specialists in food, economy, energy, education, and digital life—who together trace the anatomy of a country still fighting to exist. Their stories intertwine across fields once filled with promise, now marked by loss, adaptation, and the quiet persistence of rebuilding. Thin Lei Win, a journalist and food systems expert, bridges the elemental links between nourishment and truth. She describes a nation abundant in resources yet starved by political neglect, where conflict and inflation have turned meals into measures of survival. For her, recovery begins with food sovereignty and regenerative farming— but also with journalism that insists on accountability, exposing the human costs of repression and keeping the language of truth alive. Economist Sean Turnell, once an adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi, recalls the fragile optimism of Myanmar's reform years before the economy imploded. The coup, he says, erased progress overnight, returning the country to extraction and scarcity. Yet he believes that when democracy returns, stability and investment will quickly follow, because the will to rebuild already exists. From the energy sector, Guillaume De Langre describes stalled electrification and broken trust, yet sees in renewable technologies and decentralized grids the outline of a fairer, more resilient future. Education reformer Thura echoes that belief in renewal, recounting how teachers and students who refused the junta reimagined schooling underground and online— an act of defiance that made learning itself a form of resistance. And in the digital realm, Bradley charts the turn from openness to surveillance, yet also the rise of encrypted communities that protect connection and expression. Together, these voices reveal that even in collapse, Myanmar's pulse endures— in food and light, in words and classrooms, in the stubborn will to begin again.

Episode #427: Daniel M. Stuart describes his newest work, Insight in Perspective, as the product of decades of scholarship and meditative practice, aimed at practitioners and academics alike. The book, a follow-up to his earlier Emissary of Insight, examines the historical and cultural formation of the S. N. Goenka Vipassana lineage. He says it began as a short academic critique, but grew into a comprehensive study seeking to bridge lived religious experience and historical analysis. Stuart situates his work partly in dialogue with Eric Braun's The Birth of Insight, which links modern Vipassana to “Buddhist modernism,” a rationalized response to colonialism and ongoing Western influence. While acknowledging the general acceptance of Braun's influence, Stuart contends that this model is too narrow, overlooking the hybrid, lay-based traditions that complicate the monastic-centered story. Figures such as U Ba Khin and Goenka, he argues, cannot be reduced to the rational and secular; their teachings blend the scientific, the mystical, and the cosmological. Stuart identifies a central tension between scholarly critique and devotional participation, describing the scholar-practitioner's task as being willing “to complicate things” with remaining loyal to the tradition. But it's not easy uncovering all the threads of this complex story. For example, he notes that many witnesses to early Goenka history have remained silent, while other informants, such as Friedgard Lottermoser, only shared guardedly, out of a wish to protect what they saw as esoteric knowledge. Stuart challenges Western scholars like Braun for “thinning out” the richness of Burmese Buddhism by forcing it into modernist categories, which also results in erasure. He emphasizes that elements like spirit consultation, protective rituals, and supernormal powers are not anomalies but continuations of Burmese cosmology, and still exist today in many “modern” mindfulness traditions. While Goenka's public-facing dialog emphasizes the rational and secular nature of the practice, meditation hall arrangements, and the playing of protective chants such as the Patthāna, at Goenka centers, reveal a much more rich and complex reality. For Stuart, modernization in this context means reorganization, not disenchantment. The global Vipassana movement, he concludes, was not born of one or two events, but emerged through an evolving genealogy, one that joins textual scholarship, colonial encounters, lay experimentation, and enduring cosmological belief into a single, multifaceted birth of insight.

Episode #426: The Karenni Interim Executive Council was formed in 2023 to provide services to people in dire need, with an estimated 80% of the civilian population displaced by the conflict. As people return to their homes, landmines placed by the military pose a multi-layered threat, causing injuries and deaths, creating a climate of fear for people on their own land, and making normal life dangerous on a daily basis.“Fear now makes the land become evil so they are afraid to even to step on the area where they are used to play happily,” Banya Khung Aung says. “Force people to flee their lands and ensure they cannot return. This is a crime against humanity.”Civilians returning to their homes cannot wait for permission for de-mining according to international standards, Banya Khung Aung says. People need to grow food and maintain their livelihoods in already challenging circumstances. In the absence of major international support, the Karenni are using their own model and local knowledge for mine risk education and to conduct de-mining. Methods include disarming mines with knives or bamboo sticks at great risk, clearing areas with tractors, and controlled fires to detonate or damage explosive devices.The landmine threat cannot be viewed in isolation. The military's persecution of civilians in ethnic states is a strategic campaign of fear, Banya Khung Aung says, intensified amid the widespread resistance triggered by the coup, with airstrikes and targeting civilians central to military operations. The immense challenges to people's ability to grow food and sustain themselves, combined with long-term trauma and psychosocial impacts, are shared by the Karenni and many other populations across the country.

Episode #425: Dr. Lalita Hanwong, a Thai historian and analyst, has dedicated her career to understanding Myanmar and its ties to Thailand. “I'm morally attached to the peoples of Myanmar,” she says, summing up a lifetime of scholarship and advocacy that spans from the archives of colonial Burma to the war-torn Thai-Myanmar border. “I just want to talk to everybody.” Trained at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, Lalita's research explored how British rule relied on racial hierarchies to govern Burma. “The British were pretty paranoid and suspicious of the Burmese… the specific race that they found the most difficult to rule and police was actually the Bamar,” she explains. “Their solution was pretty simple: let's bring somebody to scare the Burmese—hence the presence of the Gurkhas, the Sikhs and so on.” These studies taught her how old systems of mistrust shaped modern Myanmar. Her work later shifted from archives to activism. Returning to Thailand, she began advising parliament and the army on border affairs, refugee policy, and Myanmar relations. “There are some really good-hearted [Thai] soldiers who mean well, who want to help Myanmar as well,” she says. Mae Sot, the border town she calls her second home, has become central to her life: “Mae Sot is a really fascinating place. There's no place like Mae Sot… Thailand has been the hub of resistance from Myanmar for generations.” Lalita argues that Thailand must take a more active role as mediator and humanitarian partner. “Thailand could do a lot more,” she says. “The border is a gray zone… we cannot use the urban mindset to get the border fixed however we like it.” She rejects isolation of the junta—“you need somebody who can still negotiate and get access to Naypyidaw”—and believes dialogue is the only way forward. “War is never good for anybody except war business people.”

Episode #424: This episode opens the first of a three-part Insight Myanmar Podcast series recorded at the Decolonizing Southeast Asian Studies Conference at Chiang Mai University. The gathering brought together scholars, activists, and cultural workers exploring how colonial legacies continue to shape scholarship, storytelling, and identity in the region. In this opening episode, we hear from Jules Yim and Jochem van den Boogert, two voices who approach decolonization from distinct yet deeply connected directions. Jules Yim treats decolonization as a living practice rather than a theory—something expressed through art, performance, and community. She describes her concept of “seapunk” as a movement grounded in rebellion and creativity, a Southeast Asian counterpart to cyberpunk or steampunk. “When we refer to punk,” she explains, “we're referring to the outsider... the ungovernable, the unserious.” For Jules, this spirit of irreverence opens space for experimentation beyond political or academic boundaries. She contrasts the state-backed Korean Wave of pop culture with independent, community-based artistic movements that thrive on informality and collaboration. Jules also expresses an optimistic view that imagination itself is an act of resistance—a way of reclaiming voice, joy, and collective power. Jochem van den Boogert approaches decolonization through scholarship, tracing how colonial and Cold War frameworks continue to shape Southeast Asian studies. “The main task of decolonizing Southeast Asian Studies,” he says, “has to do with getting a good grasp of that framework... and only then can we come up with alternative explanations.” His research on Javanese Islam explores how religious practices coexist in fluid, negotiated forms. “It's about the practices,” he notes, not rigid belief. Drawing parallels to Buddhism in Burma, Jochem observes similar adaptive patterns, where communities integrate multiple truths into daily life. Both, he argues, reflect Southeast Asia's remarkable coherence within complexity—an enduring, relational way of understanding the world.

Episode #423: Ian Taylor is a Canadian photographer whose life shifted from the film industry to decades of work and travel across Southeast Asia. His first experience was with a government-sponsored Asian Studies program in the early 1990s. His early visits to Burma during the junta's “Visit Myanmar Year” left a strong impression, and he became involved for a short time in advertising there.By the late 1990s, Taylor had left advertising for photography, focusing on family portraits and NGO assignments across Asia. A formative volunteer trip to Bangladesh further deepened his commitment to humanitarian work, and led him back to Burma.Taylor left the country in 2015, but reconnected in 2023 through the Thailand-based Border Consortium (TBC). He soon embarked on a volunteer photo project in five refugee camps, describing them as “an active, bustling town with everything.” His photography resists exploitative “poverty porn” and favors portraits that reflect dignity and agency. “Every portrait, in some way, it's a collaboration.”Critical of the tourism industry's distortions, Taylor remains focused on authenticity, connection, and service. In his words: “If you could go to a holiday in the Maldives or something... well, I'd rather go [to a refugee camp]!”

Episode #422: “There is beauty in owning one's racial identity. There's beauty in owning, valuing, and respecting one's heritage, ancestors, sexual identity, and gender identity. But on the other side of the coin, there can also be imprisonment there.”So says Bhante Sumano, an African-American monk at Empty Cloud Monastery. This is the 6th episode in our ongoing “Intersections of Dhamma & Race” series, in which we examineentrenched protocols, practices and biases within the vipassana and mindfulness communities.Bhante Sumano begins by telling us how he came to take on the monk's robes. Originally from Jamaica, he moved to New York City for college and has stayed there ever since. Bhante Sumano trained under Thich Nhat Hanh and Thanissaro Bhikkhu before ultimately deciding that Empty Cloud was the best fit for him, as he appreciated the flexibility and openness in how the monastery embraced different Theravadin traditions.Bhante Sumano goes on to describe how the Buddha's teachings have guided him in understanding and responding to racism. He expresses disappointment with how he has seen the wider Buddhist community respond to the recent social justice movement, and feels that even many experienced teachers have “blind spots” that prevent deeper understanding. Finally, he shares the value in providing safe spaces where practitioners of color can come to practice the Dhamma.

Episode #421: Saijai Liangpunsakul, whose first name means “the link between two hearts,” speaks of her journey through the turbulent conflict of Myanmar, and how the kindness and resilience of the Myanmar people continue to inspire her. Now a recognized expert on digital trauma and rights, she has come a long way from her small southern Thailand village. She travelled to Costa Rica on her own at 15 years on a student scholarship, and continued her global education in Canada and the US.The spark for her defining work ignited during the Arab Spring in Egypt, where she was on an exchange program from college. She witnessed firsthand technology's power for social change. This fascination changed the trajectory of her thinking about a career, and she initially joined an organization that utilized digital technology for healthcare access around the world. Then a stopover in Myanmar between work-related destinations in 2014 changed her life. She became captivated by the country and its digital revolution, and her planned two-week detour turned into six years.However, her initial perspective on the promise of technology in Myanmar hid technology's darker underbelly. Saijai saw it transform into a “digital battleground” used for hate speech and oppression, notably against the Rohingya. She recognized Facebook's complicity in this growing problem, noting that it only had two people at that time to do all of content moderation for Myanmar. Saijai also describes a “devastating” situation now unfolding in Myanmar, one that combines real-life sexual and gender-based violence with tech-facilitated abuse. To combat this scourge – and coupled with her own terrible, personal experience of being harassed online – she felt compelled to act. She co-founded Myanmar Witness to document abuses, and also Stop Online Harm, an “online ambulance” providing crucial technical, psychosocial, and legal support for survivors of digital trauma.“The answer was the community,” she says. “It is to hear the story of another woman go through abuse, how another woman can survive, and that makes me feel like I can be that too,” she affirms.

Episode #420: “This is this shit is real. This is not a dream. This is real.” Burmese actor and public figure Khar Ra recounts a path that runs from Mogok to Yangon, into entertainment, and then—after the 2021 coup—into public dissent, displacement, and ongoing advocacy. He grew up on Mogok's west side. Money was tight; his father died from alcohol; his mother remarried and left; with no siblings, he lived among relatives and kept one house rule: don't drink, don't smoke. Before leaving he told a friend he would not return unless he had become an artist. In Yangon Khar Ra studied English at Dagon University while translating, working restaurant shifts, and taking shortterm jobs. A friend urged him into a modeling contest; he arrived in borrowed clothes, learned fast, and in 2014 was named Mr. Asia Myanmar, then placed second runnerup at the regional Mr. Asia pageant. Work followed across modeling, music, and film. He notes the limits of precoup censorship—no profanity even in gangster scripts, intimacy restricted. On January 31, 2021, Khar Ra was planning his next series of films; by morning the coup began. Within days he joined rallies with '88 Generation figures, raised the threefinger salute, shared inthe 8 p.m. potandpan protests, and posted blunt messages against the regime. He also redirected his platforms to verified needs— medicine, rent, transport— adding, “We must carry on what we are doing. We can't waste their sacrifice… We're in this together, and we will fight until the end. We can make it happen.” After a fellow celebrity's detention, his own name appeared under Section 505(a). Khar Ra hid with relatives, then left Yangon in a longyi and glasses, passing seven checkpoints. He moved toward the Thai–Myanmar border and into ethniccontrolled areas, met displaced families, and says the shift was clear: “I am on a path of revolution… It is happening.” The next phase took him to the United States. He joined fundraisers (including a San Francisco night he says raised over US$90,000), acted in a UCLA student short—his first screen role in nearly five years—and assembled a small documentary from an elevenday Karen trip. Exile, he says, cost him identity and purpose, yet his pledge stands: “I will keep supporting the movement.I'll fight until the end.”

Episode #419: “I'm just doing what is right, what is wrong, what's the matter? What should I do as a human being?”After medical school, instead of choosing comfort, Dr. Myay Latt went to the Naga Self-Administered Zone — a place with no roads or electricity, where he was often the first doctor anyone had seen. He built bamboo clinics, trained villagers, and survived falls off cliffs while fighting malaria and tuberculosis. “They think I'm a strange person,” he says, laughing, “but they thank me.”His work took him across Myanmar's forgotten corners — from Chin to Rakhine, where he ignored warnings and treated patients in areas marked No Entry for Rohingya. “I just want to heal people,” he says. “Not take sides.” In Putao, near the Kachin mountains, he reached villages by boat and foot, sleeping in leech-infested huts and learning the depth of his country's suffering.When the coup came in 2021, he and friends spent the night awake in Yangon, drinking whiskey and waiting. “It's like slapping our face,” he says. Out of that shock came an idea, inspired so many decades ago by Gandhi's nonviolent crusade against the British: What if we stop their machine? He and other doctors decided then and there, to refuse to work under the junta. By morning, the Civil Disobedience Movement was born. Within days, hospitals, banks, and ministries stood still.The regime answered with bullets and airstrikes. “They're so inhumane,” he says. “Hospitals, schools — they don't care who's inside.” He calls the attacks a clear breach of international law and urges only one thing: stop bombing civilians.Today, Myay Latt leads Heartland Union, bringing medical aid to Myanmar's war zones. Many of his colleagues are gone. Still, he meditates and carries on. “Sometimes I cry at night, just hearing a Burmese traditional song,” he says softly. “But I will do whatever I can to win this revolution.”

Episode #418: Lorraine Pan is a 21-year-old queer, autistic, immigrant from China who now studies Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto (note that Pan's preferred pronouns are they/their/them). Growing up in a small town, Pan felt alienated in a conservative school system that stigmatized neurodivergence. Their politicization began in high school during the Hong Kong protests of 2019: Chinese state media glorified police violence while censoring dissent, a contradiction that unsettled them. With friends' help, Pan became more internet savvy, and soon learned to navigate China's vast surveillance and censorship system, encountering authentic voices from Hong Kong and Taiwan. This experience, combined with exploring their queer identity, convinced Pan that remaining in China was impossible. Canada offered relative safety, but Pan faced new struggles as a racial minority and first-generation immigrant navigating academic rigor, visa pressures, and financial uncertainty. They describe themselves as an “in-betweener,” belonging fully neither in China nor abroad. Online, they built a platform linking movements across Asia, with solidarity for Hong Kong, Taiwan, Myanmar, and LGBTQ rights. But harassment eventually forced them offline, shifting their activism toward speaking and community work. Pan emphasizes intersectional solidarity, noting that movements must center marginalized groups—such as LGBTQ individuals within ethnic or displaced communities—rather than deferring their rights until after “democracy.” For Pan, democracy without equity is hollow. They reject hierarchy and leader-centrism, advocating decentralized organizing and valuing intergenerational exchange despite tensions with older activists. Pan's internet experiences in China, and conversations with friends still there, deepened their empathy for activists in Myanmar. The parallels were clear: Myanmar's regime shuts the internet down entirely, while China keeps it open but tightly censored and monitored. Both methods silence dissent and inflict lasting trauma. Seeing this connection reinforced Pan's conviction that authoritarian repression is shared across borders and that transnational solidarity is essential.

This bonus episode features the recording of a special online meditation fundraiser hosted by Better Burma in partnership with Vipassana Hawaii. The event combined meditation, reflection, and stories from the ground in Myanmar, highlighting how monasteries and nunneries have become lifelines—providing shelter, food, and education for displaced families amid crisis. Mora, who leads our monastic support team, shares firsthand accounts of resilience and need, while Vipassana Hawaii teachers guide practice and reflection. Donation links mentioned in the session remain active, with contributions continuing to sustain these monastic communities and their vital humanitarian role.

Episode #417: “There has been a massive lay critique of leading Buddhist monks that have been seen as pro-military… but to conclude that monks are either silent or pro-military is too hasty! What we actually see is polarization and division within the Saṅgha,” says Iselin Frydenlund, a professor of religion in Norway who has spent decades studying Buddhism and politics in Sri Lanka and Myanmar. One of her arguments is that the Saṅgha has never been truly unified. The coup simply shattered public illusions of unity, and that diversity and division have always marked monastic life in Myanmar. Frydenlund's second main point concerns a popular perception that the Saṅgha has been “captured” by the junta. She does admit that pro-junta monastic voices have drawn strength from decades of state patronage, forming what she and her colleagues call the “military-monastic complex.” But the reality is far more complex: not all monks are under the military's sway, and she stresses that even the reasons that pro-military monks support the junta are not monolithic. Some are certainly rabidly militaristic, but others simply fear chaos more than dictatorship; there are many others alleged to be complicit through their silence, but are just afraid, and others who resist quietly, sustaining the Vinaya and supporting the displaced. In the end, Frydenlund expresses concern that dismantling institutional Buddhism in a post-junta Myanmar would impoverish the Sāsana. She emphasizes that it has “has not gone away” even during the revolution, and remains central to its networks, ethics, and resilience. The future may bring new schisms, reforms, or survival strategies, but she insists that Buddhism will be an integral part of whatever shape the country takes. “Don't buy into this narrative that we all lose faith in Buddhism now, because it's a revolution,” she says. “Buddhism is still with us as this kind of personal practice, but it's also the realization of the Dhamma and the need for social justice that informs this societal engagement.”

Episode #416: In the early 1990s, a chance encounter with Burmese student exiles in Bangkok sparked Nic Dunlop's enduring interest in the country. His initial ignorance of the country developed into curiosity, empathy, and visual storytelling. As a photojournalist, Dunlop has spent years documenting the “invisible dictatorship” of Myanmar's military regime, focusing on the mechanisms of social control, forced labor, and repression. His 2013 book, Brave New Burma, aimed to educate Western audiences about the complex realities behind simplistic narratives. Rather than reinforcing the myth of Aung San Suu Kyi as a saintly figure, he presents her as a tough leader shaped by privilege, critiquing her understanding of marginalized communities alongside a limited understanding of the country's peripheral conflicts. He also challenges the Western romanticization of both Suu Kyi and Myanmar, arguing that it led to performative policies and a blindness to the structural conditions that enabled the 2021 coup. Dunlop documents not just brutality, but structure—capturing how indoctrination, poverty, and coercion shape Myanmar's military conscripts. From refugee camps to prison quarries, his work illustrates repression both subtle and overt. His photographs, including one of Suu Kyi herself, offer visual testimony to the country's contradictions. In the end, he emphasizes humility as essential to understanding Myanmar: “The more I learn about Burma, the less I know.”

Episode #415: U Jāgara's spiritual journey is a fascinating exploration of monastic life, creativity, and the transformative power of the Dhamma. Born in Quebec, his introduction to meditation set him on a path that would span traditions and continents. His spiritual journey was initially shaped by his time in the Goenka tradition, where he valued the rigor and structure of its method. He later practiced Mahasi Sayadaw's teachings in Yangon, which introduced him to the nuanced and adaptive approaches of Burmese monastic practice. Then in Sri Lanka, he immersed himself in rich Theravādatraditions of scholarship and meditation that expanded his understanding of the Dhamma, affording him both intellectual depth and the opportunity to live a solitary monastic life for a time. Appointed as a teacher within the Goenka tradition, U Jāgara eventually grappled with the organization's growing rigidity. For example, he felt that the pre-recorded discourses limited the opportunity for creative and responsive teaching. He also noted how the exclusion of alternative meditation techniques narrowed practitioners' understanding of the Dhamma's diversity. In addition, he strongly believed that the discouragement of interaction with monks and traditional Buddhist rituals created a sense of separation from the broader, Buddhist spiritual community. Though valuing its teachings, he transitioned away from the Goenka organization, seeking a more integrative approach to the Dhamma,. A transformative chapter unfolded for U Jāgara when he left monastic life temporarily to explore lay life in France. Balancing personal aspirations with the needs of others, he gained insights into the richness of human relationships, responsibilities, and shared growth. Yet, the call to monastic life drew him back to Myanmar, where Pa Auk Sayadaw's individualized and methodical guidance reshaped his meditation practice. Under this mentorship, U Jāgara refined his focus on jhāna meditation, achieving profound clarity and insights.“We have to remind ourselves that the monastic life is not for everybody, and it's a question of choice. It's much better if you if you are able to be monastic, and it's cool because you don't have responsibilities, and you just devote yourself to the Dhamma! But it does not, by itself, integrate the lay life, and lay life can be very rich.”

Episode #414: “They just didn't believe me at first. So I had to prove to them.” With these words, Xiao Yar Yar captures his struggle for recognition— a struggle that has defined both his personal life and his role in Myanmar's revolution. When the military staged its coup and dismissed the election as fraudulent, Xiao Yar Yar knew the generals were lying. He had collected votes and seen the results himself. Watching peaceful protestors shot down shattered any remaining illusions. A student training to be a teacher, he set aside his future and stepped into the jungle as a medic. “I received medical training after the revolution. Before the revolution, I was just a young man trying to be a teacher,” he recalls. His medical knowledge was born not in classrooms but on the battlefield— learning to stop bleeding, improvise tourniquets, and stabilize the wounded. Later, he trained others, equipping them with lifesaving skills. Disease and exhaustion ravaged fighters as much as bullets, and Xiao Yar Yar became both medic and counselor, keeping morale alive with humor, food, and small gestures of care. Support extended further through his initiative, “Owl Company.” He delivered hammocks, backpacks, food, and small comforts like soft drinks to the frontlines, filling gaps that larger groups overlooked. Yet the suffering also stretched to IDP camps, where families displaced by bombings endured hunger, dirty water, and trauma. Xiao Yar Yar provided what he could—food, filters, encouragement. Yet he warned that mental health, especially for children, was dangerously neglected. “I think the NUG has to take an action about the IDP and the civilian mental health issue,” he insisted. But as an LGBTQ man, discrimination followed him everywhere. He was mocked, underestimated, and even forced into weapons training by mistake. But he proved his worth as a medic leader. “I have faced the discrimination for my whole life,” he acknowledges. Years later, he sees a stronger resistance with better weapons and training, but unity remains essential. His final words are simple and sharp: “We have to unite very well... all of the EAOs and all of the PDFs.”

Episode #413: “No one's liberated without everyone being liberated, right?” Those words belong to Nitchakarn “Memee” Rakwongrit, a Thai youth activist whose journey from a rural upbringing to the center of Bangkok's protests has made her one of the country's most visible young voices for democracy and feminist struggle. Born in Mahasarakham province in Thailand's Isaan region, a place long tied to grassroots democracy but often dismissed by elites, Memee grew up in a politicized household, as her father, a staunch Red Shirt supporter, constantly encouraged her to question authority. At sixteen she moved to Bangkok, and when dissident Wanchalerm Satsaksit was abducted in Cambodia in 2020, she joined her first street protest. She recalls it as the moment the curtain lifted on authoritarianism. Around the same time, having faced harassment and “slut-shaming,” Memee's feminist awareness deepened. With the Feminist Liberation Front Thailand, she adapted the Chilean anthem “A Rapist in Your Path” into Thai, sparking both solidarity and backlash. “For me, feminism is not just…a theory with big words or vocabulary, but how we are really living our life,” she says. Memee's activism quickly put her in the crosshairs. At just sixteen she was arrested for a speech about women in prison; over the next two years she faced seven more cases. Authorities subjected her to symbolic punishments, which she wryly called “certificates of activism.” In 2021, she shaved her head at a rally, declaring, “I will shave my head until this Prime Minister quits!” It became a shocking but powerful symbol of resistance. Despite repression, Memee expanded her reach, and became involved with the Milk Tea Alliance. “It gave me the privilege to be able to listen to broader perspectives and border experiences,” she says. She has worked tirelessly to support Myanmar's pro-democracy struggle, building bridges through “Thai Students for Burma.” For Memee, activism must also include joy. “Fun has two benefits,” she explains. “It is good for mental health in the community, and it attracts more people to join.” Humor, memes, and play, she insists, are weapons against fear.

Episode #412: “We are in Myanmar, and nothing is clear cut.”Anthony Davis offers a stark assessment of Myanmar's war, drawing on decades of experience studying insurgencies. He begins with the United Wa State Army, a thirty-thousand-strong force running a state the size of Belgium. “It would be entirely wrong to see the Wa as simply Chinese puppets or Chinese proxies,” Davis insists. The Wa have scaled back arms transfers under Chinese pressure, but they remain determined to expand their autonomy. Their ambition is recognition as a state, linking their territories along the Chinese and Thai borders. If the regime collapses, Davis argues, the Wa will act swiftly to unite and consolidate. He calls them “a critical player in the overall struggle for Myanmar.”The Wa's influence now extends west of the Salween, through ties with the Ta'ang, leverage over the Shan State Progress Party, and neutralization of rivals like the Restoration Council of Shan State. This, Davis notes, is ascendancy rather than reckless conquest—a quiet dominance shaping the conflict's direction.Davis also identifies drones as a decisive factor. Initially dismissed, they became central to resistance victories in late 2023. The junta responded by creating a drone directorate, importing Chinese systems, and applying Russian expertise from Ukraine. By 2025, drones, artillery, air power, and conscripts are integrated into an operating machine. “It's an army in the way the resistance, by definition, is not,” Davis observes.Resistance morale remains high, but Davis stresses that spirit alone cannot sustain the fight. “They have got plenty of morale. They're not short of guns. But if you don't have enough ammunition, then you're in trouble.”Elections, he says, “will happen come hell or high water,” yet will not bring peace. China's backing of the junta complicates everything, while the Arakan Army's rise in Rakhine could change the board entirely. Davis closes with a warning: “The bottom line is, you can have a ceasefire today, but [the Burmese military is] going to come back, they're going to rebuild, they're going to re-equip, and they're going to come back at you.”

Episode #411: This is the second part of our interview with the meditation teacher, Tempel Smith, and it starts off with his decision “to commit to deep intensive Burmese-style meditation, break through some of these habits, and then find a more integrated lifestyle.” With this in mind, he boarded a flight to Myanmar with his friend Diana Winston, and ordained under Sayadaw U Pandita.Although U Pandita's reputation as a stern and very demanding teacher caused him some concern, he went to the Sayadaw's monastery and began to practice. Tempel describes U Pandita's style as a “ruthless investigation” which was uncommon among Western teachers, and which ultimately led to a deeper understanding of the second foundation of mindfulness.After some time, Tempel became concerned about the intensity of the practice, and when he heard about the newly established Pa Auk Monastery, he decided to try it out, as he was especially keen to practice mettā intensively through jhāna meditation.At Pa Auk, he would find a very different style of monastery. The monastics and lay meditators were more relaxed, and openly discussed scripture and practice between meditation sittings. Tempel also found the actual practice to be quite different, particularly the absorptive states that Pa Auk taught. As he progressed in samathā, he began to see lights, considered a positive sign that one's practice is going well,. He even began to develop psychic powers, such as predicting the future. This, in particular, shook him to his core, and caused him to question Western notions of “the real world.”This paradigm shift of reality began to affect his faith as well. “I was feeling that devotion to the Buddha, his teachings, the centuries of people practicing it, people rediscovering it at different times and re-encouraging that level of practice,” he says. “And then to see that it wasn't mythology, that it actually could be possibly more true than you might have imagined.”In the next segment, we explore how he took these teachings from Myanmar back home to the US with him.

Episode #410: “We've got to find a way from surviving to thriving again.” With this vision, Jue Jue, a social worker and founder of Jue Jue's Safe Space, seeks to transform Myanmar's mental health landscape. Raised in a politically engaged family—her father an 88 Generation activist and her mother a frontline social worker—Jue Jue's early exposure to trauma and resilience shaped her lifelong dedication to social justice.Her understanding of inequality deepened upon moving to the U.S., where her accent and ethnicity led to discrimination, mirroring the systemic exclusion ethnic minorities face in Myanmar. This caused her to reflecting on her own Bamar privilege, which exposed her past biases, especially toward groups like the Rohingyas and Indian-Burmese. She committed herself to building inclusive, respectful spaces.Jue Jue's Safe Space, launched in 2019, evolved from a Facebook page into a critical mental health platform for Burmese communities. Inspired by personal struggles and intergenerational trauma, the initiative counters stigma by offering culturally grounded, clinically sound services. Jue Jue emphasizes that mental health suffering often stems from systemic injustice, not individual weakness.She challenges her country's romanticized patriarchy and calls out its political misuse, while urging a return to Buddhist principles of compassion. Despite operating without steady funding, her initiative has supported many during Myanmar's cascading crises—pandemic, coup, earthquake—while promoting agency and emotional resilience.Though not yet ready to treat oppressors (those who are currently in the military perpetuating abuses), she hopes for a future where reconciliation is possible. “We're going to shine again,” she affirms, envisioning a Myanmar rebuilt through inner peace, inclusion, and empowered healing.

Episode #409: His military experience enabled a rapport with Myanmar's armed actors, says Rory McCann, who recently served almost two years as the country Weapons Contamination Specialist for the ICRC. A challenge at the beginning of the job was to build trust with different conflict parties, in part to convince them that the ICRC was teaching weapons safety regarding landmines and other explosive ordnance, not weapons handling. As a 25-year veteran of the Irish Army, McCann was deployed in Chad, Syria and Uganda, with his training in the ordnance corps preparing him for humanitarian mine action. His ICRC role included interaction with the Myanmar Armed Forces and other armed groups. “When you're talking about humanitarian mine action, it has to be much more systematic and you're looking at the international mine action standards,” McCann says. International standards, which are not adhered to in Myanmar, set guidelines across “five pillars": clearance, risk education, victim assistance, stockpile destruction, and advocacy. McCann says his role was educating armed actors about obligations to protect civilians and landmine use under customary IHL. Myanmar is not a signatory to the CCW or the Mine Ban Treaty. Conflict actors are still legally bound by customary IHL that prohibits indiscriminate use of landmines. “Landmine fields are designed to be an obstacle … What we were seeing in Myanmar … they're simply being used in a sporadic and maybe punitive manner.” Known as “nuisance mining,” this fails to meet military objectives and poses indiscriminate threat to civilians. At present, only risk education, victim assistance, and advocacy are underway. Since 2015, the ICRC and MRCS have conducted over 1,800 sessions reaching 69,000 people in 2024. More than 4,800 people with disabilities were supported through physical rehabilitation services. National ownership is an ICRC goal, though McCann admits conflict makes realization unlikely, focusing instead on risk mitigation and advocacy.

Episode #408: “There is no way to tell the story of Myanmar and where it's headed if you are leaving out the Wa,” says Patrick Winn, a veteran Southeast Asia reporter and author of Narcotopia. His book traces the wild story how Wa State, a mountainous enclave on the Chinese border, became defined by narcotics, and how it has become one of the key powers in the country today. A pivotal figure is Saw Lu, born in the mid-1940s, raised among Baptist missionaries, and convinced that literacy and Christianity could unify and “civilize” the Wa. Recruited by Burmese intelligence in his twenties, he was sent to Pang Wai, one of the largest Wa strongholds, as a teacher. Winning villagers' trust, he then stumbled on a small CIA weapons cache. Through charisma and tactical skill, he transformed himself into a militia leader. Meanwhile, Kuomintang exiles who had fled China's civil war turned to opium trafficking, industrializing heroin production along the Thai-Burma border. The CIA and Taiwanese intelligence viewed these warlords as useful anti-communist allies, even as their heroin flowed into South Vietnam and fueled American soldiers' addictions. Saw Lu tolerated the opium trade, which he despised, to keep Wa villages united against Maoist influence. At one point, the U.S. even used him as a DEA asset, code-named “Superstar.” In the late 1960s, the Communist Party of Burma controlled much of Wa territory for twenty years, during which time Saw Lu faded into obscurity. But a mutiny of Wa soldiers eventually kicked out the Maoists and birthed the United Wa State Army (UWSA). With Chinese backing and drug profits as their main source of income, the UWSA grew into Myanmar's most powerful non-state military. Saw Lu returned to the scene, and for a while his anti-drug zeal offered a different path to Wa leaders. He wanted to get significant U.S. investment in Wa State in exchange for helping it destroy the drug trade. In the end, however, the CIA undermined Saw Lu's plans, and he was disgraced. Today, Wa State is a “narcostate,” effectively an unrecognized country, a state within a state, stable within its own borders yet destabilizing to Myanmar's unity. “If you think it's just some dark, out of the way place that doesn't matter, please update your thinking on this,” Winn warns.

Episode #407: One month after the coup, Captain Kyaw Kyaw defected from his post as a military pediatrician. After years of seeing the military brutalize the civilians they were supposed to protect, committing systematic war crimes in conflicts with ethnic armed organizations, he had still felt loyalty to the soldiers in the lower ranks who he viewed also as victims. The carnage that met protests against the coup, however, was the final straw leading him to join the ranks of defectors.In his account of indoctrination and military training, a clear picture emerges of a military leadership that profits off the suffering of the rank-and-file, most of whom are kept in the dark about the historical record and the facts on the ground today. It is also a picture of a military force that is severely debilitated. “I think at least 30 to 40% of infantry soldiers have to be dismissed because of mental instability, drug addiction or alcoholism,” Kyaw Kyaw says. “Half of the brutality, war crimes, and atrocities occur on the front line and among the civilians. A portion of the soldiers are already psychopaths with severe psychological trauma!”It is an open secret in the military, he says, that the real number of combat-ready soldiers is less than half the official statistics. Corruption riddles the procurement and construction sectors, while cementing the loyalty of top generals whose economic interests depend on the military's economic stranglehold. In Kyaw Kyaw's estimate, a significant portion of the military stays loyal only for financial gain, while a minority subscribes to the propaganda. About half, he believes, realize the military is the main perpetrator of injustice, although many are held in check for fear of the consequences if they defect.Kyaw Kyaw has a warning for an international community that has failed to take effective action: “Injustice can be very infectious. If more countries believe in power, instead of dialogue, instead of justice, it will backfire for every nation in the world.”

Episode #406: “I didn't come to study this subject deliberately with a focus on Buddhism,” says Justine Chambers, author of Pursuing Morality, a book that explores Buddhist moral life among the Plong community in southeast Myanmar—known to outsiders as Pwo Karen—particularly in and around the town of Hpaan. Her work, the product of many years of immersive fieldwork, traces not only Buddhist ethical practices in everyday life but also the entanglements of those practices with political transitions, spiritual power, armed conflict, and minority identity in Karen State. Chambers' journey began with refugee advocacy in Australia and continued through work in Mae Sot in 2011, just as Myanmar was opening up. Expecting a conflict zone, she found instead a vibrant town full of youth and ambition, but also widespread moral anxiety. This tension became central to her research. She came to find that morality is not innate, and must be pursued daily. She describes how for the Karen, it is shaped by social factors like gender, age, and class. Chambers corrects the common misconception that Karen identity is primarily Christian. Most Karen in lowland Myanmar are Buddhist, and many trace their spiritual heritage to the Mon and even Burmese kings. Their ethical practice is linked not just to self-cultivation, but to community well-being and even environmental harmony. Yet morality is not always peaceful. Her discussion of the charismatic yet controversial figure, U Thuzana, and the DKBA's role in the destruction of Manerplaw reveals how ethical revival can also justify violence and division. Ultimately, Chambers presents morality as both personal and collective, grounded in Buddhist cosmology but lived through daily negotiations with power, suffering, and hope. “It's also about community, and how you are [a] moral being within that community.”

Episode #405: “Myanmar deserves better,” reflects Olle Thorell, a Swedish Member of Parliament whose nearly two-decade commitment to the nation is both political and personal. Elected to the Riksdag in 2006, Thorell's focus on Asian affairs quickly centered on Myanmar. He learned from dedicated activists and, in 2011, had a clandestine meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi, a moment he recalls as “fantastic;” albeit, goes on to acknowledge that this occurred before what her later fall from grace in international relations. Part of Thorell's vision as a member of the Swedish Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee is for Sweden to fill the global leadership vacuum, challenge the junta's legitimacy, and help create a democratic, federal Myanmar. Thorell's early life inspired his resolve. A working-class upbringing instilled a sense of collective responsibility. His formative teenage years spent in apartheid-era South Africa cemented a lifelong dedication to human rights, teaching him firsthand the kind of society created when prejudice and racism is given free reign. Later, as a Swedish language teacher to Balkan refugees, he honed diplomatic skills, witnessing “what happens when a country falls apart, when there is a division among neighbors and friends.” During Myanmar's democratic opening (2015-2020), he was inspired by citizens printing newspapers by hand but disturbed by child labor in textile factories. These contrasts solidified his belief in the necessity of international solidarity. Thorell is proud of Sweden's historic role in human rights, grounded in the Social Democratic principle of global solidarity, in contrast to rising nationalism. Despite no direct ties, he affirms that Myanmar must remain a focus for Sweden, seen as “the last bastion of military rule where we feel we need to help out.” While lamenting a global shift towards narrow self-interest and nationalism, Thorell remains optimistic. “Liberal values and values of democracy and human rights are impossible to quench in the long run,” he says in closing.

Episode #404: Before the coup, Pandora was a tour guide with little interest in politics. That changed in 2021, when the generals seized power and she found herself leading protests in her hometown of Bago. Arrests of friends and pressure from her family to stop pushed her into the jungle, where she joined the People's Defense Forces. Life there meant leaking tents, beans and noodles for every meal, and complete separation from her family, whom she has not seen since. In September 2021 she entered PDF training with over 200 recruits, just 13 of them women. After a month of basics she had to choose a specialty—commando, mining, or sniper. She picked sniper, unwilling to face mines or close combat. Yet she had never held a weapon before, and the first time she raised a pistol, she shook so badly she thought she could not fire— and even still, her very first shot hit the target! Soon she was handling M4s and M16s, building strength by running the camp with the rifle on her back until her arms no longer trembled. Her precision earned her a place in advanced sniper training, where she was the only woman among 12 trainees. Sniping required both patience and calculation. Pandora trained as a spotter, paired with her partner—and boyfriend— who fired the shots. She learned to measure distance, wind speed, and target movement, ideally with ten minutes to prepare but sometimes with only seconds. Operations could demand lying in wait for days, even a week, hidden in brush or high ground, ready to strike within a kilometer. At times she shook with nerves, yet discipline and teamwork carried her through. Though she rarely pulled the trigger herself, the memories still haunt her. Nightmares of soldiers appear when she tries to sleep. Eventually she left the front line, but not the revolution. In Mae Sot she now runs a clothing brand, Rise and Shine, and also teaches sewing to survivors of gender violence. Pandora now studies politics, determined to empower women and fight for a democratic Myanmar.

Episode #403: Annai had always been attracted to spirituality. Growing up in a devout Catholic family in Barcelona, she preferred spending time in church while her friends only wanted to watch TV, and even began asking how she could one day become a Catholic nun. Eventually she found her way to Dhamma Neru, a vipassana meditation center in Spain the tradition of S.N. Goenka. She found the course extremely difficult and cried every day. However, in the end, she realized this was a path she wanted to dedicate herself to, and so decided to venture to India, where she took the 8-month Pāḷi course offered at Dhamma Giri. After the Pāḷi course, Annai happened to meet Venerable Canda, who told her about her teacher The Phyu Taw Ya Sayadaw in Burma. Playing his chanting for Annai, she was deeply moved and felt compelled to travel to Myanmar to meet him. Annai meditated at the Yangon-based monastery for five months—even drawing inspiration from Webu Sayadaw and foregoing sleep. Seeing her progress, the Sayadaw gave her permission to meditate for long periods under a large tree in the forest. Annai was also fascinated hearing her Sayadaw's stories about practicing in Maha Myaing Forest near the Indian border, where he had a branch monastery. Yet there were many obstacles in her being able to go here, as women were rarely allowed remote practice possibilities, and foreigners weren't even allowed in this part of the country. But somehow Annai was able to break through this red tape, and reaching the forest, took a vow of silence for one year. Still, it was a totally new experience for her, from snakes in her kuti, to armies of termites, to hearing the sound of elephants in the distance, to the playful monkeys. Moreover, whether large or small, each wild animal and insect was a possible threat, and there were spirits in the forest as well, but Annai soon realized that the best way to confront them all was to develop stronger mettā. Eventually, after six years in total in Myanmar, Annai returned to Spain, where she planned to re-engage with the vipassana community of S.N. Goenka. Although she had pursued a rather diverse meditative experience, she always felt close to her first real teacher. Yet Annai found her deep meditation practice put her at odds with the tradition's guidelines, and so instead decided to develop a monastery which could support yogis in the dynamic, varied kinds of ways she, herself, had experienced in Myanmar. This led to the establishment of Sarana Vihara near the Montseny National Park, outside of Barcelona. She decided that if people there could not go to Myanmar, she would bring some part of Myanmar to them. Of course, her strong memories of her time in Myanmar continue to inspire her current work. “It was overwhelming: the generosity, the care, the support of the people [there].”

Episode #402: “In stable times, sustainability may be seen as a long term aspiration,” says Tin Shine Aung, a Burmese scholar and sustainability expert whose work bridges research, policy, and on-the-ground crisis response. “But in our context, in the context of a polycrisis, it's become like a strategy for survival and reconstruction.”Arguing that Myanmar is living through a true polycrisis— multiple shocks that collide and amplify each other rather than simply add up— Tin Shine Aung points out that this demands treating sustainability not as a later luxury but as a present survival and reconstruction strategy. He rejects the idea of “waiting until after the war,” noting that disasters and social-economic collapses do not pause for politics, so governance must integrate sustainability now across environmental, social, and economic pillars.Tin Shine Aung threads a timeline to show how system fragility accumulated: the 2007 fuel-price crisis and Saffron Revolution exposed cracks; in 2008, Cyclone Nargis devastated the delta and the junta nonetheless pushed a constitutional referendum, claiming “over 90%” approval while many communities were still reeling. The 2010s brought ethnoreligious nationalism and political accommodation to it: Muslim candidates were excluded from the NLD's 2015 lists, producing the first Muslim-free legislature since independence, and in January 2017 constitutional lawyer U Ko Ni— closely associated with State Counsellor design— was assassinated at Yangon's airport broad daylight.Here Tin Shine Aung contrasts Myanmar's breakdown with Ukraine to illustrate what makes a polycrisis: in Myanmar, systems across governance, economy, and social services have simultaneously failed and safe exit pathways are scarce. Economically, factories in major cities often get only “two to three hours a day” of grid power, forcing costly generators; more than a million workers have lost jobs; basics like cooking oil have tripled versus pre-coup; sanctions intended for elites cascade down the economy; new U.S. tariffs of about 40% on some categories and military conscription further squeeze the garment sector and labor supply.And yet, despite state failure and natural disasters, even now, grassroots actors are improvising underground schooling, digital classrooms and alternative universities, and turning to small-scale renewables— evidence that sustainability thinking is already alive on the ground! Tin Shine Aung urges international partners to scale such local initiatives and design sanctions, tariffs, and aid logistics to avoid worsening multiplier effects. “Even in the polycrisis,” he says, “our Burmese people are quietly laying the foundation for the sustainable future.”

Episode #401: “Look at my eye. Trust me! You can do this!” With steady assurance, Nay Chi Linn describes her work at the Sunshine Care Center (SCC), a border-based facility she founded to care for Myanmar's war-injured. Located on the Thai side of the border, the SCC provides daily care, physiotherapy, rehabilitation, and emotional support.Nay Chi Linn was raised in Yangon and studied law before moving to Chiang Mai for further study. There, she met an ethnic Karen man and got married; the couple lived in a refugee camp with his family for two years before moving out, but staying nearby on the Thai side of the border. After the 2021 coup, she started financially supporting civil servants and protesters, but Myanmar authorities began investigating her, and were able to trace a bank transfer. Warned of the imminent danger of being detained, she fled to her in-laws' house in the Karen-controlled town of Lay Kaw Kaw. There, in the chaos of displacement after the coup, she began helping people fleeing the regime or displaced by fighting with food, shelter, supplies and health needs; over time, the needs grew and her improvisations became more systematized, laying the foundations for what would become the SCC, which she opened after moving back into Thailand.Nay Chi Linn works with patients with a blend of firmness and empathy— what she calls the “energy of mom.” She allows the initial anger, fear and frustration of patients facing their challenging situations to wash over her, and then urges them to focus on what they have left and take responsibility for their recovery, for their families' and even their country's sake.The SCC is a demanding ecosystem of care that rests on routine, discipline, and morale. The busy, involved day starts early and ends late: medical teams check lists and send those with appointments to hospitals; logistics drives runs back and forth all day; evenings bring pickups and resets for the next day. Within those routines, the work itself is often improvisational and pressured. Amid this challenging, sometimes chaotic environment, Nay Chi Linn is always there for the people in her care. “I have no time to cry!” she exclaims about her workday. Still, she admits that she sometimes breaks down in private afterwards, yet still finds a way to keep going.

Episode #400: James Rodehaver, head of the UN Human Rights Office on Myanmar, offers a sobering account of the country's accelerating crisis and the limits of the international community's response. Drawing on decades of experience in conflict zones, he describes Myanmar as uniquely complex and heartbreakingly violent—particularly since the 2021 coup. His office, which operates from outside the country due to lack of access, monitors rights violations, advises UN agencies, and supports civil society efforts.Rodehaver acknowledges that some UN agencies do engage with the junta to secure humanitarian access, and says the anger this provokes among the Burmese public is entirely justified. But he stresses that discreet coordination also occurs with resistance actors, including the National Unity Government and ethnic armed organizations, though these relationships are often kept quiet to protect humanitarian operations.According to Rodehaver, 2024 was the deadliest year yet, with nearly 2,000 verified civilian deaths—most caused by indiscriminate airstrikes and heavy weaponry used by the military. Since the coup, over 6,300 civilians have been confirmed killed, amid spiraling displacement, economic collapse, and growing food insecurity.He warns that recent cuts in international aid are crippling essential services and shrinking civic space. Part of the problem, he admits, is a failure to tell the full story of Myanmar's suffering and resilience—a failure he takes partial responsibility for. Despite limited staff and access, his team continues to support civil society, provide training in international humanitarian law, and promote protection strategies for at-risk communities.Ultimately, Rodehaver returns to the principle that guides his work: empathy. “We pick the side of the victims,” he says, and draws strength from the courage and endurance of the Myanmar people.

Episode #399: Insight Myanmar was very fortunate to conduct a series of interviews with Friedgard Lottermoser between 2023 and 2024, amounting to more than forty hours before she sadly passed away last year. Friedgard was one of the few non-Burmese who could speak about the experience of meditating extensively with Sayagyi U Ba Khin, life at the International Meditation Center (IMC), and what it was like to live in Burma at a crucial period of its modern history.In this episode, she explains how she survived the July 7, 1962 student massacre by chance, spending the weekend meditating at IMC instead of joining the demonstrations at Rangoon University. “After meditating for several hours, I heard a huge boom, like thunder,” she says. “I thought it was just the continuation of a long thunderstorm, but it was the military blowing up the Student Union building!”She also speaks about her stepfather's work with the German firm Fritz Werner, the state-owned company that helped establish Burma's arms industry in the late 1950s and licensed local production of G3 rifles. These weapons, which became standard issue for the Burmese army, were later turned against students in 1962 and again during the 1988 uprising. For Friedgard, this connection adds a painful irony to her memories, as the same rifles linked to her family's presence in Burma were used to silence the very voices of democracy she might have joined that day.Her reflections often circle back to meditation, which she saw as both refuge and compass. “Of course, I listened to what U Ba Khin said, but it was reinforced by my personal perception through the development of Vipassana meditation. That is why, actually, I followed it up in these early days.” For Friedgard, meditation was not just practice but the thread that allowed her to endure, make sense of, and carry forward the experiences of those turbulent years.

Episode #398: The Telenor scandal has emerged as one of the most serious blows to Norway's reputation as a champion of peace and human rights. Nicolai Prydz, author and long-time observer of Myanmar, calls it “the largest scandal in Norway, but it's under the carpet. Nobody wants to tell it.” When Telenor entered Myanmar in 2014, only 7% of the population owned a mobile phone. Backed by Norway's decision to lift sanctions and forgive $3 billion in debt, the company quickly expanded to more than 20 million users and generated hundreds of millions in annual profits. Norwegian politicians hailed it as a model of how business could support democracy. But Prydz stresses the transition was never real. The 2008 constitution guaranteed the military permanent power. Ordinary people, however, placed their trust in Telenor, associating it with Norway's peace reputation. That trust was betrayed after the February 2021 coup. The junta demanded sensitive telecom data— locations, call records, contact lists— of activists and opposition leaders. Myanmar Now reported Telenor complied over 200 times. Prydz is blunt: “Of course, you don't come back the 20th or 21st time if it's not of any use!” When challenged, Telenor never denied its cooperation, claiming refusal would endanger staff. The company also left intact surveillance equipment capable of monitoring networks nationwide. In 2022, Telenor sold its Myanmar operations to Lebanon's M1 Group and Shwe Byain Phyu, a conglomerate tied to the military, effectively transferring the data of 20 million users to the junta's allies. Norwegian judge Hanne Sophie Greve has warned that Norway and Telenor could be complicit in crimes against humanity. For Prydz, the story is personal: his friend Ko Jimmy, the democracy activist he met in 2012, used a Telenor SIM until his arrest and execution in 2022. “The reason why I wrote my book is because I love my country,” Prydz says. He demands Norway face its complicity, investigate fully, and repair the damage, instead of sweeping the truth under the carpet.

Episode #397: In this episode of the Insight Myanmar Podcast, two compelling voices—Thinzar Shunlei Yi and Wongpun Amarinthewa—illuminate the stakes of Myanmar's political crisis from the frontlines of resistance and reporting. Thinzar Shunlei Yi, a prominent Burmese activist and deputy director of the Anti-Sham Election Campaign Committee, lays out a forceful case against the junta's proposed elections. Far from representing democratic progress, she sees them as a calculated maneuver to legitimize the military's grip on power. These elections, rooted in the discredited 2008 Constitution, are framed as part of a broader strategy to escape accountability and sustain authoritarian rule under the veneer of civilian governance. “The 2008 Constitution was also another coup,” she asserts, “[that was executed] in the name of democracy.” Her coalition, which includes civil society actors and ethnic political parties, has already moved beyond the junta's framework, pursuing a revolutionary roadmap to draft an inclusive federal democratic constitution from the ground up. Speaking to the international community, she warns that continued reference to the 2008 Constitution risks legitimizing a system that has failed time and again to protect Myanmar's people or bring about real change. Wongpun Amarinthewa, a Thai journalist, brings a parallel perspective from across the border. He reflects on his reporting trips to refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar border, where the trauma of displacement—especially among children—left a lasting emotional mark. His work underscores the human toll of the conflict and the widespread lack of awareness among the Thai public, which is exacerbated by government restrictions, media indifference, and nationalist sentiment. Despite the obstacles, Wongpun remains committed to telling these stories, emphasizing the urgent need for deeper regional awareness and cross-border solidarity. “As a media [worker], it's my responsibility to let the public know what's really happening along the border of Thailand,” he says.

Episode #396: “There is no other issue in Thailand that has this long of a history of civil society engagement like Myanmar.” With these words, Thai humanitarian worker and activist, Mic Chawaratt, discusses the decades-long relationship between Thailand and Myanmar regarding displacement, refugee management, and civil society aid. He traces Thailand's security-driven approach to Myanmar refugees from the 1980s to today. Despite not signing the 1951 Refugee Convention, Thailand has hosted large populations displaced by conflict and political repression, though often without offering any legal recognition. He notes how the official response has been spotty, and Thai civil society, not the government, has largely shouldered the responsibility, building what Mic calls a “parallel system” of humanitarian care. After the 2021 coup, this system has been tested further by surging refugee numbers and increased repression. He criticizes Thailand's “proxy diplomacy,” which masks quiet support for the junta while sidelining the National Unity Government. ASEAN, too, comes under fire for its inaction. Meanwhile, new crises—such as scam centers exploiting vulnerable migrants—intersect with old ones, creating deeper humanitarian challenges. In closing, Mic takes a bird's eye view of the challenge, calling for a shift from emergency response to long-term infrastructure: education, healthcare, and legal protections. He also stresses the need for humanitarian organizations to listen to the refugees' own voices and safeguard their rights while highlighting the reality of burnout and donor fatigue. And as Thai politics shift rightward, he urges vigilance to protect civil society space and regional solidarity. “The story of Myanmar is also the story of Thailand,” he concludes. “We cannot separate them. Our futures are bound together.”

Episode #395: Laetitia van den Assum, a Dutch diplomat and former ambassador to Thailand, was one of nine members of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, a group set up in 2016 at Aung San Suu Kyi's request and chaired by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Its mandate was to improve conditions in one of Myanmar's poorest and most divided regions. In this conversation, van den Assum reflects on the Commission's work, her dealings with Annan and Min Aung Hlaing, and the enduring challenges of Rakhine. From the outset, the military opposed the Commission because it had been established without their consent, and Min Aung Hlaing tried to push Parliament to expel the foreign members. But as van den Assum notes, “he could not stop us,” since the 25 percent of seats reserved for the military under the 2008 constitution was insufficient to block the process. Building trust among local communities was another hurdle-- the Commission had to prove that it represented everyone, not only the Rohingya. In August 2017, the Commission released its final report, containing 88 recommendations focused on peace, development, and human rights. The very next day, ARSA launched attacks on police posts, and the military retaliated with sweeping operations that drove 750,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh. Van den Assum believes these plans were already in place, describing the scale of violence as shocking but not unexpected. She continues to stress the report's lessons. Citizenship remains central: without reform of the 1982 law that excluded the Rohingya and many others, genuine progress is impossible. Long-term planning also requires accurate population data, as nearly a million people were left uncounted in the 2014 census. Looking at Myanmar today, van den Assum sees fragmentation across the country and insists that peace must precede development and rights. Calling for pragmatic international support, she warns that Myanmar cannot rely on foreign aid indefinitely and must become more self-sufficient. Yet her appreciation for the resistance effort is unwavering: “My admiration knows no bounds for those continuing to fight for their self-determination. They don't see a way back. There's only a way forward.”

Episode #394: Sandar, an ethnographer and documentary photographer, dedicated her life to understanding Myanmar's diverse cultures. Before the coup, she conducted extensive research in ethnic territories, particularly in Kachin, documenting their struggles and traditions. However, when the military seized power, her ability to continue fieldwork was shattered. Facing restrictions and violence, she joined mass protests in Yangon, capturing the resistance movement as it first emerged onto the scene. As the military began to target anyone so much as holding a camera, she realized the dangers of remaining in the city, and sought another way to contribute.Sandar decided to relocate to Karenni, one of the first states to systematically resist the coup. There, she witnessed the destruction caused by military offensives and joined displaced medical workers, documenting their efforts. Later, she immersed herself in a Karenni military training camp for three months, observing how ordinary individuals transformed into resistance fighters. Her time there fundamentally changed her understanding of Myanmar's ethnic struggles, shifting her from an external observer to an active participant.Living in the jungle, she adapted to harsh conditions, learning survival skills and embedding herself in Karenni society. Recognizing the lack of education for displaced youth, she established an alternative school, later expanding it into a social studies diploma program. Despite repeated attacks forcing relocation, she remained committed to education as a form of resistance.Through her documentary work, Sandar highlights the resilience of Karenni civilians, and in so doing, challenges top-down peace efforts that ignore lived realities. She emphasizes that genuine solidarity comes from direct engagement. For her, the revolution is not just about fighting the military but reshaping Myanmar's social fabric, because real change must come from the ground up.

Episode #393: “It's now time to be more principled and say that, ‘We would like to support democracy.'” With this statement, Audun Aagre, former head of the Norwegian Burma Committee (NBC), distills three decades of Norway's involvement in Myanmar into a call for credibility and purpose. Aagre's own engagement with Myanmar began in the early 1990s, when Burmese exiles in Norway trained as journalists with the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB). Witnessing their dedication inspired him to travel to the Thai–Myanmar border, and later help form a Burma support group back home. He was eventually tapped to lead the Norwegian Burma Committee (NBC), an advocacy group supporting Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD's opposition to the military. Under Aagre's leadership, NBC was broadened to include building political party capacity and working with civil society across ethnic lines. While Norway's policy was pro-democracy early on, it shifted during the Thein Sein era. Norwegian diplomats began to argue the generals had seen the light and were more popular than Aung San Suu Kyi— a view Aagre dismissed as fantasy. Norway launched the Myanmar Peace Support Initiative (MPSI), which emphasized short-term “peace dividends” like development projects, but failed to address structural issues of federalism and military control, and seemed to back the military's approach. The trust his country had built with democratic forces in Myanmar for decades all but collapsed. The Rohingya crisis then revealed the futility of believing cooperation with the military could ever be compatible with human rights. Meanwhile, business entanglements further eroded Norway's credibility. Telenor, once a symbol of empowerment as cheap SIM cards and internet spread across Myanmar, soon collided with the junta's demands for surveillance data. Forced into compliance, it eventually sold its operations—only to see sensitive information handed straight to military-linked companies. Energy ventures like SN Power's dam project and Statoil's offshore contracts followed the same pattern, funneling resources into conflict zones and, ultimately, into the generals' coffers. For Aagre, the lesson is clear: Norway must stand firmly for democracy, not realpolitik. Otherwise, compromise and “trickle-down” strategies only undermine the very struggles they aim to support. The warning resonates now, as democracies everywhere face pressure from rising authoritarianism and strategic disinformation. “If the military was able to turn Norway, then you can turn any country in the world. The symbolism of turning Norway was very high.”

Episode #392: Landmines and explosive remnants of war are taking a devastating toll on civilians, as armed groups on many sides continue to use the deadly and indiscriminate weapons. Mine Free Myanmar, a country-focused campaign of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, runs an annual art contest documenting survivors' stories and the ever-present threat experienced by communities.The contest, now in its third year, attracts submissions from both adults and children, opening a window on survivors' experiences. One woman who was injured while fetching water was later abandoned by her husband because she was disabled. Last year's prize winner from Rakhine State shows a boy playing football who runs into a mine in front of the village signboard.From anecdotal evidence, including survivor stories collected by volunteers, there was a surge in landmine incidents following Operation 1027 launched by several EAOs in October 2023. The most recent Landmine Monitor report published in November 2024 concluded that Myanmar suffered the most recorded casualties from landmine and explosive remnants of war of any country in the world in 2023.The campaign's nationwide coordinator, who spoke to Insight Myanmar under the pseudonym of Webster, believes many incidents go unreported. “We just collect the impact stories of those who survived. There are many people who are being killed by the landmines in the community.” The role of the international community, he says, is to support multilateral engagement and advocacy to make that ban a reality, although he admits that amid the immediate conflict, reductions in landmine use and more awareness by armed actors might be the best that can be hoped. In the meantime, Webster urges international partners providing victim assistance to focus not just on the immediate injuries and provision of prostheses, to encompass the reality of a person's life after an injury and the need for vocational training and sustainable livelihoods.“If we don't talk about banning landmines, we have to support the survivor every decade, every generation,” Webster says. “It will never end.”

Episode #391: A key figure at Article 19 for the Asia Pacific region, Lana exposes a dilemma: the tense dynamic between an accelerating tech industry and authoritarian governments' increasing digital control. Lana's background informs her examination of how tech operations affect human rights in countries such as Myanmar, Vietnam, and China.Authorities in oppressive Asian nations are increasingly delegating enforcement of their restrictive policies to private tech firms. In Myanmar, post-2021 coup, new legislation forces telecom and IT companies to comply with the cybersecurity law. Lana clarifies that Myanmar's military isn't just removing content directly; it's using laws to transfer censorship and surveillance responsibilities to the tech sector. This puts companies in an untenable position, forced to obey unconstitutional mandates while operating in a worsening economy, with internet shutdowns and conflict further complicating matters.There is also the inconsistent nature of content moderation. She suggests moderation policies often reflect “public opinion in Western countries and public pressure,” rather than consistent ethics. Moreover, weak or absent data protection laws leave users vulnerable, enabling companies to collect vast amounts of information.Despite these hurdles, Lana stresses civil society's essential role in ensuring digital rights. She advocates for a human rights-first approach, urging companies to conduct thorough impact assessments. “We want the private sector to be more transparent and responsive when things are flagged by ​​civil society, and solve those issues together without a fear of being given to their authorities,” she emphasizes.While a universal policy is impractical, international human rights standards are important. “We should not stop and do nothing as a civil society just because it's complicated,” she stresses, placing accountability on both companies and users to ensure a safe, free online environment.

Episode #390: The exhibition Fragmentation, hosted earlier this year at Bangkok Art and Culture Center and co-organized by SEA Junction and A New Burma, presented haunting photographs of displaced teachers and students in Karenni State, capturing both devastation and resilience in the midst of war. Through a series of interviews, curators and participants reflected on the deeper meanings of these images.Tim, the co-curator and graphic designer, explained the deliberate effort to avoid sensationalizing suffering, instead showing both the grief of loss and the ordinariness of children still learning. He recalls how the sound of school bells had come to double as an airstrike siren, a chilling metaphor for the normalization of fear.Nicola Edwards, an education researcher, highlights how schools and health facilities have become deliberate military targets. Yet she notes that this destruction has catalyzed new, community-driven education systems, from jungle classrooms to mother-tongue curricula, where untrained but dedicated volunteers sustain children's learning and safety.Patrick, a frontline doctor in Karenni, describes the direct targeting of hospitals and the horrific injuries he treats daily, many of them children. Though he has survived airstrikes and seen atrocities firsthand, he emphasized solidarity among medical workers and the determination to continue serving despite trauma.Mya Hein, a Muslim student unionist, reflects on his political awakening, the discrimination he faced, and how the revolution has brought fleeting moments of solidarity alongside lingering structural inequalities. He urged that minority rights must be central to any genuine future for Myanmar.Finally, artist and organizer MCP spoke of the revolution's impact on art, where creativity has become both a tool of survival and a means of political dialogue. For him, art conveys truths and emotions beyond statistics, keeping Myanmar's suffering—and hope—visible to the world.Together, their voices reveal a portrait of education, health, identity, and creativity as intertwined acts of resistance.

Episode #389: Mie Mie Wynn Bird, a retired U.S. Army officer and defense strategist runs leadership and capacity-building workshops for Myanmar's pro-democracy movement. In this episode, she argues that morale—and not weapons or resources—is the decisive factor in war. She is guided by this principle: “people first, mission always”: leaders must train, protect, and respect their teams while keeping the mission in focus, building trust that cannot be fabricated in crisis. In Myanmar, morale among the resistance groups continues to be high, with the people believing they are fighting for a righteous cause. In contrast, the morale of the military's conscripts deteriorates by the day, and a vibrant Burmese-language media ecosystem also mocks and undermines the regime, boosting opposition confidence. She estimates the junta holds just 20% of the country despite the huge material and weapons imbalances in its favor. Mie Mie Wynn Bird also highlights language use as part of the struggle. She calls out Western media for framing the struggle in “both sides” platitudes, and for using words that distort perception of the conflict, like “insurgents” instead of “revolutionary forces.” She urges the international community to frame the resistance in Myanmar as a story of ingenuity and determination, because winning the narrative is part of sustaining morale. Praising the diaspora's critical and selfless contributions, which further boosts morale, she notes that the increased participation of women in all facets of the struggle does as well, as diversity strengthens problem-solving and resilience. She does, however, note the beginnings of a decline in women's participation because of lingering cultural norms, which she views as both avoidable but also harmful to the cause. In the end, Mie Mie Wynn Bird says, “The Myanmar story is not a story of victims. It is a story of ingenuity, adaptability, and determination.”

Episode #388: “Every day in Myanmar, people are living in constant fear, fear of air strike, fear of artillery, fear of arbitrary arrest, fear of extra judicial killing. As long as the military is in power, the country will not be in peace,” says Alex, a Burmese activist-in-exile about Myanmar's brutal reality under military rule. His believes that the military's planned, upcoming elections are in his words “a sham,” just a strategy to consolidate power and a deceptive charade to gain international legitimacy. Because they already hold 25% of the Parliamentary seats under the fraudulent 2008 Constitution, which sets the minimum limit of 33% of the total seats as the threshold for being able to form a government, they just need 8% more. This leads Alex to conclude that the junta will easily be able to manipulate the results to achieve whatever outcome they want. “They are trying to lie to the world, to the country, that's what they have been doing since day one.”The second guest is Wunna, and he describes how on the morning of February 1, 2021, he recalls an eerie silence. The internet was down and phone lines had been cut. Wunna and a friend drove to Naypyidaw to see what was happening – they observed MPs being held under house arrest, guarded by soldiers. “I couldn't even describe how I felt that day. It was really powerless and hopeless on the first day.” This direct experience at Ground Zero propelled him into action. He joined the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), arranging safe houses and transportation for civil servants. But his bank account was subsequently frozen, and the escalating risk finally forced him to reluctantly make the agonizing decision to leave Myanmar, joining countless exiles.Despite his personal sacrifice, Wunna clings to a powerful conviction. He believes the revolution, built from nothing, still has the opportunity to prevail. To avoid despair, he just focuses on what is within his power to do. He acknowledges international skepticism to the resistance but affirms its strength. He advocates for constructive criticism, but says that it should be accompanied by practical suggestions, and not just empty theorizing. His final message is a call to global solidarity: “I just want to request, be part of our history in defending and nurturing democracy.”

Episode #387: “I think vipassana has always been a response to crisis, not just a quest for spiritual purity,” says Gustaaf Houtman, anthropologist and author of Traditions of Buddhist Practice in Burma and Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics. Drawing on decades of research and immersion in the culture, Houtman connects meditation, language, politics, and cultural history, revealing a view of Burma's Buddhist traditions that resists Western simplifications. Houtman contrasts Western notions of religion—rooted in belief in abstract doctrines and separated from culture—with the Burmese concept of sāsana, the Buddha's dispensation, which is integrally embedded in historical and social life. He juxtaposes sāsana with bodha-batha, a term coined by the 19th century American missionary Adoniram Judson, which reframed Buddhism as a belief-based “-ism,” comparable to Christianity. This, Houtman argues, was not simply linguistic but ideological as well. In response, Burmese reformers emphasized Pāḷi terms like sāsana to defend Buddhism's historical and cultural depth, turning language into “a site of resistance” against Western cultural hegemony. This framework illuminates the importance of lineage in Burmese meditation. Unlike monastic ordination, which is formally documented, meditation instruction is informal and personal, requiring validation from respected teachers— and it rarely goes in a straight line. U Ba Khin's reliance on Webu Sayadaw's endorsement exemplifies how Burmese meditation culture depends on networks of trust and recognition. Houtman contrasts this complexity with S. N. Goenka's simplified lineage narrative, which, while pedagogically effective, erases the historical crises— British colonialism, military dictatorship, and cultural reform— that gave rise to vipassana. He links this history to Ledi Sayadaw, whose reforms empowered laypeople to sustain Buddhism during colonial rule, paving the way for later teachers like Mahasi Sayadaw and U Ba Khin. Meditation in Burma, Houtman emphasizes, has long been entwined with social and cultural life, politics, and survival, and is a source of cultural pride. Today, he supports exiled Burmese scholars through what he calls “academic activism,” insisting that understanding Burma requires joining its ongoing historical struggle. “If you stay with it, you will be drawn in. And if you're drawn in, you stay for the long haul.”

Episode #386: Maw Htun, Deputy Minister for Electricity and Energy in Myanmar's National Unity Government (NUG), has navigated a path defined by personal tribulation and transformation since the 2021 coup. His journey began with joining the NUG to fulfill a lifelong dream of systemic change, but was soon overshadowed by a battle with cancer. With his critical illness and having to endure a series of complex medical procedures, Maw Htun faced an existential crisis. This harrowing experience, including a miraculous recovery linked to a burgeoning meditation practice, radically reshaped his worldview and even his political outlook.Previously driven by achievements, he found a deeper humility, recognizing the fragility of life and the illusion of fixed identities. Though recognizing his Kachin and Christian identities, his experience of suffering led him to perceive social identities as “constructs,” advocating for a politics focused on shared humanity. He advocates for a federal democracy that genuinely ensures “making life better no matter who you are.”Maw Htun's role in the NUG is central to this vision. He describes the body as a legitimate government and a revolutionary force, battling resource constraints and public expectations. He asserts its essential role in rallying support and establishing defense forces, arguing that the junta's brutal aerial attacks prove “the NUG mechanism is working.” While acknowledging valid criticisms regarding efficiency and representation, he stresses the NUG's dedication to human rights and its non-static, evolving nature– a resilience that fuels his resolve to fight for a future Myanmar free from discrimination.

Episode #385: Minna Fredriksson, human rights advisor at the Swedish development organization Diakonia, describes her humanitarian work and critiques the humanitarian aid field based on her years of work in Southeast Asia. Fredriksson managed humanitarian efforts in refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar border in 2013. This was at the start of the democratic transition, and when donor governments such as the U.S., Sweden, Germany, and Japan were urging refugees to return to Myanmar despite persistent insecurity. She observed firsthand the disconnect between donor timelines and refugee realities. Later, inside Myanmar, Fredriksson found that decades of repression had shaped how people communicated even in safe settings, highlighting the need for culturally-sensitive modes of communication and trust-building. She stresses that aid responses must be trauma-informed, participatory, and led by communities themselves, and offers examples of successful local initiatives. However, she cautions against overromanticizing societies, including traditional societies, noting that all exhibit inequalities and prejudices of some kind or other. “Those need to be addressed,” she says firmly. She also warns of the global trend of aid retrenchment, especially Sweden's shift toward nationalist priorities, which undermines those on-the-ground gains. “It breaks my heart when I hear that people say, ‘It's like the world doesn't care,'” she says. In closing, Fredriksson highlights the damaging effects of information repression inside Myanmar, which she calls a form of “soft violence,” as well as the international marginalization and erasure of Myanmar's crisis. She affirms her commitment to amplifying Myanmar's voices: “The motivation, of course, to continue to talk about Myanmar… and make sure that there is information about what's happening.”