6/9/22, 9:46 AM Meet Myanmar’s Blue Shirts – The Diplomat battle with his former employer, the Myanmar Army. “The military has no shame at all,” said Sein Mya, a 53-year-old taxi driver, as he spooned half a dozen sugars into his coffee. “They are showing off their power and authority. They believe that frightening people may lead to success in ruling the country.” His daughter is one of seven people jailed for satirizing the army in a street performance put on by the Peacock Generation troupe over the Burmese new year. Activists say the military in April and May brought 30 cases against people in Myanmar, where an energized youth movement has promptly answered a clampdown on critics of the Tatmadaw, Myanmar’s military. Sitting bolt upright in a crisp white shirt and purple longyi, Sein Mya recalled his own service as a warrant officer from 1988 to 2007. His younger brother still serves, and has cut ties with the family since Sein Mya’s daughter’s arrest, a cold reveal of loyalties over which Sein Mya feels “nothing.” But his daughter — “mentally strong and smart” — is now facing a judiciary that prioritizes the military over justice, and that torments him. Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month. Raising his spirits are the fresh-faced blueshirted activists who attend her hearings, along with the trials of several others oppressed by the army. But they won’t change anything, Sein Mya says, echoing a common line on the subject of the Tatmadaw and its pervasiveness in politics. Criticizing a country’s most powerful institution is usually a good litmus test of freedom of expression, so the imprisonment of https://thediplomat.com/2019/06/meet-myanmars-blue-shirts/ 2/8