Fourth Generation

8888 Uprising , 08.08.1988

The 1988 uprising remains one of the defining moments of Myanmar’s modern history. A regime that had used extreme levels of violence to hold onto power suddenly faced massive protests over its calamitous mishandling of the economy. By 1988 Myanmar had been ruled for 26 years by the secretive and superstitious General Ne Win, who seized power in a coup in 1962. He was commander of the armed forces – known as the Tatmadaw – which fought insurgencies in several parts of Burma since independence in 1948 and viewed civilians as incapable of holding the country together.
General Ne Win cut Burma off from the outside world, refusing to take sides in the Cold War divisions and then afflicting Asia. Instead, he implemented an eccentric one-party system under his Burma Socialist Programme Party. The army played a dominant role and led to Burma becoming one of the world’s poorest countries. The political drama which culminated in the mass rallies of August and September 1988 began one year earlier, with Ne Win’s sudden decision to demonetise all existing banknotes. This had a catastrophic economic impact, particularly on students who had saved up their tuition fees.
It was also the first time Noble laureate Aung San Suu Kyi took the public stage, delivered her first speech, and became the leader of the democratic movement.