Myanmar Spring Chronicle – Scenes from December 10
(MoeMaKha) December 11, 2025
Success, failure, and media narratives around the “Silent Strike”
On December 10, designated internationally as Human Rights Day, strike leaders from Mandalay, Yangon and Sagaing Region recently staged brief flash protests in Mandalay and called for a nationwide Silent Strike.
At a time when armed struggle is being waged to overthrow the military coup regime, they tried to mobilize urban populations to join a silent, stay-at-home protest as another way of resisting the junta’s rule.
Back in 2021 and 2022, shortly after the coup, similar calls were made for Silent Strikes, as well as campaigns urging people not to celebrate Thingyan (the water festival). The idea has been to combine armed struggle with mass non-cooperation in towns and cities still under military control, so that participation in Silent Strikes would show clearly that the public does not support the junta and still stands with the Spring Revolution.
Some revolutionaries and supporters, however, have questioned whether such strike tactics are still necessary at a time when armed struggle is already underway to topple the military dictatorship. They argue that, given the current focus on military victories and the fact that the junta has declared martial law or military administration in nearly one-fifth of the country’s townships, it is worth asking whether protest tactics like Silent Strikes are still effective or necessary.
Those who promote Silent Strikes and other protest actions, on the other hand, appear to believe that popular mobilization must go hand in hand with armed struggle if the revolution is to reach its goals.
Under the junta’s administration, ordinary people are still living under its control. For them, joining the Silent Strike is a way of visibly rejecting the junta’s authority and demonstrating that they do not accept or endorse its rule.
In fact, this Silent Strike call on December 10 was the first such call in 2025. People were urged not to go out between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., a time window chosen so that commuting to offices, schools, and workplaces in the early morning would not be affected, but the daytime streets would be as empty as possible.
When we look at how people responded to the Silent Strike on December 10, social media posts suggest it was not like the Silent Strikes of 2021 and 2022, when many towns were almost completely deserted.
Foreign-based media outlets tended to highlight photos and footage from cities like Yangon, Mandalay, Mogok, Teton, and Lashio, showing nearly empty streets and reporting that the Silent Strike was being observed there.
Some Yangon residents, however, said that before 10 a.m. there was heavy traffic, even worse than on normal days, apparently because people were rushing to finish their errands. After 10 a.m., traffic did not disappear completely, but it was noticeably lower than on regular days, they said. In Mandalay, some online posts said that movement was down to about one-third of a normal day, while others wrote that it was not so empty as to say no one was out at all.
Some journalists inside the country openly criticized the conclusions of foreign-based media reports claiming the Silent Strike had “succeeded.” They wrote posts saying they found such reporting unconvincing: instead of carefully presenting facts, foreign-based outlets seemed to be publishing stories that reflected pre-determined narratives.
While there is no real dispute that most people do not support the junta, critics argued that it is misleading for newsrooms to conclude that all people in big cities like Yangon and Mandalay actively joined and fully observed the Silent Strike. That kind of conclusion can easily slip into wishful thinking rather than straightforward reporting.
For many urban residents, daily life is a constant struggle just to earn enough to eat. It is not the case that everyone can simply choose not to go out—or to stay home between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.—when they are worried about where their next meal will come from.
So if this year’s Silent Strike was less visible than in previous years, it does not necessarily mean that people no longer want to participate. It more likely reflects the fact that basic survival has become much harder.
Another important point is that 10–20% to as high as 14–20% (roughly one in five to one in seven) of residents in these major cities are internally displaced people (IDPs) who have fled war zones. This should also be kept in mind when judging participation levels.
In Mandalay, many IDPs have fled from Northern Shan, Kachin, and Sagaing Regions. In Yangon, large numbers of IDPs have come from Rakhine, Magway, Karen, Bago, Shan, Chin, Sagaing, and Mandalay.
For these displaced people, who have lost their homes, property, and livelihoods to war, only a small minority can survive without working—by living off remaining assets. The majority are struggling desperately just to stay alive in these big cities.
Seen from that reality, the limits of this year’s Silent Strike do not reflect a lack of political will so much as the harsh economic and survival pressures weighing down on the people.