As the war being waged by the Burmese military against its own people slowly fades from international headlines, Burmese young people from all walks of life continue to step up their non-violent resistance campaign against the military leaders, while arrests and detention, violent beatings and night-time raids continue.
A new generation of young activists was born on the streets of Rangoon last month. They are drawn from Burma’s young 'hip-hop' generation, as one exiled activist put it, have few memories of the upheavals and violence of 1988 and, until now, have been more concerned with a youth culture that revolves around music, computer games and trying to obtain a decent education. They have now witnessed — first hand — the brutality of their own government and have become politicised.
These young people are smarter, more exposed to the outside world and more familiar with modern communication technologies such as internet and video phones than young pro-democracy activists were in 1988. With the benefit of hindsight and more than 20 years of underground organising, former 1988 student activists have joined hands with newly-formed student and youth groups across the country. These groups are expressing fresh forms of political defiance and committing themselves to non-violent strategies. And they are determined to stick it out.
A young protester told Democratic Voice of Burma last month, 'I was only three (years old) during 1988. I didn't know what the 1988 students were doing and I didn't know how brutal the military was. But now I have seen with my own eyes the brutality of the military. (They have) beaten up monks and gone after fellow unarmed students. I will come out to the streets again whenever I get the chance.'
Committed to remaining inside Burma to advance the struggle against military rule, they have little faith in regional governments and the UN Security Council to apply effective pressure.
Some young student activists who took part in the demonstrations were from the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABSFU or, in Burmese, Ba Ka Tha). This organisation, founded in 1938, has been the vanguard of movements for political and social change in Burma. At one time headed by revered independence hero, Aung San, Ba Ka Tha has a long history of working together with people of Burma from different walks of life. A member of the ABSFU's Foreign Affairs Committee stated, 'We struggled to