Up in Alms: Burma's dictators exploit Buddhism and the monks fight back

October 5, Wall Street Journal Online
Up in Alms: Burma's dictators exploit Buddhism and the monks fight back -
Philip Delves Broughton

Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's Nobel Peace Prize laureate, described the
lessons she had learned from her country's Hsayadaws, its Buddhist holy
teachers, in an article for a Japanese newspaper in 1996. One of them told
her what it would be like to fight for democracy in Burma: "You will be
attacked and reviled for engaging in honest politics, but you must
persevere. Lay down an investment in dukkha [suffering] and you will gain
sukha [bliss]."

Last week saw hundreds of Burma's monks investing in dukkha as they
confronted the nation's military regime. At one point, a large crowd of
them gathered outside Aung San Suu Kyi's house in Yangon, where she has
spent 12 of the past 18 years under house arrest. She came to the gate in
the pouring rain and was allowed to greet them. This single, poignant
moment summed up all that was most extraordinary about the demonstrations,
as well as what was most frightening to Burma's military junta.

Within a few days, scores of monks were in jail, many had been beaten, and
the trickle of reports emanating from the country indicated that
monasteries had been ransacked as the military hunted down the last
rebellious elements.

Reports in the New Light of Myanmar, the official newspaper, blamed a few
bad seeds who had infiltrated the monastic orders for inciting the
protests. Pro-democracy activists have admitted to taking cover in the
monasteries to avoid being jailed. But these are footnotes in a much
larger tussle in Burma over the use and practice of Buddhism, which became
visible to the world during the past week.

This boils down to the issue of which political ideology is a more fitting
reflection of Burma's Theravada Buddhism, military dictatorship or
democracy. While the answer should be obvious, the military has done all
it can to tilt the balance its way.

Burma is a patchwork of ethnicities, languages and religious practices.
The struggle to keep it together has been the key narrative for the
successive military governments, dominated by majority ethnic Burmans,
that have run the country since 1962. The military has used this struggle
to justify economic and democratic deprivation. Furthermore, despite the
junta's flagrant disregard for the five principles of Buddhism --
abstention from killing, stealing, engaging in sexual misconduct, lying
and using intoxicants -- its members seize every chance to depict
themselves as Buddhism's true guardians.

Not a week goes by without the state media reporting a general's
contribution or visit to a temple. Even as Burma has slid into poverty,
the government has funded lavish new temples and the regilding of the
famous golden pagodas. The military has also built pagodas as a means of
asserting ethnic Burman sovereignty in areas where other groups live and
Islam or Christianity is the prevailing religion. This practice dates back
to the Burmese kings who built pagodas in neighboring kingdoms as a way of
establishing a lasting claim to rule.

For most of the past century, there have always been a few politically
active monks. Under British rule, monks were jailed for urging the Burmese
not to adopt British forms of dress and religious practice. Under military
rule, monks have been at the forefront of the opposition.

The extent of the monks' role as the national conscience can be seen in
the measures taken by the military to organize and co-opt the monastic
orders. During the democracy protests of 1988, 600 monks were among the
10,000 people killed. In 1990, on the second anniversary of those
killings, more than 7,000 monks and novices walked through Mandalay.
Soldiers confronted them and opened fire, killing two. Across the country,
monks responded by refusing to accept alms from members of the military or
their families. By denying the military the ability to give alms, the
monks were denying them the opportunity to make "merit" for their present
and future lives. Monasteries were raided, hundreds of monks were
arrested, and a new law was introduced placing the "sangha" -- the
monastic orders -- under government regulation. Anyone setting up new
orders or protesting or agitating within this new sangha framework could
now be jailed for up to three years.

The military could have risked closing down the monasteries altogether,
but not only are the generals frightened and superstitious, but they also
use certain elements of Buddhist philosophy to justify and strengthen
their position. One is "samsara," a complex idea involving the interplay
of the mind and physical matter and the cycles of existence; it has come
to mean a view of life as fleeting and thus not worth complaining about.
Everything is impermanent and life is hard, so feeling powerless is not a
consequence of a political situation, which can be changed, but an
existential fact.

Another element abused by the military is "dana," the act of giving
without expecting a reward. When accused of using forced labor to build
infrastructure and pagodas, the generals have said the unpaid workers are
simply practicing dana.

Since she returned to Burma in 1988, Aung San Suu Kyi has become a far
more devout Buddhist than she was before. Many of her imprisoned
supporters practice Buddhist meditation as a means of surviving Burma's
jails. The monks, of course, know this just as well as they know the true
natures of the generals who offer them tributes. Choosing between the two
has put them in the center of the fight for Burma's future.

Mr. Delves Broughton is a writer who lives in New York.