Published by ah nah on August 30, 2021
"Maung Zarni"
Season 1, Ep. 11
Suzanne and Ruth are joined by Maung Zarni, an exiled Myanmar scholar, human rights activist and co-founder of Forces of Renewal for Southeast Asia (FORSEA). Maung Zarni has been involved with Myanmar’s political affairs for over 30 years; he founded and led the Free Burma Coalition, pioneered the human rights movement and spearheaded an international boycott against Myanmar’s military dictatorship from 1995 - 2004. He is the co-author of the pioneering study, "The Slow Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingyas" and "Reworking the Colonial-Era Indian Peril: Myanmar’s State-Directed Persecution of Rohingyas and Other Muslims”. Throughout his career Maung Zarni has combined honest scholarship with passionate activism in the fight against state sponsored racism against religious and ethnic minorities, but his activism and refusal to be silenced has sometimes come at a great personal cost. He was famously denounced as the “Enemy of the State’ for his very open and public opposition to the Myanmar genocide. Here he speaks very openly, candidly and honestly about his life’s work and the current political situation in his country, Myanmar.
The ah nah: Conversations with Myanmar podcast was born from a desire to bring into public consciousness the atrocities that are currently being committed in Myanmar (also known as Burma). Our goal is simply to keep the conversation going, and to let the people of Myanmar know that they have not been forgotten. You can continue to support the people of Myanmar by keeping this conversation going. You can subscribe to this podcast on all major podcasting apps, including Apple, Spotify and Acast. You can also follow us on all our social media pages, linked below. If you’d like to reach out, please email us or fill out this form to add your voice to the conversation (https://tinyurl.com/3ee7ssm9).
Credits:
Song: Kabar Makyay Bu (Until the End of the World), was written and recorded by Naing Myanmar, it became the revolutionary anthem of the 1988 pro-democracy movement and could be heard once again all over Myanmar during the 2021 Coup. Naing Myanmar maintains that the song is no longer his, since the '88 uprising “it belongs to everyone”.
Graphics: SelinaXin
Sound Effects: https://mixkit.co
*Special thanks to Maung Zarni and all those human rights activists and scholars who have continued to highlight the atrocities being committed in Myanmar for decades and who continuously advocate for the restoration of human rights and democracy in Myanmar every single day. We are so grateful to Maung Zarni for adding his voice to the conversation, you can follow him on twitter @drzarni, you can alsofollow FORSEA on twitter @officialFORSEA. You can visit their website at https://forsea.co
