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To vote or not? Split Burma youth take cause to streets
Agence France Presse - November 3, 2010
Dave Major, Rangoon – In the dead of night in army-ruled Burma, Aye Aung Lin and his team don helmets, leap on their motorcycles and risk their freedom to blitz four towns with bold graffiti.
Like all of those aged under 38, these activists have never voted in a general election before. But getting the nation's youngsters into the polling booths on Sunday is exactly what they are trying to prevent. One of their scrawled slogans has a big 2010 crossed out. Another simply says: "No vote."
"I believe the election will not change anything because the political prisoners have not been released," said Aye Aung Lin, 24, whose name has been changed for safety reasons.
It is a stance that meets with much agreement across most Western nations, where Burma's rare poll has been widely criticized as a ploy to dress up military rule in civilian clothing.
But by advocating a boycott through their subversive street art, poetry and hip hop music, the young radicals in this nationwide network, known as "Generation Wave," risk substantial jail terms if they are caught.
Twenty out of roughly 50 of them are already locked up, along with more than 2,000 political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. "We believe that we will succeed one day, but we need to keep trying," Aung Lin said. "We want to reach out to the people through the arts."
He is not the only youngster trying to sabotage the controversial poll, which has been boycotted by Suu Kyi's now disbanded National League of Democracy after she was effectively excluded from the process.
"Our main objective is getting people not to vote," said Ko Yin Thit, an activist with the NLD's youth branch, who distributed leaflets and photos of Nobel peace prize winner Suu Kyi to convince fellow citizens not to vote.
"This is to show the world that the new government won't be elected by the majority of the people and the whole thing is a set-up," said the 31-year-old, whose name has also been changed.
In recent days, Burma's state news media asked citizens to vote and warned those calling for a boycott that they faced jail terms or fines. "We could die or be put in prison, but I'm prepared for that," Yin Thit said.
Suu Kyi, who said she would not vote, swept her party to power in Burma's last election in 1990 despite being under house arrest, but the results were never recognized by the ruling generals.
This time around. the junta is taking no chances. Suu Kyi is again under house arrest, a quarter of parliamentary seats are reserved for the army and regime-backed candidates have enjoyed hefty advantages over "pro-democracy" parties.
But not all Burmese youth want to dismiss the election. Some are spreading the message that, despite its many flaws, the polls offer hope of gradual change in a country that has been under iron-fisted military rule for nearly 50 years.
"The election is very important for our country and could lead to democracy. That is the reason why we want to give education about the voting process," said Ester, 23, an ethnic Kachin who had been traveling around with friends to explain the electoral process to first-time voters.
"We have to participate whether it is fair or not. We will have another election, maybe in 2015 or 2020," said the optimistic 23-year-old, who just returned from a voter education trip in northernmost Kachin state.
The election could also help the country's youth to realize they have a duty to pressure the authorities for democratic reforms, according to David Mathieson, a political analyst with Human Rights Watch.
"It's unfortunate that their first experience of democracy is so bitter," he said. "But something positive might come out if the kids are watching how the process works and how it is flawed."
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