No crystal ball could have predicted that three years later, the example they set would lead to the wholesale arson of Nepal’s government buildings, its parliament, and supreme court. Nepal’s Gen Z hurricane-force uprising makes Sri Lanka’s Aragalaya (The Struggle) appear tranquil, even moderate, although at the time the Rajapaksa family were so frightened by protesters that both prime minister Mahinda and his brother, president Gotabaya, went into hiding, the former on an isolated naval base, the latter on a naval vessel.

The term ‘economic crisis’ does not do justice to the indignities Sri Lankans suffered in 2022. Daily blackouts, fuel shortages, high unemployment and debilitating inflation–to say nothing of food shortages–plagued the nation at the same time as the elite enjoyed multiple luxury estates, staffed by servants even when their bosses were away for days at a time. Is it any wonder that young people screamed ‘Go Home Rajapaksas!’ and ‘Go Home Gota!’ As the movement built its momentum, their refrain became ‘Victory to the Struggle!’ (Aragalayata Jaya Wewa), showing how a revolt against perceived injustices was transformed into a revolutionary desire for a new reality.

Little did it matter that two decades previously, scarcely half the country had electricity, that schools, jobs, and basic healthcare had been largely unavailable. The growing gap between young people’s expectations in 2022 collided with the deadly misery crafted by elite politicians until an explosion was the only rational solution. Silent candlelight vigils overnight turned into hundreds of people swarming the president’s house on March 31, 2022. What had been a peaceful, spontaneous protest was then attacked by police firing tear gas and water cannons. The next morning, the president released a statement declaring that ‘extremist’ elements were trying to import the ‘Arab Spring’ to Colombo. The government declared a ‘state of emergency’ and mobilized the military and police to defy constitutional protections of free speech and assembly. Pro-Rajapaksa forces attacked young protesters, leading to a chain reaction of retaliations, a spiral of violence that engulfed even the homes and offices of the rich and powerful. Fishers, cricketers, carpenters and contingents of women all joined students in the protests. Even a nightly curfew and brief social media blackout failed to stop the movement.

Occupation of the Galle Face Green provided protesters with a 24/7 base of operations. The government countered with a mobile phone signal jammer, hoping to isolate resistance, but people refused to back down until the president resigned. Similar to Occupy Wall Street camps, the occupation of Galle Face swelled in both services it provided and supporters who rallied to the cause. Celebrities arrived to serenade the beleaguered demonstrators. By the end of the month, more than 1,000 unions staged a one-day support strike. Led by university students, people surrounded parliament and demanded resignation of all members as well as for the Rajapaksa clan to return their stolen money. “This is our country, not your ATM!’ was one of many placards.

On May 9, Mahinda Rajapaksa organized his supporters to massively assault the Galle Face Green. As police watched, more than one hundred people were beaten so badly they required hospitalization. The attackers’ brutality immediately turned the country against ‘state sponsored terrorism.’ That very same day, Mahinda was compelled to resign as prime minister. Riots against Rajapaksa loyalists proliferated. Many of the buses that carried the mob to attack Galle Face were torched. Politicians who supported Rajapaksa’s attack were beaten on the streets, and more than a few of their homes were torched. Insurgents’ violence was well targeted. They burnt to the ground the home of Sanath Nishantha, the man who had led the attack on Galle Face. The Rajapaksa museum was torched, a statue of the brothers’ father was destroyed, and two family homes were destroyed. A family-owned hotel was burnt along with a Lamborghini, a Hummer, a Cadillac and Ferrari parked there. When it was thought that Mahinda was hiding at the Trincomalee naval base, people surrounded it and demanded that he be arrested. To stop the escalating retaliations, president Gotabaya Rajapaksa ordered the military to take charge of the streets with ‘shoot on sight’ orders and authorization to detain people for 24-hours.

Two months of ongoing protests and repression culminated on July 9. After protesters began to surround his house, president Gota fled on an Air Force jet to the Maldives, later to Singapore. People swarmed the president’s residence and made it into an open house for days. Security forces enjoyed taking selfies along with thousands of citizens who came to marvel at the luxurious home. The presidential secretariat, the prime minister’s official residence as well as his private home were all occupied. Two weeks of uncertainty ended on July 13 when thousands of soldiers and police stormed Galle Face in a pre-dawn raid to close the camp. The occupied buildings were next.

Although ‘order’ had been restored by the military, protesters won their main demand, removal of the president, who fled along with more than dozen other clan members. By November, lines for gas and fuel all but disappeared, inflation cooled, and citizens enjoyed the satisfaction of having broken the Rajapaksas’ grip on power. Today, the nation continues to struggle with the legacy of Rajapaksa pillaging of state coffers.

No knew it at the time, but by massively confronting its corrupt and power-hungry elite and forcing them from power, Sri Lanka’s heroic populace set an example that would be followed within years. The recent synchronization of revolts in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Nepal reveals a phenomenon I named the ‘Eros effect’ to understand the global proliferation of revolutionary movements in 1968. Since then, other instances of simultaneous protests are evident in the global disarmament movement of the early 1980s, the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011, the alterglobalization insurgencies from the Zapatistas to Seattle, and most importantly, although less well-known, the chain reaction of Asian uprisings in the Philippines (1986), South Korea (1987), Burma (1988), Tibet, Taiwan, and China (1989), Nepal and Bangladesh (1990) and Thailand (1992).

The example set in 2022 by The Struggle in Sri Lanka prefigured subsequent uprisings in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Nepal. They all contained surprisingly similar characteristics. None involved centralized leadership nor involved traditional political parties. All had students at their centers. Each erupted suddenly, without governments’ having a clue about the turmoil ahead. Each targeted leading politicians’ homes and offices. All targeted ostensibly ‘democratic’ regimes that failed to offer any avenue for popular participation other than street protests. Their spontaneous emergence and the success of anti-corruption uprisings have put entrenched elites everywhere on notice. ‘Behave well or you may be next!’

____

* George Katsiaficas is the author Asia’s Unknown Uprisings. He is a retired professor from Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. His web site is www.eroseffect.com

The post Sri Lankan Youth: Look What You’ve Started!- George Katsiafikas appeared first on Void Network.

On July 23, 2022, the military in Myanmar secretly executed four leaders of the country’s freedom movement. The martyrs’ families, like the men themselves, were not given advance notice. Final goodbyes were never said. Only after the dictatorship publicly announced the hangings two days later, on Monday, July 25, did the families and the world learn about these cold-blooded murders. To add to the pain, the remains of the deceased have disappeared.

The regime is being as brutal as possible in order to make clear that opposition to their rule will result in maximum pain and suffering. Among those killed were some of the most loved and popular leaders of the ongoing movement to overthrow the dictatorship: hip hop artist and elected parliamentary representative, Phyo Zeya Tha, leader of Generation Wave that followed the 2007 Saffron Revolution; Hla Myo Aung;  Aung Thura Zaw; and Kyaw Min Yu—better known to his friends, among whom I count myself, as Jimmy.

Jimmy was the pride of “the 8888 generation.” At precisely 8:08 am on August 8, 1988,  a synchronized and coordinated nationwide uprising broke out  and established a de facto government. Neighborhoods governed themselves, students directed traffic, and councils comprised mainly of monks and students served as judges and peaceful arbiters of disputes. A general strike shut down the economy. But the military struck back with an iron fist,thousands of people were killed, and even more arrested.For weeks, the military roamed the country, arbitrarily murdering activists, until the general strike collapsed on October 3.

Having survived the massacres, Jimmy counted himself among the “lucky ones.”Along with thousands of other courageous souls, he was imprisoned for years. Released in 2003, after democracy had been temporarily restored,Jimmy was sentenced to another five years in prison in 2007 for leading protests against fuel price hikes. He was released in 2012 as part of a mass pardon, and we met the following year. Despite having spent nearly 20 years in prison, he exuded happiness and confidence. When he walked smiling down the street, strangers bowed with respect and admiration. His colleagues treated him with affectionate attentiveness.

I asked him how it was possible that, unlike so many others whom I’ve known that had spent years in prison, he was able to emerge with such dignity and ebullience. His smile broadened as hereplied, “You must understand. Yes, we were the ones sentenced to prison, but the warden had to ask me and my colleagues if he wanted anything done.The prisoners all respected and listened only to us. Inside the prisons we had the power, and the warden was our servant who carried out tasks we assigned him. Actually, we felt pity for the warden,” he grinned.“ Continuing in a more sober tone, he told me that poems written to him almost daily by his wife, who was also imprisoned, had sustained his emotional well-being.

Jimmy chose his nickname because of his admiration for the human rights policy of US President Jimmy Carter. He and I had more than one go round about this!  Our many laughing banters back and forth saw him chiding me for not accepting that the US could play a progressive role in the world, while I brought up the Carter administration’s bloody suppression of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising in South Korea, secret support for Pol Pot, and stepped up military aid to Indonesia after the genocide in East Timor. Jimmy jokingly announced to his colleagues that I was the enemy of my own government, which they regarded as a friend.

How ironic that the country Jimmy admired is doing so little for the democratic aspirations of the people he died for.  The U.S., unlike the  European Union, has yet to recognize the National Unity Government (NUG) made up of elected officials overthrown by the military junta that’s now refusing to give Jimmy’s family his ashes. 

When I probed Jimmy’s loyalty to Aung San Sui Kyi, he stated simply that she was the leader chosen by the people, that he would follow her as long as her leadership was popularly accepted.  Today it is the NUG and its armed wing – the People’s Defense Forces – that represent the popular will of the people of Myanmar.

At our finalface to face meeting, he came to my hotel to give me a copy of his wife’s poemsthat had just been published as a book. Even though it was in Burmese and I could not read a word of it, his gift and kind inscription touched me greatly.

Jimmy was arrested for the final time on October 23, 2021, eight months after the military again overthrew a constitutionally elected government. In January of this year, he was sentenced to death along with more than one hundred others, but few believed the sentences would be carried out. Capital punishment had not been used in his country for more than three decades.

Since learning about his execution, I haven’t been able to talk much. I’ve lost loved ones and friends to diseases including AIDS and drugs and violence. Unjust state-sponsored execution is probably the very hardest category of death to come to terms with. I alternate between burning anger and deep grief but I know what direction Jimmy would tell me to take, activism to continue the struggle for which he paid the ultimate price.

________

August 1, 2022, Oakland, California

George Katsiaficas is author of Asia’s Unknown Uprisings.

The post Rest in Peace “Jimmy” Kyaw Min Yu- by George Katsiaficas appeared first on Void Network.

VOID NETWORK
[Theory, Utopia, Empathy, Ephmeral Arts]

KENO ΔΙΚΤΥΟ
[Θεωρία, Ουτοπία, 
Συναίσθηση, Εφήμερες Τέχνες]
http://voidinternational@gmail.com

BLACK PANTHER Party
Το Κοινωνικό Πρόγραμμα των
Μαύρων Πανθήρων για την ανατροπή της Κυριαρχίας
 
BLACK PANTHER PARTY 
The social Programme of the 
Black Panthers against domination
a lecture and open talk by
GEORGE KATSIAFICAS 

ΠΑΡΑΣΚΕΥΗ 17 ΑΠΡΙΛΙΟΥ 2015
ΩΡΑ ΕΝΑΡΞΗΣ 20.00
friday 17/4/2015 starts at 20.00
the talk will be in English with Greek translation

ΔΙΑΛΕΞΗ/ANOIXTH ΣΥΖΗΤΗΣΗ:
GEORGE KATSIAFICAS (U.S.A.)
Καθ. Κοινωνιολογίας, μαθητής του Χερμπερτ Μαρκούζε, συγγραφέας-ερευνητής κοινωνικών κινημάτων αντιεξουσιαστής ακτιβιστής από την δεκαετία του ‘60 έως σήμερα.
 Έργα του: «Η Φαντασία της Νέας Αριστεράς» (Παγκόσμιος Μάης ‘68), «Η Ανατροπή της Πολιτικής» (κινήματα αυτονομίας στην Ιταλία και την Γερμανία το ’70), «Απελευθέρωση, Φαντασία και το Κόμμα των Μαύρων Πανθήρων», «Οι Άγνωστες Ασιατικές Εξεγέρσεις»

* George Katsiaficas, a student of Herbert Marcuse, and long-time activist, he is the author of The Imagination of the New Left: A Global Analysis of 1968. His book, The Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Social Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life. Among his edited volumes are Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party (with Kathleen Cleaver) and Vietnam Documents: American and Vietnamese Views of the War. George Katsiaficas is currently living in Gwangju, South Korea. A visiting professor of sociology at Chonnam National University, he is finishing research on East Asian uprisings in the 1980s and 1990s.
 
ΤΙ ΕΧΟΥΜΕ ΝΑ ΔΙΔΑΧΘΟΥΜΕ ΑΠΟ ΤΗΝ ΕΠΑΝΑΣΤΑΤΙΚΗ
ΑΥΤΟΟΡΓΑΝΩΣΗ ΤΩΝ ΜΑΥΡΩΝ ΠΑΝΘΗΡΩΝ?
ΠΟΙΑ ΤΑ ΟΡΙΑ ΕΝΟΣ ΕΠΑΝΑΣΤΑΤΙΚΟΥ ΚΟΜΜΑΤΟΣ
ΚΑΙ ΜΕ ΠΟΙΟ ΤΡΟΠΟ ΤΑ ΚΙΝΗΜΑΤΑ ΜΠΟΡΟΥΝ ΝΑ ΥΠΕΡΒΟΥΝ ΤΟΥΣ ΚΟΜΜΑΤΙΚΟΥΣ ΜΗΧΑΝΙΣΜΟΥΣ? ΥΠΑΡΧΕΙ ΤΡΟΠΟΣ
ΝΑ ΖΗΣΟΥΜΕ ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΟΙ
ΜΕΣΑ ΣΕ ΕΝΑ ΚΟΣΜΟ- ΦΥΛΑΚΗ? 

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THE SELF-ORGANISED REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY? WHICH ARE THE LIMITS OF A REVOLUTIONARY POLITICAL PARTY AND WHAT IS THE WAY FOR THE MOVEMENTS TO OVERPASS THE LIMITATIONS CREATED BY THE STRUCTURE OF A POLITICAL PARTY ?
IS THERE A WAY TO LIVE FREE IN A PRISON-WORLD? 

Ελεύθερο
Αυτοδιαχειριζόμενο
Θέατρο ΕΜΠΡΟΣ
Ρήγα Παλαμήδη 2 Ψυρρής

Occupied Self-Organised 
Free Theatre Embros
Riga Palamida 2 / Psiris area 
Athens Greece

Μετά τις 23.30 ακολουθεί ΠΑΡΤΥ ΟΙΚΟΝΟΜΙΚΗΣ ΕΝΙΣΧΥΣΗΣ του 1ου LGBTQI+ Pride Κρήτης
(Φεστιβάλ Ορατότητας και Διεκδικήσεων για την Απελευθέρωση Φύλου, Σώματος και Σεξουαλικότητας)
περισσότερες πληροφορίες:
https://www.facebook.com/events/671228829689756/

Intro by Yiannis Raouzaios from Void Network “Communities of Struggle”

The movement of the Black Panthers, the successes and the failures, the limitations of the centralism and the radical contribution of the everyday life people in struggle was some of the understandings offered to us by the talk of George Katsiafikas in Athens. 
The video of the talk will be uploaded here soon. 
We publish here photos from the event and the following queer party of the same night as also a text of comparison between the Black Panther Party Platform and Programme of 1966 and the far more radical announcements of the Revolutionary Peoples’ Constitutional Convention in 1970 proving that when people liberate themselves from the limitations of a political party and self-organize the resistance can bring much more radical and beneficial results than their own political party. 

Solidarity Party in Occupied Theatre Embros for the preparations of the first self-organised LGBTQI Festival in Crete-Greece

The post BLACK PANTHER Party: Το Κοινωνικό Πρόγραμμα των Μαύρων Πανθήρων για την ανατροπή της Κυριαρχίας OMIΛΙΑ: GEORGE KATSIAFICAS ΠΑΡ.17/4 ΕΜΠΡΟΣ The social Programme of the Black Panthers against domination at Occupied Theatre Embros in Athens Greece appeared first on Void Network.