White Tiger Column

If you didn’t know any better, you might think this was a youth summer camp. There is a dormitory hut and a makeshift kitchen. People chop wood and gather coconuts. Two girls sing a Taylor Swift song. But this is no vacation: it’s a training camp for Myanmar’s People’s Defence Force.

On February 1, 2021, Myanmar’s military overthrew the democratically elected government in a coup. When civilians protested, the military responded with bullets. A Canadian film crew spent time embedded with the resistance at a training camp deep in the jungle. They filmed the young volunteers from their arrival at the camp until they left for the front 45 days later.

In this crash course, gen Z gamers in Guns N’ Roses T-shirts are trained for an unequal fight, as well as possible in the circumstances. The regime has drones and fighter jets; the rebels make explosives in a wok. What the young volunteers do have in abundance is the determination to fight for their freedom. A moving portrait of a courageous generation ready to fight back.