TOPICS

Guest Lecture Report: Mr. Tin Win Akbar, Burmese (Myanmarese) refugee in Japan / Visiting Researcher, Center for South Asian Studies (CSAS), Gifu Women’s University

On 26 June 2026, in the Professional Workshop course (instructor: Mai Kaneko), students welcomed Mr. Tin Win Akbar, a Burmese (Myanmarese) refugee in Japan and Visiting Researcher at the Center for South Asian Studies (CSAS), Gifu Women’s University. The students from nine countries listened to the lecture entitled “Boxes, Biases, and Beyond: A Life across Cultures, Refugeehood and Human Dignity,” and subsequently engaged in group exercises.

Mr. Tin Win shared vivid and compelling accounts of his pro-democracy activism in Burma/Myanmar, his experiences of political repression, his recognition as a refugee and subsequent rebuilding of his life in Japan, his return to Myanmar following democratization in 2016, his flight to Japan once again after the 2021 coup d'état, and his lifelong passion for research on, and advocacy for, democracy and peace.

At the beginning of the lecture, Mr. Tin Win used the examples of the visible light spectrum and the human hearing range to show that human beings perceive only a small part of reality. He then asked whether our understanding of other people may also be limited. By reflecting on labels such as refugee, Muslim, Burmese, migrant worker, activist, and journalist, he encouraged students to think about the danger of reducing a person to a single “box” or attribute. He emphasized that curiosity, humility, and dialogue are necessary to confront cognitive bias, misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech.

Mr. Tin Win then shared his life story. Born into a prosperous family and educated at the Rangoon Institute of Economics, he began to ask questions about dignity, power, justice, and responsibility after the 1974 crisis related to the funeral of U Thant, a former UN Secretary General. He then recalled the harrowing repression he faced while participating in the 1988 pro-democracy movement. Through this experience, he conveyed that human dignity does not disappear even when freedom is restricted, that democracy needs “opponents” rather than “enemies,” and that “flexibility is not weakness.”

After fleeing to Japan in 1996 and being recognized as a refugee under the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees, Mr. Tin Win rebuilt his life from scratch, including early work cleaning a pachinko hall, family reunification, and his children’s education. He later cooperated with UNHCR and partner organizations, founded the Federation of Workers’ Union of Burmese Citizens in Japan (FWUBC), advocated and worked for further improvements to Japan’s refugee protection system, and built bridges among government, civil society, and international organizations. He also returned to Myanmar in 2016 to support interfaith dialogue and civil society activities, but the 2021 military coup forced him into renewed exile.

In the latter part of the class, students worked in groups on issues related to the refugee status determination process, reception and integration support in Japan, as well as misinformation and hate speech, and made proposals to address them.

After the workshop, students shared that the session helped them see refugees not only as people forced to flee, but also as people with “strong beliefs, courage, and a sense of responsibility,” and that “we cannot be chained down to a single identity”. Another described Mr. Tin Win as “an incredible scholar who knows how to break down concepts for an audience”, appreciating his knowledge of history, psychology and sociology, as well as his ability to encourage students to change their perceptions. Another student shared that the workshop left him with a lingering question about how sovereign rights can sometimes undermine humanitarian principles that call for assisting people seeking asylum in different parts of the world today, asking “How did our differences (e.g., the country in which one was born) become something that separates us rather than bringing us together?”

The workshop gave students a rare opportunity to understand first-hand that, in Mr. Tin Win’s words, “refugees should not be regarded as a burden, but as an asset,” and to connect one person’s life story with refugee protection, democracy, human dignity, and the responsibilities of receiving societies.

Profile: Mr. Tin Win Akbar, Burmese (Myanmarese) refugee in Japan; Visiting Researcher, Center for South Asian Studies, Gifu Women’s University
Tin Win Akbar (also known as “Demo-Mann”) is a Burma/Myanmar-born speaker and researcher based in Japan. From April 2023 to April 2024, he served as an Adjunct Lecturer at Hosei University for two semesters, teaching “Foreign Media Analysis” in the Department of Global Politics, Faculty of Law. He graduated from the Institute of Economics, Rangoon University and worked as a journalist in Myanmar. In Japan, Mr. Tin Win founded the Federation of Workers’ Union of Burmese Citizens in Japan (FWUBC) and served as its first President. He has collaborated with UNHCR Japan and its partner organization in the past, including providing communication and initial intake/triage support for asylum-seeker cases through multilingual assistance. His current work focuses on cognitive biases, critical thinking, media/AI literacy, and political forecasting, with particular attention to Myanmar and the region.

Back to list