Insight Myanmar

Imagine a conversation that ranges from The Life of Brian to the modern Burmese Sangha, from The Godfather to trashy Burmese style romance movies, from Eminem to Ashin Wirathu… and lots more in between. That is the discussion that follows with the artist, "Bart Was Not Here." Bart employs an unpredictable blend of classical influences with modern, often Western pop influences in support of hi...

Dave LeDuc loves all things Myanmar. But maybe more than anything, Dave loves stepping into a fighting pit without gloves or shoes, and giving well-placed head butts that knock an opponent cold! Dave is Myanmar’s first— and only— foreign champion of Lethwei, a traditional martial arts boxing practice that dates back centuries. Dave became interested in mixed martial arts and trained in a variety o...

This is the fifth show in the “Love Letters to Myanmar” series, focusing on the role of artists in the democracy movement. It is part of an ongoing conversation about the role of art in the democracy movement, with several past and future shows continuing this exploration. At the present moment, the Burmese people are in the middle of a life-or-death struggle against an organized military that is...

Burmese artists are rightly gaining global recognition for their courage and bravery, standing up for freedom of expression against a murderous regime. While this is somewhat of a new phenomenon for the younger generation of Burmese artists, Darko has been at the intersection of protest and music for some time, as the lead singer of the Indie band "Side Effect." Darko grew up under the prior milit...

David Eubank didn't know that a single moment on a jungle path in 1997 would prove to be so eventful for not only his own life, but an entire nation as well. Living in Thailand at the time, David was growing distressed hearing about a Burmese military operation that was displacing over half a million people. So loading up four backpacks with medicine, he decided to travel the border to see if he c...

Just a short window of five minutes might have saved the life of Dr. Troy… but he doesn’t feel good about it. In a country where just practicing medicine can now be cause for arrest, Troy is a part of a network of underground doctors who tend to patients in secret, often using rudimentary equipment in undisclosed locations. Earlier this year, he was on his way to relieve another doctor, but was de...

One night in March, Hla Hla and her husband, Yan Min Aung, were on the rooftop of their condo as part of a neighborhood watch group, where ordinary citizens banded together to protect themselves—not from common criminals, but from those supposedly charged with protecting them. That evening, the police arrived to take down some barricades, and she took out her cell phone to film them. They saw...

“Myanmar people are very resilient,” Meredith Bunn says at the start of the conversation.“They have the older generation who lived through so much already. And very luckily, in a way, those people have explained to them, ‘Well, this is what we used to have to do. Let's do this again.’” As much as Meredith has witnessed countless examples of the Burmese people’s courage, she still encounters scenes...

The minute that the military took over on February 1 st , Hassan was under no illusions as to what was in store. “I never believed we could win without non-violence, because I know [the military],” he said. Hassan’s answer was interrupted by a cough. He recently contracted COVID, and was only beginning to recover at the time of this interview. But while much of the population had no way...

Marlar has spent years researching gender studies, women’s rights, and violence against women in Burmese society. She notes that besides Myanmar being a patriarchal culture, there is the Burmese Buddhist belief of “ pon, ”which refers to the good karma inherently bestowed upon men. Due to pon , Marlar is prevented from meditating in certain places in Shwedagon Pagoda, which led her as a girl to wo...

In Myanmar, we know that the coup has been an on-going nightmare since February, and more recently there has been a sharp, Delta-driven Covid spike that the military leadership not only can’t control, but seems driven to exacerbate. People there have started referring to the double crises as “Coupvid”, a term which accurately reflects the obstacles the Burmese people face in just being able to sur...

The ending line of Jessica Mudditt’s book, Our Home In Myanmar , puts a startling cap on her account of her life in Yangon in the 2010s. She writes, “Myanmar’s sudden returned to a dictatorship means that I have inadvertently written a history book.” This is the subject of the current episode, which charts Jessica’s hard-won attempts to live in Myanmar during the last decade. Jessica was primarily...

There are several images that will forever be seared into the mind of the Burmese hip hop artist known as 882021; pictures and videos that he will never be able to unsee, like soldiers charging at protesters, or thugs dressed in monks’ robes cracking car windows with crowbars. 882021 references these grim scenes not only in his music, but also in the artwork in his music videos. He is one of many...

From the moment you begin looking into the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus pandemic in Myanmar, the numbers are simply staggering. Some projections suggest half of the population might be infected within two weeks, and there is now the risk that the country will become a super-spreader Covid state that fuels outbreaks across the region, with a full one-third of the world’s populatio...

This is the fourth episode in our ongoing series, “Love Letters to Myanmar.” Today’s show welcomes three foreigners who share how Myanmar has influenced and supported their spiritual path, and the depth of gratitude they have for the country and people. The first guest is Venerable Canda, a Buddhist nun from England. When she was 19 years old, she visited India, where she attended a ten-day vipass...

When Han Htoo Khant Paing was pursuing degrees at the University of Economics in Yangon and Oxford University in England, he never imagined that one day he would be fleeing for his life to the jungles of Karen State. While many of his friends were enjoying the benefits of the liberalization and reforms of the 2010s, Han was growing increasingly worried that the transition was not going far enough....

Michael Haack’s lifelong advocacy for Myanmar had a fortuitous start. With a growing interest in the divestment movement, he took advantage of an opportunity to take alternative winter break during his university years on the Thai-Myanmar border. While there, local people told him that they wanted foreign companies to stop doing business with the governing junta. Back at school, he aligned hi...

Lynn wants to know if anyone can suggest something that hasn’t already been tried. In contrast to many other protesters whose political consciousness was raised only after the coup, Lynn’s own professional and personal background in seeking peaceful solutions to his country’s problems goes back much further than the current moment. Before the coup, he worked directly on the peace process for years...

How can a dedicated meditator maintain the five precepts when encountering armed soldiers with orders to abduct, rape, torture, or even kill? How should devoted lay supporters of the Saṅgha respond when much of their own monkhood remains silent even as their country is burning around them? What is the best way that practitioners outside of Myanmar can support the protest movement at this time? The...

In more normal times, Thiri Nandar would look for a way to balance her love of music with a spiritual practice. But the challenges of this current crisis make it impossible to either enjoy her music, or pursue her meditation practice. Instead, she is an active member of La Communauté Birmane (CBF), where she works tirelessly to fundraise to support the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM),...

Today we are joined by Mark, a Chin from the Zomi tribe. For Mark and his fellow Chin Christians, the military coup represents not only a loss of basic political freedoms, but also a loss of religious freedom. Before the recent democratic reforms, freedom of worship was by no means guaranteed; the Burmese military would routinely visit Chin communities to destroy crosses and churches. For the Chin...

Thaw Htet is juggling a lot these days: a donation platform, running two free medical clinics, and supplying defense teams. On top of this, he’s also created two anti-military Facebook pages that have gone viral in the Burmese online community. What is all the more remarkable is that Thaw Htet was once barely able to even take care of himself, as he survived two suicide attempts and a later fear t...

Doh Say’s life work has been leading to this moment. He became involved with the Free Burma Rangers through his longtime friendship with David Eubank, the founder of the group. The Rangers are a humanitarian service group dedicated to supporting the country’ ethnic minorities in their long-running struggle against the depredations and brutality of the military.  Doh Say has spent over 20...

This is the third episode in our ongoing series “Love Letters to Myanmar.” Our recent run of longform interviews has tried to realistically portray the terror and suffering that so many Burmese people have been facing during this four-month long siege, since the military initiated their coup on February 1. As critical as it is to tell these stories, we feel it is important that this platform...

When Jonathan fell to the ground, the only thing he could think to do was to somehow shield his head from the blows and kicks coming from all directions, his reflexes automatically kicking in as he tried to protect himself from a murderous regime, whose soldiers are not above beating people to death in the streets in broad daylight. Jonathan’s “crime” was peacefully protesting against the mil...