Introduction: Revolution and Solidarity in Myanmar

Myanmar is in a protracted revolutionary situation. State military authority has been greatly weakened but has not collapsed in the face of an array of armed and unarmed forces, new and established, which have fought against the junta that seized power in 2021. What forms of solidarity have contributed to the making of a revolutionary situation in Myanmar? How have they been sustained? Where and why has solidarity been hindered or broken? These questions animate the contributions to this Special Issue. To introduce them, this article explains the adoption of “revolution” as a category to describe and interpret events in Myanmar since the military coup. It does this by juxtaposing the period of transition in the 2010s, and interpretations of it, with the post-coup situation. It argues that as the transition paradigm became commonsense, it constrained understanding about happenings in Myanmar. Everything was debated in reference to an anticipated future state. Against that way of proceeding, the article advocates for description and interpretation of the revolutionary situation that turns on its radical contingency and eventfulness.