Episode #553: Naw Moo Moo Paw grew up in a Karen village near Bago where conflict and landmines were part of everyday life. “I have seen a lot of people injured or die because of the war and intense conflict,” she says. “This is very normal for me.”

Today, she is a PhD candidate in Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where her research focuses on what happens to people, their bodies, livelihoods, and place in their communities affected by political violence.

She has interviewed civilians, injured soldiers, and active resistance fighters, gaining access to armed groups most outside researchers cannot reach.

Resistance groups in ethnic Karen communities have used landmines primarily as a defensive tactic, but the warnings offered to civilians are frequently imprecise. For many, the warning changes little. “Civilians, they have to work on a daily basis, so that they can survive, for their economy, to take care of their family.” People are warned, but they have to go on with their lives.

She finds that accountability is increasingly difficult to establish. Mines captured from military bases are reused by resistance groups, propaganda obscures who planted what, and records of mine locations can die with the soldier who laid them. “I think both sides are violating the law,” she says.

Civilians, she finds, rarely assign blame. They understand the nature of war, fear the land’s growing unpredictability, and keep moving because they have no choice. Those injured in warned areas often face community ostracism, and too many take their own lives.

As a Karen scholar, Naw Moo Moo Paw wants local knowledge, history, and experience placed at the center of any peace. “I want [Karen people’s] voices to be included in the future, too.”

Episode #552: Mon Mon Myat, a journalist, filmmaker, and peace scholar, frames Myanmar’s political struggle as a long contest over power, moral discipline, and the possibility of change without domination. Her account begins with U Hpo Hlaing, the nineteenth-century thinker she calls “a kind of very early political theorist in Myanmar,” and moves toward Aung San Suu Kyi, whose politics she sees as part of the same search for accountable authority.

For Mon Mon Myat, U Hpo Hlaing matters because he complicates the idea that democracy arrived in Myanmar only through Western influence. He studied Western parliamentary systems, but tried to translate them into Burmese moral and Buddhist terms, creating what she calls “Burma-native democracy.” His work was not a full modern system, but it offered a principle: rulers must be bound by ethical restraint, not merely by power.

Aung San Suu Kyi, in Mon Mon Myat’s view, widened that principle. She did not speak only to rulers, but to citizens. Through speeches, radio broadcasts, and years of nonviolent resistance, she helped Mon Mon Myat understand politics as personal responsibility. “Politics had nothing to do with me,” she says of her younger self, before Aung San Suu Kyi’s example changed her sense of what citizenship required.

That is why nonviolence remains central to Mon Mon Myat’s reading. She knows it is slow and costly, but argues that armed struggle leaves wounds across society, while nonviolence risks the masses less than others. The post-coup conflict has only deepened her fear of trauma that may last for generations.

Her defense of Aung San Suu Kyi during the Rohingya crisis rests on a difficult distinction. Mon Mon Myat does not present her as flawless. She insists that Aung San Suu Kyi was a politician trying to hold together a fragile country, preserve civilian rule, and avoid further conflict under military pressure. Critics saw silence. Mon Mon Myat sees constraint, calculation, and a refusal to inflame communal violence.

The hope she still holds is narrow but persistent: that Myanmar’s future depends not only on removing military rule, but on whether power can be morally restrained before it consumes everything around it.

Episode #551: Fred Stockwell arrived in Mae Sot by accident more than twenty years ago while traveling through Thailand to photograph temples, a wrong bus dropping him off in what was, at the time, a bustling border town filled with NGOs and young volunteers. Someone told him to visit the garbage dump, and a man drove him there by a route that felt deliberately hard to retrace. “It was like it was a secret where it was,” he recalls. At the dump, Burmese migrant families survived by salvaging and selling recyclables, building shelters from whatever they could pull from waste. “They were living on top of the garbage!” he says. “Everything they built was what they found in the garbage.”

Before Mae Sot, his life had already been shaped by self-taught risk and logistics—having introduced paragliding in the U.S. through early testing and instruction, and later becoming the first person to fly in and photograph the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina, doing so from the air, when ground access had largely collapsed. And now back in the United States after that first Mae Sot visit, the contrast stayed with him: a comfortable life at home, and a border world where small failures—transport, housing, medical access—could turn fatal. His mind now made up,he returned to Mae Sot, and the first step he points to is concrete: “You’ve got to start somewhere. I started with one kid,” he says, describing a girl “as close to death as you’re ever going to get” and taking her to the hospital, then building outward through routines that held children in school, kept housing standing, and kept people connected to services they otherwise could not reach.

The critique that follows stays procedural. People arrived wanting to help and then stalled, not from cruelty but because they lacked a method for what came next, and the same problem appeared in organizations that could arrive with structure and still fail to change the conditions at the dump, or elsewhere in the town. “I saw a lot of people here, no disrespect to them, that came in to help but didn’t have a clue what to do.”

He ties effectiveness to the pairing of resources and competence, and reduces the mismatch to a single blunt line. “There’s a very large gap between the people that want to help and the people that need help. That gap is huge.”

Episode #550: “There was something inside of me that was calling me,” says Jerry Roy, a long-time Vipassana meditator and early student in the Goenka tradition. “Not a thought, but something pulling me.” He argues that liberation comes not from rigid adherence to technique or authority, but from direct understanding of the mind—especially craving and aversion.

Raised in a Jewish household, Roy felt pressure to conform to a shared identity he experienced as restrictive. He rejected its religious element early, identifying instead as a “cultural Jew,” and developed a lasting determination not to live “in a box.” That impulse aligned with the 1960s counterculture, where he immersed himself in experimentation and activism. Psychedelics presented a spiritual potentiality, yet, as he later reflects, “It opened a door, but it didn't show me how to walk through the door.” Disillusionment with activism, along with the suicide of a housemate, pushed him toward a deeper inquiry into suffering.

That search led him to India. He rejected both the hedonistic hippie scenes and guru-centered traditions he came across, but then discovered Vipassana meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka. “I realized that I had found what I was looking for,” he says. He became deeply involved in the tradition, valuing its discipline and accessibility.

Over time, however, he began to see increasing rigidity within the organization, especially after his divorce led to a feeling of being excluded from the community. His practice also continued to evolve beyond the strict technique of the Goenka tradition, towards more continuous awareness. “The practice is not a technique,” he explains. “The practice is being present in the moment.”

Today, Roy emphasizes direct experience over doctrine. “All you need to do is understand the root cause of suffering, which is craving and aversion.”

Episode #549: Mohammad Siraj, a Rohingya researcher, political analyst, educator, and aspiring legal scholar living in a refugee camp in Bangladesh, studies citizenship, constitutional reform, education, and human rights. Drawing on his work with the Rohingya Academic Research Institute and his experience teaching in refugee settings, he argues that the Rohingya crisis is not simply a humanitarian emergency but a political and institutional crisis rooted in discriminatory law, particularly Myanmar’s citizenship framework and constitutional structure.

Siraj’s own life reflects the realities he studies. He once hoped to become a doctor, but military violence forced his family to flee Myanmar. In Bangladesh’s refugee camps, he continued studying through limited educational opportunities and later pursued research training. Statelessness created major barriers: even when he received university offers, he could not accept them because he lacked a passport or travel documents. He turned toward law because he believes legal systems have excluded Rohingya from citizenship, political participation, and protection.

He repeatedly highlights statelessness as one of the greatest obstacles Rohingya face. Without citizenship, movement, higher education, and professional opportunities remain difficult to access. His own studies through the online University of the People illustrate both determination and the limits of such alternatives.

Siraj’s research and teaching are rooted in these same conditions. At the Rohingya Academic Research Institute, a community-led organization in the camps, he helps Rohingya scholars document their history and rights. He also criticizes humanitarian education programs that prioritize administrative requirements over meaningful learning. In response, Rohingya teachers have created community schools using the Myanmar curriculum, though their certificates are rarely recognized by universities.

For Siraj, the deeper cause of the crisis lies in Myanmar’s 1982 citizenship law, which stripped Rohingya of citizenship and legal protection. He argues that lasting reform must restore equal citizenship and dismantle constitutional structures that entrench military power, while dialogue across communities remains essential for building a democratic Myanmar where all ethnic groups share citizenship, representation, and dignity.

Episode #548: Sunda Khin shares a remarkable family journey through contemporary Burmese history. She starts with her father, U Chan Htoon, who suggested that a young Indian businessman named S.N. Goenka learn meditation from Sayagyi U Ba Khin to cure his migraines. Growing up as the daughter of the country's first Supreme Court Justice, she recalls spending time in General Ne Win's home during the "Caretaker Government" years. Ne Win's coup in 1962 marked a shift, leading to economic turmoil and loss of civil liberties, including the arrest of her father. As a means for explaining the many challenges that have befallen her country since 1958, she explains the Burmese Buddhist concept of "tha gyarr thar tha nar," which is a Burmese prophecy that signifies the end of the Buddha’s protective period after 2,500 years.

Sunda Khin shares several international situations that her father was involved with. The most complex of these was when South Vietnamese members of the World Fellowship of Buddhists (WFB) demanded the organization stand up against Ngo Dinh Diem's discrimination of the country's Buddhist minority. The US was concerned that this move could weaken their ally against rising Communist influence in the region, and indeed, that the influential WFB might be falling under Communist control. U Chan Htoon was making some headway is mediating this crisis, but unfortunately, before it could be resolved, Ne Win had him arrested, perhaps out of a political fear of his popularity and influence.

Sunda Khin also describes her father’s rather unexpected acquisition of a lakefront property, which was later inherited by Aung San Suu Kyi, and where she endured decades of house arrest.And she discusses her childhood friendship with Louisa Bensen, who transformed from a beauty queen to a Karen insurgent leader, and their involvement together in the democracy movement many years later.

“A lot of things have happened, but I have a lot of hope for things to change,” she says regarding the current resistance movement. “I might not see it right now, or before I die, but I'mhoping that it will change and that the people will be able to have their own government and their freedom. That is my hope.”

Episode #547: Scott Leckie, an international human rights lawyer, and Jose Arraiza, a specialist in housing, land, and property rights and citizenship in conflict-affected settings, argue that land in Myanmar is not simply a resource but a central mechanism through which power is exercised, inequality is produced, and political authority is maintained. They emphasize that housing, land, and property (HLP) rights extend beyond formal ownership to include anyone whose ability to remain on land is vulnerable to arbitrary interference.

The roots of Myanmar’s current land system can be traced to colonial policies that classified inhabited land as “wasteland,” which enabled appropriation. This framework was later adopted by the country’s military regimes; as a result, this legacy persists in a system where land can be taken with minimal process and little recourse, allowing authorities to reallocate land and consolidate control.

The effects of this system are most visible in the interaction between conflict and land governance. While large-scale displacement is primarily driven by armed conflict, the land system determines what happens afterward. Displaced people frequently lose practical control over their land, as it is reclassified or repurposed, often for commercial activities such as mining or agriculture. In this way, temporary displacement is transformed into longer-term dispossession. The same system also shapes economic outcomes, directing the benefits of land use toward elites and those with political connections rather than affected communities.

These practices diverge from international legal standards, which require safeguards such as compensation and access to remedies. The situation is further complicated by citizenship and documentation issues, which weaken individuals’ ability to assert claims, particularly for marginalized groups such as the Rohingya.

Although reforms between 2011 and 2021 showed that alternative approaches were possible, the 2021 coup reversed these changes. Today, governance is fragmented between military authorities and ethnic resistance groups, with some efforts to develop alternative land systems. Civil society organizations continue to support affected populations but face reduced capacity due to declining international support. Despite these challenges, Leckie and Arraiza argue that any future transition must center land rights, restitution, and legal protection, and that meaningful change remains possible.

Episode #546: Recorded in Kuala Lumpur during Malaysia’s final stretch as ASEAN chair, this is the second episode in a three part series which looks less at policy language and more at political consequence. Recorded inside Parliament, lawmakers grapple with what regional diplomacy can realistically achieve while communities across Malaysia absorb the human fallout of Myanmar’s implosion — refugees navigating precarious legal status, strained public systems, and a debate that grows sharper the longer the crisis drags on.

The first guest, Willie Mongin, is the Member of Parliament for Puncak Borneo in Sarawak and a former deputy minister who now serves as Deputy Chair of Malaysia’s parliamentary select committee on international trade and international relations. His engagement with Myanmar deepened after joining the committee three years ago, when he began closely monitoring ASEAN geopolitics. For Mongin, the logic is simple: regional peace underpins shared prosperity. “When we have a peaceful region, we can actually work together and work towards prosperity together,” he says. Instability in Myanmar, he argues, threatens ASEAN cohesion and fuels refugee pressures in Malaysia. While acknowledging Malaysia’s limits, he calls on the United Nations and major powers to press for a democratic resolution led ultimately by Myanmar’s own leadership.

The second guest, Ahmed Tarmizi, is the Member of Parliament for Sik in Kedah and Deputy Chairman of Malaysia’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Refugee Policy. Before entering politics, he worked in humanitarian relief connected to Myanmar, traveling to Rakhine State and refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar. He describes Myanmar’s crisis as regional in impact, calling it “like a cancer for the Asian community.” In Malaysia, he highlights the presence of more than 180,000 refugees, mostly from Myanmar, and the country’s lack of a formal legal framework recognizing them. “We don't have any legal [act] to recognize the refugees,” he says, urging clearer policy and stronger ASEAN and UN action to stop the violence driving displacement.