The Crisis in Myanmar Should Shock Every American
At the very beginning of February, the newly, democratically elected government of Myanmar was faced with a coup by the military establishment, plunging the nation into a deadly crisis that has claimed the lives of hundreds of its civilians.
Using baseless allegations of rampant voter fraud in the election that saw the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party under leader Aung San Suu Kyi expand their majorities, the military (Tatmadaw) under its Commander-in-Chief of Defense Services Min Aung Hlaing declared the results illegitimate and seized control of the government and country in a successful coup d’etat. Today, many of the members of the government and NLD Party, including Aung San Suu Kyi, remain in military custody awaiting what the Myanmar military claims to be investigations into conduct and fraud in the November elections. Since February 1st, over six hundred civilian casualties have been reported, with the country being cut off from the rest of the world as the brutal military occupation begins to take hold. Myanmar, the nation that had made significant strides since its separation from Britain to ensure democratic reforms remained an important pillar of their self-governance, now has its future far from certain.
As an American who witnessed first-hand the same inflammatory rhetoric here just a few months past, that the military in Myanmar is casting as justification for their deadly coup, I’m deeply chilled to my bones.
When former President Donald Trump lost his re-election bid against now President Joe Biden, we saw him and many of his supporters resort to the same tactics that preceded the coup in Myanmar. We heard baseless allegations that the election was stolen, that votes were changed, or that millions of dead or illegal immigrants had voted. We also heard calls to action, to “Stop the Steal” and to protect the “landslide” that Trump had supposedly won. In the darker recesses of the Big Lie, came the conspiracies founded in the same principles of QAnon: that the military was standing by at Trump’s call to secure the country and protect American elections.
We all saw the consequences of such brazen rhetoric when the halls of our Capitol were stormed on January 6th, putting the lives of the Vice President, Members of Congress, their staffs, and the very heart of our democracy in danger. Five Americans lost their lives on that infamous day, with another two officers who were there tragically taking their own lives as a result of the trauma: all because of a blatant lie…
We should count ourselves lucky that Trump and the conspiracy theorists below him turned out to be wrong, and that all their efforts to sabotage the overwhelming election of Joe Biden to be the 46th President of the United States failed. However, we cannot just look away and consider the threat to our country dissipated. All you have to do is look to Myanmar, the baseless allegations of fraud, the conspiracies that perpetuated those lies, and the now more than six hundred civilians who have given their lives as a consequence of those lies, to see that we are far from being removed from just how close we came to an insurmountable crisis in our own government.
Imagine if the conspiracies were right and Trump did have the backing of the military, or if the Capitol Insurrection was successful in forcing elected officials to subvert the people in favor of Trump. How many Americans would have to give their lives then, all because of a baseless lie?
As a titan of civil rights, the late John Lewis, once said, “Democracy is not a state, it is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.”
We have a duty as citizens not just to participate in our democracy but also to protect it; to safeguard it from those who would seek to exploit it or do it harm. It is the responsibility of each of us, young and old, to ensure that what befell Myanmar does not happen here. Democracy requires patience and vigilance to thrive, and it must not fall prey to the words and actions of wannabe authoritarians like Donald Trump.
Democracy is a constant, ever-present act, not a state of simply being. We’ve seen perhaps the clearest parallel of the consquences of letting our democracy fall into disrepair, and it is up to us to chart a course to repair the damages done by the Capitol Insurrection and its preceding rhetoric. We cannot let ourselves become the next Myanmar.
