Members of the Karen Culture Club meet over Zoom (Clockwise from top left: Eh Mwee, Armstrong Htoo, Paw Say, Kyaw Ler Moo). Photo courtesy of Eh Mwee
When he was barely three years old, sophomore Kyaw Ler Moo and his family fled violence and political persecution in Myanmar, escaping in 2008 to one of numerous refugee camps in neighboring Thailand.
As members of the Karen, a minority ethnic group in the southeast corner of Myanmar—formerly called Burma—they had been subject to repeated raids upon their village by the Burmese military. After months spent trying to overcome bureaucratic red tape, Moo and his family were able to resettle in North Carolina, while many of his friends and relatives were unable to obtain visas and thus stayed behind.
Over the past few months, Moo has felt a mounting wave of anguish as the Myanmar military, officially known as the Tatmadaw, arrested democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi and overthrew her elected government in a Feb. 1 coup, shattering Myanmar’s period of quasi-democracy and relative stability. Using alleged election fraud as justification for their brutal crackdown, the junta has declared a year-long state of emergency, sparking the country’s most massive protest movement in decades, accompanied by acts of civil disobedience as well as worker strikes. In a tragic yet familiar response, soldiers continue to unleash bullets and other lethal weaponry against demonstrators.
“I was devastated,” said Moo of the coup. “I was really worried for the members of my community who are still in Burma.”
Although many of Moo’s friends and family members remain in Myanmar, a sizable contingent of Karen live in North Carolina, which is home to one of the nation’s largest concentrations of the Karen, along with smaller numbers of other Myanmar ethnic minorities. According to the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, over 14,000 Karen refugees have resettled in the state during the past decade, with many adopting Chapel Hill and Carrboro as their new home.
Moo’s anxiety has been further exacerbated by the imposition of widespread restrictions on communication networks as well as on flights into and out of the country. With Myanmar’s historic isolation having become especially acute, events inside the country are now largely obscured to the outside world. Nonetheless, the picture that has emerged has been one of horror. The growing civilian death toll—now over 500—includes significant numbers of children and others not involved in the protests.
While the world has grown increasingly alarmed by the Myanmar military’s recent oppression and massacre of protesters, a stain of ethnic bloodshed has been spreading across the southeast Asian country for decades. In some of the world’s longest civil wars, several ethnic groups, including the Karen, have struggled against the Burmese military in an effort to protect themselves and secure greater autonomy.
Commenting on the endless conflict, sophomore Paw Say, who was born in Thailand and moved to the U.S. in 2009, succinctly captured the anguish of many Karen: “It’s senseless.”
Western governments, however, have largely turned a blind eye to the plight of the Karen and other ethnic groups in Myanmar. With the coup now portending an even more ominous future for the entire country, acknowledgement of the plight of ethnic minorities would represent a meaningful first step toward progress, say Moo and other East students of Karen descent.
“There are so many people denying that there is ethnic cleansing, and people are unaware of the history of the Karen and what they’re going through,” said Eh Mwee, the president of the Karen Culture Club, in a Zoom interview with other club members.
Stunned by the sharp escalation in attacks against ethnic minorities following the coup, East’s Karen students echo the pleas of older generations for acceptance and self-determination, while also offering their own perspective on the conflict.
“Our parents and grandparents have grudges against the Burmese, and I don’t blame them; they’ve been through a lot,” said Mwee, who immigrated to the U.S. in 2009 with her family. “But in our generation, we’re all friends; there’s really not any conflict. During this time, we should all be coming together and helping each other.”
Reflecting Mwee’s sentiment, various ethnic minorities and Burmese citizens have recently joined together to present a united front against the military junta. However, they are poorly armed and stand little chance against the better equipped and well-trained Burmese army.
Sophomore Armstrong Htoo, whose family moved to the U.S. in 2011, voiced his own frustration with fellow Karen people who resort to anger and blame.
“We have been victimized for longer, but [the Burmese] have also been going through [the coup and military rule] that have affected them very negatively,” he said.
Despite their condemnation of the Burmese military, many of East’s Karen also have concerns about the country’s previous government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. While generally viewed as a visionary leader, there is a sentiment within East’s Karen community that perhaps she should have done more to acknowledge the repression of minority groups in her country. However, it is also recognized that her ability to actually intervene was limited.
After endless violence and indifference to their suffering, many Karen people are hopeful that the coup will help to bring their plight to international attention. At the same time, Htoo emphasized that the situation in Myanmar is broader than any one group. Referencing the common interests of the Burmese people, the Karen, the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities in Myanmar, Htoo affirmed that it was time for the various groups to set aside their differences and instead focus on the common threat posed by the military coup.
“For peace to endure, all ethnicities in Myanmar must be recognized,” Htoo said. “Only then can we turn the tide of history in a more positive, hopeful direction.”
This is so interesting to hear!