Translated from Thara won (Pyay)

I like “May I teach you” — the phrase painted in front of the police station and would like to say, “please may I teach you.” Let me use that too: may I teach you.

Who do I want to “teach”? The Baw Ma (Military bootlickers), the army’s slaves, the “6800-eater mercenaries.” I want to teach you how to write comments, how to spread propaganda.

Because you people hardly know how to write — barely literate. When asked to read, you can’t read ‘U Maung Zaw’s beloved teacher’ or ‘Doctors Chetkyi’. No independent thinking of your own, except maybe enough cunning to steal a pair of sandals from a donation hall. Writing? You can’t even spell properly. Some of you don’t even know how to read or understand a syllable cleanly in proper pronunciation, who thinks he can recite sacred texts but can’t.

The stuff you write — already becoming so boring and repetitive that it’s like used cooking oil seller’s handwipe towel, no one wants it anymore. You only know how to repeat what your stepfather military leaders told you. And your military stepfathers themselves? For generations they didn’t know anything — even don’t know the meaning of the common proverb, just like small kans grass (Saccharum spontaneum) and Island mutually depends each other for support to survive. A General just literally thought Island as TEAK TREE, without understanding the Homophones, words pronounced alike but different in meaning.

You repeat the same tired things:

• “The NLD cheated in elections, that’s why the army had to take power.”
• “The NLD ran away abroad.”
• “If there’s no army, what will happen to the country?”

That’s all you know how to say. And yes, sure, when you are just a mercenary getting five or six thousand per day, you can only learn or manage to talk like that.

But the truth? Since 1990, elections were won fair and square without any NLD cheating, while parties supported by the army always lost. The coup was not about saving the country — it was simply that some disgusting, greedy thugs wanted power and couldn’t accept reality.

You ask, “What will happen if there’s no army?” The country will get better, that’s what. The robbers will be cleared out. The ones holding guns against the people will vanish. If needed, new armed forces with real youth and fresh recruits can be rebuilt.

And those living abroad? Stop yelling “Come back! Come back!” If you want them back, fix the country. When the country is good, nobody needs to call them — they will return by themselves. Who would walk into a compound full of rabid dogs snapping at everything? No decent person.

Under Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, U Htin Kyaw, and U Win Myint, the country was peaceful and progressing. At that time, no one needed to beg overseas Burmese to return — they came back on their own, in droves, buying homes and investing. Everyone knows this. The only ones who don’t are you cronies.

One thing is true though: under civilian government, the mercenary getting six thousand per day, Ma Ba Tha extremists, and thuggish “strongmen” had it harder — they only got attention when there was a rare protest or some small packet of stale Biryani. That didn’t look so grand for you.

And another thing: your specialty is trying to make others fight each other. Stir up clashes between the Chin and the Rakhine. Try to split TNLA and KIA. Sow division between NUG and PDF, and between NUG and local defense groups, using anonymous accounts and fake rumors. Try to pit KNLA and DKBA against each other. That’s all you can do.

But these tricks? They’re the same old games since 1988. People already see through them.

And when your army loses battles and soldiers surrender en masse, you try distraction tactics:

• Than Shwe dies.
• Myint Swe “would be cremated like a dead monk.”
• Soe Win “likely to be killed by a drone.”
• Daw Aung San Suu Kyi “would be put back under house arrest.”

All these rumor stunts are worn out now.

So here’s my advice to you “6800-eater mercenaries”:
Stop wasting time with tired lies. Stop insulting people. Instead of spewing garbage on Facebook, why not write about the truth:

• How army generals misuse everything.
• How they cheated in the 2010 and 2015 elections with USDP.
• How with their salaries alone they could never afford their lavish lives, but looted the country’s wealth and became billionaires.

If you wrote about that, you’d gain more public support than any “6800 propaganda” campaign. And once you have that support, you can slip in your own agenda lightly if you want.

Don’t believe me? Try it. Write with this headline I’ll even give you for free:

“From Begging Barehanded to Billionaire: The Rise of the Army Generals’ Families.”

— Thara won (Pyay)