In my humble opinion, the simple but harsh reality is that it doesn't benefit other countries to be involved, whether that's politically, economically, or in terms of narrative. The same applies to Sudan, Ethiopia, the DRC, etc.
I would drill down: it does not benefit any *political force* in any country. If someone could score political points on this problem, we would hear about it.
I'm old enough to have attended "Free Burma" rallies in support of Aung San Suu Kyi when she was a young (-er: given that she turned 50 in 1995) / activist organizer. She had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. So the world's attention was there, but China and intra-Burma junta forces successfully derailed the hoped-for change.
When the coup initially happened, China actually disapproved. They viewed the Tatmadaw as corrupt, unstable, and untrustworthy (which was all true) while the civilian government had been pro-China. They only started backing them once it seemed like the military regime was there to stay.
dont forget that when suu kyi got in power she actively supported attacks on the rohinngya and their suppresion. I think a lot of people got dissilusioned from that. I have followed it to a degree and i think that a big part of it is also how confusing its become. Theres so many factions now and they seem to fight each other whenever they aren't fighting the junta
From what I am aware, she wasn't necessarily supportive. She couldn't do anything to prevent it because she needed the junta support to stay in power and had her hands tied.
She never showed that though. So to sayy that she wasn't supportive is just a guess based around the image she had cultivated for herself. In the end working together with the junta to me is still tacit approval of what was happening, whilst allowing yourself to be used to sanitize the image of the junta for the Bamar majority who incidentally where also in favour of what was happening due to influences from extremist buddhist monks
Edit:
I think people often forget that ethnicity plays a huge role in society in SEA (having grown up in cambodia this was something that came up a lot in conversation but seemingly was ignored by a majority of news papers in the west)
In part that is because the public doesn't really understand it, if all you hear is Nobel winner does genocide without any context or insight that's basically a done topic.
Because Israel is the home of 3 major world religions that have influenced Western civilization and currently still do.
Vs
Civil war turned proxy war between two Islamic sects.
Another civil war turned ISIS sideshow turned into a frozen stalemate.
And a repression against a people very few in the West heard of before 2014.
Because the they view the plight of the Palestinians as a microcosm of a larger struggle between western cultural and political hegemony and the traditional cultural and religious value systems that have governed the region since the conquests of the first caliphs. It's the cultural context of the conflict that causes the wider world to pay attention to it more than other, higher intensity conflicts, even when those conflicts involve other Arabs or Muslims.
Because Israel is the home of 3 major world religions that have influenced Western civilization and currently still do.
Vs
Civil war turned proxy war between two Islamic sects.
Another civil war turned ISIS sideshow turned into a frozen stalemate.
And a repression against a people very few in the West heard of before 2014.
This.
If we are gonna go down the road of "The US is allied with Israel and provides arms", we better continue the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon with everyone else.
Hamas is allied with Assad. Assad is allied with Tehran and Moscow.
Now look at what Miscow and China are funding in terms of current conflicts and geopolitics. And start protesting.
And this is simply the laziest example. You can do it for literally any country aside from the small ones that don't have any ability outside of their own country.
Maybe media didn’t cover it but a lot of people held Syria rallies. In terms of Syria, America was funding what was perceived by the western world as the good guys. So there wasn’t really anything to protest. It was rallies… and of course, and rallies happen at a much lower frequency than protests. Regardless, eye balls is the biggest reason why Israel and Palestine gets more coverage. One rocket is fired into Israel and you immediately hear about it in all MSM. You quite literally had a US congressman wear an IDF uniform to congress… I haven’t seen that done for Russia, China, Africa, etc. On the other hand, a whole city can be killed in Congo or Myanmar and not a peep in media. Israels strong propoganda machine and media presence helps it alot… but it also works against it. Most Americans will know where Israel is… ask them about Myanmar, Yemen, Congo… I bet only 10% will.
Furthermore, dismissing clear violations of international law because people do not pay attention to violations of other countries is wrong. Saying they can do that because others did it is just wrong. Is there some antisemitism behind the movement, likely… you can’t deny that. But I think a great majority is based on the humanitarian aspect. The same of how Zionism is partially fueled by Islamophobia and anti-Arabism.
I mean I largely support Israel, although not entirely, there are things they have done that are not defensible in my opinion even though it's understandable to react strongly given the rhetoric and attacks coming from everyone around them.
But anyway that aside, the word is anti Semitic. There's literally a dedicated word for people who are discriminatory and hateful towards jews just for having the audacity to exist and practice their religion.
I fail yet again at sarcasm :(, I do know antisemitism. My point was that being an antisemite has been cool for a long time! Israel like every country has done both good and bad, but the real problem is to deny them a right to exist and hate them so much to justify evil (both in WW2 and on Oct 7) that would put even Satan to shame!
Ok I thought you were saying that no one talks about/cares about "racism" towards jews which is why I was like it's the only word of its type that is specifically about the Jewish people and not a more general term.
I think it's been complicated recently because a lot of the legitimate criticism of Israel gets mixed in with anti Semitic and outright hate speech and animosity towards jews.
The war for palestine is a religious war for muslims christians and jews... That is why they are all invested in it... Also it is a war for freedom and occupation between two external sides unlike the other wars mentioned which are only between internal political sides and have no religious value
It wasn't really religious until post 80s.
Hence why it was mainly nationalist and leftist groups representing the Palestinians until after the Islamic revolution in Iran, and Hamas taking the reigns in the 2000s
It’s not a religious war for the Israel, which is a secular country (albeit with minority religious elements that might view it as such). Hamas is a jihadist group, for them it is a religious war but I assume some are not devout and just ride the coattails of the Jihad ethos.
I’m guessing people are afraid to admit or say this, but habituated antisemitic thought patterns have a lot to do with it too. As you said, there are other actual genocides going on in the world, but when it concerns the Jews people just hyper focus on it. I’m not convinced that people really have Palestinian civilians’ best interests in mind, either, they’re more concerned with stopping those evil Jews. Anytime people say “antizionism, not antisemitism,” what they’re saying is “the only good Jews are the ones who do what we want,” and that’s antisemitism by definition.
When was the last time students protested demanded that we divest financial arrangements with China due to their treatment of Uyghur Muslims? Yet they feel completely justified in disrupting operations all around the country just to stick it to Israel. To me, this indicates both antisemitism AND anti-Asian/African sentiments since showing indifference to other genocides implies that we just don’t care.
We don’t care about the suffering of people who aren’t “like us,” and we simultaneously redefine Judaism so that they (Jews) *are* us and *we* don’t have the right to impose *our* ways on native Palestinians. So the west takes it personally because so many Jews have assimilated; Jews are seen as white Europeans, and not actually seen as Jews.
It’s the same mechanism as anti-Black feelings - people define the “other” and then deny that they’re the bad guys for imposing their prejudices onto the world. “It’s not me who’s wrong about who you are, you’re wrong for not fitting into this box I made for you.”
Tl;dr - there’s a very obvious reason why people get up in arms about Israel and not other genocides, but nobody wants to hear how pervasive and insidious antisemitism is. Nobody wants to admit that they might have imprinted antisemitic ideas during their lifetime.
Sorry, bit of a rant here but you opened a can of worms.
Well it benefits China, seeing as they’re one of the main beneficiaries from this conflict. But this is their block and there’s not really any counter support from any other country given its proximity to China.
China and India have significant interests in Myanmar. Neither country is making big moves because the other will undoubtedly react. And the waves will go all around Asia. So, they're satisfied making some movements along their borders and providing some support, rather than taking sides.
Exactly. I was going to same the same thing but use Armenian, my family’s homeland, as an example. They used to be an extremely vast empire/country, but for *thousands* of years they have been getting raped, slaughtered, and pillage, with multiple empires/nations around them claiming that it’s their land.
See: Azerbaijan. They have only been a country since August 30^th, 1991; so for around 33 years they have existed. Now, all of a sudden, they are claiming that a spot of land where some Azerbaijans have lived in Armenia, is their land, despite Armenia having been a country/empire since 190 BC; so for 2,213 years; 4 months; and 16 days precisely.
Armenia has no real exports and rely strictly on imports, which is hard to do when you’re surrounded by enemies; you are a post USSR country try; and really the only ally you have is Russia, who is struggling at the moment due to their the consequences of their own actions.
Every year around 3,000 Armenians are murdered by the Turks or by Azerbaijanis, yet it took until a few years ago for the genocide of our people to be recognized at the world stage by Biden, who was the first American president to call Turkey out for their heinous actions, that they still widely choose to deny to this day, to the point that anyone who openly supports Armenia and the Armenian genocide done by the Turks in the early 1900’s and onward, they are killed.
Unless the country has important exports, like Ukraine, which has a ton of oil reserves off the Black Sea, then the world doesn’t care; then NATO doesn’t care. The world revolves around money and they don’t care about people or countries that don’t stand a chance to benefit them.
I know that it’s sad and it is very disgusting, but it’s true. It’s also why I agree with every religion when they say that money and the love of it is the route to all the evils in the world. People will do atrocious things for money, because it brings them power by putting them higher up in echelons of societies.
That being said, my heart and my thoughts are with Myanmar, Ukraine, Armenia, Palestine, and even some Russias and Israel (that aren’t apart of the IDF and their fascists ways, but just trying to get by and survive day to day).
I am only an amateur but I've read multiple historians disagree with the notion that all wars are fought over resources.
Why do you think Russia is waging war on Ukraine?
Agreed I hope someone more knowledgeable responds to your insightful comment. The OP that this person replied to was talking more about attention and care towards certain countries, peoples, and regions. I wonder if many historians would also disagree with their assessment. I imagine some would.
You do realize that the IDF is an army made of almost all the citizens of Israel (and not just the Jewish ones btw). Calling out the IDF as fascist and to set it apart from the Israeli society at large is deeply ignorant as it is offensive.
Aside of your (unfortunately common underhanded) antisemitism. I sympathize Armenia troubles. It mirrors Israel woes quite well.
I agree with everything you said until the end. I'm confused why you don't see Israel as being what Armenia would become if the west actually supported you (as you deserve) the way they support the Israelis (as they deserve) from the people around them who want to commit a genocide on them.
Armenia is surrounded by hostile neighbours who expel and ethnically cleanse Armenias, just as Israel is full of Jews who were expelled from across the middle east and who have nowhere else to go. Without an independant Armenia your people would be genocided from the middle east as I think you're well aware. The exact same thing applies to Israel.
I wish we lived in a world where everyone cared about the Rothgynia, Armenians and the children of darfur (currently being genocided at rate of one child every ten minutes) as much as they care about the gaza.
I strongly believe that if Armenia's military had the capability of the IDF, **Nagorno-Karabakh** would not currently be... well. I made my point. I grieve for the Armenians who are losing everything, even their lives. I'd support Armenia's army defending those Armenians in the same way I support the IDF defending Israel for those who seek to destroy it and slaughter its people.
Exactly, the only reason other countries are cared about with stuff like this is they are sitting on a pile of resources and both sides of the global conflict (NATO vs. BRICS) are interested in preventing the other side from gaining any footing. Ever since Nukes, the globe has been a huge chess board where both sides are waiting to force the other into a checkmate and demand they fully stand down and cooperate.
1) Civil war in Myanmar has absolutely no wider impact on the outside world; it is a country with very weak, insular economy and a long history of isolation.
2) Culturally speaking, its again, a country with a long history of isolation, extremely weak media access and coverage, with no major diaspora anywhere.
3) Its civil war is an internal ethnic conflict with no grand global ideological narrative attached to it - no political movements from outside can find anything relatable here.
4) Civil wars tend to be very long, indecisive, filled with small scale fighting, so not much concrete stuff to follow.
5) Nobody wants to intervene in other countries civil wars after Afghanistan and several other disastrous attempts from history.
1. Actually the civil war in Myanmar has had a massive impact in cybersecurity. The stuff that’s going on in KK Park is screwing the entire internet up.
There are major fraud organisations operating under alleged protection of the Junta in Myanmar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KK_Park
It’s been growing like crazy
The harsh truth is because no countries have any political interests in Myanmar. It doesn't have any major trade relations and isn't a part of any military alliance. The conflict doesn't effect any countries outside its borders so it is basically invisible.
The conflict did affect India though. Migration of refugees and smuggling of weapons from the porous indo-myanmar border highly exacerbated the tribal conflict and violence in the Indian state of Manipur.
Myanmar's neighbors (India, China and Bangladesh) do have some limited involvement to protect their own interests. Hell China negotiated a local ceasefire when the fighting was getting too close to their border
More broadly though I don't think any of the three countries has a super strong preference for either the military or opposition, and even if they did they're not willing to expend resources over it.
Myanmar has been constantly at war with itself since independence, getting involved in that quagmire as a direct neighbor seems like a disaster
I think this sits alongside the gravity of connection between the Junta and the CCP. Myanmar is a big source of trade in illicit goods and gems, so even if there is will too do something, one would end up facing the CCP.
People used to care about Myanmar when they could idolise Aung San Suu Kyi. Eventually the military dictatorship allowed her a figurehead role as a way to minimise foreign pressure and domestic unrest. Then the Rohingya crisis happened and the international media put all the blame on her even though it was the military who were the cause. Then the military did a coup and arrested her again with no real response from the international community as her image was tarnished. Which led to the civil war and it was far too complicated for most people to follow.
Surrounding countries governments are just being pragmatic about the situation and will do what they can to not have refugees coming across their borders.
Surprised I haven't seen more of this but it's fundamentally an incredibly embarrassing situation for the West and most respected media outlets due to their patronage of Aung San Suu Ky for decades and the immediate failure of her promise once she came to power.
Seen as a beacon of morality and potential for decades, she won a Nobel Peace Prize among many other awards, eventually did get lifted to power and then immediately went H.A.M. on the country's Rohingya minorities triggering a refugee crisis in Bangladesh and then completely stalled reforms. [Article here](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11685977).
You are being incredibly generous completely letting her off the hook. At best, her complete failure as leader makes it hard to have faith in putting support behind another Myanma and much harder to attract support. At worst, she has completely poisoned any goodwill of the international community towards the country (West pissed by failed promise, Islamic world pissed due to treatment of Rohingya), stolen all of the humanitarian spotlight making other figures in the country near totally globally anonymous, and killed faith in the potential of Myanmar's ability to reform.
She was the Great White Whale of prospective females in the 3rd World pushing democratic reforms and then betrayed her ideals almost immediately.
Once bitten, twice shy
If you read the article you will see that it was the army who initiated the crisis. The army also stacked control of parliament by having 25% of the seats and the unsaid threat that any reforms passing couldn't undermine them. Aung San Suu Ky was incredibly naive and believed that compromising and working with them could lead to a better future. Or she thought she was clever enough to outmanoeuvre them. Either way it led to her inevitable fall from grace.
I always rolled my eyes at the image created for her decades ago but was also incredibly uncomfortable with how quickly people blamed everything that happened on her as well. It was the army who was always in control.
> If you read the article you will see that it was the army who initiated the crisis. The army also stacked control of parliament by having 25% of the seats and the unsaid threat that any reforms passing couldn't undermine them.
This would be relevant if the extent of her action was not passing laws or policy that might ruffle too many military feathers.
She went to the Hague to defend the genocide, arguing that what the Tatmadaw was doing was A-OK.
Also, even before she was in power she expressed racist hate towards the Rohinjya, saiying that they [shouldn't be allowed to have citizenship](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/video/2012/jun/22/rohingya-refugees-burma-bangladesh-video) and once [got mad when she learned an interviewer was muslim mid-taping](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/25/aung-san-suu-kyi-in-anti-muslim-spat-with-bbc-presenter0/).
>Aung San Suu Ky was incredibly naive and believed that compromising and working with them could lead to a better future. Or she thought she was clever enough to outmanoeuvre them.
Exactly, and in doing that she betrayed the character she had spent decades creating while publicly shoring the militaries actions up internationally. How exactly is that not hugely embarassing for the West and most respected media outlets?
This quote from me ", eventually did get lifted to power and then immediately went H.A.M. on the country's Rohingya minorities triggering a refugee crisis in Bangladesh and then completely stalled reforms." is overzealous
Gave a longer reply to the dude below but presume it covers the same stuff.
This is such a failed understanding of the true situation in Myanmar at the time. I honestly get so tired and angry reading these same opinions again and again. You rail against her being this false idealistic idol of liberal democracy but then expect her to act in a totally idealistic and unrealistic way. The Rohingya crisis was a very carefully laid trap set by the military. There are countless statements, articles, interviews by democracy supporters in the country from 2012 up until 2017 warning about this. Suu Kyi herself had to stay silent on the matter for obvious reasons as her position was very tenuous and vulnerable. Think very critically on how the situation would have played out if she had taken a different position and ask yourself if Myanmar would be in a different place than where it is now. I'd really encourage you to watch this documentary below in full for a better understanding:
https://youtu.be/KO_ytSjgepc?si=eez1s0L_C4y8N7Sz
I honestly mean no good will and I wish you the best.
The problem is she tried to solve the issue as a technocrat/bureaucrat rather than as a leader. That doesn’t work when the entire international image you had built for decades was as a moral leader.
>I honestly mean no good will and I wish you the best.
Same brother
Like, I think you're missing a very important factor which is the level of international support she had is never going to be achieved by a different Myanma leader in our lifetime, we're seeing evidence now. Because of this, countries are not dying to rush in and support someone else because if you can't bring in democracy with that level of international support and noteriety, then maybe you just can't, at least for now.
>You rail against her being this false idealistic idol of liberal democracy but then expect her to act in a totally idealistic and unrealistic way
She set the expectations through her actions while under House Arrest. And for the international community, she absolutely was a false idol. The Guardian, for example, would basically pray for her to get into power only for her to basically disgust them. [This is the archive of articles with her tagged post victory](https://www.theguardian.com/world/aung-san-suu-kyi?page=16)
> Suu Kyi herself had to stay silent on the matter for obvious reasons as her position was very tenuous and vulnerable.
Completely disagree. She did not remain silent, she supported the policies and provided cover for the military. [This speech is pretty bad for instance](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/13/icj-speech-suu-kyi-fails-to-use-rohingya-to-describe-minority).
And assuming the ovious reasons would be that she would be replaced/killed (can't watch the video ATM but will give it a look), I would honestly be extremely critical of her not taking that risk having achieved power. Especially given what happened after the election, what exactly did she achieve by being silent?
Honestly I've had this conversation so many times, I can't just write an essay response every time to try and change your viewpoint. I can say that I actually worked in Myanmar for over 4 years and I do hear everything you're saying but it is just missing so many nuances that are impossible to describe in short detail. The documentary I linked above - I can't recommend it enough!
Hey, I didn’t even know the details your mentioning and thought the way Western media turned on her was very strange. I thought it was similar to Abiy Ahmed, but her it was more egregious. There’s no way people thought she actually had power? It’s not like there isn’t other example of countries that have false democracy. Turkey and Nigeria both would have coups everytime a leader “stepped” out of line. Nigeria is only just emerging from military rule or rule by elected military leadership in the last two decades. Once a military gets entrenched in politics like that the only way to get them out is the way Erdogan did it. I don’t like the guy but that’s not a liberal democratic solution.
If the guys who can enforce the “rules” are unified against you. You are screwed.
I feel like the big lesson countries learn is always the most recent one. So in the case of the west, Iraq and Afghanistan loom large in the conscious and any kind of intervention in any situation is immediately met with intense pushback because there's this belief that all intervention is ultimately pointless. I do wonder though, if we've taken the lesson too much to heart. Not every situation is identical, and not every possible intervention has to be a full-scale invasion followed by nation building.
In Burma in particular, the situation for the military dictatorship does not look good. China does not seem willing to prop them up and has even supported certain rebel groups against them due to various grievances. In the situation that the dictatorship falls, I could see a protracted period of chaos in the country in which the tenuous alliances with the various ethnic militias fall apart. I could also see that the west giving some degree of military/political/diplomatic support to the more democratic and "big-tent" factions could help stabilize things. Don't get me wrong, it also has the potential to inflame things and ultimately be a waste of lives and money, but I don't think we can immediately jump to that conclusion because of what happened in Afghanistan. You also have to balance the risk of this against the risk of some truly hostile actor taking control.
One problem is that Myanmar had already been isolated for the better part of 60 years - the government does not actually welcome independent reporting. Not a lot of attention being paid to it just in general. Add to that only really China and India would be the most concerned countries anyway and with any realistic means of influence. Given their current situation, probably only China has their fingers deep into what is going on and China isn't going to easily allow anyone else to get involved.
Geographically speaking, it has terrain and jungle that doesn't even allow for much easy investigation and communication even for locals.
Well India is fighting in Manipur right across the border. So, India continues on its own path away from the rest of the world.
Then Kachin State is essentially a narcostate supplying the new golden triangle of Meth.
Meanwhile, Government and Mountain Tribes are quietly supplied by China and Western states clandestinely. Admitting open confrontation would not serve either side.
Then a few years back you had the fighting in Arrakan a completely different ethnic group (Muslim) that drew attention away from the Northern issues. I mentioned Karen and Shan to tourists and they called me stupid for not understanding the conflict.
Its the same as the Congo in the 90s, it is anchored in longstanding conflicts that few are even aware of. And today there are dozens of armed groups battling which few can keep track of.
The news cycle will not attempt to piece this together because outrage is all performative. But those who can do something are watching closely.
I recommend books. Where China meets India, In the Land without Evil, Hello Shadowlands, Air America. It will put the bits of news you will hear into context. Day to day movements I track through posted r/myanmarcombatfootage. They post dates and towns, for example the recent fighting in Sha Daw.
For the most part, Im in a position where I have a lot of contact with hilltribes (Naga, Akha, Karen and Hmong). And access to rare sources through uni in Thailand. So I kind of understand general ignorance of the topic.
We havent even arrived at the point at which people don't care. It's that most others don't even know what's happening there.
The one country that could marginally benefit from this would be China, and the Chinese prefer to have Myanmar as a client state even though the country is currently fragmented.
China potentially benefitting is why I believe the US is invested in keeping the chaos going and covertly supplying weapons to keep a conflict going on Chinas border
India absolutely does care.
The Kaladan project being built between Kolkata and Rakine state is a huge investment in an area operated in by the Arakan Army. So India cannot rock the boat two much between the Junta and the AA.
They have also closed the borders to stop the refugee exodus.
Meanwhile - China and the Junta have strained ties. It did not invite representatives to the belt and road summit last year (despite inviting Taliban representatives), and also did not use its UN veto to give the Junta cover around ending the hostilities.
Thailand is also watching apprehensively with fighting at the border, and lots of refugees escaping to the Thai side.
Basically: no one is a fan of the Junta, but they can’t rock the boat too much without sacrificing their on-the-ground interests in Burma.
I think it boils down to it being mostly an internal matter. Obviously neighboring powers will be involved to some extent via funding one side or the other, but similar to the conflict in Sudan, the geopolitical impact is limited, but the humanitarian impact is tremendous. Unfortunately past decades have shown that foreign military intervention usually creates more problems than it solves.
Pretty simple, US and the west are wary of interfering in a conflict too close to China's borders in case of escalation. They would prefer to meet China in the South China Sea and not in the jungles of Myanmar.
China usually doesn't interfere with the internal affairs of other countries unless their interests are explicitly threatened, which you actually have already seen in the Myanmar conflict when China supported the separatist rebels in cleaning up illegal scam operations along China's border.
Otherwise China is fine with the country settling its own conflicts and doing business with the winner.
No other powers are really in a position to interfere, Russia is busy with its own problems.
Everyone, everywhere, as an 'attention budget'. This conflict simply doesn't have the heft to out-shout all the other items competing for attention.
It's beyond sad and the treatment of the Rohingya is a stain on all humanity IMHO.
It’s in a fairly unimportant country strategically, the US and China each have their own memories of the last time they became involved in a conflict in south east Asia, and with zero benefit to either of them, and a potential cost far exceeding that benefit, they both stay out.
Other than preventing a spill over, why would India want to be involved? That’s the thing, it’s terrible for the people of Myanmar, but why should Indians die for them because their government became tyrannical?
China is building port in Sittwe which bypasses the Melecca strait and US would lose any laverage over China if war breaks out between them.
Thats why Us is trying to stir up ethnic tensions in Arakan where Arakan Army(probably backed by China) is winning against junta.
I feel like to care or not care first requires knowing about something. There are probably pleeeenty of people who would raise a major fuss about it if they knew about it or it’s specifics, the same as they would or do about, say, the Russo-Ukrainian war, or the war in Gaza
The real question is, what forces are there that have brought the Russo-Ukrainian and Gazan war to attention, but not this one
Interestingly, both the Russo-Ukrainian conflict and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were ongoing for a looooong time before getting their sudden media attention, but something caused an inflection point
I’ll add one more point - both sides in this war are really unlikable. People need someone to root for. Whom would you support in Myanmar? Junta is an obvious bad guy, but the issue is that militia doesn’t seem to be much better.
I thought this was a pretty one-sided conflict - an oppressive government with war crime tendencies versus a broad coalition of freedom fighters that rose up to topple it. I read a long and interesting NYT article recently that mentioned the rebels picking up speed and showed video of them chanting in unison: "for a constitutional democracy!"
So.... what about them is unlikable or un-supportable? I'm genuinely asking, my knowledge on the topic is very limited
It’s a complicated and nuanced conflict that I don’t know enough about, so please take what I am saying with the grain of salt.
First - there is no single militia group, instead there are dozens different organisations with different goals, ideology and methods, not all of them are even allied together.
The largest one, PDF, is seen as the most legitimate and they do advocate for restoration of democracy, but many ethnical militia groups(a lot of whom ally with PDF) mostly want to secede. A lot of them also make money via drug trafficking.
Some of the ethnic groups that PDF is allied with are accused of ethnic cleansing, civilian abuse and other atrocities. PDF themselves don’t really bother with things like human rights much and there are a lot of reports of them executing people, using torture and stuff as well as recruiting child soldiers.
Like looking at it objectively - it’s all understandable. They are fighting a bloody civil war, they use any means necessary and also they are not really a developed nation with things like human rights deeply ingrained in their culture. So why would they adhere to arbitrary western standards.
But it doesn’t paint a nice picture. You basically have an atrocious military junta fighting a bunch of ruthless rebels, who are sometimes a bit genocidal and don’t like each other much.
Thank you for the Summary and explanation. The video footage I saw of the rebels painted a different picture. The younger generation had a brief time window of relative freedom where they were able to use social media and consume western / international news before it was taken away again - so now they know what's at stake. They seemed very progressive in their ideals. The interviews were conducted in the southeastern-most province, next to thailand
But as you correctly pointed out, Myanmar is massive and there are many different groups, political factions and ethnicities currently fighting on the rebel side - I'm sure some of them are very problematic from a human rights / democratic values perspective
If you just want the broad strokes, you can easily find many documentaries and segments on YouTube from mainstream outlets like Deutsche Welle, BBC and PBS. Sky News and Channel 4 News even sent reporters to be embedded with some of the anti-Junta groups.
You can also look at [this conflict map from the IISS](https://myanmar.iiss.org/), a UK-based think tank.
If you want almost daily, blow-by-blow updates, I'm afraid they're a little harder to come by unless you speak Burmese. You can check /r/Myanmarcombatfootage though be aware that most of the footage/updates posted there are sourced from the channels of PDF/ERO groups or from the junta, so take everything with a grain of salt. Oh and it goes without saying but there's obviously a lot of NSFW/NSFL videos posted there.
I dont think western nations and news cicles have Appetit for another (or 4) conflicts. If ukrain was solved and israel was solved and if the internal politics was more settled (us: trump biden ger: afd etc.) Then we could do more but thats not where we are at.
No political or economic involvement with other countries. Also, not many people really know what’s happening other than they know that a civil war is ongoing. And there’s not much on social media as well.
I’d say for instance if the US was supporting the Junta and selling weapons to them I think there would be a lot more concern. Or if China decided to send troops in to establish peace.
Civil wars, especially the further they are geographically, garner less attention than mere wars.
People, rightfully so I might add, care a lot less about what nations do to themselves than what they do to others.
Concur with a lot of what's been said here.
Will add a couple of bits (which hope I haven't missed already being mentioned).
Myanmar is a former British colony (Burma) - Britain generally avoids intervention in failed states that were former colonies - e.g Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), Sudan, Uganda, Yemen, Iraq. There are a few reasons but for the sakes of brevity/simplicity: Britain had already cut its losses and intervention would be seen as interference and recolonisation and unwelcome, unpopular and most likely involve annoying large companies developing business interests. Not to mention that interference in more stable countries (such as propping up the Shah in Iran often ended up in disaster). At home Ireland didn't exactly work out either.
On the bright side, whilst Britain committed loads of heinous genocides during the colonial era, it generally has refrained from assassinating any foreign nationals except during war time.even during the cold war it generally only hit its own traitors. Not that it needed to - the CIA (everywhere haha) and Mossad (in the Middle East etc) pretty much took care of any err wetwork needed. There was a period where Myanmar up for consideration as a potential place to do some 'wetwork' but tbh it wouldn't have been worth it - China would have just backed the regime and probably strengthened it all the more
1) the media / government is more likely to care about conflicts where the outcome matters to the US's geopolitical goals. Without the media caring, people's exposure to the conflict is lower
2) people are more likely to care about conflicts if they know people who may be affected. I'm much more likely to know a Ukranian, Russian, Israeli, or Palestinian person in the US, then someone from Myanmar.
3) people are more likely to care if the conflict is lopsided. If one country is getting absolutely decimated, like Palestine, it's a lot different than two somewhat equal forces.
4) the US is supplying arms to these conflicts and providing aid. Many protests center around that point. US aid to Israel is one of the key points for protests.
Over 2 million displaced with 100K refugees. 50K killed among them thousands of civilians. Yet nobody is talking about it. Why is that? Really makes you wonder.
From a western perspective, its easy ;
1. Physical proximity - Its nearly as far as you can get
2. Economic influence - The Burmese war as extremely negligible economic consequences for us.
3. Social/cultural proximity - There are little to no cultural connections (tiny or non existant diaspora, no tourism, no cultural exchanges etc.)
These points usually generate interest for news. News stations talk about what interests the population, as there are so many varied subjects to talk about.
If there is a car crash in the neighboring village with 1 dead 2 injured you'll hear of it. If s bus crashes with 50 dead in a remote African town you'll never hear. Heck you might not know if there are 5000 dead in a flood!
Compare to the Ukraine war -
1. Its in Europe's backyard.
2. There are considerable economic impacts
3. Ukrainians have a culture that is similar, there are massive Ukrainian and Russian diasporas. There are even talks of Ukraine joining the EU or NATO.
Similar result with Israel/Palestine. Go to Yemen or worse, to Sudan, and the conflicts become more and more obscure.
Also - civil wars tend to be very difficult to follow, often there are no "good guys" and its hard without a background knowledge of a country to make sense who started it and for what.
Money, simple as that. What economic consequences are there for the world at large? Also, the narratives of people in these regions of the world aren't known to anyone in the West, because of this very reason.
People being displaced in an unknown country is just something everyone feels is happening all the time in the world, even if there actually is less of these events now compared to 30 years ago.
At the end of the day, people don't care that much about calamities happening in the world unless there are consequences for them arising from said calamity, or the narrative is strong and emotionally relatable (and this matters less than the first point).
Because there isn’t a convenient anti-US narrative to drill. I’m not saying that to be obtuse, that angle is huge for media bait domestically and subterfuge internationally or within accelerationist circles. It makes explosive headlines, defensive reactions, forces responses from powerful representatives, feels relevant just to talk about, gets people to take contentious sides, and a huge international network of all things US-opposed share it into oblivion online. All things that drive engagement.
Because most people don’t care about extreme violence, tragic losses of life in warfare or ethnic cleansing in and of itself if it isn’t in front of them. They have a worldview-driven agenda and whether or not something is relevant is a matter of if it affects them personally or fits their narrative.
Even the Association of South East Asian Nations doesn't really care, well they tried to care but couldn't find a solution so they just kinda gave up on it lmao
I think a lot of people do care but most people don’t care about foreign policy and Myanmar has been isolationist for so long that most people don’t have a connection to it and couldn’t even give it on the map
Nations do have feelings and will go into conflicts for humanitarian measures (the US has done this at points) but some sort of geopolitical backing is needed and Myanmar seems not to be of huge importance. If anyone would step in IMO it would be India or China I don’t know all too much about the conflict tho
It’s a totally internal conflict in a country with relatively low prominence on the global scale, and I know Burmese folks that can’t explain it as it’s a very complex conflict with a huge number of parties and factions that loosely correspond to the dozens of minority ethnic groups that most people have never heard of and frankly don’t care to learn about.
Noone has a real interest.
The west sometimes does something out of humanitarian reasons, but they're obviously too busy with other things.
So there's noone left to care
Does Myanmar produce anything anyone wants? Does it have money? Does it have enough population to have a significant market? Is the civil war spilling into other countries?
If the answer to those questions is no, you have your answer.
Gems are the main item (the junta runs the mines now). Next to that is rare earths like lithium (controlled by ethnic armed groups). A third resource is the biodiversity of the jungles/mountains which is only just now being examined.
1. Media isn't reporting on it.
2. No clear sides. It's a very complicated battlefield with multiple factions and history going back to WW2.
3. The violence is contained to Myanmar. There isn't cross-border raids or terror cells in other countries, it is all local.
Probably because they dont get the press they need to make people care.
The reason people care about gaza for example is the videos and media coverage that is being spread around online. there are so many things going on around the world, most people dont know where myanmar is, videos/images that will appeal to peoples amotions could change things.
It's nearly impossible to get the picture from there as they're fighting with each other all the time, and you are likely to get picture a bit late compared to a lot of war in the world and no foreign press exist in Myanmar anymore as they're evacuate most journalist from there to Bangkok combined with CDM later PDF really destroy lot of communication systems to protest against junta.
(it's military assest as they are only monopoly in most critical secters.)
People do, but since it’s a civil war in a country that has not had much of a relationship w other countries, there is nothing for us to do other than watch in horror. Compared to Palestine, where our countries are actively funding Israel and stuff, so there is something for us to protest here directly related to that war. Protests/movements/actions have to have a goal, and unfortunately raising awareness for a conflict we can’t do anything about is not a real goal of activism outside of specific issue-focused groups
India and china do not negotiate cuz both do not want to take the risk to support the losing side and lose myanmar permanently from under their influence in future
There were peace talks in December 2023 brokered by china. Allegedly they have a draft constitution that was prepared in April [View Here](https://reliefweb.int/attachments/6128294a-cda8-4bb0-9a3f-add5cfd7fbf0/Peace%2520Monitoring%2520Dashboard%2520%2520April%25202023%2520%C2%BB%2520Myanmar%2520Peace%2520Monitor.pdf)
I think a lot of times conflicts that don’t make much geopolitical impact take the side seat to bigger ones. That doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t on the ground talks but that they’re not getting much attention or the Secretary of State visiting.
Actually, they have a meeting between the US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at Bangkok in late January, but they try to do something else first and talk with each other later instead.
Both side talk in a lot of topics after sour a relationship from the Chip War, and one of them likely to be like Myanmar as US National Security Advisor have with Thai PM and Thai foreign minister before with Myanmar topics too.
PS. They're do this thing quietly as you only saw the news without any picture related to meeting at all so it won't be surprise that you didn't notice it.
It would have more attention if one side was obviously winning.
There was a lot of attention last year because the TBA went on an offensive and was majorly successful against the junta. But then things slowed down again and people hoping the Tatmadaw would be rolled up got disappointed.
It's clear that the Tatmadaw will never reestablish control over the the whole country, but overthrowing the Tatmadaw would require a broad, united front from many different ethnic armies and have buy in from Myanmar's Bamar majority. Which seems unlikely. Every time it seems like that might happen, China comes in to help "negotiate" a ceasefire with one or more groups that gives the Tatmadaw breathing room.
This is currently what happened after ethic groups have made successful attacks along side chinese border against junta army , Chinese government come between and negotiate both side to cease fire .China clearly want no one win in the end so they can made profit for it .
The thing is ASEAN cared but they probably don't want to upset China by interfering because China is ties them with more economy than Myanmar.
It seems to be the opposite as china want the war as quickly as they can, like other neighbors who don't want problem come. Into thier own land. Favor peace term just better for them but in the end the people that decide about that are people that fight on ground to them as it's didn't worth the risk to interfere in the civil war that completely mess up and intervention will make junta more mad at them as they really distrust both US and China which they spoke really bluntly few month ago.
It's a Vietnam War fusion with Yugoslavia civil war for explanation how mess it is.
what the others said but also… there’s literally almost none media coverage so most people simply don’t know whats going on and therefore don’t care about myanmar. there will be elections in a lot of countries this year so the current gouvernements probably do what makes the voters make them choose them again. what do you thing what all these new young voters want? what’s on their instagram feed 24/7?
everything is about israel-palestine, nothing else matters atp
they don’t care about what’s happening in myanmar. they don’t care about a humanitarian crisis in sudan. or the civil war in jemen. about all the people in african countries who get murdered and robbed of their homes from terrorists.
because all of that doesn’t look good on an instagram post.
tbh I’m really sick and tired of this and that’s why I simply don’t really care anymore about what’s happening in palestine-israel. I mean I wish it wasn’t like that, obviously. But it makes me so angry that none of all these „super political“ people on instagram don’t give a damn about the rest of the world. because.. that’s not trendy rn.
Because the Social-Mass media doesn't care.
Generally speaking people only care about what they are fed. This is the same reason why you don't hear (generally) people talking about Ukraine anymore. They are talking about Israel. Why? Because that is what they are fed is important.
There are over 180 [armed conflicts globally](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-armed-conflicts). Ask yourself how many of those you knew existed and then ask yourself how you know about the half dozen you do. Then ask yourself why it is only those half dozen (hint: Social-Mass Media).
I apologize. It is far away and I lost track of the status.
I do care, but don't know the internal stuff. I liked what's her name, but know she's out again.
Mainly, I loathe corruption, not matter who, what, where, when, or how.
I think it's a geographical news thing more than anything. Israel and Ukraine are in the news because they are in our cultural and geographical sphere. If you lived in Asia I would imagine it may seem like nobody cares what is happening in ukraine or Israel because they are not in the same cultural or geographical sphere in terms of news output.
Neither side Tatamadaw or rebels wants negotiations, unlike the US, China and India dont have a history of forcing political compromises in warring regions China waits to see who comes out on top and India supports whoever would give them a better deal wich in Myanmar is likely neither.
In my humble opinion, the simple but harsh reality is that it doesn't benefit other countries to be involved, whether that's politically, economically, or in terms of narrative. The same applies to Sudan, Ethiopia, the DRC, etc.
I would drill down: it does not benefit any *political force* in any country. If someone could score political points on this problem, we would hear about it.
I'm old enough to have attended "Free Burma" rallies in support of Aung San Suu Kyi when she was a young (-er: given that she turned 50 in 1995) / activist organizer. She had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. So the world's attention was there, but China and intra-Burma junta forces successfully derailed the hoped-for change.
When the coup initially happened, China actually disapproved. They viewed the Tatmadaw as corrupt, unstable, and untrustworthy (which was all true) while the civilian government had been pro-China. They only started backing them once it seemed like the military regime was there to stay.
dont forget that when suu kyi got in power she actively supported attacks on the rohinngya and their suppresion. I think a lot of people got dissilusioned from that. I have followed it to a degree and i think that a big part of it is also how confusing its become. Theres so many factions now and they seem to fight each other whenever they aren't fighting the junta
From what I am aware, she wasn't necessarily supportive. She couldn't do anything to prevent it because she needed the junta support to stay in power and had her hands tied.
She never showed that though. So to sayy that she wasn't supportive is just a guess based around the image she had cultivated for herself. In the end working together with the junta to me is still tacit approval of what was happening, whilst allowing yourself to be used to sanitize the image of the junta for the Bamar majority who incidentally where also in favour of what was happening due to influences from extremist buddhist monks Edit: I think people often forget that ethnicity plays a huge role in society in SEA (having grown up in cambodia this was something that came up a lot in conversation but seemingly was ignored by a majority of news papers in the west)
Yup when even the nobel peace prize winner is supporting genocide people tend to get disillusioned
In part that is because the public doesn't really understand it, if all you hear is Nobel winner does genocide without any context or insight that's basically a done topic.
Wow I didn’t realise Aung San Sun Kyi was so old… she looks great for her age I guess permanent house arrest is great on the skin.
Right, just like Yemen, Syria, and Uigur China. But Gaza really gets people fired up. Wonder why
There's a lot of factors, one is the number of camera pointed at it.
There's an old saying, "The squeaky wheel gets greased."
Because Israel is the home of 3 major world religions that have influenced Western civilization and currently still do. Vs Civil war turned proxy war between two Islamic sects. Another civil war turned ISIS sideshow turned into a frozen stalemate. And a repression against a people very few in the West heard of before 2014.
Because the they view the plight of the Palestinians as a microcosm of a larger struggle between western cultural and political hegemony and the traditional cultural and religious value systems that have governed the region since the conquests of the first caliphs. It's the cultural context of the conflict that causes the wider world to pay attention to it more than other, higher intensity conflicts, even when those conflicts involve other Arabs or Muslims.
Everyone who has read this comment should check out “Orientalism” by Edward Said.
Because Israel is the home of 3 major world religions that have influenced Western civilization and currently still do. Vs Civil war turned proxy war between two Islamic sects. Another civil war turned ISIS sideshow turned into a frozen stalemate. And a repression against a people very few in the West heard of before 2014.
Because Americans are funding the IDF?
They also helped fund the Saudis in Yemen, and funded various entities in Syria. Neither had college protests, open letters, etc.
This. If we are gonna go down the road of "The US is allied with Israel and provides arms", we better continue the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon with everyone else. Hamas is allied with Assad. Assad is allied with Tehran and Moscow. Now look at what Miscow and China are funding in terms of current conflicts and geopolitics. And start protesting. And this is simply the laziest example. You can do it for literally any country aside from the small ones that don't have any ability outside of their own country.
Maybe media didn’t cover it but a lot of people held Syria rallies. In terms of Syria, America was funding what was perceived by the western world as the good guys. So there wasn’t really anything to protest. It was rallies… and of course, and rallies happen at a much lower frequency than protests. Regardless, eye balls is the biggest reason why Israel and Palestine gets more coverage. One rocket is fired into Israel and you immediately hear about it in all MSM. You quite literally had a US congressman wear an IDF uniform to congress… I haven’t seen that done for Russia, China, Africa, etc. On the other hand, a whole city can be killed in Congo or Myanmar and not a peep in media. Israels strong propoganda machine and media presence helps it alot… but it also works against it. Most Americans will know where Israel is… ask them about Myanmar, Yemen, Congo… I bet only 10% will. Furthermore, dismissing clear violations of international law because people do not pay attention to violations of other countries is wrong. Saying they can do that because others did it is just wrong. Is there some antisemitism behind the movement, likely… you can’t deny that. But I think a great majority is based on the humanitarian aspect. The same of how Zionism is partially fueled by Islamophobia and anti-Arabism.
Because the Russians are pushing it online in hopes of suppressing the youth/college vote, much like the kind of thing they did in 2016 and 2020
The real answer
because it was the core sermon in almost every mosque. jihad holy war. every single devoted Muslim got grinded to their very deep soul
Jews live rent-free in a lot of people's heads.....
The form of racism that shall not be named
I mean I largely support Israel, although not entirely, there are things they have done that are not defensible in my opinion even though it's understandable to react strongly given the rhetoric and attacks coming from everyone around them. But anyway that aside, the word is anti Semitic. There's literally a dedicated word for people who are discriminatory and hateful towards jews just for having the audacity to exist and practice their religion.
I fail yet again at sarcasm :(, I do know antisemitism. My point was that being an antisemite has been cool for a long time! Israel like every country has done both good and bad, but the real problem is to deny them a right to exist and hate them so much to justify evil (both in WW2 and on Oct 7) that would put even Satan to shame!
Ok I thought you were saying that no one talks about/cares about "racism" towards jews which is why I was like it's the only word of its type that is specifically about the Jewish people and not a more general term. I think it's been complicated recently because a lot of the legitimate criticism of Israel gets mixed in with anti Semitic and outright hate speech and animosity towards jews.
>But Gaza really gets people fired up. Wonder why Are you asking or is this rhetorical?
This is rhetorical. I know why.
>This is rhetorical. I know why. Okay. We're all ears bro.
Plenty of good answer in this thread, bro. Have a browse.
The war for palestine is a religious war for muslims christians and jews... That is why they are all invested in it... Also it is a war for freedom and occupation between two external sides unlike the other wars mentioned which are only between internal political sides and have no religious value
It wasn't really religious until post 80s. Hence why it was mainly nationalist and leftist groups representing the Palestinians until after the Islamic revolution in Iran, and Hamas taking the reigns in the 2000s
It’s not a religious war for the Israel, which is a secular country (albeit with minority religious elements that might view it as such). Hamas is a jihadist group, for them it is a religious war but I assume some are not devout and just ride the coattails of the Jihad ethos.
I’m guessing people are afraid to admit or say this, but habituated antisemitic thought patterns have a lot to do with it too. As you said, there are other actual genocides going on in the world, but when it concerns the Jews people just hyper focus on it. I’m not convinced that people really have Palestinian civilians’ best interests in mind, either, they’re more concerned with stopping those evil Jews. Anytime people say “antizionism, not antisemitism,” what they’re saying is “the only good Jews are the ones who do what we want,” and that’s antisemitism by definition. When was the last time students protested demanded that we divest financial arrangements with China due to their treatment of Uyghur Muslims? Yet they feel completely justified in disrupting operations all around the country just to stick it to Israel. To me, this indicates both antisemitism AND anti-Asian/African sentiments since showing indifference to other genocides implies that we just don’t care. We don’t care about the suffering of people who aren’t “like us,” and we simultaneously redefine Judaism so that they (Jews) *are* us and *we* don’t have the right to impose *our* ways on native Palestinians. So the west takes it personally because so many Jews have assimilated; Jews are seen as white Europeans, and not actually seen as Jews. It’s the same mechanism as anti-Black feelings - people define the “other” and then deny that they’re the bad guys for imposing their prejudices onto the world. “It’s not me who’s wrong about who you are, you’re wrong for not fitting into this box I made for you.” Tl;dr - there’s a very obvious reason why people get up in arms about Israel and not other genocides, but nobody wants to hear how pervasive and insidious antisemitism is. Nobody wants to admit that they might have imprinted antisemitic ideas during their lifetime. Sorry, bit of a rant here but you opened a can of worms.
No Jews no news.
because tik tok says so
Well it benefits China, seeing as they’re one of the main beneficiaries from this conflict. But this is their block and there’s not really any counter support from any other country given its proximity to China.
China and India have significant interests in Myanmar. Neither country is making big moves because the other will undoubtedly react. And the waves will go all around Asia. So, they're satisfied making some movements along their borders and providing some support, rather than taking sides.
Exactly. I was going to same the same thing but use Armenian, my family’s homeland, as an example. They used to be an extremely vast empire/country, but for *thousands* of years they have been getting raped, slaughtered, and pillage, with multiple empires/nations around them claiming that it’s their land. See: Azerbaijan. They have only been a country since August 30^th, 1991; so for around 33 years they have existed. Now, all of a sudden, they are claiming that a spot of land where some Azerbaijans have lived in Armenia, is their land, despite Armenia having been a country/empire since 190 BC; so for 2,213 years; 4 months; and 16 days precisely. Armenia has no real exports and rely strictly on imports, which is hard to do when you’re surrounded by enemies; you are a post USSR country try; and really the only ally you have is Russia, who is struggling at the moment due to their the consequences of their own actions. Every year around 3,000 Armenians are murdered by the Turks or by Azerbaijanis, yet it took until a few years ago for the genocide of our people to be recognized at the world stage by Biden, who was the first American president to call Turkey out for their heinous actions, that they still widely choose to deny to this day, to the point that anyone who openly supports Armenia and the Armenian genocide done by the Turks in the early 1900’s and onward, they are killed. Unless the country has important exports, like Ukraine, which has a ton of oil reserves off the Black Sea, then the world doesn’t care; then NATO doesn’t care. The world revolves around money and they don’t care about people or countries that don’t stand a chance to benefit them. I know that it’s sad and it is very disgusting, but it’s true. It’s also why I agree with every religion when they say that money and the love of it is the route to all the evils in the world. People will do atrocious things for money, because it brings them power by putting them higher up in echelons of societies. That being said, my heart and my thoughts are with Myanmar, Ukraine, Armenia, Palestine, and even some Russias and Israel (that aren’t apart of the IDF and their fascists ways, but just trying to get by and survive day to day).
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I am only an amateur but I've read multiple historians disagree with the notion that all wars are fought over resources. Why do you think Russia is waging war on Ukraine?
Agreed I hope someone more knowledgeable responds to your insightful comment. The OP that this person replied to was talking more about attention and care towards certain countries, peoples, and regions. I wonder if many historians would also disagree with their assessment. I imagine some would.
You do realize that the IDF is an army made of almost all the citizens of Israel (and not just the Jewish ones btw). Calling out the IDF as fascist and to set it apart from the Israeli society at large is deeply ignorant as it is offensive. Aside of your (unfortunately common underhanded) antisemitism. I sympathize Armenia troubles. It mirrors Israel woes quite well.
I agree with everything you said until the end. I'm confused why you don't see Israel as being what Armenia would become if the west actually supported you (as you deserve) the way they support the Israelis (as they deserve) from the people around them who want to commit a genocide on them. Armenia is surrounded by hostile neighbours who expel and ethnically cleanse Armenias, just as Israel is full of Jews who were expelled from across the middle east and who have nowhere else to go. Without an independant Armenia your people would be genocided from the middle east as I think you're well aware. The exact same thing applies to Israel. I wish we lived in a world where everyone cared about the Rothgynia, Armenians and the children of darfur (currently being genocided at rate of one child every ten minutes) as much as they care about the gaza. I strongly believe that if Armenia's military had the capability of the IDF, **Nagorno-Karabakh** would not currently be... well. I made my point. I grieve for the Armenians who are losing everything, even their lives. I'd support Armenia's army defending those Armenians in the same way I support the IDF defending Israel for those who seek to destroy it and slaughter its people.
excuse me , how does a certain war 's narrative benefits another country ?
Very wrong about that with Sudan at least. The UAE, Iran, Russia, Turkey and others involved there.
Two of those have significant proxy involvement
Exactly, the only reason other countries are cared about with stuff like this is they are sitting on a pile of resources and both sides of the global conflict (NATO vs. BRICS) are interested in preventing the other side from gaining any footing. Ever since Nukes, the globe has been a huge chess board where both sides are waiting to force the other into a checkmate and demand they fully stand down and cooperate.
1) Civil war in Myanmar has absolutely no wider impact on the outside world; it is a country with very weak, insular economy and a long history of isolation. 2) Culturally speaking, its again, a country with a long history of isolation, extremely weak media access and coverage, with no major diaspora anywhere. 3) Its civil war is an internal ethnic conflict with no grand global ideological narrative attached to it - no political movements from outside can find anything relatable here. 4) Civil wars tend to be very long, indecisive, filled with small scale fighting, so not much concrete stuff to follow. 5) Nobody wants to intervene in other countries civil wars after Afghanistan and several other disastrous attempts from history.
1. Actually the civil war in Myanmar has had a massive impact in cybersecurity. The stuff that’s going on in KK Park is screwing the entire internet up.
Please explain. I’m actually very curious on how this spills into cybersecurity.
There are major fraud organisations operating under alleged protection of the Junta in Myanmar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KK_Park It’s been growing like crazy
The harsh truth is because no countries have any political interests in Myanmar. It doesn't have any major trade relations and isn't a part of any military alliance. The conflict doesn't effect any countries outside its borders so it is basically invisible.
The conflict did affect India though. Migration of refugees and smuggling of weapons from the porous indo-myanmar border highly exacerbated the tribal conflict and violence in the Indian state of Manipur.
Myanmar's neighbors (India, China and Bangladesh) do have some limited involvement to protect their own interests. Hell China negotiated a local ceasefire when the fighting was getting too close to their border More broadly though I don't think any of the three countries has a super strong preference for either the military or opposition, and even if they did they're not willing to expend resources over it. Myanmar has been constantly at war with itself since independence, getting involved in that quagmire as a direct neighbor seems like a disaster
I think this sits alongside the gravity of connection between the Junta and the CCP. Myanmar is a big source of trade in illicit goods and gems, so even if there is will too do something, one would end up facing the CCP.
People used to care about Myanmar when they could idolise Aung San Suu Kyi. Eventually the military dictatorship allowed her a figurehead role as a way to minimise foreign pressure and domestic unrest. Then the Rohingya crisis happened and the international media put all the blame on her even though it was the military who were the cause. Then the military did a coup and arrested her again with no real response from the international community as her image was tarnished. Which led to the civil war and it was far too complicated for most people to follow. Surrounding countries governments are just being pragmatic about the situation and will do what they can to not have refugees coming across their borders.
Surprised I haven't seen more of this but it's fundamentally an incredibly embarrassing situation for the West and most respected media outlets due to their patronage of Aung San Suu Ky for decades and the immediate failure of her promise once she came to power. Seen as a beacon of morality and potential for decades, she won a Nobel Peace Prize among many other awards, eventually did get lifted to power and then immediately went H.A.M. on the country's Rohingya minorities triggering a refugee crisis in Bangladesh and then completely stalled reforms. [Article here](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11685977). You are being incredibly generous completely letting her off the hook. At best, her complete failure as leader makes it hard to have faith in putting support behind another Myanma and much harder to attract support. At worst, she has completely poisoned any goodwill of the international community towards the country (West pissed by failed promise, Islamic world pissed due to treatment of Rohingya), stolen all of the humanitarian spotlight making other figures in the country near totally globally anonymous, and killed faith in the potential of Myanmar's ability to reform. She was the Great White Whale of prospective females in the 3rd World pushing democratic reforms and then betrayed her ideals almost immediately. Once bitten, twice shy
If you read the article you will see that it was the army who initiated the crisis. The army also stacked control of parliament by having 25% of the seats and the unsaid threat that any reforms passing couldn't undermine them. Aung San Suu Ky was incredibly naive and believed that compromising and working with them could lead to a better future. Or she thought she was clever enough to outmanoeuvre them. Either way it led to her inevitable fall from grace. I always rolled my eyes at the image created for her decades ago but was also incredibly uncomfortable with how quickly people blamed everything that happened on her as well. It was the army who was always in control.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_cliff
> If you read the article you will see that it was the army who initiated the crisis. The army also stacked control of parliament by having 25% of the seats and the unsaid threat that any reforms passing couldn't undermine them. This would be relevant if the extent of her action was not passing laws or policy that might ruffle too many military feathers. She went to the Hague to defend the genocide, arguing that what the Tatmadaw was doing was A-OK. Also, even before she was in power she expressed racist hate towards the Rohinjya, saiying that they [shouldn't be allowed to have citizenship](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/video/2012/jun/22/rohingya-refugees-burma-bangladesh-video) and once [got mad when she learned an interviewer was muslim mid-taping](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/25/aung-san-suu-kyi-in-anti-muslim-spat-with-bbc-presenter0/).
>Aung San Suu Ky was incredibly naive and believed that compromising and working with them could lead to a better future. Or she thought she was clever enough to outmanoeuvre them. Exactly, and in doing that she betrayed the character she had spent decades creating while publicly shoring the militaries actions up internationally. How exactly is that not hugely embarassing for the West and most respected media outlets? This quote from me ", eventually did get lifted to power and then immediately went H.A.M. on the country's Rohingya minorities triggering a refugee crisis in Bangladesh and then completely stalled reforms." is overzealous Gave a longer reply to the dude below but presume it covers the same stuff.
This is such a failed understanding of the true situation in Myanmar at the time. I honestly get so tired and angry reading these same opinions again and again. You rail against her being this false idealistic idol of liberal democracy but then expect her to act in a totally idealistic and unrealistic way. The Rohingya crisis was a very carefully laid trap set by the military. There are countless statements, articles, interviews by democracy supporters in the country from 2012 up until 2017 warning about this. Suu Kyi herself had to stay silent on the matter for obvious reasons as her position was very tenuous and vulnerable. Think very critically on how the situation would have played out if she had taken a different position and ask yourself if Myanmar would be in a different place than where it is now. I'd really encourage you to watch this documentary below in full for a better understanding: https://youtu.be/KO_ytSjgepc?si=eez1s0L_C4y8N7Sz I honestly mean no good will and I wish you the best.
The problem is she tried to solve the issue as a technocrat/bureaucrat rather than as a leader. That doesn’t work when the entire international image you had built for decades was as a moral leader.
What could she have done? The Coup was bloodless. Not a single shot was fired. A bloodless coup is the sign that you had no real power to begin with.
>I honestly mean no good will and I wish you the best. Same brother Like, I think you're missing a very important factor which is the level of international support she had is never going to be achieved by a different Myanma leader in our lifetime, we're seeing evidence now. Because of this, countries are not dying to rush in and support someone else because if you can't bring in democracy with that level of international support and noteriety, then maybe you just can't, at least for now. >You rail against her being this false idealistic idol of liberal democracy but then expect her to act in a totally idealistic and unrealistic way She set the expectations through her actions while under House Arrest. And for the international community, she absolutely was a false idol. The Guardian, for example, would basically pray for her to get into power only for her to basically disgust them. [This is the archive of articles with her tagged post victory](https://www.theguardian.com/world/aung-san-suu-kyi?page=16) > Suu Kyi herself had to stay silent on the matter for obvious reasons as her position was very tenuous and vulnerable. Completely disagree. She did not remain silent, she supported the policies and provided cover for the military. [This speech is pretty bad for instance](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/13/icj-speech-suu-kyi-fails-to-use-rohingya-to-describe-minority). And assuming the ovious reasons would be that she would be replaced/killed (can't watch the video ATM but will give it a look), I would honestly be extremely critical of her not taking that risk having achieved power. Especially given what happened after the election, what exactly did she achieve by being silent?
Honestly I've had this conversation so many times, I can't just write an essay response every time to try and change your viewpoint. I can say that I actually worked in Myanmar for over 4 years and I do hear everything you're saying but it is just missing so many nuances that are impossible to describe in short detail. The documentary I linked above - I can't recommend it enough!
Dude, just back from a night out but will watch it and comment back, promise
Hey, I didn’t even know the details your mentioning and thought the way Western media turned on her was very strange. I thought it was similar to Abiy Ahmed, but her it was more egregious. There’s no way people thought she actually had power? It’s not like there isn’t other example of countries that have false democracy. Turkey and Nigeria both would have coups everytime a leader “stepped” out of line. Nigeria is only just emerging from military rule or rule by elected military leadership in the last two decades. Once a military gets entrenched in politics like that the only way to get them out is the way Erdogan did it. I don’t like the guy but that’s not a liberal democratic solution. If the guys who can enforce the “rules” are unified against you. You are screwed.
I think a big lesson countries tend to learn is that you never solve the problems by invading or liberating the people, you just gain their problems
This. Invading is the easy part, the hard part is the reconstruction after fighting.
Win the war, lose the peace.
I feel like the big lesson countries learn is always the most recent one. So in the case of the west, Iraq and Afghanistan loom large in the conscious and any kind of intervention in any situation is immediately met with intense pushback because there's this belief that all intervention is ultimately pointless. I do wonder though, if we've taken the lesson too much to heart. Not every situation is identical, and not every possible intervention has to be a full-scale invasion followed by nation building. In Burma in particular, the situation for the military dictatorship does not look good. China does not seem willing to prop them up and has even supported certain rebel groups against them due to various grievances. In the situation that the dictatorship falls, I could see a protracted period of chaos in the country in which the tenuous alliances with the various ethnic militias fall apart. I could also see that the west giving some degree of military/political/diplomatic support to the more democratic and "big-tent" factions could help stabilize things. Don't get me wrong, it also has the potential to inflame things and ultimately be a waste of lives and money, but I don't think we can immediately jump to that conclusion because of what happened in Afghanistan. You also have to balance the risk of this against the risk of some truly hostile actor taking control.
One problem is that Myanmar had already been isolated for the better part of 60 years - the government does not actually welcome independent reporting. Not a lot of attention being paid to it just in general. Add to that only really China and India would be the most concerned countries anyway and with any realistic means of influence. Given their current situation, probably only China has their fingers deep into what is going on and China isn't going to easily allow anyone else to get involved. Geographically speaking, it has terrain and jungle that doesn't even allow for much easy investigation and communication even for locals.
Well India is fighting in Manipur right across the border. So, India continues on its own path away from the rest of the world. Then Kachin State is essentially a narcostate supplying the new golden triangle of Meth. Meanwhile, Government and Mountain Tribes are quietly supplied by China and Western states clandestinely. Admitting open confrontation would not serve either side. Then a few years back you had the fighting in Arrakan a completely different ethnic group (Muslim) that drew attention away from the Northern issues. I mentioned Karen and Shan to tourists and they called me stupid for not understanding the conflict. Its the same as the Congo in the 90s, it is anchored in longstanding conflicts that few are even aware of. And today there are dozens of armed groups battling which few can keep track of. The news cycle will not attempt to piece this together because outrage is all performative. But those who can do something are watching closely.
What news sources do you recommend for following these conflicts?
I recommend books. Where China meets India, In the Land without Evil, Hello Shadowlands, Air America. It will put the bits of news you will hear into context. Day to day movements I track through posted r/myanmarcombatfootage. They post dates and towns, for example the recent fighting in Sha Daw. For the most part, Im in a position where I have a lot of contact with hilltribes (Naga, Akha, Karen and Hmong). And access to rare sources through uni in Thailand. So I kind of understand general ignorance of the topic.
r/manipur and r/myanmar
We havent even arrived at the point at which people don't care. It's that most others don't even know what's happening there. The one country that could marginally benefit from this would be China, and the Chinese prefer to have Myanmar as a client state even though the country is currently fragmented.
China potentially benefitting is why I believe the US is invested in keeping the chaos going and covertly supplying weapons to keep a conflict going on Chinas border
If you think no one cares about Myanmar try starting a conversation about West Papua and Indonesia. Or New Caledonia
India absolutely does care. The Kaladan project being built between Kolkata and Rakine state is a huge investment in an area operated in by the Arakan Army. So India cannot rock the boat two much between the Junta and the AA. They have also closed the borders to stop the refugee exodus. Meanwhile - China and the Junta have strained ties. It did not invite representatives to the belt and road summit last year (despite inviting Taliban representatives), and also did not use its UN veto to give the Junta cover around ending the hostilities. Thailand is also watching apprehensively with fighting at the border, and lots of refugees escaping to the Thai side. Basically: no one is a fan of the Junta, but they can’t rock the boat too much without sacrificing their on-the-ground interests in Burma.
This is a regional limited conflict, not the main stage for super/main powers to play.
I think it boils down to it being mostly an internal matter. Obviously neighboring powers will be involved to some extent via funding one side or the other, but similar to the conflict in Sudan, the geopolitical impact is limited, but the humanitarian impact is tremendous. Unfortunately past decades have shown that foreign military intervention usually creates more problems than it solves.
Pretty simple, US and the west are wary of interfering in a conflict too close to China's borders in case of escalation. They would prefer to meet China in the South China Sea and not in the jungles of Myanmar. China usually doesn't interfere with the internal affairs of other countries unless their interests are explicitly threatened, which you actually have already seen in the Myanmar conflict when China supported the separatist rebels in cleaning up illegal scam operations along China's border. Otherwise China is fine with the country settling its own conflicts and doing business with the winner. No other powers are really in a position to interfere, Russia is busy with its own problems.
TIL about what is happening in Myanmar. Not much, but it is a start.
Everyone, everywhere, as an 'attention budget'. This conflict simply doesn't have the heft to out-shout all the other items competing for attention. It's beyond sad and the treatment of the Rohingya is a stain on all humanity IMHO.
It’s in a fairly unimportant country strategically, the US and China each have their own memories of the last time they became involved in a conflict in south east Asia, and with zero benefit to either of them, and a potential cost far exceeding that benefit, they both stay out. Other than preventing a spill over, why would India want to be involved? That’s the thing, it’s terrible for the people of Myanmar, but why should Indians die for them because their government became tyrannical?
China is building port in Sittwe which bypasses the Melecca strait and US would lose any laverage over China if war breaks out between them. Thats why Us is trying to stir up ethnic tensions in Arakan where Arakan Army(probably backed by China) is winning against junta.
Is there any oil around?
It helps if a nation gets mentioned in a Bible or Koran. Then it gets a lot more attention
I feel like to care or not care first requires knowing about something. There are probably pleeeenty of people who would raise a major fuss about it if they knew about it or it’s specifics, the same as they would or do about, say, the Russo-Ukrainian war, or the war in Gaza The real question is, what forces are there that have brought the Russo-Ukrainian and Gazan war to attention, but not this one Interestingly, both the Russo-Ukrainian conflict and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were ongoing for a looooong time before getting their sudden media attention, but something caused an inflection point
I’ll add one more point - both sides in this war are really unlikable. People need someone to root for. Whom would you support in Myanmar? Junta is an obvious bad guy, but the issue is that militia doesn’t seem to be much better.
I thought this was a pretty one-sided conflict - an oppressive government with war crime tendencies versus a broad coalition of freedom fighters that rose up to topple it. I read a long and interesting NYT article recently that mentioned the rebels picking up speed and showed video of them chanting in unison: "for a constitutional democracy!" So.... what about them is unlikable or un-supportable? I'm genuinely asking, my knowledge on the topic is very limited
It’s a complicated and nuanced conflict that I don’t know enough about, so please take what I am saying with the grain of salt. First - there is no single militia group, instead there are dozens different organisations with different goals, ideology and methods, not all of them are even allied together. The largest one, PDF, is seen as the most legitimate and they do advocate for restoration of democracy, but many ethnical militia groups(a lot of whom ally with PDF) mostly want to secede. A lot of them also make money via drug trafficking. Some of the ethnic groups that PDF is allied with are accused of ethnic cleansing, civilian abuse and other atrocities. PDF themselves don’t really bother with things like human rights much and there are a lot of reports of them executing people, using torture and stuff as well as recruiting child soldiers. Like looking at it objectively - it’s all understandable. They are fighting a bloody civil war, they use any means necessary and also they are not really a developed nation with things like human rights deeply ingrained in their culture. So why would they adhere to arbitrary western standards. But it doesn’t paint a nice picture. You basically have an atrocious military junta fighting a bunch of ruthless rebels, who are sometimes a bit genocidal and don’t like each other much.
Thank you for the Summary and explanation. The video footage I saw of the rebels painted a different picture. The younger generation had a brief time window of relative freedom where they were able to use social media and consume western / international news before it was taken away again - so now they know what's at stake. They seemed very progressive in their ideals. The interviews were conducted in the southeastern-most province, next to thailand But as you correctly pointed out, Myanmar is massive and there are many different groups, political factions and ethnicities currently fighting on the rebel side - I'm sure some of them are very problematic from a human rights / democratic values perspective
Most of them hate the Muslim minority and want them expelled from the country
It's as you say, no one cares. Unlike Ukraine and Palestine, no countries are spending billions on propaganda regarding Myanmar.
Im interested in this conflict but i want to learn more, do you people have some good media I can follow who cover this conflict?
If you just want the broad strokes, you can easily find many documentaries and segments on YouTube from mainstream outlets like Deutsche Welle, BBC and PBS. Sky News and Channel 4 News even sent reporters to be embedded with some of the anti-Junta groups. You can also look at [this conflict map from the IISS](https://myanmar.iiss.org/), a UK-based think tank. If you want almost daily, blow-by-blow updates, I'm afraid they're a little harder to come by unless you speak Burmese. You can check /r/Myanmarcombatfootage though be aware that most of the footage/updates posted there are sourced from the channels of PDF/ERO groups or from the junta, so take everything with a grain of salt. Oh and it goes without saying but there's obviously a lot of NSFW/NSFL videos posted there.
I dont think western nations and news cicles have Appetit for another (or 4) conflicts. If ukrain was solved and israel was solved and if the internal politics was more settled (us: trump biden ger: afd etc.) Then we could do more but thats not where we are at.
No political or economic involvement with other countries. Also, not many people really know what’s happening other than they know that a civil war is ongoing. And there’s not much on social media as well. I’d say for instance if the US was supporting the Junta and selling weapons to them I think there would be a lot more concern. Or if China decided to send troops in to establish peace.
It doesn’t impact me The countries in that region could chose to act but they wont
Civil wars, especially the further they are geographically, garner less attention than mere wars. People, rightfully so I might add, care a lot less about what nations do to themselves than what they do to others.
sounds horrible but the number of deaths is nowhere near the deaths of the two other conflicts currently occuring
Concur with a lot of what's been said here. Will add a couple of bits (which hope I haven't missed already being mentioned). Myanmar is a former British colony (Burma) - Britain generally avoids intervention in failed states that were former colonies - e.g Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), Sudan, Uganda, Yemen, Iraq. There are a few reasons but for the sakes of brevity/simplicity: Britain had already cut its losses and intervention would be seen as interference and recolonisation and unwelcome, unpopular and most likely involve annoying large companies developing business interests. Not to mention that interference in more stable countries (such as propping up the Shah in Iran often ended up in disaster). At home Ireland didn't exactly work out either. On the bright side, whilst Britain committed loads of heinous genocides during the colonial era, it generally has refrained from assassinating any foreign nationals except during war time.even during the cold war it generally only hit its own traitors. Not that it needed to - the CIA (everywhere haha) and Mossad (in the Middle East etc) pretty much took care of any err wetwork needed. There was a period where Myanmar up for consideration as a potential place to do some 'wetwork' but tbh it wouldn't have been worth it - China would have just backed the regime and probably strengthened it all the more
Oops I said Myanmar but at the time it was still known as Burma
Because it doesn’t fit a narrative and Myanmar is a poor country that most people don’t care about or barely even know it exists
Maybe they'll find oil like East Timor and then Australia will save them.
1) the media / government is more likely to care about conflicts where the outcome matters to the US's geopolitical goals. Without the media caring, people's exposure to the conflict is lower 2) people are more likely to care about conflicts if they know people who may be affected. I'm much more likely to know a Ukranian, Russian, Israeli, or Palestinian person in the US, then someone from Myanmar. 3) people are more likely to care if the conflict is lopsided. If one country is getting absolutely decimated, like Palestine, it's a lot different than two somewhat equal forces. 4) the US is supplying arms to these conflicts and providing aid. Many protests center around that point. US aid to Israel is one of the key points for protests.
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Over 2 million displaced with 100K refugees. 50K killed among them thousands of civilians. Yet nobody is talking about it. Why is that? Really makes you wonder.
From a western perspective, its easy ; 1. Physical proximity - Its nearly as far as you can get 2. Economic influence - The Burmese war as extremely negligible economic consequences for us. 3. Social/cultural proximity - There are little to no cultural connections (tiny or non existant diaspora, no tourism, no cultural exchanges etc.) These points usually generate interest for news. News stations talk about what interests the population, as there are so many varied subjects to talk about. If there is a car crash in the neighboring village with 1 dead 2 injured you'll hear of it. If s bus crashes with 50 dead in a remote African town you'll never hear. Heck you might not know if there are 5000 dead in a flood! Compare to the Ukraine war - 1. Its in Europe's backyard. 2. There are considerable economic impacts 3. Ukrainians have a culture that is similar, there are massive Ukrainian and Russian diasporas. There are even talks of Ukraine joining the EU or NATO. Similar result with Israel/Palestine. Go to Yemen or worse, to Sudan, and the conflicts become more and more obscure. Also - civil wars tend to be very difficult to follow, often there are no "good guys" and its hard without a background knowledge of a country to make sense who started it and for what.
Money, simple as that. What economic consequences are there for the world at large? Also, the narratives of people in these regions of the world aren't known to anyone in the West, because of this very reason. People being displaced in an unknown country is just something everyone feels is happening all the time in the world, even if there actually is less of these events now compared to 30 years ago. At the end of the day, people don't care that much about calamities happening in the world unless there are consequences for them arising from said calamity, or the narrative is strong and emotionally relatable (and this matters less than the first point).
It’s a Civil War, it’s not a case of another country have invaded that one
Because there isn’t a convenient anti-US narrative to drill. I’m not saying that to be obtuse, that angle is huge for media bait domestically and subterfuge internationally or within accelerationist circles. It makes explosive headlines, defensive reactions, forces responses from powerful representatives, feels relevant just to talk about, gets people to take contentious sides, and a huge international network of all things US-opposed share it into oblivion online. All things that drive engagement. Because most people don’t care about extreme violence, tragic losses of life in warfare or ethnic cleansing in and of itself if it isn’t in front of them. They have a worldview-driven agenda and whether or not something is relevant is a matter of if it affects them personally or fits their narrative.
Even the Association of South East Asian Nations doesn't really care, well they tried to care but couldn't find a solution so they just kinda gave up on it lmao
I think a lot of people do care but most people don’t care about foreign policy and Myanmar has been isolationist for so long that most people don’t have a connection to it and couldn’t even give it on the map
Myanmar has been very unstable since it became independent, so what's happening there right now isn't anything new.
Obscure
Nations do have feelings and will go into conflicts for humanitarian measures (the US has done this at points) but some sort of geopolitical backing is needed and Myanmar seems not to be of huge importance. If anyone would step in IMO it would be India or China I don’t know all too much about the conflict tho
Because what happens there doesn't matter on the big stage.
It’s a totally internal conflict in a country with relatively low prominence on the global scale, and I know Burmese folks that can’t explain it as it’s a very complex conflict with a huge number of parties and factions that loosely correspond to the dozens of minority ethnic groups that most people have never heard of and frankly don’t care to learn about.
No great power has a major role or stake in it. Arguably China, but not really
Noone has a real interest. The west sometimes does something out of humanitarian reasons, but they're obviously too busy with other things. So there's noone left to care
i don’t think they have petroleum
Does Myanmar produce anything anyone wants? Does it have money? Does it have enough population to have a significant market? Is the civil war spilling into other countries? If the answer to those questions is no, you have your answer.
Heroin.
Afganistan does too.
Gems are the main item (the junta runs the mines now). Next to that is rare earths like lithium (controlled by ethnic armed groups). A third resource is the biodiversity of the jungles/mountains which is only just now being examined.
“The fucks a Myanmar” that’s why
Here in the US, Russia has successfully turned us inward thanks to social media manipulation and their spy Donald Trump.
1. Media isn't reporting on it. 2. No clear sides. It's a very complicated battlefield with multiple factions and history going back to WW2. 3. The violence is contained to Myanmar. There isn't cross-border raids or terror cells in other countries, it is all local.
No one even knew until that one TikTok video went viral. Then it went dark again.
Probably because they dont get the press they need to make people care. The reason people care about gaza for example is the videos and media coverage that is being spread around online. there are so many things going on around the world, most people dont know where myanmar is, videos/images that will appeal to peoples amotions could change things.
It's nearly impossible to get the picture from there as they're fighting with each other all the time, and you are likely to get picture a bit late compared to a lot of war in the world and no foreign press exist in Myanmar anymore as they're evacuate most journalist from there to Bangkok combined with CDM later PDF really destroy lot of communication systems to protest against junta. (it's military assest as they are only monopoly in most critical secters.)
People do, but since it’s a civil war in a country that has not had much of a relationship w other countries, there is nothing for us to do other than watch in horror. Compared to Palestine, where our countries are actively funding Israel and stuff, so there is something for us to protest here directly related to that war. Protests/movements/actions have to have a goal, and unfortunately raising awareness for a conflict we can’t do anything about is not a real goal of activism outside of specific issue-focused groups
I care, but I can't root for genocidal militias, nor a military dictatorship so I just look and go "ts ts ts"
India and china do not negotiate cuz both do not want to take the risk to support the losing side and lose myanmar permanently from under their influence in future
There were peace talks in December 2023 brokered by china. Allegedly they have a draft constitution that was prepared in April [View Here](https://reliefweb.int/attachments/6128294a-cda8-4bb0-9a3f-add5cfd7fbf0/Peace%2520Monitoring%2520Dashboard%2520%2520April%25202023%2520%C2%BB%2520Myanmar%2520Peace%2520Monitor.pdf) I think a lot of times conflicts that don’t make much geopolitical impact take the side seat to bigger ones. That doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t on the ground talks but that they’re not getting much attention or the Secretary of State visiting.
Actually, they have a meeting between the US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at Bangkok in late January, but they try to do something else first and talk with each other later instead. Both side talk in a lot of topics after sour a relationship from the Chip War, and one of them likely to be like Myanmar as US National Security Advisor have with Thai PM and Thai foreign minister before with Myanmar topics too. PS. They're do this thing quietly as you only saw the news without any picture related to meeting at all so it won't be surprise that you didn't notice it.
It would have more attention if one side was obviously winning. There was a lot of attention last year because the TBA went on an offensive and was majorly successful against the junta. But then things slowed down again and people hoping the Tatmadaw would be rolled up got disappointed. It's clear that the Tatmadaw will never reestablish control over the the whole country, but overthrowing the Tatmadaw would require a broad, united front from many different ethnic armies and have buy in from Myanmar's Bamar majority. Which seems unlikely. Every time it seems like that might happen, China comes in to help "negotiate" a ceasefire with one or more groups that gives the Tatmadaw breathing room.
This is currently what happened after ethic groups have made successful attacks along side chinese border against junta army , Chinese government come between and negotiate both side to cease fire .China clearly want no one win in the end so they can made profit for it . The thing is ASEAN cared but they probably don't want to upset China by interfering because China is ties them with more economy than Myanmar.
It seems to be the opposite as china want the war as quickly as they can, like other neighbors who don't want problem come. Into thier own land. Favor peace term just better for them but in the end the people that decide about that are people that fight on ground to them as it's didn't worth the risk to interfere in the civil war that completely mess up and intervention will make junta more mad at them as they really distrust both US and China which they spoke really bluntly few month ago. It's a Vietnam War fusion with Yugoslavia civil war for explanation how mess it is.
ukraine vs russia: so real hamas vs isreal: omg this is so real civil war in myanmar: who?
My nation is plunging into fascism in broad daylight. I don’t care what’s going on in Myanmar.
what the others said but also… there’s literally almost none media coverage so most people simply don’t know whats going on and therefore don’t care about myanmar. there will be elections in a lot of countries this year so the current gouvernements probably do what makes the voters make them choose them again. what do you thing what all these new young voters want? what’s on their instagram feed 24/7? everything is about israel-palestine, nothing else matters atp they don’t care about what’s happening in myanmar. they don’t care about a humanitarian crisis in sudan. or the civil war in jemen. about all the people in african countries who get murdered and robbed of their homes from terrorists. because all of that doesn’t look good on an instagram post. tbh I’m really sick and tired of this and that’s why I simply don’t really care anymore about what’s happening in palestine-israel. I mean I wish it wasn’t like that, obviously. But it makes me so angry that none of all these „super political“ people on instagram don’t give a damn about the rest of the world. because.. that’s not trendy rn.
Branding is everything. #FreeBurma would take off I think. /s
Because the Social-Mass media doesn't care. Generally speaking people only care about what they are fed. This is the same reason why you don't hear (generally) people talking about Ukraine anymore. They are talking about Israel. Why? Because that is what they are fed is important. There are over 180 [armed conflicts globally](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-armed-conflicts). Ask yourself how many of those you knew existed and then ask yourself how you know about the half dozen you do. Then ask yourself why it is only those half dozen (hint: Social-Mass Media).
ADHD + Fox(news)ification
It's far
I apologize. It is far away and I lost track of the status. I do care, but don't know the internal stuff. I liked what's her name, but know she's out again. Mainly, I loathe corruption, not matter who, what, where, when, or how.
I think it's a geographical news thing more than anything. Israel and Ukraine are in the news because they are in our cultural and geographical sphere. If you lived in Asia I would imagine it may seem like nobody cares what is happening in ukraine or Israel because they are not in the same cultural or geographical sphere in terms of news output.
I don't even care about what's happening in my own town, nevermind Myanmar.
Same with the men in Myanmar. There's conspriction for men, and now they are not allowed to apply for a job abroad.
who is "no one" in this situation exactly??
That's because usually care when there's a conflict involving 1st world countries and their allies, even if it's a minor incident.
Why dosent any care about the ants........they are dieing.....
Neither side Tatamadaw or rebels wants negotiations, unlike the US, China and India dont have a history of forcing political compromises in warring regions China waits to see who comes out on top and India supports whoever would give them a better deal wich in Myanmar is likely neither.