Category: Opinion

The latest opinion from those committed to making our region fair, just and democratic.


Understanding ICC Prosecutor’s Arrest Warrant Application for Myanmar Military Leader: Anti-Genocide Perspective

Without the willing executioners and cheerleaders, no state is capable of large-scale crimes against humanity of which genocide is one, from the Nazi genocide to Rwanda, to Indonesia’s CIA-facilitated genocide of ethnic Chinese and communists, to the ongoing Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Myanmar’s genocide of Rohingya is no exception.

/ November 28, 2024

Let’s join our hands to speed up the demise of the US-led Imperialist World

I can’t possibly tell my 15-year-old that their future will be more peaceful, and the law and the established global governance institutions will offer them protection, let alone Palestinian or Myanmar or Sudanese teenagers who don’t know whether they will live or get blown up before their next meal.

/ November 20, 2024

“For Khurram, you choose to fight – A poem and poetry reading by Ather Zia”: A FORSEA solidarity post

In this post, FORSEA aims to call attention to one of the longest state-organized settler colonial projects, Kashmir’s repression at the hands of the Hindutva (internally Hindu Fascist) India.

/ November 16, 2024

Study & fight Hindu Supremacy: Activists & researchers fighting toxic Hindu Supremacy movement, rooted in Modi’s India but with ties to Far Right in Trump’s USA

A FORSEA post in solidarity with the anti-Hindutva and anti-caste activists and researchers in the United States.

/ November 8, 2024

Myanmar looks more like ASEAN’s Syria than a democracy in waiting

Myanmar’s armed conflicts are, tragically, no longer a simple, binary morality tale of Good vs. Evil. Yes, the Tatmadaw remains the country’s largest armed organization and regularly commits atrocities. On their part, the anti-junta adversaries fighting “the Common Enemy” also perpetrate their fair share of atrocities against localized “enemy” ethnic populations.

/ November 6, 2024

As Burma Studies in Japan becomes politicised, can the Rohingya hope for better from the rapidly developing Chinese Academy?

Burma Studies in many countries has always been the gloved hand of state intelligence. And Burma Studies in Japan is no exception.

/ October 29, 2024

The death of Old Burma or Myanmar as a Burmese nation-state and the birth of ASEAN’s Syria

Myanmar’s post-independence history since 1948 is a history of conflicts among different ethnic and ideological groupings, and their failures to resolve the differences of interests and visions peacefully. Successive generations of ethnic majority Bama or Burmese political elite, civilian and military, with their typical colonial mindset towards the other groups bear the greatest share of responsibility.

/ October 19, 2024

A window into a fascist engine: arbitrary abuse, population control, and Israel’s impossible destruction of Palestinians

The decades-long genocide, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid enacted by Israel are the most visible aspects of the assault on Palestinians. But I came away from my aborted trip with the knowledge that the seemingly smaller, less deadly events are inseparable and crucial to the system.

/ October 14, 2024

Palestinians’ Liberation Struggle Needs Solidarity: Cambodians Respond with Love & Art

“(Cambodian leaders and people) have spoken out against the hypocrisy of Western governments preaching human rights, international law and the rule-based world order while condoning and even aiding and abetting genocide in Cambodia in 1975-1979 and again today in Palestine.”

/ October 5, 2024