Yangon, MyanmarThe military generals who throttled Myanmar’s fledgling democratic experiment in the wee hours of February 1 may not have counted on a major public backlash against their coup to nullify the results of the November 2020 election.

For the first few days, Myanmar’s population of more than 54 million people seemed stunned into silence. But by the fourth day, after police raids and arrests began, people flooded the streets in peaceful protests led by the youth of this conservative Buddhist nation. Even older citizens—who had endured five decades of ruthless military dictatorships and had tasted some freedoms during the past decade of hybrid democratic rule—joined in resisting with exuberant fury.

In the nation’s largest city, Yangon, tens of thousands of citizens stampeded