"Now there is another military coup. How many kids will die? How many will be imprisoned this time?" "Yesterday, five young activists were chased by the military. They fled to the roof of their building and were surrounded. Rather than surrendering, they jumped to their deaths." "As I write to you, there are soldiers outside my door." These are snippets of testimony from Burmese activists, whose words form the basis of the new Opinion short documentary "Letter to San Zaw Htway." The film was created in the wake of the violent military coup in Myanmar in 2021 — the latest development in a decades-long power struggle — as a way to pay tribute to San Zaw Htway, a Burmese artist, pro-democracy activist and former political prisoner who died in 2017. Corinne van Egeraat and Petr Lom, filmmakers who lived and worked with San Zaw Htway in Myanmar, invited his friends and family to write letters to him as an act of remembrance and hope. Many of them chose to remain anonymous for safety reasons. In their own words, they tell the story not only of his life and legacy, but also of their own continuing struggle for democracy under brutal military rule. Tomorrow is a grim anniversary for the current resistance in Myanmar — it has been three years since the military junta took control. But the pro-democracy movement has been gaining ground in the past few months, and San Zaw Htway's memory continues to inspire the movement and its activists. In footage of him in the film, he described his approach to resistance in the face of adversity: "In jail, when they told me not to write, I wrote many poems. They told me not to sing; I sang a lot." Watch the Op-Doc here:
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Wednesday, January 31, 2024
Opinion Today: Singing in the face of oppression
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