Monks Versus the Military
Kyi May Kaung | S
eptember 26, 2007
Editor: John Feffer
Foreign Policy In Focus
In Rangoon and other cities of Burma, Buddhist monks have
confronted the military dictatorship with an unusual technique: they
refused to accept alms. In Buddhist tradition, this boycott is the
ultimate insult monks can deploy. On September 26, the government finally
responded to the monks' boycott by cracking down on the protests, which
attracted as many as 100,000 people at their height. Police reportedly
killed one protestor, and arrested as many as 200 monks. The future of
the democracy movement in Burma remains unclear.
Throughout the protests, the monks have used the symbols and practices
of Buddhism to express their discontent and rally public support. At
first only a few monks demonstrated in towns such as Pakokku, where the
authorities used hired thugs, now called Swan Arr Shin (Possessors of
Strength) to lasso and catch the fleeing monks with lariats. Then the
thugs threw the monks in prison where they forced them to disrobe and
tortured them. In Pakokku, the monks kept some army officers captive for
a few hours, but since then, they have walked through cities and towns
silently, observing the Theravada monks' traditional discipline of
silence and downcast eyes. They have also been chanting the Metta Thoke
or Loving Kindness Sutra, which sends and shares merit to all living
beings.
According to eyewitness reports, the monks maintained their silence even
when they met with Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's democracy leader and Nobel
Peace Laureate, who has been under house arrest since May 2003. When a
group of about 500 monks was inexplicably allowed to walk past her house
on Saturday, she came out of a side gate dressed in yellow (the color of
the religious order or thathana) to pay her respects.
With the implicit blessing of a woman increasingly considered the
matriarch of Burma, the number of monks marching in the streets increased
together with the numbers of lay people forming human chains to support
them. The monks are a generation younger than the dissidents and
activists who led the last major challenge to the military junta in 1988.
Foreign journalists estimate the number of protesting monks countrywide to
be 500,000, which equals the number of conscripted and other soldiers in
the junta's standing army. Now that the government has decimated Suu
Kyi's National League for Democracy party, the monks are the only
organized force strong enough to challenge the junta.
Drawing from Buddhism In smuggled-out videos and photographs taken by
citizen journalists inside Burma, masses of shaven-headed monks in
rust-red and maroon-red robes hold out their hands in the gesture of
shikoe or paying respect. Some of the monks appear to be hiding their
faces from the camera, but the majority does not hide. During the
protests, the monks often marched behind a banner with the colors of the
Buddhist thathana. Or they were led by a monk holding his black lacquered
begging bowl upside down. In Burmese, the word for "strike" or "to strike"
- thabeik hmauk -- literally means "to turn the thabeik or begging bowl
upside down."
It is the custom in Burma for monks to make their rounds of the
neighborhoods every morning with their begging bowls. They stand silently
outside each house for a few moments. Usually the lady of the house will
donate a few scoops of cooked rice, or whatever curry she can afford. The
monk is not supposed to be choosy and cannot refuse whatever is offered.
Once back at the monastery, the monk may not eat at leisure, savoring
each flavor, but must instead mix all the offerings up in his bowl and
then eat this mush.
In Theravada Buddhist belief, a monk, as the Buddha Gautama himself did,
does a layperson a favor by allowing him or her to obtain merit by
accepting alms from them. It is not the other way around. So when a monk
or monks refuse alms from the junta, it is an act of severe moral
censure.
Theravada means the the creed of the theras. It is the oldest form of
Buddhism, that Burma shares with other South and Southeast Asian
countries such as Sri Lanka (in fact Burma got its Buddhism from Sri
Lanka in the 10th century), Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. The Vinaya, or
rules of the order, have come down from the time of the historic Buddha,
the Gautama Buddha (Prince Siddartha before he obtained Enlightenment)
and number a total of 227 rules. These begin with the Ten Commandments
(do not destroy life, do not become intoxicated, and so on) and extend to
rules regarding personal possessions, modes of dress, and rules regarding
meals (monks may not eat any solid food after 12 noon until dawn of the
next morning).
These rules have long shaped Burmese culture and society, for it is a
devoutly Buddhist country. In the 1950s, the democratically elected Prime
Minister U Nu banned the eating of beef, went on Buddhist retreats, and
sponsored the Seventh Great Buddhist Synod, during which monks from all
over the world discussed the sacred texts. Despite this official
promotion of Buddhism, Rangoon and other cities were more secular and
westernized. Under the system established by General Ne Win, who took
over in a military coup in 1962, the Burmese have sought solace in
religion. The isolation of the country has also led to renewed
superstition and animist beliefs, which have always co-existed with
Buddhism in Burma since ancient times. The military rulers, with their
low level of education, are notoriously superstitious.
Adhering officially to Buddhism, the military regime has repressed and
harassed other religions, for instance destroying churches and hilltop
crucifixes in the Chin state in the northeast and forcibly deporting the
Muslim Rohingya to Bangladesh. In the late 1990s, the junta set up a
rival Karen force led by pseudo monks to attack the Karen National Union
forces, which is predominantly Baptist and has been in armed struggle
against the central government for more than half a century.
The ruling generals wish to be known as major patrons of Buddhism. At
the same time, at least since 1975, the military junta has been using
Buddhist institutions to consolidate its power. The founder of the
current military government, General Ne Win, barely tolerated the monks
and tried to control them through a system of ID cards in 1975. More
recently, it has excommunicated monks who do not follow the Vinaya, those
who do not observe vows of celibacy, and other rules. The junta calls this
process Thathana Thant Shin Yay or the Cleansing of the Sangha (the
community of monks). The junta has used the senior monks - the Nakaya
Sayadaw, which it appoints - to control, judge, and police the Burmese
Sangha. For this reason, the current presiding Nayaka have been
ineffective as liaison between the demonstrating monks and the
government. When the monks' protests started, an open letter from the
underground organization behind the protests, warned the Nayaka to see
that the
protestors' grievances were heard.
There is a long tradition of Buddhist monks challenging the political
status quo. Under the Burmese kings, until the British annexation of
Burma in 1886, the Buddhist monks, especially the Thathana Paing or the
Buddhist Patriarch, in many instances tried to prevent the worst excesses
of the authoritarian kings. They also sometimes took on diplomatic
functions, going to neighboring countries such as China, most famously in
the 13th century. In the British period, the monks were at the forefront
of the independence movement, some sacrificing their lives for the
freedom for the country.
The monks of Mandalay, known as the Yahan Pyo (Young Monks) have been
active in politics since the 1950s. In 1992, Burmese monks went on strike
against the military regime, refusing alms from army families. In the late
1990s, there were incidents in Mandalay where the most sacred Maha Myat
Muni image was desecrated. This sacrilege, widely considered a junta
provocation, angered the monks and set off riots.
Roots of the Current Protests The military government has repeatedly
used massive force to suppress peaceful demonstrations of unarmed
civilians. This cycle of protests and government counterforce is
memorialized in recent Burmese history by a series of dates. On July 7,
1962, shortly after seizing power, the junta shot university student
demonstrators and dynamited the Rangoon University Student Union
building. During the troubles of 1967, the junta tried to blame high rice
prices on the native Sino-Burmese community, and its provocateurs
instigated rioting against Chinese-owned businesses. In 1975 came riots
after the family of former U.N. Secretary General U Thant brought his
remains home. On September 18, 1988, the government began to clamp down
on the mass pro-democracy movement, which was born that year. And on May
30, 2003, in what is known as the Depayin massacre, hired thugs attacked
Suu Kyi's entourage.
This present round of demonstrations began on August 18, when the
government raised the price of
diesel oil by 500% in order to cover a budget deficit that resulted from
a salary hike for civil servants.
The junta's move of the Burmese capital to Pyinmana, now called
Naypyidaw (King's Royal City), must have also contributed to the budget
deficit. The military government covers these deficits by its old methods
of printing new money or by declaring some denominations void. Its
privatizations since 1988 have enriched a new class of well-connected
business people or oligarchs at the expense of the impoverished majority.
The August 2007 demonstrations were led by well-known dissidents such as
Min Ko Naing (with the nom de guerre Conqueror of Kings), Su Su Nway (now
in hiding), and others. The military quickly cracked down and still has
not allowed the International Red Cross to visit Min Ko Naing and others
who are reportedly in Insein Prison after being severely tortured.
It was at this point that the monks of Burma, coordinated by an
underground organization, stepped into the foreground and added new life
to the movement. Under Suu Kyi's leadership, passive resistance, with Suu
herself worshiping with leading monks, has been the norm since 1988.
Prospects for the Future The scale of the demonstrations has caught the
attention of the international media. Experienced and highly successful
international dissident groups such as the U.S. Campaign for Burma have
started a vigorous media and fundraising drive and are pressuring Chinese
embassies overseas as well as the UN Security Council. The Chinese
government has the most extensive ties with the Burmese junta, and India
too is on good terms with the government. Even as the monks were
marching, an Indian company
bought some more tracts of land from the junta for natural gas
exploration in Burma.
The UN has taken up the Burmese issue again, and both President George
W. and Laura Bush have spoken up for Burma. The Bush administration has
announced heightened sanctions against the Burmese junta, a widened visa
ban for junta officials, and greater scrutiny of their financial
transactions. Since 2004 when the first round of sanctions was put in
place, Burmese officials have allegedly been keeping euro accounts or
accounts in Singapore. The administration is looking into ways of cutting
off the flow of funds into and out of the coffers of the ruling elite.
In Burma itself, the military needs to realize that a government can
benefit by having an active opposition party as an early warning
indicator. Such a party can help the government democratically structure
meaningful policies that are developmental and not detrimental. The
military would be wise to form a transitional government with Suu Kyi at
least as a minister (of labor affairs or education) or as an ombudsman.
So far, it seems, the military is afraid of such an option.
The monks and the people of Burma have legitimate grievances. They have
the right to their own lives, to improve their lives, to speak up and be
left alone. Moethee Zun, a former student leader of 1988, now based
overseas, in a privately produced video has called for the military
government to "approach us. We are not your enemies. You have a
responsibility to the people and so do we."
Kyi May Kaung holds a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania and
has two degrees in economics from Rangoon University. She is a
Washington, DC-based writer and analyst, a contributor to Foreign Policy
in Focus, and a close observer of the Burmese scene since the 1960s. For
more articles in FPIF's Religion and Foreign Policy focus, please visit
www.fpif.org.
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