Why Did It Take a Coup?
What took them so long?
For years, Thinzar Shunlei Yi’s activism against the brutality of Myanmar’s military, at best, was met with tepid enthusiasm or, at worst, set her up as a target, putting her on a collision course with the country’s most prominent voices—including Aung San Suu Kyi.
But after the military took power in a shock, predawn coup last week, detaining Suu Kyi and returning the country to a dictatorship, she has unexpectedly found herself among throngs of flag-waving demonstrators, disobeying and resisting military rule.
In the days since the coup, hundreds of thousands of people have marched in the streets nationwide, in hard-scrabble trading cities on the Chinese border and in towns high in the hills, and even in the colossal capital, built in part to inoculate leaders from such public shows of discontent.
Yet the demonstrations Thinzar Shunlei Yi had organized—in support of journalists, against abuses towards minorities, calling for an end to Myanmar’s numerous internal conflicts—drew only modest crowds, mostly young dissidents and a smattering of reporters. Why weren’t those excesses and atrocities of the still-powerful generals, she wondered.
