Why the social media-based movement, and not ASEAN, offers a vision for a democratic and federalist Myanmar.
By
July 23, 2021
Protesters march holding slogans during a protest at Pazundaung township in Yangon, Myanmar, Wednesday July 14, 2021.
Credit: AP Photo
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Throughout the month of June, the ASEAN flag has been burned over and over again in the streets of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. It is evidence of the deep dissatisfaction among Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement with the regional body’s lack of action against Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing’s coup government, which seized power on February 1, 2021. In barbed language directed at ASEAN, Myanmar’s Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) tweeted: “If you don’t know the answer to this, there is no way you should keep saying ‘ASEAN Centrality’… you are doing more harm to us.”