Their Lives Were Shattered by a Coup. Now They’re Doing ‘Whatever it Takes’ to Survive.

That New Year’s Eve party, held in a Yangon hotel, may appear almost indistinguishable from any nightclub in the region. But as young revelers danced their way into the new year, large swathes of the country remain mired in violence and uncertainty as Myanmar enters its third year of civil war. Pyae Phyo Lin, who performs at a DJ around Yangon’s nightlife hotspots, is one of many young people who are attempting to embrace normality, refusing to let Myanmar’s political crisis get in the way of living their life.

Known by his stage name PAST12, the 25-year-old beams with pride when he talks about the country's burgeoning electronic dance music (EDM) scene.

“Up and coming, talented artists are growing as we speak,” Pyae Phyo Lin told VICE World News. “My vision is for Myanmar to be known for really nice festivals and a really cool electronic dance music scene. And more than that, I want the music industry of Myanmar to get to the next level.”

But Pyae Phyo Lin’s musical vision for Myanmar seems a world away from the reality young people are facing around the country. Millions of lives have been put on hold since the military seized power in a coup on Feb. 1, 2021, reversing a decade of democratic progress and plunging the country into chaos as the junta responded to anti-coup resistance with violent suppression.

Since the takeover, the lives of millions of Myanmar youth have diverged in extraordinary ways: While some are working to turn the country into a culture hub, others have taken up arms against the powerful military. Many more are still coming to terms with the reality that their dreams have been shattered by the junta. As political turmoil—the same that their parents experienced decades ago—upends the lives of another generation, activists say that even the most privileged won’t be able to ignore the political crisis for much longer. 

Two years ago, Tin Tin, a mathematics major who was in her final year of university, was on the frontlines of pro-democracy protests in her hometown of Loikaw, the capital of Myanmar’s eastern Kayah State.

During protests that swept the country after the coup, young people like Tin Tin emerged as the most vocal critics of the junta’s power grab. Many like her felt they had nothing to lose, but they were not prepared for the extreme violence that would soon descend upon them as the junta launched a violent crackdown, arbitrarily arresting hundreds, as well as firing rubber bullets and live ammunition into crowds of protesters.

“I saw some people arrested. Some were shot by rubber bullets,” the 21-year-old told VICE World News. “I started worrying about my safety.”

As protestors quickly found themselves the targets of a violent military campaign, the first to be killed was Mya Thwate Thwate Khaing, a 19-year-old girl protesting in Naypyidaw. She turned 20 in the hospital before she died. One of the next casualties was Kyal Sin, another 19-year-old fatally shot in the head at a protest in Mandalay. She has since become one of the faces of the resistance, immortalized with the slogan printed on the T-shirt she was wearing when she died: “Everything will be OK.”

Over the past two years, the junta has killed almost 3,000 and detained over 17,600 of its supposed political opponents, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Over 100 people have been sentenced to death in secretive court proceedings, and at least four were executed last year, sparking a wave of international condemnation. Almost half of Myanmar’s remaining population now live under the poverty line, and some 1.2 million have been internally displaced.

With their education and career plans thrown into uncertainty, the country’s youth are one of the groups most affected by the political crisis. 

In Tin Tin’s hometown Loikaw, half its population has fled their homes due to severe fighting between junta forces and local resistance groups. Tin Tin now works as a warehouse supervisor in the city of Taunggyi, Shan State, a three-hour drive away. Her dream of becoming a businesswoman has been shelved, especially after recent restrictions on passport renewals, which saw passport offices closed indefinitely, all but extinguished her hopes of leaving the country.

Stuck in Myanmar, Tin Tin sees no way of continuing her university education as her school is run by the junta. Schools around the country have mostly gone under junta control, and classrooms have remained largely empty as students choose to stay home due to fears of bombings and attacks on educational institutions. Yet others, like Tin Tin, are simply boycotting an education system taken over by the junta.

“I don't want to study under the military government at all,” Tin Tin said, who deliberately left her university degree unfinished, instead enrolling in a private institution to pick up accounting. 

“Most of the young people my age, they sacrificed themselves and they are fighting for freedom in the jungle. So I feel guilty if I continue my study.”

Zaw Min was in his final year at university, finishing up a degree in computer science, when the coup upended his graduation plans. For the next two months, he participated in demonstrations in Loikaw, persisting even as military forces used sound bombs and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds. 

But things took a dark turn when military forces eventually started firing live rounds.

“They hit an old man and he died on the spot,” Zaw Min told VICE World News, using a pseudonym for his safety. “I realized that with only demonstrations, we can’t get power back. I realized that we have to fight against them.”

Zaw Min’s parents have not spoken to him for two years, severing ties with him when they found out about his decision to join an armed resistance group. His father, who is in the military, received chilling threats from his colleagues when they found out his son had joined the resistance.

“The military told my family that if they caught me, they would kill me,” he said. “But I don't care, because in the revolution, you cannot have attachment.”

“[I’m not] against my family, but I want justice. I know what’s right and wrong.”

Like Zaw Min, thousands of youth have taken up arms to fight the junta, joining the People’s Defence Forces (PDF), the armed wing of the National Unity Government (NUG) led by elected politicians ousted during the coup. The PDF has formed alliances with ethnic armed organizations—minority groups engaged in protracted conflicts with the military as part of campaigns for independence. 

These alliances have created an added layer of threat to the junta, which experts note is struggling to impose control across the country. On Feb. 1, the second anniversary of the coup, Myanmar’s de facto ruler, senior general Min Aung Hlaing, announced an extension to the country’s state of emergency until August, citing “unusual circumstances,” while acknowledging the junta was not in full control of more than a third of townships in the country.

The NUG issued a statement on the same day, announcing that they will work with “ethnic allies” to “end the military's illegal power grab.”

“From our view, they [the PDF] are our heroes. They’re risking and sacrificing their lives so that we could have a peaceful country,” Fox, a 22-year-old photographer, told VICE World News, using a pseudonym to avoid reprisals from the military. 

Fox has been documenting the conflict, from the early protests in Yangon to embedding with Karenni resistance groups. Most people he’s met in the revolution are like Zaw Min, young civilians who’ve uprooted themselves to fight the junta despite having no military experience. 

“I personally don't really like people referring to them as soldiers and fighters,” Fox said. “It’s what they are, but they were never meant to be.”

“They were students, they were doctors, they were teachers—just normal people who have no choice but to pick up arms and defend their country. It's very sad.”

For two years, Fox and a team of like-minded friends have been documenting the conflict, sharing photos on social media to raise awareness and funds for the resistance. But their activism has come with anxious objections from their family, many of whom carry vivid memories of past protests that ended in bloodshed.

“[My family members] were worried based on their experience back in 1988 or 2007. It always ended up very violent, very bloody, so they didn’t want their children to go outside,” Fox said, referring to the country’s ‘8888’ Uprising and Saffron Revolution, respectively, which saw widespread protests erupt against the junta’s rule. 

Both were met with violent military crackdowns, resulting in widespread deaths and arrests. As history repeats itself, Fox has chosen to ignore his family’s warnings, convinced that resistance is the only solution to the country’s crisis. 

“We don't want our future generations to suffer like this again, and we don't want to suffer like this,” he said. “So the only thing we should do is to get rid of them [the junta], no matter what.”

On Feb. 1, pro-democracy activists held a silent strike across the country, urging people to stay indoors and businesses to shut for the day. As streets are left defiantly empty, activists say that the silence is meant to honor those who have died while resisting the military and demonstrate the people’s rebellion against the regime.

The empty streets also serve as a reminder of the over 70,000 people who have fled the country in fear of the repressive military regime. These include artists who continue to make coup-related artwork from abroad to support resistance efforts at home.

Soe Myint, a member of the Myanmar Film Collective, a team of anonymous filmmaker activists who wish to keep their locations secret, told VICE World News that making art remains the primary way for him and his peers to address their frustrations.

“We wanted to do something lasting. We know that the media headlines are not gonna last,” Soe Myint said, using a pseudonym to avoid reprisals for his activism. “As a filmmaker, I think this is one of the tools that is at our disposal. And we are going to use it.”

Last year, the collective released Myanmar Diaries, a hybrid documentary-fiction film about the post-coup lives of ordinary citizens which has been screened at film festivals around the world.

But as the silent strike took place in Yangon last week, a city that has managed to keep up an illusion of normalcy amid the protracted civil war raging hardest in the country’s peripheries, activists like Soe Myint warn that it’s just a matter of time before the conflict comes to their doorstep.

“There are so many people in the city of Yangon who are basically acting like nothing is happening,” he said. “These are the people who are trying to project the image of normalization under the junta.”

“What is now jungle revolutionary warfare will soon turn into urban fighting. For those people who are behaving like nothing is happening, how are they going to be prepared?”

Sai Woon Nge, a young DJ and fashion designer in Yangon, known by his stage name AJOHN, told VICE World News that he went through a personal reckoning during the pandemic and the coup. As he came to terms with what he wanted out of his life, he turned to music and fashion. 

“Of course there are bad experiences,” Sai Woon Nge said in reference to the past two years. “But slowly we all are trying to focus on ourselves and trying to do better.”

The 24-year-old now works alongside peers like Pyae Phyo Lin spearheading youth culture in Yangon. His fashion brand, No Replacements Found (NRF), has been making waves among fashion enthusiasts in the city. During his last pop-up in downtown Yangon in December, a snaking line formed outside the store as more than 300 people showed up to buy his products on the day of their release.

As budding music and fashion stars continue chasing their dreams in Yangon—carrying mixed feelings about the political turmoil—Pyae Phyo Lin says “everybody is trying to… do the best they can to live with the situation.”

“It’s unfortunate our country has to go through this,” he said. “But you know, it is what it is.”

Also living in Yangon is 23-year-old Aye Aye Myint, who is still trying to make peace with her dreams broken by the coup. 

“In Myanmar, there is a big gap between people. Some people don’t care about the coup… because their financial background is good and they can get what they want,” said Aye Aye Myint, a pseudonym given to her for her safety. “But there are also many people, including me, we have to try for everything.”

Aye Aye Myint has continued working as a finance assistant in a civil service organization, a position she held even before the coup. But even though she is thankful for keeping her job through the political crisis, she is also painfully aware that her ambitions—pursuing a master’s degree abroad, getting a new job—have all been suspended indefinitely.

“All my plans are gone, and we don’t know where to start again,” she said. 

The political crisis has exacerbated differences in a country that already had a stark wealth gap. According to the 2017 Myanmar Living Conditions Survey, the poorest 40 percent of the population holds only 22.1 percent of the country’s total income. But amid a plunging economy, evaporating employment opportunities, and bleak educational prospects, activists say even the privileged can’t ignore the impact the coup has made on life in Myanmar, fueling the resistance against the junta. 

“Even in the young population, there are different classes,” said Thinzar Shunlei Yi, advocacy coordinator at the Action Committee for Democracy Development, a coalition of social and political groups focused on democratic issues in Myanmar. “In urban areas, the young people may not be speaking up against the junta mainly because of security issues,” she said. 

“But that won’t stop the revolution from going. Every day, young people are facing challenges, even in the middle of Yangon. The coup impacted all of us.”

With seemingly no end in sight to the crisis, the past two years of conflict and instability have taken their toll on youth like Tin Tin. As she continues working in a warehouse away from her hometown, her ambitions as a university student have turned into a distant memory. The reality of her new life is slowly, painfully, sinking in. 

“For the first year, I didn’t feel much depression because we hoped that it would be over. If it’s just one a year we can stand and resist the coup,” she said. “In the second year, some of my friends and so many youth are sacrificing their lives. People are suffering.”

“I feel like my youth and my education have been destroyed by the coup.” 

Naw Diamond and Caleb Quinley contributed reporting.

Follow Koh Ewe on Twitter and Instagram.