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Since then, every revolutionary movement in Burma has seen or utilized UG activity as an essential supportive component to armed struggle. UG activists were always trying to find ways to combine a UG-organized mass movement with armed struggle in order to overthrow the government. UG activists never believed that the primary UG tactic, namely fostering a mass uprising, could bring genuine victory alone. But UG activists point out that although you can organize huge mass mobilizations, you must be able to fill the vacuum of power at the center of the upheaval.

I think this view of the role of UG activities persisted until around 1990. Since 1990, the widespread victories of non-violent democratic struggles in other countries, the prevalence of non-violent education, the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and the shrinking of the armed struggles of the different rebel groups in Burma caused many activists to confuse UG work with non-violent resistance. Many activists, including myself, thought of UG tactics as having a mysterious strength that could topple the military dictatorship. By doing only UG politics and preparing for mass mobilization, we thought we could transform our society. But now it has become clearer and clearer to us that we shouldn't let ourselves overly romanticize UG politics.

In fact, if we want to transform the society peacefully, we must sow the seeds of an autonomous civil society in all different sectors of society. This does not mean that we must forget UG. We must not. But at the same time, we must recognize the importance of developing a civil society. We must understand that one of Burma’s fundamental problems is “the lack of spaces” for activities not directly under the regime’s control. What we failed to see before is that if we really believe in the non-violent method of struggle, we must create and expand independent spaces in our society. We must encourage established spaces to be independent and expanded. We must also create thousands of new spaces.

But what constitutes an independent space? This question is very important for us to consider. I will present my point in terms of a comparative political approach with popular movements in other parts of the world.

Gandhi created some independent economic spaces in colonial India by encouraging everyone to weave their own clothes, so as to avoid contributing to the British-controlled economic system. Paolo Friere started a movement to educate impoverished and illiterate people of Brazil while the military regime that took power in 1964 by and large denied educational opportunities for this sector of the population. In El Salvador during the 1980’s, progressive Catholic priests applied the same principles to religious education, and developed the concept of“Liberation Theology.” In practice, a core Christian community of perhaps a dozen people would meet regularly to read the Bible and apply the scriptural lessons to their current social circumstances. While faith and devotion were not necessarily lost, the concepts of justice and compassion took on new meaning amid such a repressive social system.

Such independent spaces are possible in Burma. The danger, of course, is that organizations, whether domestic or international, claim independence but may be co-opted by the military. Some “independent” organizations, such as the Union Solidarity and Development Association and the Myanmar Maternal and Child Welfare Association, are merely additional tentacles of the SPDC. International non-governmental organizations, whose aims include poverty alleviation and community development, must maintain cozy relations with military officials in order to operate. Such closeness can compromise their independence.

There are several examples of small-scale independent movements and also several self-reliance groups or institutions organized by the local grass root youth inside Burma. At the macro level, we can point to the example of Thamanya Sayadaw’s social activities such as the construction of roads, bridges, schools and so on.

If you focus solely on the political arena, you might say that operating in an independent space in Burma is impossible.