MIMI AYE
APRIL 8, 2021-
S
omething I rarely talk about is that to be Burmese is to be afraid. It’s a low-level, visceral feeling most of the time, but sometimes it can be overwhelming. Because all the worst things you can imagine that could happen to you or your loved ones have happened, to you or to people you know, because of the Tatmadaw, as Myanmar’s military is known. There’s a reason Aung San Suu Kyi’s most famous book was called Freedom from Fear.
I grew up in the U.K., but my second home was in Myanmar, where my family remains. In a country ruled by dictators since 1962, I witnessed decades of gaslighting and fear piped into people’s minds and homes, from our newspapers to our TV to the billboards around town with bilingual slogans like “The Tatmadaw is your Mother and Father,” “The Tatmadaw and the People in Eternal Unity—Anyone Attempting to Divide Them is Our Enemy.”