This book is a first-person account of the 1988 student movement against Burma’s totalitarian regime

I remember the heady days before the national uprising on August 8, 1988 or the Four Eights Uprising. In the days and weeks leading up to the historical day, there was feverish activity on the campus and outside.

It was the first time in my life I took part in open political discussions, attended meetings and we students gathered together to form student unions and organisations. Students all over the country were organising themselves and we were concerned about how to coordinate amongst ourselves.

It was during those days that I started becoming aware of the long history of the students’ movement in Burma and the role they had played during our movement for independence and later against the military regime of General Ne Win. The senior students who would come to lead the uprising told us about this history. It was a learning process for me since I came from a non-political family and my association with Ne Win’s Socialist Party had not exposed me to democratic politics or the history of dissent in my country.

Student unions, which had been crushed after the 1962 coup, were once again revived in 1988. For instance, the Rangoon University Students Union which had been formed...

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