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PODCAST

Insight Myanmar

Insight Myanmar Podcast

Insight Myanmar is a beacon for those seeking to understand the intricate dynamics of Myanmar. With a commitment to uncovering truth and fostering understanding, the podcast brings together activists, artists, leaders, monastics, and authors to share their first-hand experiences and insights. Each episode delves deep into the struggles, hopes, and resilience of the Burmese people, offering listeners a comprehensive, on-the-ground perspective of the nation"s quest for democracy and freedom. And

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All Episodes

02:03:53

The Medium Is the Message

Insight Myanmar ·

2026/01/09

Episode #465: In a rich discussion on Buddhist manuscript cultures in Southeast Asia, Professor Volker Grabowsky and Dr. Silpsupa Jaengsawang explore how handwritten texts—especially those on palm leaf and mulberry paper—carry spiritual, cultural, and scholarly significance. They distinguish literature from manuscript study, which emphasizes the importance of materials, format and scribal context as much as the content.Manuscripts, they argue, are not just vessels of content, but cultural artifacts,

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01:13:00

State of the Scam

Insight Myanmar ·

2026/01/08

Episode #464: Dr. Tun Aung Shwe, a researcher, former public health practitioner, political activist, and National Unity Government representative to Australia discusses Myanmar’s proliferating scam centers, calling them a symptom of a far deeper political and economic system rooted in decades of military rule. He explains that they began as small, family-run operations in northeastern Shan, operating initially on the borderlands, but have expanded rapidly, even into Yangon, Mandalay, and Naypyidaw

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01:17:01

The Weight of Freedom

Insight Myanmar ·

2026/01/06

Episode #463: “You know, I’m not a superwoman or anything, but at least I can do what I can do,” says Moe Thae Say with quiet conviction. Once a creative director and successful entrepreneur in Yangon’s digital and design scene, she lived comfortably, surrounded by friends who continued their middle-class lives even after the coup. But when Myanmar’s military seized power in 2021, Moe Thae Say could no longer accept normalcy under dictatorship. She used profits from her small business to support

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01:19:58

A House Divided

Insight Myanmar ·

2026/01/05

Episode #462: Dulyapak Preecharush, an associate professor of Southeast Asian studies and comparative political scientist specializing in Myanmar, argues that Myanmar’s post-independence political trajectory is best understood as a deliberately managed hybrid political system rather than a failed democratic transition. Drawing on his long-term research, he explains that this system combines limited political opening with entrenched military dominance, allowing reform and conflict management to

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01:18:45

From Halo-Halo to Milk Tea

Insight Myanmar ·

2026/01/02

Episode #461: “I think this time, there is even more hope for a fundamental shift and change in [Myanmar],” says Gus Miclat, co-founder of Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID). He contrasts today’s Myanmar resistance with earlier elite-led struggles, seeing in it the potential for “a more systemic change.”Miclat traces his activism to high school protests in the Philippines, sharpened during Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s dictatorship. He became a journalist, educator, and organizer, later

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56:33

Towards Confederation

Insight Myanmar ·

2026/01/01

Episode #460: “This is not only my interest—it is also my duty,” says Khay, a research fellow in Berlin, describing his work to better understand Myanmar’s crises. Raised in Karen State during an era of conflict, Khay became inspired by a sense of ethnic pride and a responsibility as a university student, causing him to shift his interest from engineering to political research, a path that eventually brought him to Germany. After the 2021 coup, he returned temporarily to Karen State to document

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01:58:20

Both Sides Now

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/12/30

Episode #459: This is the third episode in a three-part series that emerged from a three-day Digital Storytelling Workshop hosted by Insight Myanmar Podcast, with support from ANU and IDRC. What began as a room of strangers slowly became a community through the simple act of sharing stories. We were reminded that communication is not just the exchange of information, but the creation of a shared emotional world, built through attention and care. “Tell me more” became our refrain, and this episode is

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02:20:39

ASEAN in the Balance

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/12/29

Episode #458: Lilianne Fan is a long-time Myanmar analyst and advocate who served as an adviser to the ASEAN Special Envoy on Myanmar and as part of Malaysia’s advisory group during its ASEAN chairmanship. Drawing on that insider role, she argues that ASEAN’s response to the 2021 coup must be judged by how ASEAN actually functions, not by expectations of decisive moral intervention.Fan explains that ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus was never meant to resolve Myanmar’s crisis. Its real purpose was to

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01:27:15

Neither Free Nor Fair

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/12/28

Episode #457: Brang Min, a Kachin State civil society organizer and student activist with the Kachin State Civil Movement; Thinzar Shunlei Yi, a leading organizer and deputy director of the Anti-Sham Election Campaign Committee representing the General Strike movement; and Aung Moe Zaw, a veteran democracy activist associated with the Democratic Party for a New Society, discuss the upcoming elections. Despite their differing backgrounds, all three agree that the 2025 election is designed to entrench

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02:08:39

Abandoned in Plain Sight

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/12/26

Episode #456: “We will not leave them behind,” says Simon Billenness, director of the Campaign for a New Myanmar and a Burma policy advocate with more than three decades of experience lobbying the United States Congress on sanctions policy, congressional appropriations, and accountability for Myanmar’s military. In his second appearance on the podcast, Billenness focuses on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Burmese nationals, which

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01:39:52

The Bloodiest Election

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/12/25

Episode #455: Mon Zin, a Myanmar-born pro-democracy activist based in Sydney, is a founding member of the Global Myanmar Spring Revolution, a network that coordinates Burmese diaspora communities around the globe. GMSR’s advocacy targets sanctions, diplomatic recognition, and the financial lifelines of the junta, particularly revenues from oil and gas. In this conversation, Mon Zin analyzes the upcoming military-led elections, which she emphasizes are fraudulent and dangerous. She argues that the

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01:48:53

Into The Mystic

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/12/23

Episode #454: In our third episode with U Jāgara, a Canadian monk, he reflects on his journey through decades of meditation practice and teaching, focusing on the adaptation of Burmese meditation traditions to contemporary contexts. Following earlier discussions that explored his formative years and monastic journey, this conversation delves into the figures, methodologies, and insights that have shaped his path. U Jāgara’s experiences with prominent teachers like Pa-Auk Sayadaw highlight the

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01:42:53

Facing a Fraying World

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/12/22

Episode #453: Patrick Phongsathorn is a human rights advocate and Fortify Rights advocacy specialist working on Myanmar. Raised near London by a Thai–Irish–South African family, he pairs legal rigor with practical savvy about how ministries, courts, and donors move. After abandoning an early push toward medicine, Patrick rerouted into politics and human rights, studying at SOAS and Sciences Po’s Human Rights and Humanitarian Action program. He learned by doing: Human Rights Watch work on detention

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02:12:22

Fever Pitch

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/12/19

Episode #452: “We still had a lot of ideals… but we had some illusions, so to speak.” François Nosten has spent decades on the Thai-Myanmar border, where war, disease, and displacement overlap endlessly. He arrived in the 1980s, a young doctor from Toulouse with Médecins Sans Frontières, drawn by a sense of purpose. What he found was devastation: malaria sweeping through camps, killing faster than bullets. “There were more of the student dying of malaria than from the fighting,” he recalls of the

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01:24:56

Paved By Good Intentions

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/12/18

Episode #451: Marte Nilsen, senior researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, joins the podcast to explore Aung San Suu Kyi’s central role in Myanmar’s political life. Drawing on decades of research across Myanmar and Thailand, she also reflects on Norway’s complex engagement with Myanmar—from early solidarity movements and reform-era optimism to today’s challenges of diplomacy, reversals, and rebuilding.Norway’s involvement began in the wake of the 1988 uprising and Suu Kyi’s 1991 Nobel

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02:34:54

Learning To Fly

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/12/16

Episode #450: Over three days,Insight Myanmar led aDigital Storytelling Workshopwith academics and activists, where weexplored how presence, curiosity, and the simple invitation“tell me more”can open real dialogue in a polarized Myanmar. What they created was tender, courageous, and deeply human — conversations that welcome not only each other, but also the unseen listener they hope to reach.This is the second ofthreeepisodes in this series.Sarah, a former international relations student, describes

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01:32:23

Something in the Air

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/12/15

Episode #449: The first episode inafive-part series, these discussions were recorded atthe 16thInternationalBurmaStudies Conference at Northern Illinois University, where scholars, students, researchers, and practitioners gathered for presentations, forums, roundtables, and cultural exhibitions exploring the theme “Dealing with Legacies in Burma.”Amid political turmoil andhumanitariancrisis, thisrepresenteda rare space for open dialogue, and one in whichInsight Myanmarwas invited to recordinterviews

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59:51

The Practice of Freedom

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/12/12

Episode #448: In the second of our three-part series with Steve Smith, a teacher in theMahasitradition, he continues reflecting on his half-century exploration into the country’s spirituality, culture, and politics, while also sharing what he learned from prolonged and intimate contact with some of the greatest meditation teachers and civil leaders of the day.Stevewent toSeikhun,MahasiSayadaw’s village,andstarted his practicethere.Hepracticed withlocal villagers, as well assenior government

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01:19:24

Poetic Justice

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/12/11

Episode #447: Maw Shein Win, aBurmese-Americanpoet, teacher, and literary organizer based in the Bay Area, reflects on her creative path, heritage, and commitment to poetry as witness and connection.Maw Shein Winturned to poetrywhile in college.She alsoimmersedherself in the punk and experimental music scene of 1980s Los Angeles.This affected the arc of her career, as collaboration across disciplines—music, performance, and visual art—became central to herpractice, andisa hallmark of herwork.Her

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02:54:58

Between Here and Home

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/12/10

Episode #446: This episode marks the beginning of a three-part series created during a three-day Digital Storytelling Workshop hosted by the Insight Myanmar Podcast, with support from ANU and IDRC. Over those days, emerging storytellers came together to practice something both ancient and profoundly human: telling stories. In a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, the workshop served as a reminder that genuine connection — the kind built through care, honesty, and the courage to

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