Short Introduction: This was a paper I wrote for school. As some of you know I spent my independent study working on the Thai-Burma border and studying education. I also am very interested in and even (gasp!) passionate about the Occupy movement sweeping the U.S. and the globe. In this paper I compare a major protest in Burma to the Occupy protests in attempt to point out their differences and similarities. Working in Mae Sot really put things in perspective for me. I think it needs to be emphasised to Occupiers that even though I support what they stand for they are still the global 1%. If you are interested in Burma or a part of the Occupy movements I highly recommend you read this! It's long, and blogger messed up the formatting (sorry!), but if you have a little bit and maybe a warm mug of chai it's an interesting topic. Enjoy!
When I boarded a plane in September it felt the same- I was leaving the U.S.A. as I had done so many times before. I was leaving the country that I was learning to love and the government I was trying not to hate behind to attend a global university and I was happy to do it. I saw myself as a global citizen first and a U.S. citizen second, and even holding the latter title brought a certain level of discomfort to my identity. A week passed and I was captivated by Asia and the high that most get when entering a new country. Soon, however, I became aware that something was happening in the U.S. My friends in university started sending me articles about something called “Occupy Wall Street” and spoke adamantly about a group of protesters in New York City living in tents. At first I thought it was another fad but as the week went on I began to realize that this wasn’t another passing movement. As the rest of the world wondered why it had taken the U.S. so long to rise up against corporate rule a revolution formed and I was half way across the world in Taiwan. This was the first time that I didn’t read the news and think “thank god I’m not there.” As the movement became global I realized that I was passionate about what the occupiers stood for and I was proud of something my country was doing. I followed the news closely though I felt to far away to be connected.
Fast-forward almost four months and I was in Mae Sot, a Thai town on the Burmese border. Burma is under one of the most brutal military regimes worldwide and has been for more then fifty years. They rank 190 out of 191 countries for their health care and are brought up on multiple human rights offences by Human Rights Watch. Among the pressing issues in the country are land mine deaths, military invasions and shootings, child solders, HIV/AIDs, civil war, forced labor, poor education, torture and death of political prisoners, corrupt government officials, and censorship (World Report, CRC Shadow).
Being a border town Mae Sot is full of exiled activists and immigrants fleeing or being forced from the internal conflicts. Through interviews and research during my two weeks there I was able to see a tiny piece of the oppression and terror that is a part of daily life in Burma.
Many of the people I spoke with during my research in Mae Sot spoke of two major dates in Burmese history: August 8th 1988 and August 15th 2007. These are the dates of two major uprisings calling for a change in government and better treatment of the Burmese people. The 1988 crackdown, in response to overnight cut of monetary value in Burma, was met with brutal military crackdown resulting in at least 3,000 deaths. (Burma’s 1988). 19 years later people again took to the streets demanding better quality of life but this time there was one major difference. The Saffron Revolution, as the 2007 uprisings as they came to be called, started largely by the monastic communities in Burma, followed by citizens. The brutality that protesters met in 1988 made many wary of starting another protest. It was clear that by taking to the streets one was putting nothing less then their life at risk. Monks are highly revered social figures in Burma and surrounding Asian countries and their taking to the streets was key in the mobilizing of other protesters. Though this protest sparked hope for many Burmese and international activist for peace in Burma it was eventually met with extreme military brutality and death.
As I performed interviews with former political prisoners, taught orphaned children, read about monastic oppression, and met exiled activist on the border I felt inspired by the hope of the people of Burma, but I also couldn’t help but think of my friends across the U.S. in the streets, now a part of full fledged and long lasting movement. The more I heard about both Occupy Wall Street and the Saffron Revolution the more parallels and differences I found. In this paper I want to examine these differences and similarities I observed and really look at a question I have been asking myself: What does it mean to protest under such vastly different government? I do not pose any argument that one protest movement is “better” or “more just” then the other. I simply wish to compare the two and discuss the differences and similarities between what the implications of protesting under a military regime versus a largely corporation run “democracy.”
As when looking at all major events it is important to understand historical context before understanding their current status. In Burma the country has been under military rule since 1962, though the 1988 protests did cause a shift in and some fraud elections have been performed. Though these attempts to gain respect from the international community have been made the political situation in Burma remains largely the same if not worse then it was over sixty years ago. The Saffron revolution was a response the human rights offences and injustices the people of Burma face. On August 15th 2007 the government’s irresponsible spending caused fuel prices to rise 500% overnight. Transportation, food, and essentially all living costs skyrocketed. Protesters in Rangoon spoke out but were arrested within four days and many assumed that much like the protests of the nineties little would come of it except more arrests (Saffron Revolution).
This would have been true except for one key factor: monks overturned their alms bowls to show they would not be taking offerings and took to the streets. This revolution was largely lead by the monks (as pictured above) and civilians marched around them as a form of solidarity and protection. The monks and civilians alike knew of the risks they were taking rising up in such an extreme way under an oppressive group but marched for their rights. In only a week violence and arrests were implemented by the military on a large scale but the marchers didn’t back down. The monk’s high social status encouraged people across Burma and the Saffron Revolution huge to huge numbers (Saffron Revolution).
The protests escalated and Aung San Suu Kyi, the people of Burma’s elected leader who until last year was under house arrest, spoke to monks from her home. The government began to crack down more violently, arresting and beating civilians and monks alike. As one journalist commented that after multiple arrests and shooting “…there was even more defiance and determination as the demonstrators marched for the ninth successive day – once again with at least 100,000 people taking to the streets. In Mandalay, at least 10,000 people marched and reports from the city of Sitwe, on Burma's western seaboard, also suggested 10,000 people turned out to protest.” The residence of the protesters and support of the monks raised questions as to if the military would side with the people and real change would come to Burma.
In the end the military did not side with the Burmese people and the protesters were arrested, injured, and killed until the movement died down. Up to 6,000 people were detained and Burma’s political prisoner count rose to 2,189. 254 of these were monks. (Wade).
The demands of the Saffron Revolution were that the government release political prisoners, end human rights violations, and decrease living costs. The challenges the protesters faced were many, most obvious of them being the violence the military exerted on the people. This was not, however, the only challenge they faced. The extreme censorship inside Burma made it practically imposable to publish pro-revolution material. Pamphlets had to be distributed in secret and both national and international journalists were prosecuted and killed. A group of video journalists who later produced the film Burma VJ shot footage in secret during the revolution. The filmmakers are now all in exile, hiding, or prison. Their footage was the main source of information reaching the international community and inside Burma. The film sheds light not only on the brutal treatment of civilians and monks but also the very real danger that a journalist or reporter puts themself in by just by holding a pen or camera (Østergaard).
In contrast the Occupy movement started largely because of free press. The occupy movement budded much earlier then most U.S. citizens were aware in June of 2011. On June 9th Adbusters, an anti-consumerist magazine registered the domain name OccupyWallStreet.org. About a month later on July 13th Adbusters published an outcry to the American people stating that
“The time has come to deploy this emerging stratagem against the greatest corrupter of our democracy: Wall Street, the financial Gomorrah of America. On September 17, we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months… It's time for DEMOCRACY NOT CORPORATOCRACY, we're doomed without it.” (Adbusters).
Their call was met by support from small groups and a blog began that told individual stories of “the 99%” implying that only 1% of the America is in control of the wealth. It wasn’t until September 17th that Adbusters’ cry for action was met when 1,000 people set up camp at Zuccotti Park in downtown Manhattan. The only coverage the movement received was from small blogs until September 24th when the protest started to receive press coverage because eighty arrests were made during a permit-less march. (Occupy Wall Street: A protest timeline).
Even before mainstream media began coving the protests activists around the country began to talk about spreading the occupy movement to other parts of the country so when publicity grew it was no surprise that other occupy camps sprung up around the nation. Soon parks in Oakland, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Portland, Houston, Denver and other major cities were filled with tents and protesters from all walks of life. On October 5th the New York branch of the Occupy movement had between ten and twenty thousand people march through the financial distract, a sign of how rapidly the movement grew (Forer).
Occupy struck a chord not only within the U.S. but also in major cities around the world. The cycle so common seen in history is coming full circle some say and we are entering a period in which the oppressed rise up and demand right. Occupy created solidarity also movements spread through Europe, Asia, and Latin America with varying degrees of intensity. On October 25th The Guardian published a statement from the “Comrades from Cairo” that enforced the solidarity the protesters felt and continue to feel as the movement turns global. They state that “What most pundits call "the Arab spring" has its roots in the demonstrations, riots, strikes and occupations taking place all around the world, its foundations lie in years-long struggles by people and popular movements. The moment that we find ourselves in is nothing new, as we in Egypt and others have been fighting against systems of repression, disenfranchisement and the unchecked ravages of global capitalism (yes, we said it, capitalism): a system that has made a world that is dangerous and cruel to its inhabitants.” (Comrades from Cairo). These pictures show the distributions of occupy movements in the U.S. and around the world.
Today the occupy movments still press on in the U.S. and around the world though press coverage has begun to peater off. The results have been vaired. It is estimated that 650,000 people removed their savings from major banks as a result of the Bank Transfer Day. Ocupations have been challanged by local athorities and in some cases have been forced out of parks. Occupiers show a determenination to stay relmain in peaceful protest however and most occupations that have been shut down have been re-occupied or are in the process of being re-occupied. Hundreds of arrests have been made durring single protests and pepper spray and tear gas have been used by local law enforcement causing anger and heated discussion. An elderly woman was peper spraded in the face in New York and other inciednts across the country sparked this contriversy.
Maybe the most notable of these incidents happened on November 19th when The University of California, Davis’s (UC Davis) student protesters where pepper sprayed as they sat in peaceful protest. Videos of the incident cause great controversy on the Internet. Some argued that the police were using unnecessary tactics on protesters and others thought that the police were in the right and the protesters were being incompliant. As Philip Kennicott of the Washington Post put it, “Pepper spray, of course, isn’t meant to be lethal, and it was deployed during an effort to enforce university policy rather than a state-sanctioned campaign of violence…” however the footage was unnerving and caused much anger in the Occupy community (Kennicott).
What Occupy Wall Street Protesters are demanding is one of the main issues the movement faces. All decisions are made democratically in the image of the government the movement seeks to inspire but the democratic system takes time and discussion and the media and doubtful public rapidly brought up questions of what the protesters actually wanted. Commonly agreed upon demands within the movement are the removal of corporate personhood, the restoration of a living wage, the lowering of education costs, the increase of infrastructure spending, the institution of single payer healthcare and changes in taxation of the wealthy secretor of society (Hart).
The challenges that the movement has faced other then reaching these demands (there are still no official demands, the demands listed above are simply common interests being discussed) have been police violence and brutality and backing by the American people. Though most people in the U.S. are “the 99%” (99% of them you could argue) not all of them support the movement. There are questions raised as to if these demands can even be met, if the protesters are law abiding, and if the reforms they ask for would harm citizens more then help them. The extensive and open coverage of the events have allowed for extensive discussion and questioning of the tactics and motives behind the movement. Though overall this is a good thing it slows and complicates the movement.
Looking at these two major and influential protests; The Occupy movement and The Saffron Revolution, the differences are clear. The movements I believe exemplify perfectly the different challenges that protesters face under a military regime versus under a corporate democracy. In Burma news and media is censored to the point that reporters are jailed and killed where as the Occupy movement is runs largely on the open publicity of live streams, blogs, and independent news sources. In the Occupy movement noncompliant protesters are arrested, assaulted with pepper spray, teargas, and rubber bullets. In the Saffron revolution protesters were tortured, imprisoned, and shot.
The people of the U.S. also openly criticize and question Occupy. Though it was not talked openly about for obvious reasons, many people I spoke with on the Thai-Burma border assured me that the People of Burma were in full support of The Saffron Revolution but many valued their lives too much to act out. The Occupy protests have stretched to a global level where as the Saffron Revolution received some coverage but remained a strically national struggle. (Some activists in the West did hold rallies during the revolution but nothing comparable to the impacts of Occupy.) In the Saffron Revolution revolutionary figures came in the form of religious figures, students, and Aung San Suu Kyi, a woman leader in a country where women are openly considered of lower status. In the Occupy Movement the activists are from all walks of life (contrary to popular belief) with one third of the occupiers above the age of thirty-five with different ranges of incomes and professions. The main distinguishing factor of the protesters is that they are largely white, an observation that has been the subject of much criticisms over the last month. (Captain)
Though these protests do have these factors that differentiate them the more I spoke with people on the Burmese border and my politically active friends in the states the smaller this gap became in my mind. The reason for this is that despite these huge differences in the protests the concepts behind them are fundamentally the same. They are examples of people rising up to demand rights that are not being given by the current government. Many theories and philosophies have developed over time about the cause and result of such conflicts, one of them being the work of Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire argues that in all situations there is A. the oppressor, and B. the oppressed. Furthermore, he states that “"It is only when the oppressed find the oppressor out and become involved in the organized struggle for liberation that they begin to believe in themselves. This discovery cannot be purely intellectual but must involve action; nor can it be limited to mere activism…” (Freire).
Though this is a generalization that I do not totally agree with in a broader context Freire’s concept of the oppressor and oppressed is perfectly exemplified by both political movements in this paper. In both situations the oppressed (the people) are rising up against the oppressors (their governments) to demand their needs be met. The action that Freire calls for is the most distinct similarity between the two protests. Aside from the Saffron Revolution having monks as part of the protests the two appear the same; huge numbers of people marching though the streets empowered to bring change to their country. These are instances where people do not voice their opinions by writing letters or signing petitions because they feel it will have to effect. Instead they use action, mobilizing actual people and using their physical presence to send a message: We want change.
I would also argue if anything both revolutions hold too much action, or as Freire calls it, activism. Occupy activists and the national community agree that the Occupy movement will not bring about the changes needed in the U.S. The purpose is to start a conversation where the intellectual factors can be addressed and governmental changes can be made. Similarly, though for different reasons, the Saffron Revolution did not bring about the changes that the protests called for. It did, however, draw more national and international attention to the current state of Burma. Last year the did hold (fraud) elections and release some political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi. This was largely due to international pressure that may not have been present without the international attention the Saffron Revolution brought. This has sparked hope in the hearts of many people I spoke with on the border though peace is still a distant concept.
The final major parallel that I draw between these two seemingly different uprisings is the concept of human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, written and published by the United Nations is a list of thirty rights that every person should be given no matter who they are, where they come from, or what they do. These rights include freedom of expression, right to education, right to equality in the eyes of the law, freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile, and the right to participate in one’s government (Malik).These are only a few of the rights but they stood out because on different levels these are the very rights that both protests are demanding. In the U.S. education is not affordable and in Burma it is not accessible or some would argue educational. In the U.S. people’s voices are not being heard as the 1% takes controls much of the government. In Burma people must have the right connections and huge amounts of money just to attend school, much less have a say in the government. In both situations, when we look past the situational struggles to the core of the conflicts that caused these uprisings and the core of the demands the protesters are making we begin to see that the two movements are more similar then they are different.
During my work on the border I must admit that the Occupy movement was put in perspective for me. Something that I felt so passionately about a few months before in Taiwan seemed so far away compared to the conflict I was experiencing and learning about on the Burmese border. It should be emphasized, however, that the vast differences in violence toward protesters and severity of living situations in Burma and the U.S. should not be mistaken for vast differences in these two protests. Though the situations are different the backbones of the movements are the same. Furthermore, the Saffron Revolution was no more validated or sincere then the Occupy movement because there are less human rights abuses in the United States then in Burma. Both protests are speaking out against different forms of the same issues, the depravation of basic human rights. When viewing these and other revolutions it is key to draw these common parallels between what appears to be two extremely different situations. Why? Because the more aware we become of our similarities the more we realize that in the end we are fighting for the same cause, the more we realize our common humanity. With our realization of common humanity, no matter race, nationality, gender, or class we will hold a mentality that will promote peace and justice on a global scale. In the words of Aung San Suu Kyi “We will surely get to our destination if we join hands.”
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