This talk will take you through the historical context of Burma/Myanmar, a former crown jewel in the British Empire, weaving through the personal stories, hopes and dreams of its ethnically diverse population.

Abstract: For a fleeting decade between 2010 and 2020, Burma/Myanmar was one of the most hopeful nations in the world. Having emerged from half a century of isolation, conflict, and iron-fisted military rule, it held elections, drew up ceasefires with ethnic armed groups, and ordinary people began to reap the benefits of economic growth, a booming tourism sector and access to the internet.

Then, on Feb 1, 2021, everything changed. The military which had been lurking on the political sidelines for years, seized power, arresting democratically-elected leaders including Aung San Suu Kyi and accusing the winning political party of fraud in the Nov 2020 elections. The coup plunged the Southeast Asian nation into its most devastating conflict in decades and forced the nation of more than 50 million people back under the yoke of dictatorship.

Biographical sketch: Born and bred in Burma/Myanmar, Thin Lei Win is a Europe-based investigative journalist and co-founder of The Kite Tales, a non-profit storytelling project that chronicles the lives of people across the country. She founded Myanmar Now an award-winning bilingual news outlet, in the run-up to the historic elections in 2015 and spent more than a dozen years as an international correspondent.