Myanmar Spring Chronicle – December 10 Scenes
MoeMaKa, December 11 2022
How long will the Spring Revolution or the overthrow of the military dictatorship take?
The thing that the people of Myanmar are most curious about is the question of when the military dictators will fall, or, in other words, when the armed attack known as the “Spring Revolution” will be victorious.
This is also a question that ordinary manual laborers and taxi drivers want to know, as well as vendors, rice farmers, bean farmers, and sesame farmers in the countryside. It becomes natural to ask that question, either to each other or to people with political knowledge.
In the news, when we heard the sayings of NUG government leaders, we learned that the coming year will be the decisive year for victory. The thing that the people of Myanmar are most curious about is the question of when the military dictators will fall, or, in other words, when the armed attack known as the “Spring Revolution” will be victorious.
This is the hope of those who can’t leave the country, have no connections, no financial background, and are not of working age. Young people, regardless of gender, are flocking to passport offices every day to go abroad to work. People from all over the country can apply for passports at the passport office in Yangon, so 2,500 to 3,000 people are getting passports every day. More than 80 percent of people who get passports for work, and only a small number renew their passports to visit or accompany family members who are working abroad.
They don’t only apply for passports in Yangon, because it is difficult to make an appointment in Yangon, and there are hundreds of people who travel to Mawlamyine, Pathein, Myawaddy, and Myitkyina for 2 or 3 days to apply for passports. I have heard about people going from Yangon to Myawaddy, Nay Pyi Taw, and Pathein to apply for passports.
Every morning, the Mingaladon Airport is full of people who leave for work in Malaysia and Korea, and not even 1 out of 10 people go abroad for sightseeing or other purposes.
Not only from the airport but also from the border entry and exit points, those who travel to Thailand with a work permit agreement, those who sneak in and live and work illegally, and those who cross Thailand to go to Malaysia illegally, are all going their own way every day.
Among those who left, there are many young people from armed conflict areas. As there is a risk of being killed in the midst of armed conflict, parents are encouraging the choice of going to work abroad and sending them with the money they have saved by earning hard. They are going to Thailand, Malaysia, some countries in the Middle East and Korea. A few people who can afford it are going to Japan.
It is said that the impact of these young people and the middle-class people who can work going abroad has made it difficult to hire labor for agriculture in the countryside. It is becoming difficult to call laborers to plant rice, pick beans, or pick peanuts. The consequences of Myanmar’s armed conflicts have affected job opportunities as wage laborers in agricultural factories, and there has only been an increase in the number of people going to work abroad. Cases in which many young and middle-aged people from Mon State, Tanintharyi Division, and Karen State went to work in Thailand, leaving only the elderly and minor children in the villages, are now happening in other states and divisions such as Rakhine, Chin, Sagaing, Magway, and Bago.
As a result of the military coup, the internal armed conflict, instability, and economic blockades have greatly affected job opportunities in the country, causing hundreds of thousands to millions of Myanmar citizens to temporarily leave the country to work abroad whatever they can. As for the local survivors, they have to live by depending on some of the income that will be sent back by family members working abroad.
No one likes these conditions, so they are hoping that when Myanmar returns to peace, economic and job opportunities will increase, and they will be able to work close to their families in their own country.
Because it is the path of an armed conflict, it is a highly probable guess that victory or defeat might not be made within 1 or 2 years. We should not expect only a wish, but we have to accept the undeniable fact that a realistic and possible situation might take longer than expected, even though we don’t want it to happen.