--- title: Myanmar's Youth Could Determine the Outcome of Protests description: Youthful resistance to the military has created the sort of unity that has long eluded the country, argues Brian Wong. canonical: https://time.com/5943708/myanmar-youth-protests/ author: Brian Wong article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-03-05T02:36:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:55:21.317Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Myanmar's Youth Could Determine the Outcome of Protests og:description: Youthful resistance to the military has created the sort of unity that has long eluded the country, argues Brian Wong og:url: https://time.com/5943708/myanmar-youth-protests/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7f521696d5c652c7/698a17af011682ec43980641/GettyImages-1230987011.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Protest Against Military Coup In Myanmar og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Myanmar's Youth Could Determine the Outcome of Protests twitter:description: Youthful resistance to the military has created the sort of unity that has long eluded the country, argues Brian Wong twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7f521696d5c652c7/698a17af011682ec43980641/GettyImages-1230987011.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The World Has Failed Myanmar, So Now Its Youth Are Stepping Up > Sponsored content. 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Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent.  by [Brian Wong](https://time.com/author/brian-wong/)  ## Brian Wong Mar 5, 2021 2:36 AM UTC  Myanmar youth protesters make the three finger salute on the street during a demonstration against military coup in Yangon, Myanmar on February 5, 2021. Myanmar youth protesters make the three finger salute on the street during a demonstration against military coup in Yangon, Myanmar on February 5, 2021. Myat Thu Kyaw/NurPhoto via Getty Images  by [Brian Wong](https://time.com/author/brian-wong/)  ## Brian Wong Mar 5, 2021 2:36 AM UTC With the democratization of its institutions supposedly underway, and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate at the helm in the form of [Aung San Suu Kyi](https://time.com/5935540/aung-san-suu-kyi-myanmar-democracy/), the world for many years assumed that Myanmar was on the path toward [a liberal, more inclusive future](https://time.com/4201894/burma-parliament-democracy-myanmar-aung-san-suu-kyi/). The E.U. suspended sanctions on Myanmar [in 2012](https://world.time.com/2012/04/23/burma-eu-suspends-sanctions-but-a-political-impasse-threatens-progress/); the Obama administration lifted them [four years later](https://time.com/4496468/aung-san-suu-kyi-obama-sanctions-relief-investment/), ending decades of isolation for the Southeast Asian country of 54 million. But in failing to keep up the pressure on the generals—and in crucially underestimating their obstinacy when it comes to holding onto power—the world has done Myanmar a disservice. The authoritarian, kleptocratic structure of the Tatmadaw, as Myanmar’s military is officially known, was allowed to remain intact, waiting for another chance. It wasn’t long in coming. The [international demonization of Suu Kyi](https://time.com/4951180/myanmars-shame-aung-san-suu-kyi/)—over her failure to protect the country’s Rohingya minority from bloody persecution—left Myanmar’s leader critically weakened at home. Suddenly she was no longer an untouchable, Western-backed political celebrity but a global pariah. World leaders and rights groups that once idolized her now deserted her in droves; so did the [Holocaust Museum](https://time.com/5190711/holocaust-museum-aung-san-suu-kyi-elie-wiesel-award/) and her [alma mater](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/27/aung-san-suu-kyi-loses-freedom-of-oxford-over-rohingya-crisis). Domestically, she lost the support of progressive activists and [ethnic minorities](https://time.com/5748314/myanmar-rohingya-genocide-case/). On Feb. 1, the generals pounced and declared a year-long state of emergency, using as a pretext their dissatisfaction with the results of elections held three months previously. **Read more**: [_Rohingya Activists See Opportunity in the Myanmar Coup_](https://time.com/5936604/myanmar-coup-rohingya/) The West may have blundered in its handling of Suu Kyi. To be sure, the Rohingya crisis was [an ignominious episode](https://time.com/5748024/myanmar-aung-san-suu-kyi-icj-genocide-rohingya/) for her but it is not as though the West did anything for the Rohingya either, beyond issuing condemnations. The threat to [reimpose sanctions over the Rohingya crisis](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/27/myanmar-western-powers-protesters-military-coup) remained no more than that. It also backfired, strengthening the military’s claim that it was upholding domestic security against Western interference. Through isolating Suu Kyi, the world succeeded only in helping Myanmar backslide into military rule. With her removal from the political equation, the country’s only hope now is its youth.  Protesters from all Burma Federation of Youth unions march ahead of other protesters during the military coup protest in Mandalay on Feb. 24, 2021. Kaung Zaw Hein/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images For decades, Myanmar’s democratic movement has been steered largely by the well-to-do, foreign-educated classes (Suu Kyi, for one, graduated from Oxford in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics). This time, it’s different. As tear gas and bullets fly, students from the affluent suburbs of Yangon and Mandalay, the country’s two biggest cities, are being joined on the barricades by fresh-faced office and factory workers and young miners from the jade diggings of Kachin. Many are tired of the West’s virtue signaling and lack of real support—and are equally disillusioned with Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). Inspired by [similar protests in the region](https://time.com/5904114/milk-tea-alliance/), they are attempting to develop a decentralized movement to paralyze the country and force the army to come to the table. **Read more**: [_How Myanmar’s Creatives Are Fighting Military Rule With Art_](https://time.com/5938674/myanmar-protest-digital-crackdown/) The challenges facing them are almost insurmountable. Most glaring are the movement’s lack of financial and other resources and the enormous disparity in strength with the military—a wily organization, deeply experienced in the use of [divide-and-conquer tactics](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/15/myanmar-military-tries-divide-and-rule-in-bid-to-cement-power) as a means of neutering political opponents. Even if the protesters were to succeed to some extent, they must deal with a political system that is ill-equipped to restrain the powers of an authoritarian executive. In a society stacked with entrenched corporate interests, they must also convince the business sector that the democratic path, not the military’s, is the right one to follow. In all of this, the protesters have one trump card. The necessity of organizing collective resistance against a brutal, oppressive military has forced the young people of Myanmar to set aside their differences—ethnic or economic—for the first time and fomented the kind of unity that has long eluded the country. If democracy is to be restored, it will come through this new solidarity and not through Suu Kyi, the NLD, or any form of international “help.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5943708/myanmar-youth-protests/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5943708/myanmar-youth-protests/"},"headline":"The World Has Failed Myanmar, So Now Its Youth Are Stepping Up","datePublished":"2021-03-05T02:36:37.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:55:21.317Z","description":"Youthful resistance to the military has created the sort of unity that has long eluded the country","url":"https://time.com/5943708/myanmar-youth-protests/","keywords":["protests","overnight","Second click"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7f521696d5c652c7/698a17af011682ec43980641/GettyImages-1230987011.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Brian Wong","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/brian-wong/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7f521696d5c652c7/698a17af011682ec43980641/GettyImages-1230987011.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Protest Against Military Coup In Myanmar","caption":"Protest Against Military Coup In Myanmar","creditText":"Myat Thu Kyaw/NurPhoto via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/protests/","name":"protests"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5943708/myanmar-youth-protests/","name":"The World Has Failed Myanmar, So Now Its Youth Are Stepping Up"}}]}] ```