Guest contributor
Dr. Nyi Nyi
Myanmar’s Generation Z, born in the years between 1997 and 2012, is shaping the country’s future since Senior General Min Aung Hlaing seized power in a military coup on February 1, 2021.
He overthrew the democratically-elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government, which governed Myanmar from 2016-2021, believing that street protests against the coup would dissipate within weeks like was so after previous coups in 1962 and 1988.
But in 2021, the generals miscalculated. They were no longer confronting an isolated and tightly controlled population.
They were confronting a digitally savvy generation of youth who grew up during a rare window of relative openness during the country’s touted “transition to democracy” from 2012-2021.
Cheap SIM cards and relatively inexpensive smartphones connected them to the world.
They learned about democracy and experienced freedoms their parents had never known. For them, freedom was not an abstract aspiration; it was reality.
The Myanmar economy grew rapidly with foreign investments providing work and educational opportunities for youth.
So, when the tanks rolled on to the streets of Naypyidaw and Yangon in 2021, Myanmar youth did not remain silent.
They flooded the streets, organized anti-coup protests, launched digital fundraising campaigns, and mobilized within the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), launched by civil servants refusing to work under the military.
The military responded with characteristic brutality. Young protesters were shot and killed by soldiers on the streets of towns and cities.
Some youth fled home, leaving behind their families, jobs, studies, to receive military training from long-established ethnic armed groups located in Myanmar’s borderlands.
They formed the People’s Defense Force (PDF), the armed wing of the National Unity Government (NUG), an administration opposed to military rule and composed of elected lawmakers ousted in the 2021 coup.
The militarization of a new generation
What distinguishes the 2021 uprising and resistance to the coup from earlier episodes of youth-led resistance — such as those already mentioned in 1962 and 1988 — is its generational clarity.
Myanmar youth have openly declared their determination to be the last generation to live under Myanmar military rule, which came only 14 years after independence, in 1948.
In 2024, the military activated a long-dormant conscription law requiring men, aged 18 to 35, and women, aged 18 to 27, to serve in the military.
This measure, they hoped, would replenish the number of soldiers killed on the frontline by resistance forces like the PDF, and prolong the military’s grip on power.
At least 100,000 young males have been conscripted into the military – most unwillingly – and taken away from their families and freedom by the military’s security apparatus over the last two years.
Twenty intakes of forced conscripts have received military training across the country. They have been deployed to the frontline to fight against other youth in the PDF.
Five years since the military coup, and Myanmar’s courageous Gen Z fights on both sides of the battlefield. Although one side is fighting for the bright future of the country, the other side is forced to defend the military and prolong its oppressive rule.
Myanmar’s future will not be decided in Naypyidaw or diplomatic corridors. It will be determined by the conviction, endurance, and choices of its youth, who have already shown ingenuity and resilience over the last five years to free the country for once and all of military rule.
Dr. Nyi Nyi (Ph.D.) is a retired engineer living in the U.S. for the last four decades.
DVB publishes a diversity of opinions that does not reflect DVB editorial policy. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our stories: [email protected]
