"The day after the coup on February 1, 2021, civil servants across Myanmar launched a national Civil Disobedience Movement, consisting of multi-sector labor strikes targeting the Myanmar state’s apparatuses. By February 4, the first visible anti-coup protest in the country appeared in Mandalay, the second largest city in the country. The first visible protest in Yangon occurred on February 5. By February 11, protests and rallies started appearing in ethnic minority areas and the country’s peripheries in full force. On February 22, millions of Myanmar people joined a nationwide general strike against the coup regime in what is considered to be the largest single-day pro-democracy demonstration in the country’s history. While the protest movements are widespread in many ethnic minority areas, ethnic minority communities disagree over how to respond to the coup. One side prefers to be quiescent and neutral bystanders; the other, particularly younger generations, insists on active resistance. In this essay, I describe and reflect on ethnic minorities’ reactions to the coup, focusing on an emerging class cleavage in Kachin State, where I conducted research between 2017 and 2019. I have also communicated with several Kachin local residents and protesters in an informal capacity in the past weeks. It is important to note that my observations of an emerging class cleavage in Kachin communities is part of a broader trend across Myanmar. While the coup precipitated from a power struggle between the military and the National League for Democracy (NLD), ultimately, I argue that the on-going pro-democracy revolution in Myanmar is a (class) struggle, between ordinary Myanmar people and complacent elites, a struggle which cuts across entrenched ethnic, religious and political divides in the country. To Protest or Not to Protest? In the immediate aftermath of the coup, Myanmar’s ethnic minorities encountered a dilemma— whether or not to participate in the anti-coup protests that were spreading across the country. At the time, young ethnic minorities in Yangon and Mandalay were already participating in and organizing protests. However, in the ethnic minority states, ethnic minority politicians and businessmen and their associates urged caution. They argued that the coup is primarily a Bamar power struggle between the military and the NLD— something in which ethnic minorities do not need to get involved. Many among the younger generations of ethnic minorities perceive the coup as a blatant assault on the country’s transition toward democracy and see the on-going crisis as an opportunity to remake Myanmar politics. They thus strongly disagree with elites’ calls to remain bystanders in this crisis. Social media posts by ethnic minority participants in the demonstrations indicate that many youth see only two abysmal outcomes if they remain quiescent: either (1) the coup-makers win, and Myanmar descends into another period of dictatorship or (2) the coup-makers retreat, and Myanmar goes back to the status quo—a political system that was hardly inclusive of ethnic minorities. So, they not only speak up against the coup but also advocate that the mainstream pro-democracy movement, including the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), recognize the interests of ethnic minorities. They collectively advocate for (1) ending dictatorship, (2) abolishing the 2008 constitution, (3) establishing a federal democracy and (4) unconditional release of those unjustly detained.[1] Their advocacy is broadly shaping the rhetoric of the mainstream pro-democracy movement in Myanmar. By early March, the Bamar public and the CRPH endorsed these demands..."