Myanmar Spring Chronicle – November 08 Scenes
MoeMaKa, November 09 2022
Different Kinds Tazaungdaing Celebration
When you read the daily news or listen to the radio, you will see the statistics of how many people were killed in which division and state in which month, the number of houses burned down, the number of minors involved, and the number of arrests. In my mind, when I saw these numbers, I no longer thought of them as strange news, but they became like news of daily occurrences.
The usual news of what is happening in Pakokku, Myaing, Gangaw, Myingyan, and in regions of Sagaing Division such as Ye-U, Khin-U, Taze, Wetlet, Shwebo, Ayadaw, Monywa, Tabayin, Yinmarbin, and Pale is that the military council troops raided the villages, arrested the villagers, and interrogated them by beating, torturing, and killing them just on suspicion. The incidents of the villagers returning to the village and picking up the ruins of their houses when the military council troops left the villages after torching their houses and destroying their food have become daily occurrences and are no longer regarded as strange news.
In fact, each and every incident and news story is built with human lives, tears, and once-in-a-lifetime losses. It’s happening almost every day, so it’s no longer news. Hundreds to thousands of innocent civilians have lost their lives. Tens of thousands of houses have been burned down. And thousands of people have been injured. There is no organization that can collect the value of lost property.
It has to be said that no organization can know exactly how many houses, food and assets were lost in Myanmar after the military coup. Although the number of deaths can be reported approximately, the perpetrators of every killing incident have not been recorded, and the challenges of incomplete evidence still remain when demanding accountability for justice one day.
As described above, while there are situations of people fleeing war and losing their houses and possessions in Myanmar’s armed conflict-ridden regions, the news expressed that the townspeople are celebrating the Tazaungdaing Festival. People parading the Kathina (Kahtain) festival with offerings, people crowded at the pagodas, and people who pick up a small amount of money discarded as panthagu (discarding money or things for someone to pick up), partly for fun and partly seriously, at night can be seen on social media.
The situation in the city is much better than in the villages because there is no need to worry about the danger of life or about houses being burned down day and night. On the other hand, rising crime rates and an increasingly dangerous environment must be a source of concern for city dwellers. Robberies of phones and money from passengers on the bus are happening almost every day in one place or another. Killings and robberies of property at home, as well as robberies of banks and business offices, occur on a daily basis.
Things like theft are happening every day to the point where it’s no longer something to talk about, and robberies and things like robbing after killing are said to be news.
The lack of law and order is likely to get worse and will affect businesses. People will continue to live in a situation where they will have to be more careful about traveling and going out of their homes at night.