Examining the Myanmar Crisis with Rebecca Fanai

What is currently happening in Myanmar?

A military coup took place. I heard the news from looking up stuff online, and then I started having some friends send me some posts that they started seeing too. The military had cut off all the phone lines and everything else for several hours. The people in the country had no idea what had just taken place until the Wi-Fi came back, and then they started hearing the news, so some people were able to escape. The military detained many political leaders, especially from the NLD, the National League of Democracy. There were many reasons that this happened, but one of them was an election in November.

In this election, the NLD won by a landslide of 80%, so it was called election fraud and used as an excuse for detaining all the NLD official leaders on February 1. This would be the day that the seats were going to change, so the leaders would start going to the capital city and assuming their positions. There are so many reasons why this happened, and you can read more about that online through credible sources. I think they were going to rewrite the Constitution.
Politicians also like to say that when you turn 65, that's when you have to retire. The general, who is the head of all of this stuff that's happening right now, is turning 65. So that's also another reason; perhaps he wouldn’t be able to hold power anymore. And to add to all of this, when the previous party rewrote the constitution, 25% of the seats had to come from the military no matter what. Every time there was a new law or something they were going to pass, they had to pass a certain percentage which I believe was over 75%. So they make this constitutional change where even though technically they say, “Oh, it's a democracy now,” it's technically not, because every time they vote on something, 25% of the vote is always from the military. This arrangement means nothing can pass. The military still holds so much power. They decided to take over the whole country because they probably felt like they would lose their position and the power that they've held for so, so many years. Hence, history is kind of repeating itself.

What was the catalyst that caused you to use your platform for activism about this crisis?

This has happened multiple times, but one of the biggest times was in 1980. When my parents were in college, the entire country shut down for at least one year, and colleges were all closed as well. I heard about it in stories, so for me, it was in the past; it was in my parent’s time and I thought we were probably never going to go back there, and we were trying to rebuild the country again because it had gone downhill from there. Especially when I went back home in 2019, after being here in the States for about seven years without going back, I could see how much change had taken place. I saw so much growth in the young people, especially in Gen Z's, who were given opportunities for education and given opportunities to travel overseas and explore more options than just teaching or farming. When I heard about the coup it made me think: “I'm here, and even if I have American citizenship or not, that's still my home country, and I still have so many family members there and young people like me who would lose their opportunity to be where they want to be and branch out.” So that's one reason I guess that I didn't even know that I had this passionate love for the country. It just kind of shook me to the core. I sometimes close my door and just sob for hours because it’s just hard to take it in.
And on top of that, most of my family members are still in Burma. This made me think: “What are some things that I can do from here?” And I would feel guilty. I'm not saying that every Burmese person or young person from Burma living here has to do something; it's their choice. But for me, I would feel guilty to just sit in my own house to eat the same food to go out and work and get the same money, without actually doing something with the rest of the country, including my family who is suffering.

How can AAPI and Non-AAPI students (or people in general) be allies at this time?

There's a lot of ways. There are many petitions that organizations are creating; there’s been a couple of organizations formed by Gen-Zers and formed by other generations as well here in America to encourage more action towards opposing the coup. Many petitions can be signed; there are letters that have been created, and they've made systems where you can just send a text and send a message directly to your governor, to your senators; everything.
There are petitions where you can sign letters to the United Nations, and there are fundraising events. There are people doing CDM (civil disobedience movements) by quitting their jobs and just protesting out in the streets. The government can't get the money, and they don't have a way to get the country going either, so the people protesting know that it has been very effective. Because of that, shootings started happening because of peaceful protests. So because there’s CDM, there are lots of people that don't have jobs and that don't have food to eat anymore. I'm doing what I can in that aspect, and some people have created fundraisers to support those who don't have food to eat daily. Medical-wise, you know, there are hundreds and hundreds of people that are hurt every single day. Some paramedics and volunteers are out in the streets all the time, so the supplies will not last that much, and there are funds that are created to support those areas.
What I'm doing is I've created the stickers to not only fundraise but to raise awareness. It's only been a little less than a month since I've started it, but I'm actually in the process right now of sending over $1,000 just from making stickers. I'm so, so happy about it and, as I said, it hasn't even been over a month yet. Knowing that people will support you when you're doing something that you’re passionate about and that supports a good cause is encouraging.
Another reason that I think this project is important is it brings awareness. If you drive around and you see a bumper sticker or you see a sticker on someone's water bottle, then it creates an opportunity for people to have conversations, which is so crucial at this time. My immediate friends know about what’s happening because of the posts I share. However, outside of that, there are still people that will be like: “Oh, my circle of friends had no idea this is happening or to the extent that it's happening,” because the Western media or even the media in general won't be able to cover everything that's happening. So raising awareness and having conversations is important. Another way to do this is also just by bringing it up with individuals and saying: “Hey, have you heard about this? This happened in Burma.”
Finally, as Christians, prayer is especially important. I emphasize this so much because I do believe that despite the difficulty of us being able to see whether God is going to step in and start saving people, He will do what He can at the right time, so prayers work. I have also created a website, so if people want to follow me on Instagram, it's @beccamatei, and they can follow me there, and I put a link in my bio that will directly send them to a website I've created. The website has information on what just happened as well as really short videos on what is currently happening and what started it. For all petition links, people can just click on it, it will direct them right away to where they can sign it. There's so much to do right now, and if you know a Burmese person, especially one that's actively participating and supporting this resistance in some way, you can also just reach out to them and start by having a conversation.

How has your approach to ministry changed?

I think that worship at Andrews has shaped me in really good ways. It helped me make many connections to different people in different areas and grew my spiritual atmosphere. My dad is a pastor in Maryland, so I'm constantly still involved with youth engagement. I saw that the teens in the church didn’t have space to do whatever they had been doing before I went home, so I started teaching every single Sabbath. I would go downstairs, play music, do all the little worship stuff that we do around 9:30am, then go upstairs and teach Sabbath school. After that, I would go downstairs to do divine worship, and then after the music part, go back upstairs and teach the team.
Ministry is not just that, so throughout the day, you'll have kids–and I'm not going to mention names, but I'm also helping many kids these days. Mental health is a big issue, especially with the pandemic and many different struggles within the teams. I mean, I am sort of like a counselor despite having no credentials. I spend a reasonable amount of time in that aspect of ministry, not just in its music sphere. And when this whole thing happened, I think it also took a toll on me, just because I'm already investing so much outside of work as a full-time nurse. So outside of that, I'm doing full-time ministry with my church, and this year, I'm the director of our children's department overall. So that's already kind of a lot of things I'm taking on, and then the coup took place as well, so it's tough for me to balance everything.
These events make me pray, and they make me reach out to God more, and I would say I have not spent as much sacred time as much as I wish. I'm trying to do more of that, but I think I just get so tired with so much going on. Still, I’m happy to say that sometimes I know that when people go through tough times like this, they lose their trust in God, But that is not the case for me right now, and I think I was in a really good place with God before. So during this time, I have been able to not get to that point of thinking that God is not in control or that He’s not doing what he needs to do right now. So I haven't lost hope in God, and I'm doing what I can, but I wish I were more on fire in my relationship with God.
It's tough to give yourself to everything, but I also host prayer meetings as much as I can on Saturday nights. Around 10:30 is when we used to do it. Around the same time, it would match with Burma or Myanmar, so people from Myanmar would join us in the prayer meetings as well as people from India, Singapore, Japan, and Korea. The ministry that I did here at Andrews has shifted in different respects, but I would say I've learned about leadership skills and what it means to do ministry.

Is there anything else you would like the readers to know?

Well, I would like to ask a special prayer request before I do a call to action, which is for my cousin. My immediate cousin is detained right now by the military. He got detained several days ago because he protested. There wasn't any harm that he was causing illegally; he was peacefully protesting. I won't go into the details of the background of this situation, but he's currently still being detained, which is why I'm working hard to raise more funds at this moment; not just for him but other people who were detained with him, that don't even have the means or the money or the support from their families or other people to get lawyers and to get the extra help that they need. Even if they can't get out of prison right now, we hope that their sentence will at least be lessened.
The family put some money together, and we're able to talk to a lawyer and figure it out. But my other cousin, his sister, went and spoke to them and found out that the rest of the people other than him had no contacts and had nobody taking care of them. So that means that if you don't have anyone checking in on you, your sentence could be a year, three years, or more than that. We're just peacefully protesting in this case and their families don't have the connections to figure out where they are. So that's why I'm working hard right now and sending in whatever I can get at this moment, to not only help the people that don’t have food these days but also people that are struggling without support from their families. It's just heartbreaking to think about that. They're probably scared and don't have the means for people to reach them. So, with that being said, other than the prayers, it’s the fundraising. Even $1, $5, $6, even if it doesn't seem like it's a lot. Here, you probably don't even have a whole meal if you pay $5 at a restaurant, but $5 there means a lot. If I have $5 from 10 people it’s $50. That’s a lot of money back in Myanmar after you exchange the currency. So I would just challenge people to see what they can do; maybe they can save $1 a day or maybe when they go out to eat, you can say, “perhaps I won’t get dessert today, or maybe I'll not get an appetizer and save that money to donate instead,” so small things; just being mindful helps a lot.
And the last thing I want to propose is just a call to action: Do whatever you can, and whether you can donate or not, be involved in prayers, petitions, and conversations. Keep sharing that. And here at Andrews, I think they're going to print more posters that I've made and put them up around the university in different buildings, so people can scan the QR code link on there. It will take them directly to the website, so that would be a pretty easy way to just kind of get all the information and know what the next steps are. So you can watch out for those posters and follow me on my Instagram; I'm more than willing to talk to people and answer questions.