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Saturday, April 10, 2021

Politics and the Burmese Language: Puns and Wordplays from Burma's Spring Revolution

Burma Spring Revolution's protest memes and symbols

A monk's lacquer-coated alms bowl carried bottom-up at the head of a procession, the little roly-poly figurines taunting the junta's snipers, the deliberate misspellings in viral memes--these potent symbols and wordplays make perfect sense to the Burmese speakers. However, they may confound many outsiders closely following Burma's Spring Revolution.

    Sixty-eight days into the military takeover, the security forces have slaughtered more than 700 civilians and detained more than 3,000, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. But if you can decode the protesters' puns and wordplays, you'll recognize not only their perseverance and courage but also their ingenuity and sardonic humor. They may be outgunned, but they're determined to punch back with puns.  

Flipping the Alms Bowl

On March 27, in North Okkalapa Township in Rangoon (Yangon), as the anti-coup protesters marched through their neighborhood, they could be seen holding upside-down a shiny black object--a monk's alms bowl. In the protest rally snaking through the ancient kingdom on Bagan on February 11, the same object appeared as an oversized icon made of paper mache. Why would the lay people protesting a ruthless military regime display a monastic object at the head of their march? 

    It has to do with the etymology of the Burmese word for boycott: သပိတ်မှောက် (Thabeik hmauk), which literally means "to turn the alms bowl upside-down." According to a BBC Burmese article, the Burmese phrase's origin was a Pali expression with the same meaning, suggesting the practice dated back to the early Buddhist societies. When a monk turns over his alms bowls. he is in effect refusing to receive donation from someone, as a gesture of rebuke or disapproval. 

The Roly-Poly Rise Again

On March 15, in Ahlone Township, the activists launched a people-less strike by lining up a series of roly-poly figurines on the street with messages of defiance. By then, the military has begun using live ammunition, inflicting heavy casualties on the protesters daily. With these people-less strikes, the protesters kept both the resistance and themselves alive. 

    The choice of the tumbling humpty dumpty, called ပစ်တိုင်းထောင် (pyit taing daung), is a wordplay. ပစ် (pyit), the first word in the compound noun, is the verb "to toss," but it also happens to be the verb "to shoot with firearm." Therefore, the roly-poly toy's name could be interpreted as "It stands upright every time you toss it," but also as, "It rises every time you fire on it." 

Flipping the Age of Fear

This viral meme reads ကြောက်ခေတ်ကိုမှောက်ပစ် (kyauk khit ko hmauk pyit): "reverse the Age of Fear." Observant readers might recognize the verb မှောက် (hmauk), to flip over, from the phrase သပိတ်မှောက် (thabeik hmauk) for "boycott." Burmese readers would also recognize the pun in the phrase ကြောက်ခေတ် (kyuauk khit) for "the Age of Fear"--the title of a viral protest song.  

    This is a deliberate misspelling of ကျောက်ခေတ် for "Stone Age." The Burmese words for "fear" and "stone" are both pronounced kyauk, but spelled with different diacritics. With this pun, the message mocks military rule (the Age of Fear) as a thing of the past, an anachronism that should have died out long ago. 

    The expression မှောက်ပစ် (hmauk pyit) for "turn over, flip over, reverse" offers yet another wordplay. It can also be interpreted as "to shoot in a reclining position"--the typical posture of a sniper. By then, credible footage and photos have emerged to show the junta had been deploying snipers to break up the protest crowds. The choice of this particular phrase is an act of defiance, to suggest even sniper shots won't stop the protests.   

For more on the meanings of protest memes and chants, watch the two videos below:

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