Sul sito Rivista Undici abbiamo scritto della situazione in Myanmar, dopo il colpo di stato dello scorso 1° Febbraio.

Il primo febbraio 2021 il Myanmar è di nuovo caduto sotto il giogo della dittatura. Con un annuncio alla tv di stato, i più alti rappresentanti delle forze armate birmane hanno dichiarato lo stato d’emergenza, deponendo il governo democratico e compiendo l’ennesimo colpo di stato, il terzo negli ultimi cinquanta anni. Nell’ultimo mezzo secolo l’ex Birmania – che ha cambiato nome per volere dei militari nel 1989 – ha visto fuggire oltre i propri confini centinaia di migliaia di esuli ed è diventata una delle nazioni dal reddito pro-capite più basso del pianeta, nonostante sia ricca di giacimenti di petrolio e gas naturali, di miniere di gemme preziose.

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***ENGLISH VERSION***

n February 1, 2021, Myanmar once again fell under the yoke of dictatorship. With an announcement on state TV, the highest representatives of the Burmese armed forces declared a state of emergency, deposing the democratic government and carrying out yet another coup, the third in the last fifty years. In the last half century, former Burma – which changed its name in 1989 at the behest of the military – has seen hundreds of thousands of exiles flee across its borders and has become one of the nations with the lowest per capita income on the planet, despite being rich in oil and natural gas deposits, mines of precious gems. The 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, Prime Minister at the time of the coup, is being held in a secret location and there is no news of her and other opposition leaders. We are again at a point of no return, but this time civil society seems determined not to bow its head slavishly: since the first day there have been dozens of demonstrations to defend those rights acquired with so much effort.

In this changing social framework, soccer has become one of the tools for making one’s voice heard. Burmese people, despite the poverty and lack of freedom, have never stopped following their favorite sport, because soccer, in this part of Southeast Asia, is a real mania. The national team was one of the most important on the continent between the sixties and seventies of the last century, and the teams that participate in the Myanmar National League, whose technical and tactical level is modest compared to that of Europe, have ultras groups that have nothing to envy to those of other continents for participation, choreography and impact on the community.

During the dictatorship, this great passion has become one of the instruments of social control by the military junta, and the entrepreneurs who are linked to it. It is enough to scroll through the names of the clubs in Burma’s top division to find teams that can be traced back to the military: Myawady FC, an army team; Shan United, the club that won three of the last four championships; KBZ or Yangon Utd, whose owner is Tay Za, the richest man in Burma.

The intersections between soccer and politics in a dictatorship are imperceptible at first glance, but digging deeper reveals deep-rooted and well-branched connections. For example, since 2005 the Myanmar Football Federation has been presided over by Zaw Zaw, a Burmese entrepreneur. His empire, the Max Myanmar Group, is built on a network of power and corruption that began to grow during the most tragic periods of the dictatorship, but that flourished once the transition to democracy began. That’s when his corporation’s revenues double. Zaw Zaw’s biography is largely shrouded in mystery. One of the few certain details dates back to 1991, when he was in Japan. It was in the Land of the Rising Sun that he founded his first lucrative business activity: trading used cars to Myanmar and other nations in need. What makes him rich is a stratagem, which he uses with cunning: the Burmese government allows his compatriots living abroad to import one car each in their country of origin. The game is soon played. Zaw organizes a real capillary operation, involving thousands of compatriots living abroad and so his economic success is immediate. After having collected an initial large capital, he returned to Myanmar and stipulated a series of contracts with the military junta for the construction of important public infrastructures, including stadiums and sports facilities. From there his rise becomes unstoppable and after becoming President of the Burmese soccer federation, he assumes the vice-presidency of ASEAN – the association of Southeast Asian teams – and of the AFC – the Asian confederation.

Today the group led by Zaw has 11 thousand employees and interests in the hotel, banking and construction sectors. Also very important are his ties with Aung San Su Kyi herself, a friendship that has attracted a lot of criticism on the Nobel Prize winner, and with Blatter first and Infantino later, who welcomed him with open arms at FIFA headquarters. Soccer is the perfect picklock to look after his own interests. In April 2020 he decided to donate one million dollars to Myanmar’s fight against COVID-19. Philanthropy as a tool for subscribing to the masses or ingratiating them?

But soccer is also fantasy, rebellion and redemption. Therefore, if on the one hand there are the federal institutions and the owners of the clubs that are compromised with the regime, on the other hand there are components of the soccer world that take to the streets alongside the protesters, first and foremost the organized fans. The protagonism of organized groups is organic and not extemporaneous. This is demonstrated by what happened on August 28, 2014. The 2018 World Cup qualifying match between the hosts and Oman is being played at the Yangoon National Stadium. The guests are leading 2-0 and everything seems to be going smoothly until, after the awarding of a sacrosanct penalty to the Omani, the Burmese fans throw bottles, stones and any other blunt object that happens to them towards the field, forcing the referee to suspend the match. After these events, FIFA will ban Myanmar for 2 years from any international competition. To outside observers, it is natural to wonder how it is possible that a military state can allow riots like this to happen. The answer is that the stadium, which has remained one of the last free places in Burma, has become the stage for protests against the dictatorship.

For this reason, as soon as the mobilizations against the coup of February 1, 2021 began, colors and flags of Burmese teams were seen in the square. It should be noted that many players of the Burmese national team sided with the fans, such as Kyaw Zin Htet, starting goalkeeper of the Asian lions, who declared on his social networks: “We want a true democracy. We want to progress and we will not accept that they take us back to the dark years of dictatorship. That is why we will not play for the national team until democracy is restored.” The military continues to be relentless, firing on crowds and arresting hundreds of dissidents, and soccer has also taken its toll. On March 27, during a demonstration, 21-year-old Chit Bo Nyein, captain of the U21 team of Hantharwady United, was killed by the bullet of a police rifle. His obituary is the last post published on the Facebook page of the Myanmar National League, which has not published any update since that day. A silence that does not bode well and that adds up to that of the social networks of all the teams that have become blank walls. The league is at a standstill indefinitely and no information is leaking out that would allow us to understand what is going on. What will become of the whole Myanmar, of its national team, of its fans, of its citizens is a question that the whole international community should strongly ask itself, because leaving them alone once again would be an unforgivable humanitarian mistake.