A different approach to politics, reports Asia Sentinel’s Tom Spender

The chain-link gate slides open to reveal a group of young shaven-headed Burmese men and two girls sitting outside a house in Mae Sot, a scruffy town on the Thai side of the Thai-Burmese border.

All are members of Generation Wave, an underground group dedicated to overthrowing the repressive military junta that has ruled Burma since 1962. The odds are against them, as they have been against a long series of movements harboring in Mae Sot and Chiang Mai in Thailand. Nonetheless, Generation Wave has a certain amount of panache, attempting to reach Burma’s youth by using rap and hip hop music and graffiti to inspire others to stand up to authority

“We’ve cut our hair Saffron style,” said Aung Min, one of GW’s founders, referring to the failed Saffron Uprising in 2007, in which tens of thousands took to the streets, led by Buddhist monks, only to have at least 135 people and possibly more shot down by the military. “If something happens in Burma we can go in there quickly and mingle with the monks.”

They are hoping against hope that 2010 could provide the first opportunity since 2007 for widespread anti-government protest, with the junta’s plans for an election which has been derided widely as a sham engineered to prohibit any prominent opposition candidates from running.

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