"People's Desire": roadside billboard, Myanmar (photographed 2008)
A large red roadside billboard headed 'People's Desire' lists four slogans in English: oppose 'those relying on external elements acting as stooges holding negative views', oppose those who 'jeopardize stability of the State', oppose 'foreign nations interfering in internal affairs', and 'crush all internal and external destructive elements as the common enemy'. The tell is the loaded labels ('stooges', 'destructive elements', 'common enemy'), applied to unnamed groups so that no one is specified and anyone can be placed under them.
- Date
- March 22, 2008
- Period
- Contemporary
- Made by
- Military government of Myanmar (State Peace and Development Council); issuer not named on the sign
- Region
- Southeast Asia
- Country
- Myanmar
- Medium
- Signs and banners
- Issuer type
- State
- Leader
- Than Shwe
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Techniques
- Name-calling
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons (from Flickr, user juls78), retrieved October 2, 2026
- Rights
- CC BY-SA 2.0 (Flickr user juls78; Commons file page states the licence and records a trusted-user Flickr review)
juls78 (Flickr), CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Text on the object
People's Desire Oppose those relying on external elements acting as stooges holding negative views Oppose those trying to Jeopardize stability of the State and prgress of the nation Oppose foreign nations interfering in internal affairs of the State Crush all internal and external destructive elements as the common enemy [neighbouring board at left edge, in Burmese script, only partly in frame: illegible]
The text is English, as printed, including the sign's own spelling ('prgress'). No translation needed. The partly visible board at the left edge carries Burmese script that is cut off by the frame.Capitalisation of 'Jeopardize' and the misspelling 'prgress' are as printed on the sign.
