Insight Myanmar

Episode #449: The first episode in a five-part series, these discussions were recorded at the 16th International Burma Studies Conference at Northern Illinois University, where scholars, students, researchers, and practitioners gathered for presentations, forums, roundtables, and cultural exhibitions exploring the theme “Dealing with Legacies in Burma.” Amid political turmoil and humanitarian crisis, this represented a rare space for open dialogue, and one in which Insight Myanmar was invited to record interviews with diverse attendees, produced in collaboration with NIU’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies. We hope that these episodes bring listeners into the atmosphere of the conference and into conversation with thos...

Episode #448: In the second of our three-part series with Steve Smith, a teacher in the Mahasi tradition, he continues reflecting on his half-century exploration into the country’s spirituality, culture, and politics, while also sharing what he learned from prolonged and intimate contact with some of the greatest meditation teachers and civil leaders of the day.  

Steve went to Seikhun, Mahasi Sayadaw’s village, and started his practice there. He practiced with local villagers, as well as senior government ministers, future democratic leaders, business magnates, and others with elite social standing.  Between meditation sessions, Steve remembers long conversations that me...

Episode #447: Maw Shein Win, a Burmese-American poet, teacher, and literary organizer based in the Bay Area, reflects on her creative path, heritage, and commitment to poetry as witness and connection.  

Maw Shein Win turned to poetry while in college. She also immersed herself in the punk and experimental music scene of 1980s Los Angeles. This affected the arc of her career, as collaboration across disciplines— music, performance, and visual art— became central to her practice, and is a hallmark of her work. 

Her published collections include Invisible Gifts (2018), Storage Unit for the Spirit House (2020), as well as smaller works lik...

Episode #446: This episode marks the beginning of a three-part series created during a three-day Digital Storytelling Workshop hosted by the Insight Myanmar Podcast, with support from ANU and IDRC. Over those days, emerging storytellers came together to practice something both ancient and profoundly human: telling stories. In a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, the workshop served as a reminder that genuine connection — the kind built through care, honesty, and the courage to speak and listen — can never be automated. Guided by Caleb Gattegno’sinsight that “speaking is easy, communication is a miracle,” and grounded in the simple phrase we kept return...

Episode #445: Born in Yangon in 1984 and raised in the small town of Ye, Shakeel grew up as a Muslim in a deeply divided Myanmar. His childhood was shaped by the tension between his artistic passions and the restrictions of a conservative religious environment. When he began to draw, his relatives told him it was forbidden by faith. School brought little relief—there, Buddhist classmates bullied him with the slur “kalar,” while only a few offered friendship. Books and music became his refuge from isolation. 

In 2004, Shakeel began his career as a translator and editor at a sports journal...

Episode #444: After more than 40 years of Burma advocacy, Larry Dohrs sheds light on the strategies that have exposed corporate and military abuses in the country, inspired meaningful action, and exacted costs from multiple incarnations of the junta. Inspired by his parents’ travels in the 1960s, he first visited Burma in 1982 and was captivated, with lifelong consequences. When he tried to return in 1988, however, the 8888 uprising and bloody crackdown intervened. “I was not too politically focused – history and culture and economics were more what I was interested in,” Dohrssays. “In subsequent years it was people looking at it as a normal country, a norm...

Episode #443: Ei, a former member of the People’s Defense Force (PDF), shifted from armed resistance to humanitarian work, and now focuses on child soldiers and youth affected by conflict. She joined the PDF at 28, witnessing both bravery and abuse—including harassment and executions over financial disputes—which convinced her that real revolution required education and ethics. “We have different skills for education, for healthcare, for the citizens,” she said. “My mastery is not in my arms, it is in my brain.” 

After leaving the camp, Ei lived for three years in a rural Karen village, overcoming mistrust throug...

Episode #442: Yin Maung, a Myanmar-born digital-rights researcher with Aung Media, examines how non-consensual intimate images have become a political weapon in post-coup Myanmar. He places this crisis within the country’s rapid digital shift. Although online communication surged during COVID-19, digital literacy, privacy awareness, and regulatory protections did not keep pace. As a result, Myanmar’s population entered a politically volatile digital environment without safeguards. 

Following the 2021 coup, many women—some politically outspoken for the first time—used social media to oppose the junta. This visibility made them targets of harassment by male, pro-military users. Doxing became a primary...

Episode #441: “I just thought, ‘Someone has to stay and bear witness,’” says Paul Greening, a veteran humanitarian with the International Organization for Migration (IOM). For decades he moved between crises—Afghanistan, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, East Timor—but Myanmar, and the Rohingya tragedy in particular, define his moral world.  

He first encountered the Rohingya in 2008 while in Aceh, when boats of desperate families arrived on Indonesian shores. Unprepared officials and global indifference convinced him to keep their story alive within humanitarian networks, a concern that eventually drew him to Myanmar itself. He arrived in August 2017, and felt strongly that a catastr...

Episode #440: Rick Hanson and Brang Nan engage in a moving conversation on Myanmar's ongoing struggle for democracy, focusing on psychological resilience, Buddhist practice, and activism. Rick begins with a powerful statement: “No one can stop you from claiming the power of your own mind, but only you can claim it.” He underscores the importance of mindfulness and mental autonomy as tools to resist oppression, emphasizing, “To put it really bluntly, get the assholes out of your head.” He adds, “If I may use a phrase, fuck them. Live well, meanwhile, as best you can.” This revolutionary act of reclaiming mental freedom...

Episode #439: “The key human rights issue within Thailand and more broadly within the region is migration related,” says Ben Harkins, a veteran labor rights and migration expert who has spent over seventeen years working across Southeast Asia. From refugee camps to industrial zones, Harkins has witnessed how migration has become both a lifeline and a trap—an act of survival in systems built on exploitation. 

He began his career along the Thai-Myanmar border in the 2000s, where tens of thousands of Karen and other ethnic minorities lived in sprawling camps after fleeing conflict. “It's only been this year, in fact...

Episode #438: Jonathan Crowley shares his journey as a practitioner and teacher in the Goenka Vipassana tradition, highlighting the conflicts that eventually led him to step away after 35 years of dedication. He describes his gradual disillusionment with the organization's rigidity, particularly its failure to address structural racism in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing—unlike many other spiritual organizations, which undertook meaningful changes. Alongside his wife, Jonathan wrote to the North American Acharyas, advocating for meaningful engagement on racial issues and emphasizing that the teachings of the Buddha support addressing social injustices. Their letter called for transparency, change, and inclusiv...

Episode #437: Researchers Myat Su Thwe, a human-rights scholar, and Kyaw Lwin, a socio-legal specialist, examine how Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG) operates digitally after the 2021 coup in their study Digital Governance in Exile. They describe a government forced online by warfare and displacement, assessing whether its services genuinely meet citizens’ needs through a “socio-technical framework” that weighs technology against inclusivity, language, and security. 

Myat Su Thwe explains that ministries of Health, Education, and Finance deliver essential services through tele-medicine, online schooling, and blockchain-based finance. Tele-Gemar connects volunteer doctors abroad with ethnic-minority patients via local interpreters; digital schools issue t...

Episode #436: “We feel like we are not a useless person. You know, even [if] we have to flee our country and come to other country, we are still a valued person.”  

Dr. K, a Rohingya general practitioner, shares his journey from Myanmar to the Thai border, where he now supports the resistance by training medics and running makeshift clinics. He recalls how, as a child, his family moved to Yangon from Rakhine, but had to travel in secret because the Rohingya were barred from legal travel. After achieving high grades at school, he was accepted at medical school in 2013 because his fami...

Episode #435: “There is a person behind every piece of policy,” says Nandar, a senior digital security expert at DigiSec Lab, reflecting on Myanmar’s transformation into a digital prison since the 2021 military coup. Along with researcher and trainer Vox, journalist and consultant Myat, and political researcher Candle, they discuss how the junta’s technological control has reshaped daily life, eroded freedom, and forced citizens to adapt in order to survive.  

Nandar, who leads digital safety training and emergency response, describes Myanmar’s “digital siege” as an Internet that works but no longer grants freedom. Layers of control filter access, monitor beh...

Episode #434: “I don't see how there could be a new social contract for a post-war, post-conflict Myanmar.” With this stark observation, Henning Glaser sets the tone for his analysis of the country’s turmoil. 

Glaser is a German legal scholar based at Thammasat University in Bangkok, where he co-founded the German-Southeast Asian Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance. His work spans Asia, but Myanmar has become one of his deepest commitments. Since the early 2010s, he has organized dialogues and seminars on the country’s political transition, and after the 2021 coup, his institute shifted to docume...

Episode #433: Raul Saldana's journey began in Guadalajara, Mexico, where he grew up in a Catholic household. As a teenager, he questioned the rigidity of Catholicism and turned to nature, finding inspiration in the vastness of the outdoors. Music also became a powerful part of his life, leading him into diverse spiritual practices. In his twenties, Raul joined an ecological community and was introduced to Native American rituals like the Vision Quest; he later explored Sufism, Hindu meditation, and, ultimately, Buddhist practice, which provided the answers he sought. Under the guidance of S.N. Goenka, Vipassanā became a major turning point for R...

Episode #432: Myanmar researcher Lin Jin Fu investigates the rise of scam compounds that blend human trafficking, digital fraud, and organized crime. His study, Scam haven: Responding to surging cyber crime and human trafficking in Myanmar, traces their expansion from Chinese “scam houses” into a transnational industry stretching across Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos. Originally rooted in China’s underground economies, these groups migrated outward as Beijing cracked down and the pandemic restricted domestic activity. They flourished in lawless borderlands such as the Golden Triangle and northern Shan State, where weak governance allowed them to create fortified compounds that combine physical captivity with...

Episode #431: “I’m a sniper,” says Maui, deputy commander of the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF). He and four top commanders describe being pushed from peaceful protest into armed resistance after the 2021 coup. They say nonviolent methods failed when the military answered with bullets, mass arrests and village burnings, leaving youth to choose between submission or taking up arms. 

Maui—once an organic farmer and environmental activist—explains the moral conflict: killing is deeply uncomfortable and can become addictive, yet they fight to prevent future generations from inheriting tyranny. The KNDF emphasizes discipline, training and strict protocols around weapons...

Episode #430: Ngu Wah is a Research Fellow at Knowledge Circle Foundation and a PhD candidate at Chiang Mai University focusing on migration and political economy. In this episode, she speaks about the struggles of Burmese migrant workers and the crucial role of remittances in Myanmar’s economy, shaping the vision she has for her country’s future. 

She explains that Myanmar remains largely resourcebased, dependent on extractive industries and agriculture. The State Administration Council (SAC) controls the formal sector, while a significant informal sphere involves both state and nonstate actors. Weak infrastructure—roads, transport, and telecommunications—continues to weigh hea...

Episode #429: Emmanuel Flores' journey into meditation began at the age of nine in Rio de Janeiro, seated before a candle. His formative years were marked by a quest for positivity, but without a solid practice. This changed at 20, when a friend's recommendation led him to a vipassana meditation course in the tradition of S.N. Goenka. 

This course was transformative, and sparked an interest in the histories of Ledi Sayadaw, Saya Thet Gyi, and Sayagyi U Ba Khin. Emmanuel's fascination with Burma's spiritual heritage deepened, and he decided to travel to the Golden Land, staying with an uncle who had j...

Episode #428: This panel gathers five voices from Myanmar’s unraveling present—specialists in food, economy, energy, education, and digital life—who together trace the anatomy of a country still fighting to exist. Their stories intertwine across fields once filled with promise, now marked by loss, adaptation, and the quiet persistence of rebuilding. 

Thin Lei Win, a journalist and food systems expert, bridges the elemental links between nourishment and truth. She describes a nation abundant in resources yet starved by political neglect, where conflict and inflation have turned meals into measures of survival. For her, recovery begins with food so...

Episode #427: Daniel M. Stuart describes his newest work, Insight in Perspective, as the product of decades of scholarship and meditative practice, aimed at practitioners and academics alike. The book, a follow-up to his earlier Emissary of Insight, examines the historical and cultural formation of the S. N. Goenka Vipassana lineage. He says it began as a short academic critique, but grew into a comprehensive study seeking to bridge lived religious experience and historical analysis. 

Stuart situates his work partly in dialogue with Eric Braun’s The Birth of Insight, which links modern Vipassana to “Buddhist modernism,” a rationalized re...

Episode #426: The Karenni Interim Executive Council was formed in 2023 to provide services to people in dire need, with an estimated 80% of the civilian population displaced by the conflict. As people return to their homes, landmines placed by the military pose a multi-layered threat, causing injuries and deaths, creating a climate of fear for people on their own land, and making normal life dangerous on a daily basis.

“Fear now makes the land become evil so they are afraid to even to step on the area where they are used to play happily,” Banya Khung Aung says. “Force people to flee their lan...

Episode #425: Dr. Lalita Hanwong, a Thai historian and analyst, has dedicated her career to understanding Myanmar and its ties to Thailand. “I’m morally attached to the peoples of Myanmar,” she says, summing up a lifetime of scholarship and advocacy that spans from the archives of colonial Burma to the war-torn Thai-Myanmar border. “I just want to talk to everybody.” 

Trained at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, Lalita’s research explored how British rule relied on racial hierarchies to govern Burma. “The British were pretty paranoid and suspicious of the Burmese… the specific race that they found...

Episode #424: This episode opens the first of a three-part Insight Myanmar Podcast series recorded at the Decolonizing Southeast Asian Studies Conference at Chiang Mai University. The gathering brought together scholars, activists, and cultural workers exploring how colonial legacies continue to shape scholarship, storytelling, and identity in the region. In this opening episode, we hear from Jules Yim and Jochem van den Boogert, two voices who approach decolonization from distinct yet deeply connected directions. 

Jules Yim treats decolonization as a living practice rather than a theory—something expressed through art, performance, and community. She describes her concept of “seapun...

Episode #423: Ian Taylor is a Canadian photographer whose life shifted from the film industry to decades of work and travel across Southeast Asia. His first experience was with a government-sponsored Asian Studies program in the early 1990s. His early visits to Burma during the junta’s “Visit Myanmar Year” left a strong impression, and he became involved for a short time in advertising there.

By the late 1990s, Taylor had left advertising for photography, focusing on family portraits and NGO assignments across Asia. A formative volunteer trip to Bangladesh further deepened his commitment to humanitarian work, and led him back to Bu...

Episode #422: “There is beauty in owning one's racial identity. There's beauty in owning, valuing, and respecting one's heritage, ancestors, sexual identity, and gender identity. But on the other side of the coin, there can also be imprisonment there.”

So says Bhante Sumano, an African-American monk at Empty Cloud Monastery. This is the 6th episode in our ongoing “Intersections of Dhamma & Race” series, in which we examineentrenched protocols, practices and biases within the vipassana and mindfulness communities.

Bhante Sumano begins by telling us how he came to take on the monk’s robes. Originally from Jamaica, he moved to New York Ci...

Episode #421: Saijai Liangpunsakul, whose first name means “the link between two hearts,” speaks of her journey through the turbulent conflict of Myanmar, and how the kindness and resilience of the Myanmar people continue to inspire her. Now a recognized expert on digital trauma and rights, she has come a long way from her small southern Thailand village. She travelled to Costa Rica on her own at 15 years on a student scholarship, and continued her global education in Canada and the US.

The spark for her defining work ignited during the Arab Spring in Egypt, where she was on a...

Episode #420: “This is this shit is real. This is not a dream. This is real.”  

Burmese actor and public figure Khar Ra recounts a path that runs from Mogok to Yangon, into entertainment, and then—after the 2021 coup—into public dissent, displacement, and ongoing advocacy. 

He grew up on Mogok’s west side. Money was tight; his father died from alcohol; his mother remarried and left; with no siblings, he lived among relatives and kept one house rule: don’t drink, don’t smoke. Before leaving he told a friend he would not return unless he had become an artist.  Duration: 02:14:26

Episode #419: “I’m just doing what is right, what is wrong, what’s the matter? What should I do as a human being?”

After medical school, instead of choosing comfort, Dr. Myay Latt went to the Naga Self-Administered Zone — a place with no roads or electricity, where he was often the first doctor anyone had seen. He built bamboo clinics, trained villagers, and survived falls off cliffs while fighting malaria and tuberculosis. “They think I’m a strange person,” he says, laughing, “but they thank me.”

His work took him across Myanmar’s forgotten corners — from Chin to Rakhine, where he...

Episode #418: Lorraine Pan is a 21-year-old queer, autistic, immigrant from China who now studies Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto (note that Pan’s preferred pronouns are they/their/them). Growing up in a small town, Pan felt alienated in a conservative school system that stigmatized neurodivergence. Their politicization began in high school during the Hong Kong protests of 2019: Chinese state media glorified police violence while censoring dissent, a contradiction that unsettled them. With friends’ help, Pan became more internet savvy, and soon learned to navigate China’s vast surveillance and censorship system, encountering authentic voices from H...

This bonus episode features the recording of a special online meditation fundraiser hosted by Better Burma in partnership with Vipassana Hawaii. The event combined meditation, reflection, and stories from the ground in Myanmar, highlighting how monasteries and nunneries have become lifelines—providing shelter, food, and education for displaced families amid crisis. Mora, who leads our monastic support team, shares firsthand accounts of resilience and need, while Vipassana Hawaii teachers guide practice and reflection. Donation links mentioned in the session remain active, with contributions continuing to sustain these monastic communities and their vital humanitarian role.

Episode #417: “There has been a massive lay critique of leading Buddhist monks that have been seen as pro-military… but to conclude that monks are either silent or pro-military is too hasty! What we actually see is polarization and division within the Saṅgha,” says Iselin Frydenlund, a professor of religion in Norway who has spent decades studying Buddhism and politics in Sri Lanka and Myanmar.   

One of her arguments is that the Saṅgha has never been truly unified. The coup simply shattered public illusions of unity, and that diversity and division have always marked monastic life in Myanmar. Frydenlund’s seco...

Episode #416: In the early 1990s, a chance encounter with Burmese student exiles in Bangkok sparked Nic Dunlop’s enduring interest in the country. His initial ignorance of the country developed into curiosity, empathy, and visual storytelling. As a photojournalist, Dunlop has spent years documenting the “invisible dictatorship” of Myanmar’s military regime, focusing on the mechanisms of social control, forced labor, and repression. 

His 2013 book, Brave New Burma, aimed to educate Western audiences about the complex realities behind simplistic narratives. Rather than reinforcing the myth of Aung San Suu Kyi as a saintly figure, he presents her as a tough leader shap...

Episode #415: U Jāgara's spiritual journey is a fascinating exploration of monastic life, creativity, and the transformative power of the Dhamma. Born in Quebec, his introduction to meditation set him on a path that would span traditions and continents. His spiritual journey was initially shaped by his time in the Goenka tradition, where he valued the rigor and structure of its method. He later practiced Mahasi Sayadaw’s teachings in Yangon, which introduced him to the nuanced and adaptive approaches of Burmese monastic practice. Then in Sri Lanka, he immersed himself in rich Theravādatraditions of scholarship and meditation that expanded his underst...

Episode #414: “They just didn't believe me at first. So I had to prove to them.” With these words, Xiao Yar Yar captures his struggle for recognition— a struggle that has defined both his personal life and his role in Myanmar’s revolution. 

When the military staged its coup and dismissed the election as fraudulent, Xiao Yar Yar knew the generals were lying. He had collected votes and seen the results himself. Watching peaceful protestors shot down shattered any remaining illusions. A student training to be a teacher, he set aside his future and stepped into the jungle as a medic. 

Episode #413: “No one's liberated without everyone being liberated, right?” Those words belong to Nitchakarn “Memee” Rakwongrit, a Thai youth activist whose journey from a rural upbringing to the center of Bangkok’s protests has made her one of the country’s most visible young voices for democracy and feminist struggle. 

Born in Mahasarakham province in Thailand’s Isaan region, a place long tied to grassroots democracy but often dismissed by elites, Memee grew up in a politicized household, as her father, a staunch Red Shirt supporter, constantly encouraged her to question authority. At sixteen she moved to Bangkok, and wh...

Episode #412: “We are in Myanmar, and nothing is clear cut.”

Anthony Davis offers a stark assessment of Myanmar’s war, drawing on decades of experience studying insurgencies. He begins with the United Wa State Army, a thirty-thousand-strong force running a state the size of Belgium. “It would be entirely wrong to see the Wa as simply Chinese puppets or Chinese proxies,” Davis insists. The Wa have scaled back arms transfers under Chinese pressure, but they remain determined to expand their autonomy. Their ambition is recognition as a state, linking their territories along the Chinese and Thai borders. If the reg...

Episode #411: This is the second part of our interview with the meditation teacher, Tempel Smith, and it starts off with his decision “to commit to deep intensive Burmese-style meditation, break through some of these habits, and then find a more integrated lifestyle.” With this in mind, he boarded a flight to Myanmar with his friend Diana Winston, and ordained under Sayadaw U Pandita.

Although U Pandita’s reputation as a stern and very demanding teacher caused him some concern, he went to the Sayadaw’s monastery and began to practice. Tempel describes U Pandita’s style as a “ruthles...

Episode #410: “We’ve got to find a way from surviving to thriving again.” With this vision, Jue Jue, a social worker and founder of Jue Jue’s Safe Space, seeks to transform Myanmar’s mental health landscape. Raised in a politically engaged family—her father an 88 Generation activist and her mother a frontline social worker—Jue Jue’s early exposure to trauma and resilience shaped her lifelong dedication to social justice.

Her understanding of inequality deepened upon moving to the U.S., where her accent and ethnicity led to discrimination, mirroring the systemic exclusion ethnic minorities face in Myanmar. This...

Episode #409: His military experience enabled a rapport with Myanmar’s armed actors, says Rory McCann, who recently served almost two years as the country Weapons Contamination Specialist for the ICRC. A challenge at the beginning of the job was to build trust with different conflict parties, in part to convince them that the ICRC was teaching weapons safety regarding landmines and other explosive ordnance, not weapons handling. 

As a 25-year veteran of the Irish Army, McCann was deployed in Chad, Syria and Uganda, with his training in the ordnance corps preparing him for humanitarian mine action. His ICR...

Episode #408: “There is no way to tell the story of Myanmar and where it’s headed if you are leaving out the Wa,” says Patrick Winn, a veteran Southeast Asia reporter and author of Narcotopia. His book traces the wild story how Wa State, a mountainous enclave on the Chinese border, became defined by narcotics, and how it has become one of the key powers in the country today. 

A pivotal figure is Saw Lu, born in the mid-1940s, raised among Baptist missionaries, and convinced that literacy and Christianity could unify and “civilize” the Wa. Recruited by Burmese intelli...

Episode #407: One month after the coup, Captain Kyaw Kyaw defected from his post as a military pediatrician. After years of seeing the military brutalize the civilians they were supposed to protect, committing systematic war crimes in conflicts with ethnic armed organizations, he had still felt loyalty to the soldiers in the lower ranks who he viewed also as victims. The carnage that met protests against the coup, however, was the final straw leading him to join the ranks of defectors.

In his account of indoctrination and military training, a clear picture emerges of a military leadership that...

Episode #406: “I didn’t come to study this subject deliberately with a focus on Buddhism,” says Justine Chambers, author of Pursuing Morality, a book that explores Buddhist moral life among the Plong community in southeast Myanmar—known to outsiders as Pwo Karen—particularly in and around the town of Hpaan. Her work, the product of many years of immersive fieldwork, traces not only Buddhist ethical practices in everyday life but also the entanglements of those practices with political transitions, spiritual power, armed conflict, and minority identity in Karen State. 

Chambers’ journey began with refugee advocacy in Australia and continued...

Episode #405: “Myanmar deserves better,” reflects Olle Thorell, a Swedish Member of Parliament whose nearly two-decade commitment to the nation is both political and personal.  

Elected to the Riksdag in 2006, Thorell's focus on Asian affairs quickly centered on Myanmar. He learned from dedicated activists and, in 2011, had a clandestine meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi, a moment he recalls as “fantastic;” albeit, goes on to acknowledge that this occurred before what her later fall from grace in international relations. Part of Thorell’s vision as a member of the Swedish Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee is for Sweden to fill the gl...

Episode #404: Before the coup, Pandora was a tour guide with little interest in politics. That changed in 2021, when the generals seized power and she found herself leading protests in her hometown of Bago. Arrests of friends and pressure from her family to stop pushed her into the jungle, where she joined the People’s Defense Forces. Life there meant leaking tents, beans and noodles for every meal, and complete separation from her family, whom she has not seen since. 

In September 2021 she entered PDF training with over 200 recruits, just 13 of them women. After a month of basics she...

Episode #403: Annai had always been attracted to spirituality.  Growing up in a devout Catholic family in Barcelona, she preferred spending time in church while her friends only wanted to watch TV, and even began asking how she could one day become a Catholic nun. Eventually she found her way to Dhamma Neru, a vipassana meditation center in Spain the tradition of S.N. Goenka.  She found the course extremely difficult and cried every day. However, in the end, she realized this was a path she wanted to dedicate herself to, and so decided to venture to India, where she to...

Episode #402: “In stable times, sustainability may be seen as a long term aspiration,” says Tin Shine Aung, a Burmese scholar and sustainability expert whose work bridges research, policy, and on-the-ground crisis response. “But in our context, in the context of a polycrisis, it’s become like a strategy for survival and reconstruction.”

Arguing that Myanmar is living through a true polycrisis— multiple shocks that collide and amplify each other rather than simply add up— Tin Shine Aung points out that this demands treating sustainability not as a later luxury but as a present survival and reconstruction strategy. He rejects the...

Episode #401: “Look at my eye. Trust me! You can do this!” With steady assurance, Nay Chi Linn describes her work at the Sunshine Care Center (SCC), a border-based facility she founded to care for Myanmar’s war-injured. Located on the Thai side of the border, the SCC provides daily care, physiotherapy, rehabilitation, and emotional support.

Nay Chi Linn was raised in Yangon and studied law before moving to Chiang Mai for further study. There, she met an ethnic Karen man and got married; the couple lived in a refugee camp with his family for two years before moving...

Episode #400: James Rodehaver, head of the UN Human Rights Office on Myanmar, offers a sobering account of the country’s accelerating crisis and the limits of the international community’s response. Drawing on decades of experience in conflict zones, he describes Myanmar as uniquely complex and heartbreakingly violent—particularly since the 2021 coup. His office, which operates from outside the country due to lack of access, monitors rights violations, advises UN agencies, and supports civil society efforts.

Rodehaver acknowledges that some UN agencies do engage with the junta to secure humanitarian access, and says the anger this provokes among...

Episode #399: Insight Myanmar was very fortunate to conduct a series of interviews with Friedgard Lottermoser between 2023 and 2024, amounting to more than forty hours before she sadly passed away last year. Friedgard was one of the few non-Burmese who could speak about the experience of meditating extensively with Sayagyi U Ba Khin, life at the International Meditation Center (IMC), and what it was like to live in Burma at a crucial period of its modern history.

In this episode, she explains how she survived the July 7, 1962 student massacre by chance, spending the weekend meditating at IMC instead of...

Episode #398: The Telenor scandal has emerged as one of the most serious blows to Norway’s reputation as a champion of peace and human rights. Nicolai Prydz, author and long-time observer of Myanmar, calls it “the largest scandal in Norway, but it’s under the carpet. Nobody wants to tell it.” 

When Telenor entered Myanmar in 2014, only 7% of the population owned a mobile phone. Backed by Norway’s decision to lift sanctions and forgive $3 billion in debt, the company quickly expanded to more than 20 million users and generated hundreds of millions in annual profits. Norwegian politicians hailed it as a mod...

Episode #397: In this episode of the Insight Myanmar Podcast, two compelling voices—Thinzar Shunlei Yi and Wongpun Amarinthewa—illuminate the stakes of Myanmar’s political crisis from the frontlines of resistance and reporting. 

Thinzar Shunlei Yi, a prominent Burmese activist and deputy director of the Anti-Sham Election Campaign Committee, lays out a forceful case against the junta’s proposed elections. Far from representing democratic progress, she sees them as a calculated maneuver to legitimize the military’s grip on power. These elections, rooted in the discredited 2008 Constitution, are framed as part of a broader strategy to escape accountabil...

Episode #396: “There is no other issue in Thailand that has this long of a history of civil society engagement like Myanmar.” With these words, Thai humanitarian worker and activist, Mic Chawaratt, discusses the decades-long relationship between Thailand and Myanmar regarding displacement, refugee management, and civil society aid. 

He traces Thailand’s security-driven approach to Myanmar refugees from the 1980s to today. Despite not signing the 1951 Refugee Convention, Thailand has hosted large populations displaced by conflict and political repression, though often without offering any legal recognition. He notes how the official response has been spotty, and Thai civil society...

Episode #395: Laetitia van den Assum, a Dutch diplomat and former ambassador to Thailand, was one of nine members of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, a group set up in 2016 at Aung San Suu Kyi’s request and chaired by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Its mandate was to improve conditions in one of Myanmar’s poorest and most divided regions. In this conversation, van den Assum reflects on the Commission’s work, her dealings with Annan and Min Aung Hlaing, and the enduring challenges of Rakhine. 

From the outset, the military opposed the Commission because it had bee...

Episode #394: Sandar, an ethnographer and documentary photographer, dedicated her life to understanding Myanmar’s diverse cultures. Before the coup, she conducted extensive research in ethnic territories, particularly in Kachin, documenting their struggles and traditions. However, when the military seized power, her ability to continue fieldwork was shattered. Facing restrictions and violence, she joined mass protests in Yangon, capturing the resistance movement as it first emerged onto the scene. As the military began to target anyone so much as holding a camera, she realized the dangers of remaining in the city, and sought another way to contribute.

Sandar de...

Episode #393: “It’s now time to be more principled and say that, ‘We would like to support democracy.’” With this statement, Audun Aagre, former head of the Norwegian Burma Committee (NBC), distills three decades of Norway’s involvement in Myanmar into a call for credibility and purpose. 

Aagre’s own engagement with Myanmar began in the early 1990s, when Burmese exiles in Norway trained as journalists with the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB). Witnessing their dedication inspired him to travel to the Thai–Myanmar border, and later help form a Burma support group back home. He was eventually tapped...

Episode #392: Landmines and explosive remnants of war are taking a devastating toll on civilians, as armed groups on many sides continue to use the deadly and indiscriminate weapons. Mine Free Myanmar, a country-focused campaign of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, runs an annual art contest documenting survivors’ stories and the ever-present threat experienced by communities.

The contest, now in its third year, attracts submissions from both adults and children, opening a window on survivors’ experiences. One woman who was injured while fetching water was later abandoned by her husband because she was disabled. Last year’s prize...

Episode #391: A key figure at Article 19 for the Asia Pacific region, Lana exposes a dilemma: the tense dynamic between an accelerating tech industry and authoritarian governments' increasing digital control. Lana's background informs her examination of how tech operations affect human rights in countries such as Myanmar, Vietnam, and China.

Authorities in oppressive Asian nations are increasingly delegating enforcement of their restrictive policies to private tech firms. In Myanmar, post-2021 coup, new legislation forces telecom and IT companies to comply with the cybersecurity law. Lana clarifies that Myanmar's military isn't just removing content directly; it's using laws to...

Episode #390: The exhibition Fragmentation, hosted earlier this year at Bangkok Art and Culture Center and co-organized by SEA Junction and A New Burma, presented haunting photographs of displaced teachers and students in Karenni State, capturing both devastation and resilience in the midst of war. Through a series of interviews, curators and participants reflected on the deeper meanings of these images.

Tim, the co-curator and graphic designer, explained the deliberate effort to avoid sensationalizing suffering, instead showing both the grief of loss and the ordinariness of children still learning. He recalls how the sound of school bells had...

Episode #389: Mie Mie Wynn Bird, a retired U.S. Army officer and defense strategist runs leadership and capacity-building workshops for Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement. In this episode, she argues that morale—and not weapons or resources—is the decisive factor in war. She is guided by this principle: “people first, mission always”: leaders must train, protect, and respect their teams while keeping the mission in focus, building trust that cannot be fabricated in crisis. 

In Myanmar, morale among the resistance groups continues to be high, with the people believing they are fighting for a righteous cause. In contrast, t...

Episode #388: “Every day in Myanmar, people are living in constant fear, fear of air strike, fear of artillery, fear of arbitrary arrest, fear of extra judicial killing. As long as the military is in power, the country will not be in peace,” says Alex, a Burmese activist-in-exile about Myanmar's brutal reality under military rule. His believes that the military’s planned, upcoming elections are in his words “a sham,” just a strategy to consolidate power and a deceptive charade to gain international legitimacy. Because they already hold 25% of the Parliamentary seats under the fraudulent 2008 Constitution, which sets the minimum limit of 3...

Episode #387: “I think vipassana has always been a response to crisis, not just a quest for spiritual purity,” says Gustaaf Houtman, anthropologist and author of Traditions of Buddhist Practice in Burma and Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics. Drawing on decades of research and immersion in the culture, Houtman connects meditation, language, politics, and cultural history, revealing a view of Burma’s Buddhist traditions that resists Western simplifications. 

Houtman contrasts Western notions of religion—rooted in belief in abstract doctrines and separated from culture—with the Burmese concept of sāsana, the Buddha’s dispensation, which is integrally emb...

Episode #386: Maw Htun, Deputy Minister for Electricity and Energy in Myanmar's National Unity Government (NUG), has navigated a path defined by personal tribulation and transformation since the 2021 coup. His journey began with joining the NUG to fulfill a lifelong dream of systemic change, but was soon overshadowed by a battle with cancer. With his critical illness and having to endure a series of complex medical procedures, Maw Htun faced an existential crisis. This harrowing experience, including a miraculous recovery linked to a burgeoning meditation practice, radically reshaped his worldview and even his political outlook.

Previously driven by...

Episode #385: Minna Fredriksson, human rights advisor at the Swedish development organization Diakonia, describes her humanitarian work and critiques the humanitarian aid field based on her years of work in Southeast Asia. Fredriksson managed humanitarian efforts in refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar border in 2013. This was at the start of the democratic transition, and when donor governments such as the U.S., Sweden, Germany, and Japan were urging refugees to return to Myanmar despite persistent insecurity. She observed firsthand the disconnect between donor timelines and refugee realities.  

Later, inside Myanmar, Fredriksson found that decades of repression had shaped ho...

Episode #384: “As a journalist, you always hope for consequences. I mean, otherwise our reporting is meaningless,” says Bjørn Nordahl, a Norwegian investigative reporter who led a two-year probe into Telenor’s withdrawal from Myanmar. The case was especially painful because the company, once praised for driving SIM card prices down and sparking a communication revolution in 2014, ended up entangled with a brutal military regime. 

After the February 2021 coup, Telenor initially disclosed military orders to shut down networks and block Facebook. But on February 14 its CEO told Norwegian media, “From now on, I can’t say anything” about Myanmar...

Episode #383: The 4th International Conference on Burma/Myanmar Studies (ICBMS) was hosted at hosted by Chiang Mai University. This major event brought together many scholars and experts to discuss Myanmar’s ongoing challenges, including the 2021 coup, conflicts, peace efforts, and human rights issues. Hosting over 800 participants over its three day event, it was one of the largest events dedicated to Myanmar studies.

Insight Myanmar Podcast recorded exclusive interviews with a number of guests at the conference. These short conversations covered a broad range of topics, and this episode closes out this four-part series. Our guests are:

...

Episode #382: Zack Tu Nan, a queer, ethnic Zaiwa activist and student living in the Netherlands, reflects on his journey through marginalization, faith, identity, and exile. Born in 1994 in—literally—a rice field in Kachin State while his parents fled military violence, Zack grew up in a remote village run by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), where he enjoyed a rich, traditional Zaiwa upbringing. But entering a Burmese state school in Loi Jai exposed him to Bamar cultural domination—his family name was stripped away, his pronunciation mocked, and even his given name, “Tu Nan,” ridiculed.

As a gender-non...

Episode #381: Vicky Bowman, the former UK Ambassador to Myanmar and past director of the Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business (MCRB), explains what sanctions are meant to do - prevent harm and promote reform, rather than punish - and how Myanmar’s “opaque information ecosystem” makes this challenging.

She recalls that in the early 2000s, compiling sanctions lists was difficult, with EU diplomats sometimes relying on public donation plaques or even the Yellow Pages to identify names of people and companies. While noting that identification and evidence have improved since then, and that stronger coordination now exists among allies...

Episode #380: “I started meditation at a fairly young age,” begins scholar and author, Daniel Stuart. At nineteen, he traveled to India, disillusioned by the world he grew up in and searching for an alternative. What he discovered was vipassanā meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka, and for him it was “a quite revolutionary experience!” 

For Stuart, meditation was never confined to the cushion. His practice sparked questions about history, authenticity, and cultural context. This curiosity took him through India and Burma, into the study of Pāḷi and Hindi, and ultimately into academia, where he now bridges rigor...

Episode #379: “It’s a different migration story,” reflects Amy Hardingson, speaking about her enduring connection to her Burmese heritage, a thread stretching across generations. Her great-grandmother, Hilda, embodied this love, embarking on the perilous Great Trek during World War II to India in 1941. A member of the Eurasian community in Burma, Hilda fled with her three-year-old daughter and seven-month-old son (Amy's grandfather). After losing her husband to malaria during the arduous journey, Hilda and her children were interned by the Japanese in a concentration camp for over a year. Their survival ultimately led them from war-ravaged Burma to the UK in...

Episode #378: Simon Billenness, director of Campaign for a New Myanmar, draws on thirty years of advocacy to explain the mechanics and challenges of U.S. policy toward Myanmar. He begins by discussing the recent removal of sanctions on junta-linked individuals, which he believes reflects corporate lobbying rather than signaling a coherent strategy or change in overall policy. In fact, he says, that action contrasts sharply with Congressional progress on three Myanmar-related bills that punish the junta: the Brave Burma Act (targeting junta-linked financial entities), the No New Funds for Burma Act (blocking World Bank disbursements), and the GAP Act...

Episode #377: “Myanmar is a source of inspiration everywhere! This is me speaking directly to friends in Myanmar, that they should understand that they are the source of inspiration, and the source of ideas and reflections, to a level that they don't recognize, because there are a lot of reflections going on in the corners of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, that are not there on media.” 

Tee is a Vietnamese activist devoted to regional peacebuilding, and is particularly connected to Myanmar. His solidarity is deeply personal, not about grand gestures but about sharing in the struggles of his friends. As he...

Episode #376: “I think it’s a big win. And also people may not like to hear this, it’s actually a win for sanctions,” says Erich Ferrari, founder of Ferrari & Associates and a leading U.S. sanctions attorney. In this episode, he explains the legal and procedural framework behind the U.S. Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list and responds to criticism over his firm’s role in recent delistings of Myanmar-linked clients. 

Ferrari entered sanctions law after 9/11, troubled by the lack of due process in early terrorism-related designations towards Muslim charities. His firm now handles compliance, licensing, and delisti...

Episode #375: “Don’t fall for the junta's attempt to try to propagandize!” says Derek Mitchell, former U.S. ambassador to Myanmar. In this interview, he assesses U.S. strategy under the Trump administration, focusing on recent sanctions “de-listings” that have raised concern. 

Regarding the de-listings, Mitchell believes that the they were a bureaucratic decision, not a strategic one. “It could be the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing,” he says, pointing to the hollowed-out National Security Council and lack of interagency coordination. Ultimately, he sees no change in the overall U.S. sanctions policy towards...

Episode #374: “Miraculously, amazingly, the mission has continued up until now in 2025.” These words from Dr. Zaw Moe Aung, Executive Director of The Leprosy Mission Myanmar (TLMM), encapsulates the resilience of an organization founded in 1898. While still focused on leprosy, TLMM has expanded its work to extend support to all people with disabilities in the country, including the growing number of survivors injured by the scourge of landmines and explosive remnant of war. 

With the backing of international partners, TLMM has been providing prosthetics to landmine survivors, training physiotherapists, and operating mobile workshops in remote areas. Beyond physical aid...

Episode #373: In this wide-ranging interview, journalist Lorcan Lovett returns to the podcast to discuss Aung San Suu Kyi’s imprisonment, the fractured resistance, and Myanmar’s trajectory under military rule. He recounts his investigative work authenticating leaked prison logs from early 2024 that reveal Suu Kyi’s declining health, sparse diet, and isolation. Obtained from a group called People's Embrace—which connects with junta insiders—the logs were cross-verified with a neutral source in Myanmar and Suu Kyi’s son, Kim Aris. Lovett believes Suu Kyi, though held incommunicado, likely understands the scale of the civil conflict, reading between the lines of jun...

Episode #372: “I focus on research that's mostly relevant for climate resilience, and I really look at Myanmar as the most interesting and important case.” 

Kyungmee Kim, a researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, explores the intersection of climate justice, extractive industries, and conflict in Myanmar. Her early work focused on community resistance to hydropower dams in ethnic minority regions like Karen and Chin States—areas rich in resources but historically subject to marginalization and violence. She uses the Myitsone Dam as a case study: secretly negotiated by the junta and China Power Investment, it was exposed...

Episode #371: “I remain confident in the longer term, completely, actually, that this regime is losing,” says Sean Turnell, Australian economist and former advisor to Myanmar’s civilian government, as he analyzes the recent U.S. decision to lift sanctions on several junta-linked cronies, in what his fourth appearance on this platform. While acknowledging widespread concern, he offers a measured, optimistic assessment rooted in his deep knowledge of Myanmar’s economy and U.S. sanctions policy. 

Turnell explains that this recent move is “very targeted to a few individuals and a few enterprises,” and not a broad shift in policy. He...

Episode #370: "Why are [Asian women] not allowed to dream that we can open our own thing and lead our own work?" This question by human rights lawyer Emilie Palamy Pradichit slices through the silence, exposing the systemic barriers that have historically muted and marginalized Asian women in leadership. Pradichit’s journey as a young Lao refugee navigating discrimination in a low-income Parisian suburb crowded with migrants cemented this perspective. In Paris, she witnessed firsthand the insidious nature of inequality. These early encounters ignited a vision within her to dismantle entrenched norms - by centering the voices of underrepresented communities. 

Episode #369: “I promised Aung San Suu Kyi and committed myself to work for democracy and human rights in the country as long as necessary. And still it is necessary!” So says Kjell Magne Bondevik, former Prime Minister of Norway and a longtime supporter of Myanmar’s democratic struggle. In this conversation, he reflects on his decades of advocacy for Myanmar, from a surreptitious 1997 visit to Yangon where he first met Suu Kyi, to his post-retirement work at the Oslo Center, which he co-founded to support democratic institutions globally. 

Bondevik describes Norway’s strategy toward Myanmar as one of princi...

Episode #368: The Adhikara podcast is an important, new voice in Burmese media, aiming to build not just a movement but a resilient community against oppression. Created by Maw Nwei and Morgen after the 2021 military coup, Adhikara provides a platform for expression and education, especially around human rights. The podcast allows the creators to connect with the Burmese people without the barriers of traditional in-person training, offering flexible and accessible content to circumvent the economic and social restrictions of the military regime. 

The podcast focuses on fostering an intellectual revolution, encouraging listeners to rethink issues like patriarchy, cultural n...

Episode #367: In this episode, we hear from two compelling voices grappling with the human and political costs of authoritarianism in Southeast Asia. Raoul Manuel, the youngest elected member of the Philippine Congress, describes how his work on education reform and youth rights intersects with a broader transnational resistance against repressive leadership. He draws on his experience in grassroots organizing and progressive legislation to explain how state violence, economic injustice, and environmental crises are linked across borders. For Manuel, democratic engagement must be paired with community action, especially as governments increasingly retreat from human rights responsibilities. Looking ahead to the...

Episode #366: Sallo Polak, founder of the Philanthropy Connections Foundation (PCF), has spent decades building a grassroots approach to humanitarian aid in Thailand, Myanmar, and Cambodia. Motivated by a lifelong desire to address global inequality—first sparked by a formative journey to India at age 18—Polak established PCF in 2011 to serve under-resourced communities through trust, dignity, and local leadership. “I always wanted to do good, to help people,” he explains, a conviction that continues to guide the foundation’s work. 

PCF supports 25 to 30 projects annually, reaching over 15,000 people. Rather than implement projects itself, PCF partners with local groups who underst...

Episode #365: “The Buddha lives and teaches for the welfare of the world, for the happiness of the world,” says Bhikkhu Bodhi. “He does live for the welfare and happiness of human beings. And so now, when we look at contemporary conditions, the question arises as Buddhists following in the footsteps of the Buddha, how do we live for the welfare and happiness of other human beings?” 

Bhikkhu Bodhi, a renowned Buddhist scholar and advocate of Engaged Buddhism, has dedicated his life to making Buddhist teachings accessible and relevant in contemporary society. His translations of the Pāḷi Canon have p...

Episode #364: Ben’s simple words resonate strongly: “If I could do something small for one person, why would I not?” 

This episode brings together Ben and a Burmese student who goes by the moniker Little Activist. Together, they discuss the profound impact of individual gestures and transnational solidarity. Ben, who worked briefly in Myanmar with a UN agency, was moved by an episode that Insight Myanmar Podcast aired last year, in which Little Activist described how he was documenting military atrocities and sharing online information. Compelled by Little Activist’s courage and the sacrifices he was making, Ben decid...

New Bloom is an online magazine and community space covering activism and youth politics in Taiwan and the Asia Pacific, founded in Taiwan in 2014 in the wake of the Sunflower Movement. They welcomed the host of Insight Myanmar for a talk at their Taipei center.

Episode #363: In post-coup Myanmar, where conventional aid channels with humanitarian intentions risk getting diverted and empowering the military junta, Blockchain technology presents a nuanced alternative. An anonymous Blockchain researcher, 7k, highlights both the promise and the pitfalls of digital solutions. He explains that “Blockchain is a fundamental technology that enables cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to emerge or work,” offering a potential detour around junta-controlled centralized banks. However, he acknowledges that crypto is not without its own challenges and pitfalls: the risk of arrest, fraudulent schemes like money laundering, and practical obstacles such as limited accessibility, elevated costs, and the necessity for...

Episode #362: Myanmar has recorded the world’s worst casualties from landmines and explosive ordnance for the first time, with over 1,000 casualties in 2024 alone, 29% of whom are children. The inaugural episode in our “Navigating a Minefield” series kicks off with Bekim Shala, a humanitarian mine action expert whose journey in the field began in his native Kosovo, heavily contaminated by landmines during the breakup of Yugoslavia. Witnessing the human toll there, he recognized the importance of mine action. “By being exposed to people who have been injured really quickly, it became clear how important this work is,” Shala says. His work has s...

Episode #361: “I am Burmese. I feel like it is my duty and responsibility to speak about it.” With these words, Myet opens a conversation that explores Myanmar’s past and present, weaving together personal history, political critique, and spiritual insight. 

Raised under military rule, Myet witnessed the silencing of dissent and the trauma that shaped her parents’ generation after the 1988 uprising. After resettling in the West, she was struck by how little people knew about Myanmar’s history and suffering. “We do not exist in the imagination of the world as a place of suffering,” she says, highlighting th...

Episode #360: “To have my daughter summarily decide that I was complicit in genocide, I really had to think through again my logic for taking the position that we should stay. It sent me on a lot of soul searching,” confesses Ellen Goldstein, a former World Bank Country Director for Myanmar. This revelation, a central theme to her book “Damned If You Do”, encapsulates the dilemmas she faced during Myanmar's tumultuous democratic transition and the Rohingya crisis.

Goldstein's decades-long career, dedicated to poverty reduction, led her to Myanmar in 2017. Initially, the World Bank’s aid program brought economic reforms an...

Episode #359: “The real motivating force is people, it is those human relations.” Duncan McArthur, a backpacker turned decades-long humanitarian leader, found his truth not in textbooks, but in the raw, unfiltered experiences along the Thai-Burma border. His journey began as an English teacher in a Karen refugee camp, where he was inspired by the resilience and humility of the communities he worked with in the face of unimaginable suffering.  

Motivated to stay on the border and continue working there, McArthur soon joined The Border Consortium in 2003, a charity organization that exposed him to the complexities and frustrations of the...

Episode #358: The 4th International Conference on Burma/Myanmar Studies (ICBMS), hosted by Chiang Mai University in August 2024, brought together scholars, activists, and experts to discuss Myanmar's critical issues. The event focused on conflicts, peace processes, human rights, and the 2021 coup's impact, drawing an estimated 800 participants, making it one of the largest gatherings on Myanmar studies.

Insight Myanmar Podcast had exclusive on-site access, recording a number of brief interviews with a wide range of guests. These interviews explore many different themes, and we’re excited to bring them to you here. This is the third episode of our fo...

Episode #357: When Wai Yan Phyo Naing, a civilian scholar in Myanmar vocal against the human rights atrocities of the junta, received a scholarship from a Russian university to pursue his Masters, he did not expect to receive a rare insight into the intricacies of Myanmar's military. Yet that is exactly what happened, as many soldiers were also studying at his university in Moscow. Surrounded by hundreds of uniformed students, he observed a prevalent insularity within their ranks. Yet, amid this closed environment, he identified a distinct subgroup: military officers whose willingness to interact with other international students cultivated, for...

Episode #356: Jonathan Crowley shares his experiences as an Assistant Teacher within the Vipassana Meditation Organization of SN Goenka. He participated in a culture that heavily prioritized rules and regulations over open and meaningful discussion about the practice itself. This lack of space for open dialogue, especially about the Dhamma, led Jonathan to feel that the organization was stifling inquiry and critical discourse.  

He was particularly concerned about the Organization's reluctance to engage with the Pali Canon apart from Goenka’s idiosyncratic interpretations, or to address social justice issues, including race and privilege. More broadly, Jonathan felt that this...

Episode #355: “You need to pay attention to what the kids care about,” says Naomi Gingold. “It will inform so much about the place that you're trying to understand, be it politics, culture, all of it! And you do a disservice to the nature of what you're trying to understand when you don't.” 

In the late 1990s, amid Myanmar's strict military rule, Burmese hip hop began to emerge as a new form of cultural expression. Young people blended beats, slang, and self-assertion to create a movement that challenged both cultural norms and the political narrative of a tightly controlle...

Episode #354: Saravanan, an advocate for Myanmar's alienated Tamil community, illuminates their rich, yet overlooked, history. He describes an ancient connection, starting around 300 BC, through trade between Tamil merchants and the Mon people. Those early Tamil migrants eventually assimilated completely, suggesting hidden Tamil ancestry in many Burmese today. 

The colonial era marked a huge turning point. From just 19 Indians living in Yangon in 1852, the rice boom led to a surge of cheap Indian labor, which totaled 1 million by 1931. This forced migration through indentured labor, akin to slavery, fueled Myanmar's economy but also bred resentment. Saravanan details how discriminatory t...

Episode #353: Professor Lahra Smith, a political science professor specializing in East Africa at Georgetown University, argues that Myanmar’s current struggles must be seen within a global framework of colonial legacies, using Sudan as a comparative case. While acknowledging contextual differences, Smith shows how both countries were shaped by British colonial rule that hardened ethnic divisions, created infrastructure disparities, and entrenched political inequalities. 

Sudan lies within Africa’s so-called "coup belt," illustrating a broader dissatisfaction with post-colonial governance and foreign interference. Like Myanmar, Sudan has suffered from military coups that initially promised reform but quickly descended into new f...

The Global Citizen Podcast recently featured a look at the work behind Insight Myanmar and Better Burma, which we bring you here as a bonus episode.