*By Adam Fefer
Time Period: 2007
Location: Myanmar
Main Actors: Buddhist monks, All Burma Monks Alliance (ABMA)
Tactics
– Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
– Slogans, caricatures, and symbols
– Assemblies of protest or support
– Interdict and Minor Excommunication
Myanmar (Burma) has been formally ruled by military autocrats from 1962-2011 and since 2021, although the military has wielded sweeping informal powers since independence in 1948. The junta governments have acted with extreme brutality, employing forced labor, raping, and torturing civilians, destroying thousands of villages (especially in areas populated by ethnic minorities), displacing millions, and conscripting tens of thousands of child soldiers. Elections have been either rigged in the military’s favor or not permitted, owing to the need for stability and economic growth, which democracy would allegedly disrupt.
Buddhist monks have been a crucial pillar of support and legitimacy for the military regimes. Around 90% of Myanmar’s 55 million residents are Buddhist and the country is home to nearly 400,000 monks. Buddhist schools educate huge numbers of Burmese youths, which has effectively subsidized the junta to allocate its resources toward national defense. One of the most important ways that Burmese monks have legitimated the regime is by allowing military leaders to “make merit.” This entails monks performing rituals on behalf of or accepting donations (or “alms”) from the military; merit-making thus endows military leaders with good karma and demonstrates to the people that they are ruled in accordance with Buddhist principles. In exchange for monks’ compliance, the military has publicly promoted Buddhist rituals, built temples and relics, and empowered monks on state bodies charged with regulating public religion.
In August 2008, a number of small and isolated protests broke out in response to economic hardships, especially increases in the cost of living and price of government-controlled gas. State police responded by harassing and arresting protesters. By September, an increasing number of monks had joined in the protests, later termed the “Saffron Revolution” in reference to monks’ orange robes. Many of these monks were attacked by police. In response, other monks began protesting, demanding an apology from the state and boycotting its merit-making activities with the junta—crucial acts of defection. A group of monks formed the All Burma Monks Alliance (ABMA) to coordinate protests across Myanmar.
By late September 2008, some monastic leaders had broadened their demands, calling for democracy and an outright end to military rule. An ABMA statement called the junta the “enemy of all our citizens” and vowed to “banish [it]…from Burmese soil forever.” Monks met with Myanmar’s most prominent opposition leader, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who was under house arrest. By this point, the protests had swelled to hundreds of thousands. During the protests, many monks held their “alms bowls” upside down, an act of huge symbolic importance: the monks signified that the regime’s donations were essentially unclean and ill-intentioned, rendering regime elites deserving of excommunication.
Burmese security forces responded to the protests with large-scale crackdowns and a concerted propaganda campaign. Police shot at protesters and raided monasteries, arresting and even torturing monks. Protesters and monks were deemed terrorists and foreign agents. Thousands of Burmese people were killed during the Saffron Revolution, over one thousand monks were arrested, and many others fled the country.
Protesters could not ultimately coordinate so as to match the junta’s power. Meanwhile, monastic leaders disagreed amongst themselves regarding whether the junta should merely reform or resign altogether. But despite these immediate disappointments, Myanmar’s 2007 protests helped pave the way toward democratic reforms beginning in 2011. These included the release of political prisoners and the military’s engagement in dialogue with opposition politicians.
Although Burmese monks’ defections in 2007 were quite brave, it should be noted that they have not been uniformly democratic actors. Indeed, especially in the post-2011 period, conservative monastic groups (e.g., the 969 Movement and Patriotic Association of Myanmar [MaBaTha]) have advocated illiberal, anti-Muslim laws. These have restricted conversions from Buddhism, required parental consent for young Buddhist women to marry non-Buddhist men, and required 1.5-year intervals between childbirths. International organizations have denounced these laws—aimed at limiting the growth of Islam, Muslim families, and inter-religious marriages—as human rights violations. Illiberal monastic groups have ultimately supported continued rule by military elites if it means continued monastic power and Muslim marginalization.
How can we explain the monks’ defections during the Saffron Revolution? One explanation relates to group interests and solidarities: many monks joined the protests after their colleagues suffered at the hands of security forces. Protests were seen as a means of countering this unacceptable precedent. A second explanation is that monks were outraged about the suffering of their laity. Note that this second explanation does not require that monks view ordinary Burmese people as entitled to wield democratic powers over rulers or monks (Jerryson 2018). Rather, the military may have been seen as acting unjustly in its departure from the status quo, namely an authoritarian alliance between rulers and monks.
Democracy organizers in the US can learn much from the example set by Burmese monks. For one, monks showcased the importance of mobilizing via not merely religious language but religious action. This included marching with upside down alms bowls and the refusal to engage in merit-making with the junta. US democracy will similarly benefit when its religious leaders not only make statements but act so as to resist authoritarian leaders. A second lesson concerns the importance of religious leaders standing with one another in the face of authoritarianism. Many monks joined the Saffron Revolution precisely because their colleagues were being harmed. The US’s religious landscape is considerably more fractured than Burmese Theravada Buddhism, but a powerful message is sent when, e.g., Catholics stand with Protestants, Baptists with Methodists, Christians with Muslims, etc., in support of democracy. Finally, the Burmese case brings into focus a dilemma for democracy organizers, namely that successful coalitions may not necessarily be composed of those who support expansive democratic change. We saw above that many Burmese monks may not uniformly believe that every Burmese citizen deserves broad democratic freedoms. Nevertheless, these kinds of coalition partners may be crucial in the early stages of struggles for democratic change.
Where to Learn More
– Human Rights Watch. (2007). Repression of the 2007 Popular Protests in Burma.
– International Crisis Group. (2008). Burma/Myanmar: After the Crackdown.
– Jerryson, M. (2018). If you meet the Buddha on the road: Buddhism, politics, and violence. Oxford University Press.
– Selth, A. (2008). Burma’s ‘saffron revolution’ and the limits of international influence. Australian Journal of International Affairs, 62(3), 281-297.
– Rogers, B. (2008). The saffron revolution: The role of religion in Burma’s movement for peace and democracy.Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 9(1), 115-118.
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