Why Did It Take a Coup?

For years, Thinzar Shunlei Yi’s activism against the brutality of Myanmar’s military, at best, was met with tepid enthusiasm or, at worst, set her up as a target, putting her on a collision course with the country’s most prominent voices—including Aung San Suu Kyi.

But after the military took power in a shock, predawn coup last week, detaining Suu Kyi and returning the country to a dictatorship, she has unexpectedly found herself among throngs of flag-waving demonstrators, disobeying and resisting military rule.

In the days since the coup, hundreds of thousands of people have marched in the streets nationwide, in hard-scrabble trading cities on the Chinese border and in towns high in the hills, and even in the colossal capital, built in part to inoculate leaders from such public shows of discontent.