Set in Mynamar, The Siege of The Shwedagon is a fictional account of the struggles of daring characters, who rise above oppression under the military junta. At the center of the action is a self-styled Rohingya ethnic minority rebel leader, Fakhruddin, who leads a sustained rebellion against the military junta. In the mix: his former lawyer-cum-right hand man called Kyi, his wife Hasana, and former RIT colleagues. The ethnic minority Rohingya are exiled to Bangladesh due to persecution.
Ruddin and his men put up a spirited fight to overthrow the junta regime but face brutal resistance from the Tatmadaw, the military forces. A number are arrested and imprisoned. Ruddin survives the arrest and lives on to fight in the forest. Through his inborn tactical prowess, he unleashes terror on the army through surprise ambushes, stealing guns and ammunition. The regime, led by Min U Shwe perpetrates untold atrocities against the ethnic minorities, the Rohingya. His son U Thwe takes over the leadership when the father dies. Before his death due to old age, he implores his son never to let the ethnic minorities set back their feet into Myanmar. U Thwe takes over the command of the military but struggles to rein in the stubborn Ruddin. The young general’s past comes to haunt him in his early leadership. He had sired a daughter with an ethnic Rohingya girl and in a karmic fashion; she was married to Ruddin, the thorn in the flesh of his administration. He had never met her but through her blog while in Bangladesh, he learns about her and his connection to her through a forbidden union.
Kyi, an international lawyer, comes into the aid of Ruddin, his wife, and the rebels in their quest to return to Myanmar. Using his vast connections, he offers logistical and legal support that culminates in the return of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Bangladesh. Ruddin knew that to win the war, he had to target the Shwedagon Pagoda which was presumed to be U Thwe’s last bastion. It was no secret that the military ruler was a devout Buddhist who, like the father, frequented the pagoda for spiritual pilgrimage. Through the assistance of his wife, he gathers intelligence that U Thwe would be paying pilgrimage to the pagoda. Meanwhile, Hasana, his wife, becomes instrumental in the repatriation of her people back home, heralding a new era for the erstwhile banished people. In a dramatic scene inside the pagoda, Ruddin wrestles the unguarded U Thwe and compels him to sign the Pagoda Declaration. All his demands are met with the barrel of the gun against his temple.
Tasmin is the opposition leader in the country, once put under house arrest. She emerges to contest and win the first democratically held elections in the country. She becomes a unifying voice after her landslide win and the scheduled inauguration as the first-ever first chancellor of the country. In the midst of the turmoil, she empathizes with the plight of the ethnic minorities exiled in Bangladesh and secretly supports their cause. She hosts Ruddin’s first-born son when he wins the contest in designing her party’s logo. She fights from within, shaking off the tag of the sympathizer to the minority Rohingya while consolidating her political position in the Pariah State in the throes of a revolution.
Borrowing heavily from military books he had read, Ruddin reads his men in raiding one State after the other, routing military bases. The Tatmadaw meets the retaliatory attacks with full force, arresting most of Ruddin’s men. They are tortured and incarcerated, the aim being to capture their main target: Ruddin. The latter nearly gives up the war but regains his strength from his belief in Allah, to whom he supplicates in every triumph. Using his main men-Myiene, Kyi, Myaing, and Naing-he orchestrate an elaborate rebellion that enables him to restore the persecuted, exiled Rohingya back to the heart of Myanmar.
The Siege of the Shwedagon is reminiscent of the storming of the Bastile.Ruddin, as a self-styled revolutionary leader leads from the front, executing a near-impossible feat of raiding Myanmar’s religious/political symbol of the pagoda and taking the military leader hostage. The plot winds up at the point when Ruddin spares U Thwe but who thereafter dies in a ball of flame when his helicopter bursts into flames over the Singuttara hills. There is a carnivore mood in Yangon as the military junta cedes the capital to the birth of democratic dawn. Trucks upon trucks of refugees ferrying the refugees arrive in town as the military soldiers without their commander retreat quickly. Ruddin is reunited with his family, relatives, and comrades. Kyi, the exiled lawyer is invited back to the country while Tasmin awaits her inauguration as the new State Chancellor the following year.
Title: Siege of the Shwedagon
Genres: Novel, Inspired by True Events
Category: Print Book, E-Book, Amazon Kindle E-Book
Publisher: Mage Orange Publication & Technologies
Released: February 2022
Writer
City Square, Kenya
