Conversation with a Dictator: Activist Art for a Free Burma

We need your support to GIFT hardback copies of ‘Conversation with a Dictator: A Challenge to the Authoritarian Assault’—Alan Clements’ powerful new 492-page book with over 300 full-page illustrations—to those who can shape the future.

Described as a “literary feature film,” the book condenses 200 years of Burma’s history into a gripping two-hour read: a five-act dialogue between Clements and Myanmar’s dictator, General Min Aung Hlaing.

It is designed to awaken in him a sense of conscience and moral courage so deep he is moved to release Aung San Suu Kyi and all unlawfully imprisoned democratic leaders.

Now, more than ever, the brave and resilient people of Burma need to know that the world has not forgotten them.

Each gifted edition—accompanied by a personal letter—will land in the hands of world leaders, influencers, and decision-makers, offering a rare window into Burma’s crisis and a call to act, rooted in Clements’ forty years of frontline engagement, including as a Buddhist monk in Myanmar.

With your help, we want to continue a movement of radical, creative, non-violent activism.

A $500 USD donation buys a carton of 10 books from our distributor, each GIFTED with a letter to someone who could help change the course of history in Burma.

In 2023, when we released Aung San Suu Kyi from Prison - And a Letter to a Dictator, a single reader became instrumental in its inclusion in international trials seeking to prosecute atrocities in Burma.

In 2019, when we interviewed Moe Thway of Generation Wave, a prominent Burmese activist group continuing the non-violent resistance of the 88 Generation Students Group, he told us: “We started by distributing leaflets, with postal and letter campaigns, trying to motivate the people. We’d send people letters, because if you just throw leaflets into a market, only a few people will get them, and the police will gather them up. But if you post them, even to a military colonel, they won’t be afraid. It’s safe to read it in private. They’d know the youth are still fighting against the dictatorship, and we would tell them, ‘You don’t need to be depressed, the youth are fighting for freedom, for you, in every possible way.’”

A book in the hands of law maker can become law. A book in the hands of a producer can become a series. A book in the hands of an editor can become the next front page.

Often, it only takes one voice to change the narrative.

‘Conversation with a Dictator’ is not just a book. It is a moral instrument—a voice for the silenced, a work of radical dharma, and a manual of spiritual and political resistance.

But we cannot do this alone.

You can be an activist. You can change the outcome. You can use your creative freedom for the freedom of others.

Who will we GIFT them to? All Nobel Peace laureates, The Elders, the Dalai Lama, the Pope and Selected Cardinals in the Vatican, President Trump and ALL members of his administration, including Robert Kennedy Jr, the European Union, key members of the UN, all ASEAN leaders, Joe Rogan and all top podcasters, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, etc and anyone you can think of that might hear our message.

Each book we send—with a personal letter—costs, approximately:

$50 USD · £45 GBP · $75 CAD · $80 AUD

Please join us in the Use Your Freedom: All It Takes Is One global campaign.

Every time we GIFT a copy, we will post updates of the people receiving the book, and their response.

Why this book?

This month, Myanmar’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate and pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, will mark her 80th birthday alone, in a windowless concrete cell. Now in her fifth year of solitary confinement, her condition remains uncertain. According to an urgent press release issued by the Suu Foundation, she was injured during the recent Sagaing earthquake. Once embraced by global dignitaries and celebrities eager to align themselves with her cause, she has now been largely abandoned by the same figures.

It didn’t have to be this way. When an internationally trained and funded terror group simultaneously attacked 30 police posts and a military base in Burma’s Rakhine State in 2017, the Burmese military response led to accusations of genocide, triggering an exodus of over 700,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees.

But Aung San Suu Kyi became the scapegoat, vilified widely in the press for the actions of an autonomous military who would soon overthrow her elected government and imprison her, along with 21,000 other political prisoners. It seemed to us that the press preferred the spectacle of a fallen icon to the complexity of freedom and democracy in Myanmar.

Burma's humanitarian and political crisis demands clear, truthful and compassionate representation in the international media. We need your immediate support to help amplify our collective activism and further empower the voices of the people of our beloved Myanmar during this, the greatest moment of need.

This campaign to GIFT copies of Conversation with a Dictator: A Challenge to the Authoritarian Assault to world leaders is not about war—it is about peace, truth, moral imagination, and nonviolent defiance. It is a literary uprising of spiritual resistance. A revolution of conscience. An urgent call to end the violence, free all political prisoners, and help build a federal democracy founded on justice, reconciliation, and the highest respect for universal human rights.

Conversation with a Dictator offers a compelling distillation of the heart and soul of Burma’s “revolution of the spirit,” weaving sharp psychological insight with the classical Buddhist principles of reconciliation, non-demonization, and redemption that have guided Aung San Suu Kyi’s political philosophy since the founding of her party.

Jennifer Chartoff, President of the Robert Chartoff Charitable Foundation, writes: “Alan Clements astutely examines how and why Aung San Suu Kyi—Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the heart and soul of Burma’s democracy movement—has been so vilified in the press that it brought an international icon to her knees, while the entire nation, now crushed under military dictatorship, has been relegated to the back pages of the global news.”

“Though the world has turned its back,” says Catherine Ingram, author of ‘In the Footsteps of Gandhi’, “Alan Clements has faithfully chronicled Aung San Suu Kyi’s brave journey, beginning in 1996 with the publication of ‘The Voice of Hope.’ As Clements puts it, “This book is a mirror to tyranny and a torch for freedom. It dares us to act before history judges our silence.”

“One of the most important and compelling voices of our times… Alan Clements is a riveting communicator — challenging and inspiring. He articulates the essentials of courage and leadership in a way that can stir people from all sectors of society into action; his voice is not only a great contribution during these changeful times, it is a needed one.” Jack Healey, former director of Amnesty International, and founder of the Human Rights Action Center

Why Now?

For the sake of Burma's future and its people's dignity, the immediate release of its 21,000 political prisoners is not just an urgent necessity—it is a moral imperative.

After a ruthless military coup d’etat in February, 2021, Myanmar has been bleeding from a slow-motion genocide:

Our objective?

How Donations Will Be Spent?

All funds received will go toward direct, transparent actions that mobilize this campaign. Not a single dollar goes to profit. Every contribution activates one of the following four pillars:

1. Book Distribution to Global Influencers (Directed by Fergus Harlow, Director of the Use Your Freedom Campaign): £7,000

2. Acquiring a World-Class Publicist (or Team): £2,000pm x 2 months

3. Production of a Cinematic Monologue & Global Digital Media: £4,000

This campaign can be radically scaled-up according to the level of donations received.

Can’t donate? Don’t worry - you can still help free Burma from tyranny:

We need volunteers (graphic artists, talented video and reel creators) and those willing to help us with the logistics of sending out these books. Please get in touch if you would like to help us in this vital way.

Who we are

The Use Your Freedom Campaign is part of The Burma Project International/USA, a registered not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization under the umbrella of the Buddha Sasana Foundation (BSF), committed since its establishment to upholding the principles outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Our primary focus is serving the people of Burma while advocating on a global scale for the release of political prisoners and raising awareness about their plight.

Founded by former Buddhist monk and veteran investigative journalist Alan Clements, our non-profit has pioneered research and advocacy informed by the relationship between Dharma (freedom from fear, greed and ignorance) and Burma's complex social and political landscape. Over more than 40 years of on-the-ground research and deep personal connections to the non-violent democracy movement, Alan Clements has established himself as a one of the foremost experts on Burma's Dharma-informed resistance to military dictatorship. Clements co-authored The Voice of Hope with Aung San Suu Kyi and his work has appeared widely in The New York Times, The Guardian, Time, Yoga Journal, and others.

Fergus Harlow is a researcher, writer, and longtime editor whose work has centered on documenting Burmese voices of moral courage. As co-author and lead editor of the four-volume Burma’s Voices of Freedom project with Alan Clements, Harlow has compiled one of the most comprehensive oral history archives on Myanmar’s struggle for democracy. He is the director of UseYourFreedom.org.

On "The Voice of Hope: Aung San Suu Kyi from Prison - And a Letter to a Dictator", by Alan Clements and Fergus Harlow

“I am happy to endorse this timely book by Alan Clements and Fergus Harlow. I believe this is the most truthful and accurate commentary on how the world got it wrong, not unlike Tibet, and what we can do to support Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Burma.” Geshe Lhakdor, Director of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamshala, Translator and Interpreter for His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

“This book is a beacon in the dark. By illuminating in vivid detail the catastrophe unfolding in Burma and the world’s indifference to it, Alan Clements and Fergus Harlow shine a harsh but compassionate light on the crisis of humanity at the beginning of the twenty-first century.” Stephen Batchelor, author of After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age, Yale University Press

"The terms under which Aung San Suu Kyi became the State Counsellor were severely limited, and I suspect they were not allowed to speak out on some of the atrocities being committed by the Generals. The fact remains that she was muted by the terms of her premiership and her voice was simply not heard against the atrocities committed by the military. In the shadow of other outbreaks of war, the plight of the 54 million people of Burma has simply been forgotten. Out of simple human compassion, as Alan Clements and Fergus Harlow have done, we must keep the story of Burma on our minds and in the consciences of democratic leaders worldwide." Sir John Boorman, CBE, Oscar-nominated director of Beyond Rangoon, Hope and Glory, Deliverance, The Emerald Forest and numerous other feature films.

On "Burma's Voices of Freedom: An Ongoing Struggle for Democracy", by Alan Clements and Fergus Harlow

“During Alan Clements’ study of totalitarianism and acts of defiance, he talked to Myanmar’s most famous revolutionary figures, along with prominent monks and religious leaders, journalists and filmmakers, and social activists “These voices describe in vivid detail the courage and conviction required to non-violently confront injustice,” he wrote. It would truly be a travesty if the fallen heroes and their voices of freedom saw their unfinished movement destroyed by people instilled with the evil spirit inherited from authoritarian rule." Mon Mon Myat, Reviewing Burma’s Voices of Freedom in The Irrawaddy

“I have known Alan for well over three decades. He is my first call when I seek insight and candor concerning personal and professional advice. As a speaker, his eloquence moves audiences to ask the questions behind questions about how we live, why we work, and how it fits together. Alan’s presence – his remarkable ability to engage an audience and connect with their heart – stands alongside the best talent I have seen in the world.” Robert Chartoff, Producer of Rocky, The Right Stuff, and Raging Bull