Three Sisters consider forming rugby league team to receive bushfire recovery funds — Sami Shah, Shalailah Medhora, Lewis Hobba, Dan Ilic, Myo Kyaw Thu, Gabbi Bolt

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100th EPISODE LIVE SHOW ANNOUNCEMENT!
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On this week's podcast we play kick the kick with Eddie McGuire's handling of the Do Better report, learn about a young man who has been in a coma since the start of the pandemic, and talk about the shopping habits of the Melbourne's latest COVID case, then we cross to Yangon and chat to Myo Kyaw Thur to hear how young people are dealing with living in Myanmar as their country is taken over by the military .

Fearmongers:

Sami Shah
Shalailah Medhora
Lewis Hobba
Dan Ilic
Myo Kyaw Thu (Yangon)

+ music from Gabbi Bolt

OUR 100th EPISODE LIVE SHOW IS ALMOST SOLD OUT!

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DJ Tom Loud, Yumi Stynes, Hamish Blake, Alice Fraser, Chris Taylor, Gabbi Bolt, Lewis Hobba, Dan Ilic + Other friends of the podcast.

February 10th at Giant Dwarf, Surry Hills, Eora Nation.

As a Patreon supporter of ARF you get a 20% Discount! And for those not really interested in being part of live audience yet, or if you're outside of the Sydney Metro area, you can buy a streaming ticket too!

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Unknown Speaker  0:00  
This podcast is supported in part by the Bertha Foundation.

Dan Ilic  0:04  
Hey Lewis, You look good.

Thank you Dan. Yeah, I know tullos listening at home on the podcast I got a new laptop putting out pretty subtle signs for the last year to ask one of our listeners to donate to me but it turns out listen as a contains zero sugar daddy, so I have bought Whoa.

Well, we you should know, Louis that we do have a few sugar daddies but they are giving us money in $3 amounts. big thank you to fauzia Khan chipping in with $3 David McCullough is chipping in a bit more 10 bucks a month. big thank you to those folks on the Patreon if you want to join us on Patreon you can simply go to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear Hi everyone. Oh,

Mel Silva  0:47  
I'm also on a Google

Dan Ilic  0:49  
was trying to mill so

Unknown Speaker  0:51  
Australians. Oh, shut up.

Dan Ilic  0:53  
We just don't need her. She's up everywhere. Have you seen Mel silver she's you know male silver. I'm

Ben van Beurden  0:58  
not familiar with male silver. I've just I've gotten I've gotten rid of Google in anticipation of our upcoming.

Dan Ilic  1:06  
Well, I just feel like she's everywhere. She's omnipresent. I want to say to people living in so called Sydney metropolitan area. We are 80% sold of our 100th live show which is great news. You've only got six more days to get tickets go to giant dwarf.com.au The link will be in the show notes Lewis who is on the show.

Lewis Hobba  1:26  
You and I are there Dan? They're wonderful. Gabby bolt who has been blowing up Tick Tock. We've got Of course. Yumi stynes the great Yes. We have Alice Fraser the delight Yeah. larious the wonderful Alice Fraser. We have Chris Taylor. Unbelievable. Yes. Actor winning writer of the show he did which night? Stand up Stand up and of course is Harish flakes who coming?

Unknown Speaker  1:57  
Yeah, yes, I

Unknown Speaker  1:58  
think it was

Ben van Beurden  1:59  
Yeah. How annoying would it be if I just did if I just said Thank God you hear over and over to him.

Dan Ilic  2:09  
I think that'll be part of the show. So please head to join dwarf Comdata you to buy tickets, letting you know that I'm recording my end of irrational feet on gadigal land in the urination. sovereignty was never seated. We need a treaty. Let's start the show.

Unknown Speaker  2:23  
A rational fear contains no to words like bricks cambro COMM And section 40 a rational view recommended listening by immature audience.

Dan Ilic  2:36  
Tonight fake news has been named the word of the decade by mccory dictionary the Oxford Dictionary has reached out to clarify that it's actually two words and having missed out on any of the 170 $7 million bushfire recovery Fund. The Heritage listed Blue Mountains realised they made the mistake of not being a Rugby League club from Queensland with a women's team that doesn't exist. And Tanya plibersek confrontation with Craig Kelly over vaccine conspiracies had the liberal backbencher needing to apply hydroxychloroquine for those harsh burns. It's the fifth of February and it's a historic and proud day for irrational fear podcasts. This is irrational fear.

Welcome to irrational v. I'm your host, Dan Ilic, former CEO of amazon.com. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight, a man who decided that it was simply too risky to come to so called Sydney to do our 100th anniversary live show. So he could say in Melbourne instead it's the Sultan of satire is Sammy Sha Sami. Are you a COVID coward?

Sami Shah  3:51  
I am indeed a COVID coward only because I have a daughter and I and I parent week on week off, like so many divorced parents do in this day and age. And so if I get stuck there for one extra day, or two or three, it's good to have everyone's schedules and I just don't risk it. And I'll be honest, I just don't trust sydneysiders you've got your eyes every time every day that goes by without Sydney somehow causing the end of the world

Ben van Beurden  4:21  
but also you I don't know why that would be a surprise.

Dan Ilic  4:23  
And this week marks her 10th year in Parliament House Press gallery yet she is yet to see parole its friend of the podcast Sharla madora Shalala 10 years that is a long time to be giving your your self to the Australian Parliament House Press gallery and

Shalialah Medhora  4:38  
I must have done something really bad, you know to get. I mean, Sammy, if you feel that suicide is a shifty God knows what you must think of people who work in house is very very shifty bunch.

Dan Ilic  4:53  
And it's the man who refuses to line up for anything. It's Louis haba.

Ben van Beurden  4:58  
I mean, that's accurate, but also you I don't know why that would be a surprise. Like I don't know yet why finding apps for idiots

Dan Ilic  5:05  
coming up a little later on, we're going to be crossing live to me and to hear how young people are coping with the military decision to give up on that whole democratic process thing, after just being five years in opposition will ask what can the Alp learn from the Burmese military junta. But first a message from our sponsor?

Unknown Speaker  5:22  
Hi, everyone. Oh, no

Unknown Speaker  5:23  
Silver Eagle here in Australia.

Dan Ilic  5:26  
There's no there's no window. Sorry. That's our rock sponsor, she always just turns up out of nowhere. But first, a message from our sponsor.

Bill Gates  5:33  
Hello, I'm Bill Gates, former Microsoft founder and CEO now full time Boomer with too many resources at hand. And when I'm not planning to vaccinate the world with the latest antivirus, I'm using bing bing almost works as great as Google. That's why over 6% of the world trust Bing to find what they're looking for. Say you want to find the best coffee shop near you. All you have to do is go to www.bing.com and type in Spanish Civil War, and the best coffee shops will appear on your screen. And say you want to read all the latest news on your phone. Just download the app and hit the latest news tab. And you can binge all the latest news on the Costa Concordia shipper with the departure of Google from Australia my old friends at Microsoft are ready to make being relevant to Australia as Australia is relevant to the world. Oh under this has nothing to do with the rumours of me trying to inject you with 5g nanobots just try to search for it on Bing it doesn't exist. baring brain

Dan Ilic  6:51  
finally some real money coming into the podcast.

Lewis Hobba  6:56  
I really enjoyed that.

Unknown Speaker  6:58  
Thank you.

Dan Ilic  6:59  
Firstly tonight Collingwood Football Club is according to long standing president Eddie McGuire not racist but has problems with systemic racism. What's the difference? Well, not even any could phone a friend to find out. A report on the failures of the football club to deal with systemic racism was delivered to the club in December. And in classic Hollywood defensive form, they promptly buried it. It was then leaked to a journalist who's gonna publish it this week. So once you get on the backfoot callingwood President Eddie McGuire got out ahead of the story and held a 15 minute press conference to announce that it was a proud and an historic day for the club. Historic

Unknown Speaker  7:33  
yes

Dan Ilic  7:33  
proud. It's the kind of proud of three year old has after they've made a mural with their own faeces in the living room wall. I think the do better report says a few things like there's a gap between what the club stands for and what it does. what it stands for, of course, is winning football games. What it does is winning football games while being racist. The report acknowledges that Collingwood does do some great stuff in the community like programmes around homelessness, it's just that it does that at the same time as being racist. The report also says that whenever racism is reported, racists in charge are too busy thinking racist thoughts to hear the reports they forget what was reported so no one thinks they're racist fear mongers Is this a proud and historic day for Collingwood? Sami.

Sami Shah  8:19  
One of the things you have to understand is that Eddie didn't never get a chance to tell us exactly what he was proud off. You know, he said he was proud. We don't realise he is proud. And he's rightfully proud of the racism in the club of how good they are, how efficiently they've done it over the years. Have you had a game plan and you stuck to that game plan no matter what came their way? You know, that requires effort concentration. Here's the crazy thing. The thing that upsets me the most about this whole story is that I now have to talk about footy. And I do not care about Pakistan and I don't give a shit about cricket. Why would I ever give a footy The only way I could ever have a sinkhole opened up under the MCG, all the teams, all the players, all the supporters and fans, and the overall IQ of this country went up significantly. Until that happens, I would like to avoid took my footie But somehow, because it addresses racism involves racism. I now have to talk about this repulsive sport run by an absolutely repulsive group of human beings.

Shalialah Medhora  9:25  
Well, if the racist was gonna come after you because of the colour of your skin, it's definitely the AFL comments that are gonna send them

Sami Shah  9:32  
the way I figured they're coming off, someone's coming off at some point anyway, so far and wide and just get as many people as possible

Dan Ilic  9:41  
as a born and bred jilong man on na n and a lifetime jilong fan. I always been a huge fan of 40 and the racism in 40 years is huge. It's out of control. And Eddie McGuire. Like we've all seen the when he said Hold. We mentioned a radio that, you know Adam Goodes should go and say King Kong, there's like, he has been terrible this whole time. And it is often, with all issues like to do with race, you'd often say, it isn't a black and white issue. But with Collingwood, it literally is it's the colours of their jerseys. So there's really nothing that he can say to get around that, but it is you could sort of see what a normal person without that history might be trying to say in that moment, like, not proud but like, acknowledging these issues is is important, but I mean, what a butchering, for a person who talks professionally, constantly. What an absolute nightmare.

Sami Shah  10:38  
Can I just give you a short list of some of the things that Eddie McGuire has said, you know, badly in the past. So for example, there's the time he like you said called Adam said Adam Brooks should promote kingkong when he joked about drowning AFL journalists Caroline Wilson, when he made homophobic remarks about a male figure skaters when he called john l Mozi. asked when he should be boning Nine Network presented Jessica roll and called Western Sydney, the land of the falafel these are all humongous acts of racism, homophobia, misogyny, from one man whose career has done nothing but benefit from this. So why would you stop at this point?

Shalialah Medhora  11:19  
gaslighter in chief, really, isn't he luck? By saying no, no, there's no racism. It's like, Who are you trying to fool with all of these comments like honestly, your that's what you say on the record? Can you imagine what goes on behind the scenes in that particular club? Like it's massively gaslighting on the national level?

Dan Ilic  11:38  
Well, I think it's absolutely clear that Eddie is clearing the decks and he's absolutely ready for a career in national politics.

Sami Shah  11:45  
I don't think he could afford the pay cut, to be very honest. I mean, the man with a Rolex Daytona on his wrist, that's 100 and something $1,000 watch, he has a TV show, he has a radio show, he has all of these things, going into politics would be a massive step down for him at this point.

Dan Ilic  12:04  
To get that kind of watch, you have to work in Australia Post and that's, that's a sideways step. That is a sideways step. It's interesting that had 18 recommendations in the report. And if you've managed to read it, I've summarised them all down to five, it is one learn about racism. Two, don't be racist. Three, if there's racism going on, stop it, and get rid of it for tell everyone not to be a racist five, and get people of colour and First Nations people into leadership positions. So that next time you might not actually be a racist by accident,

Sami Shah  12:37  
will never be accomplished. We can actually cross that one out right now.

Dan Ilic  12:40  
You don't think that'll be done? I think this is happening in organisations all over the country right now.

Shalialah Medhora  12:45  
I actually think that's the first thing that they'll do. But they'll put in a figurehead person, like they did at this particular press conference had a woman of colour First Nations woman there to mop up the mess of all the racists basically, to be the figurehead to be like, Look, we're not so bad, we've got a person, we've got a First Nations person here sitting next to us, we can't be that bad. That's the first thing they do. And then that poor person gets stuck with the burden of not only having to deal with racist incidents in their organisation, but then also cleaning up the mess of those racist incidents.

Dan Ilic  13:16  
I mean, they could always just hire Sam Newman in blackface.

Sami Shah  13:28  
Interesting to see the list of all the different things they're about as effective and as as innovative in their approach to dealing with racism as when you were in third grade. And your teacher said, if someone bullies you say, Stop it, I don't like it. Yeah, I

Dan Ilic  13:43  
mean, that this is exactly the bullying policy, high school, this actually it's actually the same point. It's so baffling. And so it's so crazy that we have to give this to proper adults to read.

Lewis Hobba  13:55  
So someone who is one of the craziest things in terms of like the media cycle of it, is that after about 24 hours, Eddie McGuire was no longer the main focus of this problem. It was Wiley Dali, because of I don't know, he's obviously that that particular thing he did on the project. It was called out by the wonderful Amir Raman at the time, and everyone was like, This is trash at the time. And now it's been brought back up and everyone's like, it's still trash. And you know, hopefully like while he does say something about it, but it is pretty wild that like the front page of news calm is like Waleed Lee responsible for Collingwood's racism.

Unknown Speaker  14:32  
going on.

Dan Ilic  14:33  
Perhaps some criticism from an unconventional quarter is the voice actor john DiMaggio. You may have heard this guy he's from. He's from incredible animated series like Futurama. Here he is. This is him here standing outside his Hollywood home holding his magpies cap next to his bins.

John Di Maggio  14:52  
Well, hello, internet. And hello, everybody in Australia. You know when I was there, I had a lot of fun I was able to go to a couple of Ozzy footy games, and it was awesome. But then I come to learn that the team that I went to go see has been practising systemic racism for many, many years and have had racist practices and all kinds of shit like that. So I am standing on the right side and that can go into garbage. Because I don't play that shit. And don't worry, I'm not going back in there because there's dogshit in there. And I just opened up It stinks. They're picking it up tomorrow so bye bye. Sorry Collingswood Football Club. Your upper management are Philippines. Bye.

Unknown Speaker  15:57  
Didn't see that coming. And that was

Dan Ilic  16:02  
that was great.

Ben van Beurden  16:04  
Instead, I'm gonna go back to good old American tape. The Washington Redskins

Sami Shah  16:10  
did call it Collingswood, which is

Dan Ilic  16:13  
ruin it for everyone that ruined

Unknown Speaker  16:15  
irrational fear at McGuire

Unknown Speaker  16:17  
address the board room and for three or four minutes spoke about the way that he handled that report yesterday and says that he regrets the way it was interpreted irrational fear.

Dan Ilic  16:29  
Next fear the next story is probably about the luckiest unluckiest person in the news this way, everyone.

Unknown Speaker  16:35  
Oh,

Dan Ilic  16:38  
Jesus. No, I got Sorry about that. Yes, there's a teenager in the UK who is slowly coming out of 10 months long coma who has no knowledge of the pandemic despite also getting COVID twice in hospital now this kid is not going to know what the tiger King is. He's not gonna know about the capital insurrection. He's probably barely heard of glass animals heatwave? He's not the person that you're going to want to have on your next trivia team. That is for sure. Fear mongers. To what extent is a story like this worry you for the effectiveness of vaccines shy? Oh, I

Shalialah Medhora  17:16  
just think this story is amazing. Like it sounds like one of those Hollywood sort of thrillers where someone's in a coma for a while and they wake up out of it and the whole world's change. Because Could you imagine like walking down the street? No one's in any shops or anything. No one's on the streets. Everyone's wearing masks. All of a sudden, you just like have a woken up in some sort of pandemic movie? Is that what's happening? Like, it will be terrifying hand sanitizers sold out like what? No one needs to use it in 2019 I just think it's I think it's a really amazing story. And this guy would just have so much to catch up on

Dan Ilic  17:52  
we've all seen the movie insane. Oh, man, this guy is stoked on can't man. I can't wait for the film.

Ben van Beurden  17:57  
I don't think anyone should tell him. Like I think he should get moved to just some like a place where there are no people like put him in, in like Canberra. And just like, let let him let him either find out for himself or leave his life blissfully unaware. Like he's got the antibodies. He's been done twice. He's probably fine. Give him a vaccine. Let him go and let him be the one happy person left in the planet.

Sami Shah  18:22  
I think the movie you're referencing is the mistake of Encino Man, what you should be thinking of is 27 days later, which is in which a man wakes up from a coma to discover that all over the world has been taken over by zombies. And I feel like this is a golden opportunity. This is where we all start scaring the crap out of this guy by chasing after him making grouting sounds and pretending to eat each other. Just really give him a real sense of fear and panic for a little while. Before we can all collectively have that laugh. It'll bring us together.

Lewis Hobba  18:55  
It reminds me right at the start of the pandemic. One of my favourite stories with one of the best people of all time, was when Jared Leto came back from a two month yoga retreat. And it had been a silent it'd be a silent yoga retreat. So none of the people running their retreat had been able to tell anyone what was happening. So Jared Leto just like wandered back in from his like little town and he was like Hey guys, we shoot any new DC film What's up? He's like I've

Unknown Speaker  19:25  
never done

Lewis Hobba  19:29  
I was like, as always, I'd love to be Jared Leno.

Dan Ilic  19:32  
It could also go the other way. I really like the the film goodbye linen. Do you guys remember that? That film is about about some grand grandkids of a grandmother who tried to grandmother wakes up from a coma but she loves Star Wars so much that that the kids had to pretend the Berlin Wall was still up and then the USSR was still kind of in full motion so they had to do this huge sham. It could go the other way. as well, but yeah,

Shalialah Medhora  20:01  
yeah, you would have to bring back the 2019 vibes by like taking that look of despair off our face, which will be really difficult to do because I think people have aged probably 10 years in the last 12 months. So I think that's gonna be particularly difficult to like, bring back that like optimistic glow to everyone that we used to have in 2019 Oh no, we're

Dan Ilic  20:20  
gonna have to pretend Donald Trump is still president. That's terrible.

Sami Shah  20:25  
We don't know what his political leanings are. He may be an ultra mega person, huge Trump supporter. And him coming out of the coma is one of the worst thing the worst thing that's happened, you know, hoping she'll be back in.

Shalialah Medhora  20:39  
The good thing about him is he's in the UK, right? And they're still part of like, Brexit still hasn't properly happened. So he's like, nothing has changed there. You don't have to pretend in any way that anything is different. In that sense,

Dan Ilic  20:53  
kid, I've got some bad news. The good news is you're awake. The bad news is you can't go to your house in Spain anymore. 

Ben van Beurden  20:59  
You know. I think if you talk about cash flow, I think we came in more or less as per expectation $6.6 billion for the quarter i think is a resilient number. But indeed, the year was a very tough year. Let's be honest, a very painful year.

Unknown Speaker  21:15  
This is a rational

Dan Ilic  21:16  
fear. Here's the third fear of the week striking the balance of you know how to pay hotel quarantine workers is become a bit of a big problem. Don't pay them enough. They've got to take second jobs in the gig economy like in Western Australia, or pay them too much and they indulgent ethics, social lives that can endanger others. And you case of COVID and Victoria has has has come about now this guy was a hotel quarantine worker. And while his infectious he had a bit of a journey on Saturday, he went not to one but to sporting clubs on Sunday had a big shopping day. He went not to one but to Kmart and the calls for good measure, presumably because he thought his temperature would go down down. On Monday. He also went to Bunnings hardware and a Golf Academy. on a Monday he went to a Golf Academy on a Monday if I was into profiling, I'd say that this hotel quarantine worker had the habits of a retired AFL footballer. How do we strike the balance here guys? How do we strike the balance between you know pay how folks too much they have a good time or under pay them that they they endanger the lives of others? Either way? It's dangerous.

Shalialah Medhora  22:23  
I'm just really surprised he didn't go to a Thai restaurant because that's like the one thing that's tied to everyone else who's like everbridge quarantine. It's like Nah, man Thai restaurant,

Unknown Speaker  22:33  
why not?

Sami Shah  22:34  
I do have a lot of sympathy for the two k mods thing because I've been in that situation where like you want one specific thing from K mod you go all the way to came on to get it and then fine and they're out but then they call up someone that like actually is available in the other Kmart across the city and you're like but now I must have it because I'm on a quest and you do the drive so I'm nothing but simply in support for him. It's funny I keep the gold thing helped me a lot because normally when these cases happened with the child quarantine workers and staff and such of the security guards particularly I assume that they must be brown because it's I know it's a lot of guys like me from India from Pakistan working in these spaces. But the moment you mentioned the golf centre, I was ignited definitely a wind you like that. But overall, he did a great job. He tracked everywhere he went, he made sure everyone knew where he was going. And he made sure that he notified everyone got tested accordingly. So you know, if we have more gel quarantine workers like him, that was great. Lisa Neville MP said and Victoria question time today,

Dan Ilic  23:39  
the hotel quarantine worker had, quote, an amazing phone with a map that tells him everywhere he's been it's better than the Commonwealth's COVID safe app, I assume. I assume that was just Google Maps ride.

Shalialah Medhora  23:53  
Safe app is not a hard benchmark to me.

Ben van Beurden  23:56  
It is like it does feel like a hotel quarantine workers need to be told about online shopping. You don't need to go to Kmart. You don't need to go to any Kmart Kmart comes to you. It's a Melbourne thing you're

Sami Shah  24:09  
in Sydney you don't get it we spent months of just doing online shopping. If I have to click to purchase one more thing I lose my mind to India to buy the right spices now just to make sure I get out of the house.

Dan Ilic  24:26  
Well with an anthem for melburnians in their current rampant case of COVID Gaby Bolton Beck show have these for us.

Mel Silva  24:32  
Hi everyone.

I'm Mel silver, and I like

Dan Ilic  24:35  
sorry, every day. I have this sorry Beck show and Gabby both have this for us.

Gabbi Bolt  24:49  
came out in mind. I was told to get a test and isolate. But instead I thought I would go And see what I can buy of useless subjects cheaply made I started feeling my temperature it rose at four k Mart's in one for Kmart I would stop at three but you would not believe it. They'd all run out of tissues The only thing that I was needing so I went to Kmart for I mean it's not like I have got COVID Craig Kelly's Facebook told me it's and see the shit I got on

Unknown Speaker  26:02  
board

Unknown Speaker  26:06  
don't scan person left my mom on my trip to 4k Martin

Dan Ilic  26:39  
beautiful stuff there from Gabby Bolden Beck show really good.

Sami Shah  26:45  
You know what's bizarre is how none of this ever revealing anything too surprising about people like everyone's trips in COVID in COVID tracking have been boring. It's never been someone who goes to a six story shop and then goes to the aquarium and then goes

Shalialah Medhora  27:00  
except except question mark over the the borrow. I think it's borrowed. It's the one in Sydney where they found six people in one household to a spouse's three with children. And then there's this one mysterious one that no one's been able to answer. And that we all we all are like, throwing wild kind of suggestions like could be the second wife could be the mistress that lives in the hallway like no one actually knows. And they're refusing to answer what it is. So it's just like letting our imagination go crazy over what it could potentially be Professor

Dan Ilic  27:35  
Plum with a petri dish.

Ben van Beurden  27:38  
That was a sex potty and colac at one point. I remember I remember thinking Skalak, least sexy plus, think

Unknown Speaker  27:49  
that's a matter for the Queensland Government. I mean, that's a matter for the cranium. That's a matter that I'll always with other premiers and ministers. That's really a question to the premium. That's a matter of I'm happy to take up with the other premiers and chief minister's irrational fears.

Dan Ilic  28:02  
The 2020s continued to be a bumper time for autocratic regimes after five years of democracy the military in Myanmar has had enough and despite designing a form of government where they still have veto control and and and guaranteed a quarter of the seats in parliament, they've decided that losing an election to the rolling National Democratic league who won over 80% of the vote was just a little too embarrassing. democratic nations all around the world express their dismay, the military coup, except, you know, one thing that China did say was they they called it a cabinet reshuffle, which I thought was interesting. Our next guest is a representative of the emerging minimizer young entrepreneur and a small business owner. We became friends with the Obama leadership Asia Pacific convening in 2019. murkier through Welcome to irrational fear.

Unknown Speaker  28:51  
Thank you.

Dan Ilic  28:51  
Mayor, tell us what is the what's the feeling like right now and where you are in Yangon.

Unknown Speaker  28:57  
So we all like stress and angry at the same time. We all feel better, we're not really afraid. Yeah. So it's all our dreams and future like, Oh, God, like it's crashed. So we lost?

Dan Ilic  29:12  
Is this something that you've kind of expected for some time? Not

Unknown Speaker  29:17  
really? Not overnight? So we'd wake up normally on Monday morning, and then all of a sudden like the military coupe took over the country and they found their own government.

Dan Ilic  29:27  
How did you find out and how did you react like what what were you doing at the time Take us through that moment.

Unknown Speaker  29:32  
So I got an email from my walk about the coop and and also learn by customer he told me about about the news. And people are like, oh, we're all bandings buying like they they they came to my shop. So a lot of people came and then they all like they don't really know what what do you do? Like we all like entertain? We like we Yeah, no emotion at that time. And now we all like angry. Yeah. it what

Dan Ilic  29:58  
what kind of am resist Can you do safely kind of given, given what's happened in COVID? Given how the regime is so autocratic? What kind of things can you do to kind of show resistance to this moment

Unknown Speaker  30:10  
as people walk in for their like government other like, stuff, they are sure, like civil disobedience. And also like every day at 8pm we are like, banging our pod to show the resistant against the military coup.

Dan Ilic  30:24  
That's great every day at 8pm I make a podcast so that's, that's, you know, we all do our own bit, I guess.

Ben van Beurden  30:32  
Man, it's it's wild, dude. What does it feel like now? Does it feel like there is a possibility for change for you? Or like, do you feel hopeless? What Where are you right now?

Unknown Speaker  30:42  
Oh, still a bit hopeless. But now, today, like the opposition party, they held their own they for their own government. So they had their their own Parliament? member we don't know what will happen. Like,

Sami Shah  30:57  
at this point of the has the new military government announced any, you know, any new rules and regulations in terms of censorship in terms of any of those things? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  31:07  
yeah. Yeah. Starting from Monday, they tried to cut off all the internet and Facebook, and all the telephone lines were cut off. And that is it was restaurant. But today, like they announced the the issue and the notification to the light service provider to stop to do better Facebook. And also to try to block the VPN. So we are now using Facebook through the VPN, when they're trying to also like get off PBS. So they may also cut off at the Internet. So

Dan Ilic  31:35  
that's so interesting. Like, it must have been strange for the military to kind of get a grasp of that and kind of understand how to how to, in effect kind of stop communications pre because the internet is pretty new in me MRI, like it's like a the last five years. It's it's kind of just come in. And and the military previously didn't have to do too much to kind of shut down communications. But now, the internet is this tool that's everywhere. And it must be so strange for them to kind of shut it off.

Unknown Speaker  32:04  
Yeah, yeah. And also the they also like using the internet, right, like the military also using Facebook as a tool to to spread rumours and to do good for the country. So and so now people are migrating to Twitter. We are now using Facebook now. Really? That's

Dan Ilic  32:22  
so fascinating. So Facebook has become the malevolent tool of the military, I guess I guess Facebook's got a really chequered history, particularly with Rohingya population and stuff like that from from the last few years in Myanmar,

Unknown Speaker  32:39  
they use Facebook as the to, to like also to spread rumours. And also like the Rohingya conflict, what started like true also true Facebook, right? They spread false new style, like protesting and going against each other. Like,

Dan Ilic  32:53  
what kind of safeguards are there on Twitter versus Facebook? Do you know I don't

Sami Shah  32:59  
know, it's more about accessibility. I mean, so for example, in I remember in when, when the masculine Rangers had started, it was WhatsApp, not even Facebook, that was really the problem. And you know, are you seeing the kind of same stuff happening? My question, though, is, is this tatuajes? You know, loyalists? Are they the ones who are now bringing this stuff about, again, after all these years? Or is this a whole new group of Army people who have no connection with previous military hunters?

Unknown Speaker  33:27  
It's, it's not new, like people like they like successor right now. Yeah. So that, that maybe they maybe they may think that then the old military General, like, if he thinks he is too soft on the country, so are also like they they start to think that they have their ambitions also to solve the Civil War, like, within the country on the attempts. But you may not have been, really so

Shalialah Medhora  33:54  
I was just gonna ask what you think the international community should be doing about this? I mean, I know Australia, occasionally weighs in to what, you know, what could potentially be issues in Myanmar, but doesn't really have too much of a skin in the game. What do you think countries like Australia should be doing

Unknown Speaker  34:15  
to spread more news about what they have them about the military government and do do maybe due to sanctions related businesses? Not essentially the whole country idea would not be really effective? And also to support maybe the if there's a Birla government to support the parolee government, right, do do kind of acknowledge that they're probably a government. The idea would be very, very important.

Dan Ilic  34:41  
Do you think the government you know, they're meeting currently outside and kind of an informal fashion? Do you think they are a safe Do you or do you think that we'll probably get arrested again,

Unknown Speaker  34:51  
that's not really safe, they are like nebuta wishes that capital is where the military is based. So Yeah, it may not be safe like,

Ben van Beurden  35:03  
and do you feel safe like a people like you, you know who I can directly connect to the government safe? Do you feel safer at the moment? No.

Unknown Speaker  35:13  
It's like going back to the past. Like, we don't know who is who. And yeah, we don't know like we have to take out ourselves because it's something even if something happened there's no one to do like safe as

Dan Ilic  35:27  
you say you've lived in an autocratic regime. Yeah. Are you counting your time in Melbourne as autocratic under debt?

Sami Shah  35:39  
No, the what is funny was watching funny really, but like it was a weird kind of deja vu. When I saw the footage when they made the announcement of the military takeover in Burma in Myanmar. It was on the news over there, like a news anchor makes the announcement. And it was very much the same of what I saw, you know, growing up when Pervez Musharraf took over. And prior to that whenever we'd have like one military, one, one, you know, the government, the military stepped in and kicked out one to the Democratic Party and brought in another one or that it's always the state news that used to bring you that news. It's kind of bizarre to see that again. But also, what we're seeing is so true, that feeling in the first few days of no one knows what's going on. Because the people who put these plans into action discover very quickly that nothing goes according to plan. And then they scramble to make things fit either their plan or make up a new plan. So until they unveil what they actually want, who's in charge, how it will work out. You just hope for the best and it never works out for the best it's going to be military dictatorships aren't known for their kindness and their light touch and and their tolerance for dissent. So, you know, mingma has got a long road ahead of it. Unfortunately, it's a road it's been all before. Me, I

Dan Ilic  36:54  
saw reports that as soon as the military took over, they started putting propaganda across broadcast television and radio, and things like that. When you heard that and saw that did you go Gee, this is really dated.

Unknown Speaker  37:08  
Yeah. It's like no, we're not Korea, right?

Lewis Hobba  37:16  
update your propaganda.

Dan Ilic  37:17  
Man. What's one thing that as waken to read, read regular Australians do to kind of support you. What's one thing that you know, people listening to this people on Twitter? What's one thing that we could do to help you?

Unknown Speaker  37:31  
I don't, I don't really know, what other people can do for us.

Ben van Beurden  37:38  
Other people that you follow at the moment on on Twitter or Facebook, or people who are getting out good information?

Unknown Speaker  37:44  
Oh, no, no, no, no, not really. But other people are like trying to post on like Facebook, or like, Rihanna recently tweeted about Nima. And we hold the other celebree will also follow and spread that awareness about what's happening inside the country. Yeah.

Sami Shah  38:04  
Yeah, at this point between Rihanna tweeting about Myanmar and then reactivating the form of protest in India. She's literally the only person on the international stage talking about things that need to be talked about. So more power to do that. As always, as always, we

Dan Ilic  38:18  
need to get Shannon all on the case in Australia to tweet about me and her and the farmers.

Unknown Speaker  38:28  
It isn't fair.

Lewis Hobba  38:29  
I don't feel good about it. That I

Dan Ilic  38:31  
know I back it I back off. Back a good pun. That was great. me Oh, thank you so much for joining us on rational v. I hope you stay safe. I hope you stay safe. And I hope your internet connection stays up so you can keep talking to the world about what's happening there.

Unknown Speaker  38:45  
Also, yeah, yeah,

Dan Ilic  38:46  
yeah. That is it for irrational fear. Big thanks to our guests. Lewis Ave. Semi Shah. shilada. dollar mirror through. Do you guys have anything to plug? shilada? Do you want to plug anything?

Unknown Speaker  38:56  
Not really. No,

Shalialah Medhora  38:58  
I can't I went for the IBC so probably shouldn't

Dan Ilic  39:01  
listen to hack on Triple J. You know, that's what you gotta do. Semi Shah, you. You got Melbourne Comedy Festival shows coming up.

Sami Shah  39:09  
I do indeed a comedy festival show coming up at the moment and fashion Comedy Festival starts in March on the 24th I believe. So buy tickets to that that's available. And also I have a Patreon. Much like everyone else on the planet right now. It's your only real source of income. So patreon.com slash Sangeetha.

Dan Ilic  39:29  
Mia, do you want to plug anything? Do you have a Patreon?

Unknown Speaker  39:31  
Or at least even though meet the international folks to to spread awareness and to do a stop the ability government from doing what they're doing. So we need your help.

Dan Ilic  39:44  
Yeah. And Louis, what

Lewis Hobba  39:45  
have you got to plug Daniel? Next Thursday in a week's time in Sydney. There is a wonderful show that if it were me I would be selling my firstborn for tickets for that is irrational fears. 100 episodes It's a it's got all the hits. It's got all the guests. It's got everything we mentioned at the start of the show. I'll be getting a free laptop from a member of the audience going on.

Dan Ilic  40:12  
All right, thank you very much and also a big thanks to Australia if you like my song All right, a big thanks to mill silver. Also Big thanks to rode bikes, the birther Foundation, our Patreon supporters, Jacob roundup and tepanyaki timeline Gaby Bolton Beck show for their for came out in one day, and all the folks in the discord channel Today it was popping today. It was energetic. It was interesting was smart. Until next week, there's always something to be scared of, which is our 11th 11th sorry, our 100th episode, live show. Get your tickets. There's only 20 or so left. Good night.

Unknown Speaker  40:48  
Thanks, everyone. Hi, everyone. Oh god.

Unknown Speaker  40:51  
I'm Elsa.

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