Interviews with Min Yan Naing
Burma
Youth
The Role of Youth in Burma.
Transcript
When we started – so, we are young people. That’s why we think it’s some people are interested like this; that’s why we focus on the young people. We would like to encourage to young people. We don’t have an exact detail, but in our country, the youth are a big part of – very big – of the people. Not happy – dissatisfied in their life. Because – OK, after finishing the education, we don’t have work. We don’t have any opportunity. Most of the young people move across the border to Thailand, China, India – to other countries.
Now we start to involve. In the last two weeks we start to make a conference – assembly on changing education, involved in other education systems. We pushed it to the parliament and government. I would like to give the message that youth is very important for the country’s future. Yes, we need to take interest in our country’s situation and politics.
About Min Yan Naing
Min Yan Naing is a Burmese civil society activist, youth leader and rapper. He was born and lives in Rangoon. He became active in a series of 1996 and 1998 student protests against the military junta ruling the country.
In 2007, together with several schoolmates, Min Yan Naing founded Generation Wave, an underground civil society group. Generation Wave works to motivate young Burmese to become engaged in politics through music and nonviolent protest actions. Using a variety of musical styles, including rap and hip-hop, Generation Wave recordings and videos encourage youth to take a stand in favor of democracy and human rights. Like many opposition groups, Generation Wave has been unable to register as a non-governmental organization and has faced many obstacles to its activities, which are illegal in the eyes of the military regime. Many of the movement’s activists have faced arrest and detention.
Generation Wave uses a variety of techniques to spread its messages, including loading material onto CDs and flash drives for distribution in public places. The group is also known for adapting tactics used in Serbia in 2000 to oust dictator Slobodan Milosevic, such as using graffiti and distributing leaflets to encourage youth activism.
As the Burmese government has eased some of its repressive tactics, Generation Wave has moved into greater visibility. Many of its detained activists were released by the government in early 2012. Generation Wave was active in the by-election campaign that saw opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi elected to the Burmese parliament.
A number of Generation Wave’s music videos are available on the Internet, including these:
Generation Wave’s Hip Hop song
WHOMADEWHO w/ GENERATION WAVE : “LEFT HAND OF THE BOXER”