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aletteroflovetome · 2 years

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8888 Uprising: how one gun ruled a thousand people

Today is August 8th, 2022. Internationally, it’s just any other day.

But in Myanmar, on this day exactly 34 years ago, began an uprising that would became known as 8888 Uprising, one of the most monumental moment of defiance and tragedy in the long bloody history of Myanmar’s struggle for true freedom.

1988, August 8, was just like any other day in the misty mornings of Yangon (then Rangoon). Except, it was slightly different today. There had been news of political uprisings, slowly spreading across the country. Burma, as it was known then, had been under the rule of General Ne Win since the 1962 coup d’etat. Ne Win had transformed the country into a military ruled socialist regime that had oppressed political opponents. Unsurprisingly, the regime was rampant with corruption, with Ne Win at the head of it all. The population had perished under such circumstances. Economic woes were high leading up to the year 1988, especially with the withdrawal of 20, 50, 100, banknotes. It wouldn’t be surprising that such a state in dire states would brew trouble for the authorities.

It was around morning when students started piling onto street. Rangoon, then, was the capital of Burma. Many university students were already buzzing with the news. Unsurprisingly, university students were at the forefront of the revolution. A new generation that was ready to be defiant.

The march begins. A loud chorus of group swept up people from all vendors and stalls. Students who were political, students who were apolitical, watcher-bys, were all willingly pulled into the sea of demonstration. As Pascal Khoo Thwe, one of the first-hand survivors of the 8888 Revolution, had written, “words like ‘boycott’, ‘strike’, ‘demonstration’, ‘human rights’, ‘democracy’, ‘student union’, and the like during this time was like learning a new language.” Workers rushed to their storefront to get the rare and euphoric chance of shouting, “MAY THE REVOLUTION SUCCEED!” Like a forest lit aflame by one stray ember, the nationwide uprising had begun.

It was when the Rangoon protest was at its peak that the first bullet was shot. And then another. And another. And another. Before anyone knew what was happening, corpse were piling on the street. People rush left and right, and on the Pyay Road, the main road of Yangon, begun the massacre of hundreds and thousands of students. The streets were painted red, and many perished in the struggle for life. Those who were shot but lived were then dragged and buried alive with the corpses in the aftermath. Some were simply burned. Inya Lake, now a park, was one of the epicentre of it all. Students ran to nearby houses seeking shelter. It was futile. The soldiers rounded them up, and nothing was known of them. Owners who welcomed the runaway students into their houses did not leave the event unharmed either.

This was the state of Burma for several days. One first-hand survivor told me that they were using machine guns to fire into the crowd of weaponless student. He merely escaped because he was at the end of the crowd, and his teacher dragged him onto a jeep and drove away.

Another first-hand survivor was from Mandalay, whose family members were rounded up and tortured for just watching the protest.

A family who witnessed the massacre on 8888 had entirely moved away to the United States.

The scar of 8888 is real, and it is still with us today. The amount of people killed, the amount of people traumatised, and the amount of people whose future was changed forever.

8888 is a dark date that the people of Myanmar still remember. Two, three generations later, the memory of 8888 is fresh anew on our mind. With the 2021 coup d’etat, we are given a harsh reminder of how truly bloody our struggle for democracy had been. On this day today, August 8, 2022, we yet watch again the tragedy that unfolded 34 years ago and still haunts our life.

Our fight is not ever yet. When we ask the world to help support our path to democracy, we are not just asking for ourselves. We are asking for the generations and generations to come. We are asking for our future children and grandchildren, to whom we cannot as humans pass this pain and trauma onto. We have been oppressed and silenced by violence, multiple times.

But this time, we will not let ourselves be. We will not cower under them again. We will not sit still under people who have foraged and terrorized our life. In our path to democracy, we are struggling for independence, for justice, for peace, and above all, for our future generations.

We ask you, and ourselves, one last time, to make this the last ever struggle for democracy.

May the Revolution Succeed.

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Note: Most of the report here are taken from first-hand accounts of 8888 survivors. Their names have been hidden to protect their identity.You can find Pascal Khoo Thwe’s quote in his book, “From the land of green ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey”.

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aletteroflovetome · 3 years

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In many areas of Myanmar, the internet is cut. Again, we are being silenced.

This means there are a lot of events that are not being reported, and we are not getting news as quick as we have at the start of the coup.

The situation is not better, in fact, it's far worse. I wish I could have told the world 'YES, we have gained freedom! We have finally kicked the god-damned terrorist out of their hiding holes, innocent lives are not going to be gone, and WE have WON!' but the death tolls have risen. Over 100 people were killed within one day. The total number of civilians killed are estimated to be around 700. With the internet blockage, the real number can be much much higher.

It's incredibly nice that the interview with CNN reporter Clarissa Ward and her team were able to shed the light on the true voices of our heart, but we still need to be louder. There are bombs exploding in the middle of cities, many people are being forced out of their homes, and more are on the run.

Through all this, your voice still matters. It almost seems like a reblog won't make that much difference, but it does. It does. This not only gives us support and tells us that you are standing with us, this shows the world that citizens of different countries are standing with us. This is the strong message we need for governments to act together, and take action.

Us, the people of Myanmar, will not back down in this fight for justice. Since February 1, there was only one thing we knew we were going to do. Fight for our freedom, or die.

We will keep on protesting. We will keep the Civil Disobedience Movement alive. We will keep posting and retweeting because we still believe. And we still have us. Most of all, we want a just system. We want democracy because we trust that democracy is a just system. What is happening in our country is not bound to the square meters of land and a group of millions of people. This fight of ours is an answer to the state of our world: will justice or injustice prevail?

And we want to write history as a world where justice wins.

16 April, 2021

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