[Above photo: Protestors in front of the Chinese Embassy.]
15 February 2021
My students notified me that there would be a protest on Friday, gathering in front of the University of Medicine 1 where I am based. I had heard that the Rector, Dr. Zaw Wai Soe, was arrested for protesting the coup online. He is wonderful, a smart, energetic, and visionary man and sympathetic with the need to develop children’s mental health services in Myanmar, as well. I felt beside myself with anger and helplessness, so I determined to join the protest.
I was told that 70 or so physicians and nurses would stand in front of UM 1; I imagined that the senior professors would make statements of protest. I thought it might be a pretty high-profile event in Myanmar, held at the premier medical school in the country. Students with the highest scores on the secondary school matriculation exam all go to medical school, even if later they do something else. Plus, the now-widespread CDM (Civil Disobedience Movement) was initiated immediately after the coup by all of the doctors and nurses at government hospitals and universities. It now affects, and has closed, 140 hospitals countrywide. [Doctors have arranged to see patients for free in their private clinics and there is a private referral system.]
I determined that if they tried to arrest my professor, I would link arms and demand to be included. I imagined it might toss a spanner into the gears for them to have to deal with an 80yo Honorary Professor from America. Perhaps not, but I was determined to test the proposition. I wrote letters to my kids and others, locked my file cabinet, and left a letter with instructions for Kelly to call the Embassy and others in case I was arrested.
I over- and under-read the situation. There were perhaps 1000 doctors and nurses in scrubs and white coats, my professor was busy tending to the 800 chronic inhabitants at Ywar Thar Gyi, the state mental health hospital, and I was the only elder in the group. We marched and carried signs for over 4 hours in the Myanmar heat, threading our way to the Russian Embassy, the Chinese Embassy, and, then, across town to the UN Headquarters, chanting constantly.
The English language calls and responses were as follows: “Free, free, Aung San Suu Kyi” Marchers repeat (MR); “We voted NLD” MR; “Respect our vote.” MR; “We reject the military coup” MR; “We demand justice” MR; “What do we want?” “De mo cra cy”; “What do we need?” “De mo cra cy: “Support the CDM!” “CDM CDM”. Then a sequence of calls and responses in Myanmar. “We want Democracy.” “Our goal, our goal”, etc. Everything was repeated x2, so if you don’t get it on the first try, you will on the second. Frequently, it seemed to me, one of the call leaders with a bull horn was immediately behind me; my ears are still ringing. There also was a very bouncy song played loudly over mobile PA systems in passing trucks that energized everyone. The song has a polka beat and I plan to have my students teach me the words and tune when we have a slow moment in clinic.
The march was remarkably well organized. We were cordoned by rope boundaries on each side and were polite at major traffic intersections. There were snacks, water, and electrolyte fluids passed out regularly and a squad of trash collectors with large blue bags gathering up any detritus. At both the Chinese and Russian embassies we were met by large and welcoming groups of protesters who had settled in. (The Chinese and Russians leadership are interested in Burma’s riches and geopolitical position and are thought, not surprisingly, to be very supportive of the military and the coup since they all speak the same language. Aung San Suu Kyi cancelled a large Yangon city redevelopment contract with China last year, wary of the python’s coils, I think.) The UN, likewise, had a settled group in front of their headquarters; the protesters request to the UN was, “Please help us.”
I regretfully declined my students’ offer of lunch after the march. I was tired, not hungry, and felt I’d pressed the covid risk far enough for one day. I will note, to those of you who think I am being foolish and irresponsible, that I was triple masked and used hand sanitizer repeatedly. I won’t expose myself frivolously but this seemed important. It turns out it wasn’t so important and I had inflated the role I might play. I am glad my professor and I didn’t get arrested. I’m glad I went with my students. However, that may be my last time, unless there really is a role I could play that would be helpful, which seems extremely unlikely. It turns out that Rector Zaw Wai Soe had not been arrested.
A student sent me some of her top contenders for signs: A mature man holding a sign saying “My daughter marrying her K-pop crush is more believable than MAL’s words.” (Senior General Min Aung Hlaing) And, “It’s too BAD!!! Even introverts are here.” And, “I should be at home watching BL series but instead I’m here for this shit! So, Fuck Military Coup :)” “Save Myanmar for my best friend. She is still single”. “My ex cheated better than the military.” Young woman, “I was rejected by my cursh [crush] but you are rejected by millions. Bro, you are next level.” With a photo of a mass gathering, “If you think there is voter fraud, you must have got an F in maths.” Two youths standing next to each other. One sign says, “Don’t fuck with my country. Fuck my friend.” The other sign says, “I am his friend.” “The World: Covid 19 is awful. Burma we have (a photo of Sr. Gen. MAL).” “Myanmar girls be like Then: [photo of a shy, pretty woman] and Now: [photo of a witch with sharp teeth, a club and a shield]” And, “Housewives reject the military.”
It is as difficult for me to know the truth of communicated information here as it is for those who have listened to Lou Dobbs, kindly, reassuring, ass-kissing old grandfather figure that he is. [He’s probably a pedophile. Wait! Did I say that? I do love it when evangelical leaders or self-anointed Christian prophets (profits?) who rail against this or that carnal sin are discovered to be happily swimming in a lascivious soup of their own Creation. Schadenfreude.]
While it is deeply disappointing that the corrupted cowards filling our Senate seats will not vote to convict His Flabbiness, it is no surprise. No more so than that his wife is apparently jealous of the attention that the current 1st lady is earning. “Be Best” has the same hollow ring as Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No”. They may as well say “Let them eat cake” from their wealthy and uninformed podia. It’s why I doubt that the Trump daughter [Ivanka], despite her immense fortune, will ever be a successful politician. She is too shallow and un-empathic to convincingly fake it. Again, as with her Dad, I can in the abstract feel sad for the barren parenting she received.
Yesterday at l’Opera, after watching tennis 14 of us gathered for lunch outside. Two were a young couple from Ukraine who were vacationing at the beach in Napoli when covid struck. Ukraine was hit hard by the virus so they decided to stay at the beach and have been there for nearly a year. She was an IT project manager; he says he just sold his software company. He is Russian, originally from Crimea, and welcomed the Russian incursion. He was quiet and observant, very much a Russian. It is easy to imagine there is something fishy about their story. But she was animated and friendly.
As to Switzerland, the trains here have completely shut down. We haven’t had intercity bus travel since covid began. Intracity buses can no longer run because of: 1) protesters all over the streets and 2) the country is running low on the natural gas that powers them. Oh, it is also running out of jet fuel. Banks are closed because no one is coming to work. No freighters are loading or unloading at the port. It is rumored that two major banks may collapse. The government shut off the internet last night until 9AM this morning.
This week promises to be very rough. Armored vehicles with machine guns on top are appearing in the city, along with truckloads of soldiers: intimidation time. A massive protest is expected today and I can hear a part of it a mile away as I sit on my patio, enclosed by a mosquito net. The 19yo female student who was shot in the head by the military is brain-dead and her family is being encouraged to take her off of life support. 23,000 prisoners have been released. While it is a custom to let some go on national holidays—last Friday was, ironically, “Union Day”—it does make room for the mass arrests which are anticipated. The military says it wants “Disciplined Democracy”. The protesters want a new Constitution, in which the military is not in a position of governing, rather reassigned as defenders of the country at the pleasure of the civilian government.
Much of the table talk at lunch was about the CDM’s effectiveness in non-violently confronting the military. The economy has ground to a halt and the wealthy business cadre cannot be happy with the situation. If it descends into anarchy, which I doubt, I’ll try to be evacuated.
A Psychiatrist in Myanmar 