Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

** 10-Mar-2021 World View: Myanmar / Burma violence - no end in sight

• This scene is actually a training exercise for protesters.
  The protesters hurl bottles at a line of activists posing as riot
  police to help their colleagues prepare for street battles (Daily Mail)

I heard a couple of tv analysts say that the protests in Myanmar /
Burma can't continue much longer, because the police/army violence
against the protesters is growing, and soon the protesters will have
to give up.

One of them said explicitly: "We know from history the protesters will
back down, because that's what happened in the 2007 protests after the
violence against protesters became too great."

This is a typical mistake that journalists, analysts and politicians
make all the time. In 2007, Burma was in a generational Unraveling
era, at a time when there were still plenty of people running things
who were survivors of the last generational crisis war (1948-1958),
and so there was a mood of compromise on all sides. But today, the
country is in a generational Crisis era, with all of those survivors
now retired or dead, and there's no mood of compromise among the
younger generations.

So the 2007 historical analogy is irrelevant. In fact, it may
motivate in the opposite direction, if today's protesters have the
view that the 2007 protesters gave up before they had to.

The harsh military crackdown is continuing and escalating. Police are
smashing open the doors of apartments of suspected protesters and
arresting them in the middle of the night. The police are freely
using tear gas and live ammunition, and thousands of people have
arrested.

It's thought that the protests have been only partially affected.
One reporter said that instead of hundreds of thousands of protesters
at some rallies, he's seeing "only" tens of thousands.

An interesting development is that protesters are practicing drills
and training each other to face the police. This suggests that the
protests, which formerly have been entirely organic, are now becoming
more organized.

There are an increasing number of workers in the "civil disobedience
movement," an alliance of nine trade unions in Myanmar in a general
strike Monday. The most publicized case is the strike by railway
workers. On Wednesday, security forces raided a Yangon neighborhood
where railway workers live in government-provided housing. The
workers were forced at gunpoint to go back to work.

There have been only a few defections from the army. Myanmar's
ambassadors to the UN and UK have switched sides and begged the
international community to do something. A few hundred policemen have
fled across the border into India, because they didn't want to kill
their fellow citizens.

But those defections have been rare. Both sides -- the army and the
protesters -- have been digging in and hardening their positions.
There are no signs that this will end any time soon.

---- Sources:

-- Myanmar protesters hold 'rehearsals' as they prepare for more
street clashes with military with activists posing as riot police
as they are pelted with bottles
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...ttles.html
(DailyMail, 9-Mar-2021)

-- Myanmar Security Forces Target Striking Railroad Workers'
Neighborhood
https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacifi...ighborhood
(VOA, 10-Mar-2021)

-- Myanmar protesters defy curfew; media outlets ordered shut
https://www.miningjournal.net/news/inter...ered-shut/
(AP, 10-Mar-2021)

-- Myanmar's military junta pays $2 million to Canadian lobbying firm
to 'explain the real situation' as riot police carry out dawn raids
on railway workers and death toll in brutal crackdown rises to more
than 60
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...ation.html
(DailyMail, 10-Mar-2021)


---- Related articles:

** 6-Mar-21 World View -- Violence escalates dangerously in Myanmar / Burma
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e210306


** 8-Feb-21 World View -- Violence feared in Myanmar/Burma as pro-democracy protests grow
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e210208


** 2-Feb-21 World View -- Myanmar (Burma) military coup as army arrests Aung San Suu Kyi government officials
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e210202