The killings and the glory of the Spring Revolution
Myanmar Spring Chronicle – September 06 Scenes
MoeMaKa, September 07 2022
In the political field, the word ‘revolution’ means progress, an event or effort that changes a bad system starting from its roots rather than fixing a bad part. It means changing, especially the political system, economic and social ideas from the source.
In history, there were prominent revolutions that changed the feudal system to a liberal democratic republic, revolutions that changed feudalism to a socialist system and, revolutions that tried to free themselves from colonial rule, in some countries in the world. The revolutions that changed the political and social system from ground up, such as the French Revolution (1789-1799) and the October Revolution (1917) in Russia, are considered by many to be revolutions in history.
There are many revolutions that call their movement a revolution, such as armed struggles in the contemporary period, revolutions to demolish dictators and revolutions against the rule of one country over another.
In March 1945 in Burma, there was a movement called the ‘Fascist Revolution’, in which Myanmar cooperated with the British allies to attack the Japanese forces, which were ruling as a colony. The struggle for liberation under British rule was only referred to as liberation under British imperialism, and it was not named a revolution.
Again, in 1962, the army seized power and they themselves named the government, which consisted of the majority of generals, as the ‘Revolutionary Council’ at that time. After the end of that era, no one called it a revolution, but it was recorded in history as a form of military dictatorship under the name of ‘Socialist’.
If you look at this, not every so-called revolution is a revolution. But it will be recorded in history as a revolution only if there is a desire to change the political system, social thoughts, concepts and social economic systems from the basics, and set them as a goal and implement them. A revolution is not accepted by many people and history, as a revolution whenever it is given a name. History records them as revolutions, depending upon whether there was a change in foundation and when ideas, philosophies, and practices that made progress and changed political, social, and economic systems have been recorded.
The current spring revolution in Myanmar is to eliminate the military dictatorship and change the old social views and ideas from the root up. In doing so, it will be necessary to start changing the social concepts of having equal rights on a human basis, no racial, religious and color discrimination, and gender equality, from their roots apart from agreements between political organizations.
If not, history would only be recorded as a regime change where the power was transferred between a dictator and a ruler. It deserves to be called a revolution only when the military dictator and all the views, ideas, practices and, prejudices of authoritarianism can be eliminated from the ground up, in matters relating to ethnic equality, the right to self-determination and the right to self-governance, which were some of the reasons for the civil war lasting more than 70 years, born months after independence. This is a topic in the political field and, on the other hand, it is necessary to have faith, determined to take seriously the human rights standards based on social, gender equality, minority rights and human existence, policy and a business plan. In fighting against the military coup, not counting the numbers of people dying in the battle fields fighting between the armed groups, but only counting on the number of people killed by the military council whom were generally considered to be civilians and, the numbers killed by revolutionary forces whom were accused as supporters and informants of the military council, is probably the largest number in the history of Myanmar after independence. The Myanmar military has been killing civilians under the guise of suppressing an armed rebellion for ages, and there have been incidents in history where civilians have been killed in areas such as Shan State, Karen State, Kachin State and, more recently, Rakhine State.
It can be concluded that the history of the Myanmar military’s crimes against minorities began in the feudal era, and even the neighboring country of Thailand was invaded more than once in the past history. There was a stigmatized history of destroying religious buildings in the city and killing people, and also domestically, there was a history of attacks on Rakhine State and brutal suppression of civilians, which we don’t want to repeat. It will be painful history for some ethnic groups.
It cannot be denied that it is not possible to eliminate the Myanmar army from the political arena without losing human lives, just by shouting slogans and demanding. However, in the part of applying military methods, it is natural that there will be deaths in attacks between armed forces, so it is necessary to follow the international rules that the armed forces must follow exactly, and the rules that will be applied in the clashes, as well as how to behave towards those who are considered unarmed civilians. Some anti-regime groups are only eager and active in assassinating to those who support the military council (called Dout-tine in the old days), and setting of explosions and assassinations in cities taking at unarmed accused targets, and over time, the reputation of the Spring Revolution will be tarnished.
Among those targeted are academic staff who did not participate in CDM, some department staff, the lowest level administrative system of the ward, which includes 100 house heads, ward/village administrators and religious figures in some areas. This type of assassination is not a strategically important activity, but in the long run, some groups of the population may abandon the revolution. Capital punishment is used internationally, and in civilian terms, it means it is necessary to have procedures, responsible decisions and judgments at what level, what information, and what kind of evaluation are used to decide whether a person who is not a member of the armed forces should be sentenced to death.
Locally armed people easily justifying and killing unarmed civilians based on complaints or their own observations, which may become a stain in history that questions the level of responsibility.