"What is the new normal for Myanmar today? As people have been trying different forms of civil disobedience to fight the military coup it has become a new normal in Myanmar. The words “civil disobedience” comes from State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s appeal before she was detained. She urged people to “oppose the military coup together in any way possible”. For her, as she often said, “the people are the most important force”. A veteran journalist asked another National League for Democracy (NLD) leader, U Win Htein, about the message and what Daw Aung San Suu Kyi wants people to do. U Win Htein said she wanted a civil disobedience movement rather than mass street protests because of COVID-19 and the potential for bloodshed. As her message was not clear enough, people were puzzled about what to do. NLD members have waited for instructions from the party’s central executive committee who are being held in Naypyidaw. The strict hierarchy of the NLD left people feeling bereft on the first day of the coup. My 78-year-old mother kept asking me, “Is there any luck?” She cried the whole day because her beloved leader, “Mother Suu”, was detained. It is heartbreaking for her because she did not expect to return to military rule. One day after the coup, people started banging pots and pans and honking car horns to oppose military rule. Banging pans is a traditional way of driving out ghosts. That initiative reached the international media and was dubbed the “drum revolution”. Thais have followed suit in an attempt to drive out Thailand’s military regime. But pots and pans are not enough for young citizens who have been hit the hardest by the forced internet shutdown ordered by the authorities. My son and his student friends have lost their online jobs, they cannot play virtual games and their online shopping businesses have folded. Food Panda delivers lost their jobs as online ordering has broken down and most bank cards have stopped working because of connection failures. Shops only want cash as the banking system is unstable and the Grab taxi app just says, “no connection found”. The internet shut down is causing a long list of problems. Facebook was blocked after the authorities forced telecoms operators to ban the most popular social media network. People immediately searched for virtual private networks (VPNs) to bypass Myanmar’s networks. Anti-coup posts and protest photos returned to Facebook..."