It Could Happen Here - How To Build A Revolution: Myanmar, Part 3

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

The revolution moves from the streets of Yangon to Myanmar’s ‘shatter zones’  Music for this series was provided by Rebel Riot, check out their Bandcamp here https://therebelriot.bandcamp.com/album/one-daySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance to nominate your podcast

for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires.

From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba?

Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home, and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sitting at a pool bar in Mesa, listening to covers of Creedence songs by the House Band, and losing at pool against Andy and the Boys, it's hard to think of them holed up behind a barricade clutching Molotovs.

But not so long ago, the choices the boys faced were pretty stark. Every day, every time they went out from their little apartment, they knew they might not come back. But I think the most fucked up thing that we had to plan was, what if someone gets shot, one of us, and the other person has to go carry? Who do you go? Who gets hit? And we had to, kind of like what we did just now but like okay if i get hit you know two of you this this and this person will come out and you know do this to me because it's it's um i don't know i think we were planning because

it just it's just good to have that you, because if someone gets shot and if all five of us go running in there, there's more targets, you know what I mean? So then, like, if someone with less weight gets shot, then, you know, this person goes. If someone heavier gets shot, this two person goes, something like that. When Andy says, like we did earlier, he's talking about a small stop-the-bleed type course that we had given the boys. talking about a small stop-the-bleed type course that we had given the boys. Most journalists operating in war zones will take, at minimum, a week-long hostile environment and first aid training, or HEFAT course. Many of us will take extra courses.

James and I both refreshed our wilderness first responder certificates once we had this trip planned. Andy and his brothers didn't have access to any of this. They learned what they could off the internet and tried to protect themselves as best as they were able with gear they purchased from an airsoft store. The afternoon we spent practicing skills wasn't nearly enough, but until they can travel safely more than a few miles from the border, it was better than nothing. Their little apartment had one way in and one way out. If the cops came, there was no escape. They had a plan for that, too. Yeah, so our plan was literally just to burn that fucking door down, so then it would be difficult there was no escape. They had a plan for that too. There were times that they'd wake up at night screaming. I think now it's better, right? It's been a year and a half, and we're better at coping with it. But at that time, it was very, very scary.

So that they'd be prepared to burn their door and the rest of their apartment down around themselves, the boys kept a stockpile of Molotovs mixed and ready by the front door at all times. They lived in a state of permanent readiness to commit revolutionary suicide for weeks on end. Eventually, they decided they had to flee. We should probably talk history here for just a little bit. Myanmar is a new name for a very old land. Over the centuries, it's been ruled by a series of empires and dynasties. The Mongols took over for a while in the 1200s and 1300s,

and when they left, Lower Burma had a warring states period of its own. The modern nation of Burma didn't start to come together until the 1600s and 1700s, and things didn't really congeal into a state until the reign of the last two Burmese kings, who industrialized the country and reformed its military enough to win a series of wars against neighboring groups, like the Arakan. This is what brought them into conflict with the British Raj, right at the turn of the 19th century. Their wars were sending refugees into India, and the Burmese king's designs on Thailand and British-controlled Bangladesh led to a policy wherein the British supported insurgent fighters who struck out at Burmese positions.

A series of near clashes between British and Burmese forces followed, and in January of 1824, the Burmese king, Bhagyadaw, gave his generals the order to attack. A pair of brutal jungle wars followed, and despite winning several victories early on, Burmese troops were crushed comprehensively whenever they engaged British forces in conventional battles. In January of 1886, British forces entered the capital, Mandalay, and brought an end to Burmese independence for almost 60 years. These are the broad strokes of the story, as you'll find them summed up in almost any history book.

As with most colonial history, the reality is somewhat messier than that. The Burmese Empire the British destroyed was dominated heavily by the Buma people, who gave the colony its name. But there were other peoples in the territory they claimed. The Shin, the Karin, Urakan, the Rohingya, and dozens more. Like most empires dominated by a single ethnicity, they were brutal. Father San Germano, who lived in pre-Raj Burma, wrote of the king, He is considered by himself and others absolute lord of the lives, properties, and personal services of his subjects. He exalts and oppresses, confers and takes away honor and rank, and, without any process of law, can put

to death not only criminals guilty of capital offenses, but any individual who happens to incur his displeasure. It is here a perilous thing for a person to become distinguished for wealth and possessions, for the day may easily come when he will be charged with some supposed crime, and so put to death, in order that his property may be confiscated. Every subject is the emperor's born slave, and when he calls anyone his slave, he thinks thereby to do him honor. Hence, also, he considers himself entitled to employ his subjects in any work of service, without salary or pay, and if he makes them any recompense, it is done not from a sense of justice, but as an act of bounty. And while Bagheera was a fairly modern king, brutality like this went back

hundreds of years in the region. Most of the kings and princes and other people who ruled the land we now call Myanmar did so with brutal force and an awful lot of conscription. This is broadly true of much of Southeast Asia. Western histories of this region tend to flatten life into kingdoms and empires and assume life in the region coincided politically with the lines drawn on maps. This was never the case. Much of mainland Southeast Asia, from the central highlands of Vietnam through Myanmar, Northeast India, and several southern Chinese provinces, is filled with terrifying mountains and brutal hills, covered with the densest jungle imaginable. Standing in Maysat and staring across the

border into Myanmar, all you see is a vast expanse of jagged, deep green peaks rolling endlessly on. James and I are both experienced backpackers, and neither of us would have wanted to take on that terrain without quality gear and weeks of endurance training. In an era before planes, helicopters, or satellite communications, this area was practically ungovernable. People were aware of this at the time, and for roughly the last 2,000 years, this chunk of highland Southeast Asia,

known to political scientists as Zomia, has been a refuge for people pushed out and put down by the great state powers of the area. Empires and kings would stick to the coasts and the flat plains, perfect for cultivating rice. When they taxed their subjects too hard or conscripted too many of them into the military, some would flee to the hills to take their freedom. As James C. Scott, a Yale poli-sci professor, writes, the frontier operated as a rough and ready homeostatic device. Scott, a Yale poli-sci professor, writes, The frontier operated as a rough-and-ready homeostatic device. The more a state pressed its subjects, the fewer subjects it had.

The frontier underwrote freedom. He calls the people who chose to inhabit this stateless zone barbarians by choice. While many of these ethnic groups were mocked for their lack of so-called civilized values, like widespread literacy, Scott argues that this lack was actually a conscious rejection. Their refusal to educate themselves in a manner acceptable to the powers of the day was a rebellion against the legitimacy of those powers and their standards. Human history in our modern globe is filled with places like this. Human history in our modern globe is filled with places like this.

Muddied areas at the borders of great powers where the detritus of war, refugees, and beaten soldiers can congregate without fear of the state. The term for these places is shatter zones. Rojava, the radical feminist enclave in northeast Syria, would be one example of a shatter zone, and the unique political potential such places have. Myanmar is, by landmass, mostly shatter zones, and since 1949, different ethnic armed organizations have existed in a more or less constant conflict with the state. This includes the Karen people, whose territory borders Thailand. When the young millennial and Zoomer protesters in the cities realized they were going to

have to flee their homes to continue the fight, Karen territory was a natural place to retreat to. People had been making versions of the same decision for 2,000 years. The current situation between the Karen and Myanmar's military junta actually owes a lot to the British Empire. When they took over in Myanmar, they had to figure out how to govern it, and they went with the tactic that had served them well all across India and Africa. They picked a minority ethnic group to act as their colonial shock troops. In Uganda, their preferred warrior race were the Kakwa people, from whom future dictator Idi Amin descended. For their colonial troops in India, the Brits used Sikhs and Gurkhas, and in colonial Burma, they used the Karen. Ever since the British left, the Karen have wanted as little as possible to do with the central government and Naypyidaw.

Instead, they fought to maintain Kadule, a land without darkness, as they were promised in Burma's 1948 constitution. Today, they might not be recognized by the UN or the US, but the Karen have their own schools, hospitals, and army. They have been at war since 1949. Andy, whose father is Karen, only really found out about the struggle for Kwadule, a home for the Karen language peoples, when he became a refugee. He moved into the camps along the border after the Saffron Revolution. He was only eight years old. The border is dotted with camps, some of them more like towns, but they're always temporary, and while the Thai government tolerates the Karin presence,

people there are seen as temporarily displaced. They can't build solid homes and don't have the identity documents they need to travel, even internally in Thailand. Despite not growing up there, Andy's identity card says Karin. It doesn't take a PhD in history to know that ethnic identity cards issued by imperial and formerly post-colonial governments are bad news. But if you need more information about that, maybe Google ID cards, Rwanda. Like most people in most places, the young people from Myanmar we talked to

had thought relatively little about the injustices on the edge of their world. They tended to think of the Karen as terrorists up in the hills, rather than freedom fighters. But once the Tatmadaw started unloading machine guns into crowds, people were confronted with the reality of a situation that they'd been able to ignore before. Suddenly, they saw that the Karen and other marginalized ethnic groups were victims of the same government violence that they now faced. And now that the scales had fallen from their eyes, they were going to do something about it. The main majority of groups, people, they are Karen people, which is another ethnic groups from Myanmar and they they had a different view right because obviously the military while we were like because we were born in the city we were more like a you know like we didn't suffer that much

even though it wasn't that great you know but then for them the military come to their states the military come to their villages they burn the villages they kill the people they burn the villages, they kill the people, they raid the people, you know, they do all these atrocities. So then they have a very different view on the Myanmar military and how the country is, you know, working, doing. And so that's when I started learning, oh shit, there is some other stuff going on in the country. But, you know, like you kind of just, like you kind of just live with your life, you know, you're a kid, you're trying to, I don't know, get by day to day, like, so you didn't really think about it. And for me, that went on for a long time until the military coup happened in Myanmar. The present revolution is not the only flare up of interethnic violence in the country.

In 2017, the Tatmadaw under Ming An Klan began a concerted campaign of genocidal ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya people, a largely Muslim ethnic group who live in the country's Rakhine state. The Tatmadaw, claiming the Rohingya were variously terrorists or illegal immigrants native to modern-day Bangladesh and hence not native to Myanmar, spent months raping, killing and burning the villages of the Rohingya people, while the world, perhaps distracted by a neoliberal consensus which demonises both migrants and Muslims, did fuck all to stop them. In Myanmar, nobody spoke about the genocide, at least not in those terms.

Most people didn't even speak about the Rohingya in those terms because Tatmadaw propaganda was so effective that citizens in Yangon really believed that the Rohingya were migrants and terrorists coming from Bangladesh. Government newspapers like the New Light of Myanmar published daily stories linking them to groups like ISIS or Al-Qaeda, who, despite their best efforts, remain totally irrelevant in this story. Bots popped up on Facebook, which is basically synonymous with the internet for many people living in Myanmar, and fed a steady diet of anti-Rohingya hate speech into political discourse,

gradually shifting the Overton window towards genocide. And without better information most people believe them. Andy's western friends, probably weirdos like me who'd crept into his DMs at some point, started to ask him questions. So the Rundan thing happened in 2017. I was 17. And, you know, we started hearing, I started getting phone calls from my friends in the Western countries, like Westerners. They would be like, hey, what's happening in your country? Why are you killing like all the muslims and i'm like mess out thailand and i'm like i i don't know what you're talking about i've never heard anything like that right um and so yeah and then i like i try to learn a little bit more but everyone

had so intense opinions about it that at some point i'm like oh fuck i don't i don't know anymore you know because the military was in control at that time still kind of so they control the news they control the media they control it's the same thing you know like they control who was saying what and so we never hear about it that much if you only if only you care so much and you're following everyone that is saying you know the truth then you know but otherwise you you didn't know it was all very blurry very so that's another time when i'm like oh fuck like i don't know what to do i'm just gonna you know and then went on with my life um and yeah i never i never realized how much uh like how much they had to suffer and they are still suffering? No number of international protests had stopped the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya.

As they huddled, hidden in their apartment, Andy and his brothers began to embrace the need for deadly violence against their oppressors. We never had any plans, actually. We were just like, no, I think, I remember, it's like, that was not really planned. It was like, they killed our people who will fucking hurt them back, you know?

It wasn't to get their guns. Or shoot them back. Like we didn't even know how to use any of that. You know. And honestly we didn't even want to kill them. We just want to be like. You can't do these things. And not feel.

Not feel any. Anything. You know. Not feel any consequences of that. Like we're not fucking. We're not animals, you know, you can't just come in and kill one of our friends and think that we're not going to do anything back, you know? Like, if we let that happen, then they're never going to stop. You

know, they were trying to scare us and we were trying to scare them back, but they actually killed people. We didn't, we never wanted to kill anyone, you know. Andy's situation felt hopeless at this stage, trapped at the Capitol and watching his friends disappear one by one. It seemed like he was running out of options. Thousands of young people in Myanmar felt the same, and some of them decided to take an option they hadn't even known existed a few weeks earlier. While we were in Mesat, we conducted a phone interview with a former rebel fighter named Alex. Like everyone else we talked to, he woke up on the 1st of February

to find out that his phone didn't work and the internet was out. Yeah, I thought it was just something wrong with my phone and then I started talking to my friends and all my friends are having the same problem. So we looked down

and everybody is rushing down to the market because we live close to the market. And like, we're like, you know, like doing like, like buying lots of rice and like food to like store because no one knows what's gonna happen. Like everyone else, he wasn't that into politics. But he was absolutely not into having the military fuck with every aspect of his life. So he got into the streets. At first, like, we are not like that but he was absolutely not into having the military fuck with every aspect of his life. So he got into the streets. At first, like, we are not like that into the politics and stuff,

so we didn't know, but then, you know, like, they can even, like, shut down the internet. It's kind of, like, controlling our life, right? So, like, if they can even do that, like, you know, like, we cannot imagine, cannot imagine what other things they can do, which they did, like killing the innocent civilians and stuff. So yeah, at first, we just like, oh yeah, we need to do something about this and then join the protests. He and his friends later found a shop to buy gas masks, tasers and goggles. But even with all their gear, they were powerless against soldiers with guns and tear gas.

He said that the next few weeks were hard. The protests were less and less safe, but nobody dared to talk about their plans to take the fight to the military. Everyone was worried about informants and snitches. We didn't really like actually talk about those stuff. Like we're only like discussing about, you know, like protesting and also like how to get attention from the like embassies and stuff but uh for like fight fighting back and you know like going on the walls or like i think like almost everyone they just decide on their own unless they have super like trust their friends by april says, he'd seen people die in the streets. He decided that protesting wasn't working and he needed to pick up a gun.

The only problem was he didn't have one. Nor did his friends. He knew some people who had guns and hated the Tatmadaw, but he'd been raised his whole life to think of them as terrorists. Before this, we'd been, you know, like, brainwashed by the military, like, pretty much our whole life. So we always think all ethnic groups are like, they're okay, whoever they see. And then they're just terrorists, terrorists, right?

That's what the military make us believe our whole life. That's what the military make us believe our whole life. And I was kind of scared to join them because I didn't know how to live there or if they're going to kill me just because I don't speak Karen. It was, bizarrely, his boss who hooked him up with the rebels in the hills. But he couldn't tell anyone he was going, in case they got captured or turned out to be a snitch. Instead, he packed his bag with some of his old clothes, didn't even say goodbye to his family, and took a bus. He got off that bus and waited until a man in the car picked him up. By that night of the leaders from the jungle, train us by walking in the dark, in the forest.

So we had to walk to somewhere we didn't even know, and we had to sleep in the deep jungle. He'd read about the PDF on Facebook, but suddenly he found himself among them. Technically, they're a distinct unit fighting for a return to democracy, but in practice they were trained and equipped by the Karen National Liberation Army, who had been fighting for federal democracy for decades. Pretty soon, his opinion of the Karen had changed. During my time, I did some observation about them.

It was obvious that the government, it's not the Karen people fighting the military. The military has been like, you know, like invading their current villages, like current land. And yeah, they were like banning down their like villages, like raping the women, you know, like killing the people for like many years. So they cannot do anything but to fight back. They have to fight back to protect their land. Just like Zor, the now deceased rebel soldier who we interviewed for our last series, Alex received rudimentary training.

He'd never fired a gun before, and supplies were very limited, but he still got a kick out of sending a few rounds downrange. Not even in my dreams, I never thought never thought, like, I would be, like, holding it again or, like, shooting it. So, it feels pretty good. What kind of gun was it? Was it a.22 or was it, you know? Yes, the first one was.22.

Was it handmade, handmade, or was it, you know? No, it's not handmade, but it's kind of pretty old. Even in the jungle, they were worried about moles. It took a while to make friends, he says. But eventually he fell in with a cop who had defected, a photographer and a construction worker. Their plan, he says, was to train up in the jungle and then go home and fight in the cities.

Like our idea was, you know, like we went there and trained for a few months and then go home and fight in the cities. Like, our, like, idea was, you know, like, we went there and trained for a few months and then go back to the city. And, like, we thought, like, it's going to be, like, a huge war in the cities, like, in Yangon or Mandalay and also, like, everywhere in Myanmar. But, yeah, it didn't turn out like that. But instead, he found himself pulling sentry duty in the jungle. For a city kid, it was scary alone out there in the night

with a gun surrounded by potential threats. I felt like, you know, like, OK, it's going to happen tonight. Like, they're going to come to our base tonight. So I'm going to have to shoot them. I have to protect my people. That's funny though, but it didn't happen. Yeah. Alex spent eight months in a field, pulling sentry duty and learning the skills of a soldier. But without arms and ammunition, there wasn't much he could do.

In his whole time training, he says he only fired five shots. I felt kind of useless because we don't have enough guns. So by the time there there was a like a strike happening in uh lakiko and i thought like oh we gonna have to like go and you know like fight them now but instead like we have to pack our staff and move to a deeper jungle so we were like kind of like refugees with uniforms so yeah um you know, if I just keep staying there, if we are just going to keep running away like this, I don't want to stay there.

I want to do something about the needs, like the main needs in our country, the weapons against. So I want to come here and work for that." The transition was hard. For eight months he hadn't seen a light bulb or a flushing toilet. Now, he crossed a river and everything seemed normal. It feels kind of weird. From the jungle and the man's house, it's just a small river across. And then the life here is totally different. People are living their normal life and not having to worry for any things.

The whole time I was in jungle, we have to worry about our country and we don't want to live a normal life until the military is gone. But then here, everyone is living a normal life. And it's just only one river across. Now that he's across the river,

we won't say where. He's still part of the revolution. He's raising money and doing interviews like this, trying to organize medical supplies and hoping that one day he can return to his country. Not as a refugee with a uniform,

but perhaps as a soldier liberating his people, or better yet, as a citizen in a free democracy. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know it. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows

as part of My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me in a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters.

From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hola, mi gente. It's Honey German, and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters,

this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture

to deeper topics like identity, community and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th.

Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Mjok wasn't ready to be a refugee quite yet. He quickly found a role for himself in the militant side of what had become a full-fledged civil war. Before the coup, he'd been studying engineering at university, and he liked to understand how things worked. Although Alex and his comrades had a critical shortage of weapons, Myok didn't only make guns at first. He made bombs too, using knowledge that he'd gained after traveling into

the jungle and getting training from Karen experts in explosives. And as he told us, they were very effective. Do you think the explosives took out any soldiers? Of course. Some explosives are for the baiting. Some explosives are for the base. Some are the trap bow. So, you know, they camp and pick the bow and try to cut off the bow and just explode. So they die. So my...

They try to cut off the what? Cut off the wire. Bone wire. Okay, gotcha. But they die. Anyway, so it's like my best memory is that we are using and very fast ETM ETM in in in in thing angel now this revolutionary things the whole things are arrested all this arrest is very sad when When they made the EDM ball, we had the ambulance, how do you say,

ambulance plan. Ambulance plan. It's like five ambulance truck is coming here. Oh, wow. I think this is my best memory. Wow, okay. Wow, so the bomb goes off and they have to send in five ambulances. Yes, yes, yes.

Was it soldiers or police? Soldiers. Soldiers. Yes, the soldier who checked the road. Yeah. It was just bombs that the young rebels learned about. They also shattered many of their misconceptions about the roles of men and women. about the roles of men and women.

Welcome, I'm Danny Threl. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry,

we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola, mi gente. It's Honey German, and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again,

the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs

and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything, from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral.

Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it.

Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. As women like Amira stepped up to the front lines and fought alongside their male comrades, it became hard to ignore the sexism which underpinned much of traditional Burmese culture. The music you just heard from a Yangon punk band called Rebel Riot, they gave us permission to use it here. They have some great songs about the Spring Revolution, and this one focuses on the role of women. In the video, you see young women in the streets, and then you see them in the jungles carrying M16s. Myanmar might previously have had a woman leader, but gender equality had been far from universal. Andy told us a story about this, and we recorded it, but it was our last night in the country,

and we were on our way to another spectacular hangover. One that would see me vomiting with such ferocity on a flight that an elderly Thai lady took pity on me and gave me her shopping bag once I filled up my sick bag. In the second month of the revolution, Andy said, when they were in Yangon, the protesters would build giant barricades to keep the police back. We've seen videos of these. They're pretty impressive. Huge mounds of pallets, boxes and burning tires. We got some other audio of him describing them. No, we could never get close to the military. It was never attack, it was always defense.

So later on when we started seeing how military crack down these protesters, we started building these gates and like sandbags in our every base in the in the yangon naody whatever all across the country we started building these barriers so that the military trucks cannot just come in and it's actually crazy because sometimes to build these things you have to take over the road first so like like a main road or a highway so then what we do is all these little groups will gather. So one street, two street, three street, you know, and then we will go to that street or we will walk down the street saying, we're going to try to take over this street.

Please come join. People come down, people come down from the streets, from the buildings. And then we go to the next street. We say the same thing. And then people will join. Nothing they did could stand up to a tank, though, just as that shopping bag couldn't stand up to James' vomit. The military started using human shields to get through the barricades and the groups of people throwing molotovs.

Usually we would defend our places, right? We would use molotov slingshots, and we would resist, like we would attack, like we would be behind the gate, but we would kind of make them cannot come too too far you know but when the military have someone that they're gun pointing just a normal civilian and making him move we can't do anything man like we can't go through a molotov like you know so that's when the military clean out all of that in yangon, I think. There was a time when it was packed. It was every road had it.

Every street had it. And everyone was guarding that, right? But then when the military started, and they said it in the statements, they were saying, if that's near your house, you're responsible. Then they came up with a better idea. In Burmese culture,

men fear passing under women's clothing. If it's hanging on a washing line, they'll go around rather than under it. It is, as Andy told us, bullshit. So they decided to turn that bullshit back on the troops, and they grabbed as many women's longies, a traditional garment worn around the waist like a sarong, as they could, and hung them up above their barricade. It worked, he said, and just like that,

a generation of Burmese kids realized that sexism hurts everyone who perpetuates it. Myak told us an interesting story about this. He said the first time he met his fiancée, he thought that she was pretty sharp for a girl. That, he says now, was his bad. Myanmar, he says, has some gender hang-ups, but he soon realized that she was the bravest person he knew. gender hang-ups, but he soon realized that she was the bravest person he knew. They went to protest together, and when something needed moving from one town to another,

they took advantage of those gender hang-ups and her bravery, and she risked her life carrying weapons in her bags on inner-city buses. We'll let him tell you how they met. meeting like I you know yeah we we started making maybe it is in a very fast week first week of match making very very very very respected memories yes the name of the meeting is brainstorming okay brainstorming the name of the meeting is brainstorming I do sign she she is very you know

respected she said the very thoughtful things yeah oh she is you know, respected. She said very thoughtful things. Oh, she is, you know, so thoughtful. I don't even think, you know, in Myanmar, culture is based on China, you know. So wines are always good, like people. It's in China, you know, something like this. So I thought, oh, she's really good. Or she's a kid. That's my bad. I have some China at those time. But later, I met with her on the

project. So I saw she is so beautiful. I thought she's just 20 years old. Later we know. Later, later. So we keep doing together the things. And she is my bad girl. I was on ground other things. She is my bad guy. I was on the ground like this. Whenever I have I've been in danger, I always contact her. We asked him if he worried she'd get arrested while she was making trips into the mountains with guns and bombs. But he said no. Was it hard to leave her to go to the jungle? Because she could get arrested, you could get arrested.

No, no. She is very clever. So I never worry about her. I just worry about myself because she is more, you know, secret and she is more clever than me. So she only teach me how to be clever. Much like Meowg, Amira was falling in love as well. Her relationship was a bit different though. At first, we were in a group chat. Yeah, but then did you make a private chat? Yeah. You made the private chat.

Who started the private chat? I did. I think I did. Because at that time, I feel like, oh, she is so young. At that time, she's not even 18. She's 17 years old, and she's leading one of the pro-tax team. So I'm like, wow, this girl is like amazing, right? So that's how I met her and that's how I, you know, tried to hit her.

Now, admittedly, TK, the security guy, is translating here. He's also her boyfriend. And for now, he's here with her to make sure she's okay. When we met them both, it was just weeks after he'd arrived in Thailand, and the two had met in person for the very first time. It's a kind of story you can't help but find touching. Two people on opposite sides of the world, united by a fight for justice and the bonds of revolutionary care. At least it's a nice counterweight to all the

stories of death and violence, which we'll have more of for you tomorrow on part four of this series. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of fright.

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