debased and demeaned the diminutive general—mocked for his height, photoshopped in high heels, compared to dogs—appeared. The general’s image was pasted on roads and pathways so that members of the public could defile him by placing their feet on an image of the most sacred part of the body, the head. The ritual of debasement was collectively understood to diminish the general’s spiritual reserve of hpon. This understanding accorded with the Burmese cultural pattern in which words and acts can, on account of their iconic and symbolic likeness and alignment, function as the site for action capable of producing real world impacts. Protesters delighted in the fact that strategic placement of Min Aung Hlaing’s image on major thoroughfares forced soldiers to participate in blunting the general’s hpon. In some sites, soldiers took the time to remove their leader’s images before proceeding to chase protesters. In other “supranormal” protest actions, women strung their htamein or sarongs above the entrances to neighbourhoods to stop military trucks from entering their wards. That the tactic activated broadly shared cultural beliefs of the causative, and not just symbolic, consequences of a man contacting the polluting feminine principle, was evident in the fact that military trucks did not indeed drive under these supranormal barricades. These tactics were often more effective than physical barriers constructed of concrete and tires in slowing down the military, which had to back its trucks up to the clothes line to reach and cut down the polluting barrier before driving through (see Figure 4). At the same time, Gen Z protests were also unmoored from traditional cultural icons and symbols. Even the main protest site in Yangon, the Hledan business and shopping district with its banks, restaurants and brand-name fashion shops, communicated a different set of associations from those of earlier anti-colonial and anti-military protests. The latter had identified the historically significant Shwedagon Pagoda as the symbolic locus for meaning, Buddhist identity and the political cause. More significantly, veteran activists identified Hledan as a strategic site location for its labyrinthine neighbourhood to facilitate escape in the event of violent confrontation with security forces. From the very outset Gen Z protesters were engaging strategically in the anti-coup movement. 16 21-J07648 01 Trends_2021-7.indd 16 28/4/21 9:34 AM