THE 32nd anniversary of what is now known as the Four Eights (8888) uprising in Burma (as what is now Myanmar was then officially known) has been “commemorated” in a few parts of the country in a somewhat low-key manner. The commemorations were at best semiofficial (if it is that) and certainly in a low-profile manner. One has to be grateful for small mercies though since almost certainly prior to 2011 organizers of such commemorations would have been arrested and incarcerated; perhaps, even tortured by the military authorities then.
The 8888 (in commemoration of the Aug. 8, 1988) Burmese uprising, in a sense, started for the fateful year of 1988 not in August but on March 13, 1988 when two students of the Rangoon Institute of Technology were killed by the military police. The student-led uprising (the officials then and till 2011 would have said “disturbances and riots by destructive elements”) and massacres of dozens if not literally hundreds of students and civilians continued in June, August and September 1988. The widespread Burmese uprising — what is deceptively called by some as the “Burmese spring” — became a long Arctic night when it was finally crushed by the takeover by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (Slorc) miliary junta on Sept. 18, 1988 which ruled brutally, oppressively and ruthlessly for the next 23 years.
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