Insight Myanmar

Insight Myanmar
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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 yet, Insight Myanmar is not just a platform for political discourse; it's a sanctuary for spiritual exploration. Our discussions intertwine the struggles for democracy with the deep-rooted meditation traditions of Myanmar, offering a holistic understanding of the nation. We delve into the rich spiritual heritage of the country, tracing the origins of global meditation and mindfulness movements to their roots in Burmese culture. Each episode is a journey through the vibrant landscape of Myanmar's quest for freedom, resilience, and spiritual riches. Join us on this enlightening journey as we amplify the voices that matter most in Myanmar's transformative era.

  1. 9 HR AGO

    Enter the Dragon

    Episode #517: “They are using each other for their own benefit.” With this line, Wai Yan Phyo Naing frames a sober account of SinoMyanmar relations. A researcher and lecturer in international relations and modern history who studied in Moscow and later worked with migrants in Thailand, Wai Yan Phyo Naing brings both scholarship and field experience to the conversation. For Wai Yan Phyo Naing, the relationship is transactional. “China is only interested in its national interests,” he says. “China is ready to communicate with whoever becomes powerful in Myanmar.” Myanmar engages because it must, yet, as Wai Yan Phyo Naing insists, “Myanmar is a sovereign, independent state—not a province of China.” Geography drives the rest: China seeks an outlet to the Indian Ocean, and Myanmar’s coast provides it. The pipelines from Kyaukphyu to Yunnan are operating; the rail vision remains contested—proof, Wai Yan Phyo Naing says, that consent and fair terms decide outcomes. Security realities push cooperation, as Wai Yan Phyo Naing notes that China brokered talks with MNDAA, TNLA, and AA, even “opened the observer office in Lashio,” and, as the generals realized the limits of unilateral force, they came to “appreciate the Chinese intervention.” The darker side of crossborder interdependence is the scam economy, which Wai Yan Phyo Naing calls “like a cancer.” Strategically, Wai Yan Phyo Naing recounts how Beijing once “wanted to create the tunnel… to the Ayeyarwady River and then to the sea.” That was rejected, but “the port project, gas and oil pipeline” are now real, and China is “ready to continue their highspeed railroad from Yunnan.” The moral is unchanged: both states pursue advantage, and Myanmar must bargain hard. Wai Yan Phyo Naing cautions against extremes. “Whoever holds power in Myanmar cannot forget China’s presence,” he says. “Please don’t forget we are just beside China… we shouldn’t see China as a ‘bad guy’ all the time.”

    2h 14m

  2. 1 DAY AGO

    No State, No Service

    Episode #516: “I want to be able to center women in their full right and to shine a spotlight on how I think they are very much the heroes of the revolution,” says Jenny Hedström, a researcher whose book, Reproducing Revolution, examines women’s labor in the Kachin struggle. Joined by Stella Naw, a Kachin activist and scholar, they argue that the conflict cannot be reduced to a simple story of aggressor and victim. Instead, it must be understood through the everyday labor that sustains communities across generations of war. Jenny’s engagement with Kachin women began in the early 2000s while working with the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand. She found that English-language scholarship centered male fighters and formal politics, while the women she spoke with talked about displacement, rebuilding, and survival. When she began her PhD in 2015, she initially focused on female soldiers, assuming armed actors were the proper lens for studying war. But spending time in Kachin towns, army brigades, and displacement camps shifted her perspective: she realized that labor that was not militarily or publicly celebrated proved equally essential to revolutionary endurance. Together, they argue that Kachin womens’ roles in farming, teaching, organizing, and caregiving within Kachin Independence Organization–controlled areas constitute real governance, and not merely domestic support. Stella reframes gender as relational, noting that rigid expectations of masculinity have harmed men as well. “When they can no longer perform the values that define them as Kachin men… they take their own life!” They extend this critique to the international arena, contending that legitimacy is too narrowly defined through sovereignty and armed control. The sustaining labor that makes resistance governance possible remains politically undervalued, and Jenny and Stella want conflict analysis and policy engagement to more explicitly account for this foundational layer of local governance. They stress that the governance sustained by women is politically indispensable, so it should be studied, supported—and valued—accordingly In the end, their commitment remains unequivocal: “We’d rather live and fight for freedom than to submit,” says Stella. “People are willing to die, so they will continue fighting. It's not going to end, but we can end it soon by supporting these resistance actors, who made up for pluralistic states, and support civil society groups who can hold EAOs and EROs accountable.”

    2h 2m

  3. 3 DAYS AGO

    From a Mirrorless Cell

    Episode #515: Toru Kubota is a Japanese documentary filmmaker who believes storytelling can foster empathy beyond abstract argument. A political science student at Keio University who developed an interest in refugee issues, in 2014 he joined a student project interviewing Rohingya refugees in Japan. Using a camera for the first time, he helped produce a short documentary about their lives. In 2016, Kubota traveled to Sittwe in Rakhine State and entered camps housing Rohingya displaced after the 2012 violence. Though officially designated as internally displaced persons camps, he saw them as places of confinement, where communities were segregated and deprived of adequate services. Filming an accidental fire inside one camp became a turning point; editing the footage later convinced him of film’s power to convey lived experience. Following both the military’s 2017 campaign against the Rohingya and the 2021 coup, Kubota returned each time to Myanmar to document events unfolding there. While filming a protest in 2022,soldiers arrested him at gunpoint and used staged photographs as evidence of his participation. He was charged with incitement and immigration violations and sentenced to ten years in prison. Fortunately, diplomatic pressure was able to secure his release after 111 days in detention at the notorious Insein Prison, where he had endured solitary confinement and struggled with despair. Since then, Kubota has supported exiled Myanmar journalists in a variety of different ways. His film “Borderline Resistors” follows exile media collectives along the Thai–Myanmar border. Reflecting on his imprisonment and the fragility of civil liberties, he recalls something an activist once told him: “Freedom is like air. You never appreciate it when you can breathe freely. But you finally realize how important is when you get drowned in water.”

    1hr 41min

  4. 4 DAYS AGO

    Tremors

    Episode #514: Richmond Heath, an Australian physiotherapist, longtime vipassana meditator and senior trainer in tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE) discusses the involuntary movements that arise for some people in meditation. He argues they are not signs of dysfunction, but rather expressions of underlying bodily processes. It’s how a person relates to them that matters most. In his late twenties, Heath developed chronic pain that resisted conventional treatment and forced him to abandon the physical activity that had once grounded him. Turning to vipassana meditation in the tradition of S.N. Goenka, he encountered intense discomfort but discovered that pain was partly a reaction layered onto sensation. By observing it rather than resisting it, its character changed, opening a new way of relating to the body. As his practice deepened, spontaneous movements began to arise. These ranged from subtle shifts to complex, fluid postures that felt unexpectedly free rather than painful. Because he was not consciously producing them, he experienced them as something happening through the body rather than something he was doing. Yet neither medical nor meditative frameworks could account for it. His vipassana teachers discouraged the movements, and eventually he was asked to leave a retreat; medicine, in turn, tended to framed them as manifestations of pathology. Despite this, he trusted his experience and continued observing. He later described these as “neurogenic movements” and came to understand them as part of a broader rhythm of activation and release. While initially interpreting them as trauma discharge, he expanded this view, noting similar patterns in early development, cultural practices, and states of heightened energy. This led him to conclude that no single framework fully explains the phenomenon. Encounters with Aboriginal elder Jack Beatson and later TRE provided validation and context. TRE, which deliberately elicits similar movements, confirmed that such responses can be accessed intentionally, but also reinforced that they function best when not controlled. Heath emphasizes discernment: the same process can regulate or destabilize depending on how it feels. His guiding question—“are you okay, and is it working for you?”—extends beyond meditation to everyday experiences, reframing reactions like panic as part of the body’s attempts to adjust. Even in extreme conditions, such as conflict zones, these processes may offer limited but meaningful relief. Ultimately, Heath maintains an openness to interpretation, grounded in a simple principle that the Aboriginal elder told him: “Enjoy the ride!”

    2h 25m

  5. 3 APR

    Between War and Peace

    Episode #513: Georgi Engelbrecht of the International Crisis Group links two stories that matter for Myanmar: the Mindanao peace process and Russia’s ties to authoritarian partners in Southeast Asia. He begins in the Philippines with what he calls the conflict’s “master cleavage” — Muslim communities inside a state seeking self-determination against what they see as colonial intrusion. That grievance was reinforced by migration, exclusion, and underdevelopment until it hardened into decades of separatist war. But the macro narrative never explained everything. Alongside it ran “horizontal violence”: clan feuds, communal disputes, and local power struggles that don’t disappear just because a deal is signed. For Engelbrecht, the 2012 and 2014 agreements with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front were a turning point, not an ending. The MILF largely abandoned fighting, the Bangsamoro autonomy project became real, and governing structures took shape after the autonomous region was established in 2019. Yet the region remains “in flux,” with delays, elite rivalries, contested legitimacy, and violence that has shifted rather than vanished. From Mindanao he pivots to Myanmar and what major powers mean by “stability.” Russia’s push into Asia, he argues, accelerated with its rupture from the West, as Moscow sought partners and arenas beyond Western leverage. In Myanmar, that lens favors the junta: Russia tends to read rebellion as instability and the central state as the default counterweight. With pipelines for hardware, parts, training, and contact, “Myanmar, because of Russia's help, is not that isolated anymore,” and perceptions of durability become a force multiplier. His wager is blunt: “Russia is banking on victory of the regime.” China, by contrast, cannot afford distance and hedges across actors because Myanmar’s disorder sits on its border. As Engelbrecht puts it, “Chechnya [for Russia] is probably what Myanmar is for China.” For Moscow, this becomes part of a broader pattern—how Russia shows it can keep partners standing, stay relevant beyond Western systems, and act as a patron for regimes the West is trying to isolate. For Myanmar, that means the relationship isn’t a blueprint for victory—but it can function as scaffolding: not determining the war’s shape, but bracing the regime’s ability to persist.

    2h 19m

  6. 2 APR

    Left Behind

    Episode #512: “The overall consequences are so bad that I myself urged the Norwegian government to stop some of this.” Hanne Sophie Greve, a Norwegian judge and long-time human rights jurist, argues that Telenor’s conduct in Myanmar created foreseeable and preventable pathways to severe human rights harm, but existing legal systems struggle to respond proportionately. She frames the case as both a corporate failure and a test of how Norway—a state that portrays itself as committed to democracy and human rights—handles the risks created when a majority state-owned company operates in a fragile political environment. Greve reconstructs Telenor’s entry into Myanmar during a period of political opening, when optimism about liberalization was widespread. She notes that Telenor had a strong reputation for transparency and human-rights due diligence, which she describes as a tool designed to identify high-risk contexts. Precisely because of that due diligence, Greve identifies the company’s first major failure: Myanmar’s telecommunications sector was structurally high-risk even during the democratic transition, because the legal system lacked safeguards, and Telenor knew this. She argues that the company should have insisted on legal protections and planned for an emergency exit. When political conditions deteriorated and sanctions reinforced those risks, Telenor still failed to act on what it knew. The second failure was Telenor’s handling of real-time interception equipment. Although lawful when imported, Telenor kept it in Myanmar after sanctions were imposed and was later operationalized by the military. She emphasizes that leaving such capacity behind in a country sliding toward authoritarian violence is not a neutral act. She also strongly criticizes Telenor’s exit and sale of its Myanmar operation to a military-linked entity, arguing that sensitive data should have been deleted rather than left accessible. Greve describes the situation in present-day Myanmar as a constant conflict in which surveillance enables arrests, repression, and lethal violence. While she says Telenor’s criminal liability under Norwegian law remains legally uncertain, she argues that if responsibility is established it would attach to the company itself, not individual employees. She concludes by treating the case as a warning about how control over communications infrastructure directly affects whether a society can function at all, and she expresses hope that Norway can support a peaceful transition for Myanmar’s people. “I would love to see my own country in Norway participating in bringing about that peaceful transition for the benefit of the people of Myanmar.”

    1hr 29min

  7. 1 APR ·  BONUS

    Bonus Episode: Shelter From The Storm

    In this bonus episode, Better Burma’s monastic donation manager, Mora, shares what he has been seeing on the ground in Myanmar after years of conflict and displacement, now compounded by the March 28, 2025 earthquake. He explains why so much of Better Burma’s work runs through monasteries and nunneries, as these communities have become frontline sanctuaries for children, providing shelter, food, schooling, and basic healthcare for thousands who have nowhere else to go. Mora describes what it takes to deliver aid under current conditions, the scale of damage and urgent rebuild needs across sites in Sagaing, Mandalay, and surrounding areas, and what Better Burma has been doing since the quake, from constructing temporary and permanent housing to repairing collapsed walls and roofs and helping communities relocate out of unsafe structures. He highlights one orphanage nunnery caring for more than 90 children, including infants, now living in unsafe bamboo shelters after their building was destroyed, and he explains how economic hardship has crushed local giving, forcing some nunneries to travel long distances just to gather rice to send back to the children. He closes by underscoring how vast the remaining needs are, from classrooms and teaching halls to restored water access and basic monastic requisites lost in the debris, and invites listeners who want to support this work to donate at betterburma.org/donation.

    38 min

  8. 31 MAR

    Coming to Practice

    Episode #511: Like many young Kiwis, Jarrod Newell wanted to see the world. Taking advantage of the special working holiday visas available in the United Kingdom, he traveled to London,where he participated in the city’s wild, partying lifestyle. After saving some money, he would pick up and find some new place to visit, ultimately making his way across cities and even continents. While attending hippy festival in Greece, he met a girl who had just completed a ten-day vipassana retreat in the tradition of S.N. Goenka, and told him of an upcoming course in Crete, and Jarrod went there straight away. The course experience was brutal, but had a deep impact on him. After ten years, he finally returned home, and now a committed meditator, sat and served regularly at the local vipassana center. When Jarrod heard that Goenka would be leading a pilgrimage through Burma, he knew he had to go. As soon as he stepped off the plane in the Golden Land, he realized he was somewhere special. He was especially moved by his sitting in in a cave at Shwe Taung Oo in Monywa, where Ledi Sayadaw used to reside nearly a century ago. It was there that the idea of ordaining as a monk came to him, and Goenka eventually gave him his blessing to take robes. Now a monastic, he returned to Shwe Taung Oo Pagoda, where he decided to sit six, 10-day self-courses in the style of Goenka retreats, with just one day between each. As a monk, Jarrod was greeted with open arms and an open heart by nearly every Burmese person outside the military that he came in contact with, and on more than one occasion was invited to remain in whatever area he was in for life, with promises that all his needs would be looked after. However, in the end, he decided to disrobe, and returned to New Zealand via India, where he sat a 60-day course. When he was 32, Jarrod enrolled in medical school, and met his future wife with whom he had three daughters. He has a medical practice, and has opened a business. “I'm just very much a householder,” he notes. But the memories from his time in the Golden Land are never very far away for Jarrod, and the lessons from those years are precious.

    2h 30m
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Ratings & Reviews

4.5
out of 5
8 Ratings

About

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 yet, Insight Myanmar is not just a platform for political discourse; it's a sanctuary for spiritual exploration. Our discussions intertwine the struggles for democracy with the deep-rooted meditation traditions of Myanmar, offering a holistic understanding of the nation. We delve into the rich spiritual heritage of the country, tracing the origins of global meditation and mindfulness movements to their roots in Burmese culture. Each episode is a journey through the vibrant landscape of Myanmar's quest for freedom, resilience, and spiritual riches. Join us on this enlightening journey as we amplify the voices that matter most in Myanmar's transformative era.

Information

  • Channel
    Insight Myanmar
  • Creator
    Insight Myanmar Podcast
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    532
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Insight Myanmar Podcast
  • Show Website
    Insight Myanmar

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