A-Maze: Myanmar's Struggle for Democracy, 2011-2023 - Paperback

by Ma Thida (Author), Maung Zaw (Translator)

What's happening after the 2021 military coup attempt in Myanmar? Since the coup, people have been deeply shocked by how the Tatmadaw (army) has savagely undermined the pillars of democracy.Regarding the 2021 coup, there are two perspectives; while, on the one hand, Myanmar people have known all along that their struggles for the road to democracy (1988-2020) have not yet made nowhere near to the finishing line, on the other hand, in the international community's perspective, the 2021 coup attempt has been considered as a shocking threat to democracy that has founded successfully in Myanmar since 2011, and as a complete U-turn to the military regime era.

This book highlights that the decade-long quasi-civilian administration period (2011-2020) didn't bring Myanmar to reach its way toward democracy, getting the country lost in a tortuous maze crafted by the military leaders. This book consists of three different categorized titles: The Walls, The Corners, and The Passages of the amazing Maze (A-maze).

This book explains how the 2008 Constitution, some significant past political incidents and maneuvers and deeply rooted social and structural obstacles were like walls of the complex maze which made Myanmar people get lost. It also explains why they couldn't reach anywhere near the destination of democracy though they have been walking miles after miles, hills after hills, and pits after pits. This book also explains how the 2021 Myanmar Spring Revolution is moving fast forward with its strenuous efforts, how it is trying to tear down those walls of maze, and why some old and new complicated corners still exist and have appeared.

In short, this book attempts to answer these questions: How has the Spring Revolution gained its aimful momentum and maintained positivity so far? What are those hard-to-get-rid- of walls? Who created those corners? How are the majority of people of/from Myanmar trying to keep their march on current passages to reach back on the road to democracy?

- Ma Thida

REVIEW QUOTES:

"Physician, novelist, publisher, activist, Ma Thida has a unique eye, insight, and lyrical voice. Read this for a deep, pleasurable understanding of the amazing democratic revolution in Burma and the vicious repressive Junta trying to destroy it. Ma Thida captures both the exhilaration and tragedy of this dramatic moment." - James C. Scott (Sterling Professor of Political Science and Anthropology, Yale University, Co-founder of the Independent Journal of Burmese Scholarship)

"As one of Myanmar's leading activists and intellectuals, Ma Thida's observations on the 'maze' of her country's political trajectory leading up to and beyond the 2021 coup count as crucial reportage and required reading at a time when our war-torn world often overlooks Myanmar, a nation more continuously war-torn than most." - Wendy Law-Yone (author of Golden Parasol; A Daughter's Memoir of Burma)

"The book gives a gripping account of the days after the 2021 coup, and chronicles what went on in the minds of the citizens fighting for democracy. Ma Thida walks us through the Maze in which Myanmar has trapped itself since before the 2021 coup. Readers will find that this book is not a record of events. Ma Thida is urging us to find the way out of the Maze." - Aiko Doden (Journalist, NHK, Japan Broadcasting Corporation)