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7Giving Is Complicated: Ethnic Cleansing in the Most Generous Nation on Earth (Myanmar, 2017): Change starts with students / Problem with empathy / World Giving Index / Problem with orphanages

THE REVOLUTION STARTED WITH STUDENTS. It was August 1988 and the Burmese students had had enough.

Advised by astrologers, the military-controlled government of Myanmar, also known as Burma, voided currency notes that weren't divisible by the number nine. I understand this makes no sense at all, so let me be even clearer. The government took advice from people who took advice from celestial bodies. The astrologers told General Ne Win, the leader of the military junta, that his lucky number was nine. General Ne Win consulted with his astrologers and got rid of the 100, 75, 35, and 25 kyats currency notes, leaving only the 45 and 90.

Overnight, students had less money to pay for tuition. It was one among a string of senseless decisions. The military also forced farmers to sell their products for less than market value to increase revenue to the government.¹

On August 8, 1988, also known as the 8888 Uprising, hundreds of thousands of students, monks, civil servants, and people from all walks of life took to the streets across the country, protesting against military rule, demanding democracy.

“When the Army shoots,” General Ne Win warned the public, “it shoots to kill.”²

Troops gunned down protestors at City Hall and even at Shwedagon Pagoda, the most sacred Buddhist pagoda in Myanmar. Hundreds, ...