Don't Be Messin' With The Monks!

Evidently the junta which has been running Burma (or, if you really insist, Myanmar) must have read the Thoughts of Chairman Mao. It's equally evident that these thugs in uniform have never acquainted themselves with the recent history of Southeast Asia.

The Geek is certain that the Burmese junta must have the (in)famous dictum of Mao's, "All power comes from the barrel of a gun," emblazoned on their office walls. Of course, this particular thought from the Great Helmsman has only limited utility.

It served to gain the junta power nineteen years ago when the army repressed street demonstrations in a hail of bullets and a flood of blood.

Now they are hoping it will work again.

Just as their diplomatic supporters, the Peoples' Republic of China, did back in 1989 after the demonstrators in Beijing got too uppity, the junta trucked in troops from the hinterlands to the capital. The Burmese soldiers were drawn primarily from the hills where one of the planet's longest running insurgencies is still in progress. Just like the Chinese peasant soldiers brought in from the far marches of the Middle Kingdom who were both unaware of the causes of the demonstration and disinclined to support them, these Burmese troops do not have any particular sense of identity with the people they are ordered to shoot.

The approach worked in China. The "Pro-Democracy" demonstrations disappeared in the night and the fog of blood.

The soldiers shot yesterday in Rangoon (or if you really, really insist, Yangon). Low body count results, less than a dozen killed. Not even up to the butcher's bill presented by the average suicide bomber.

Actually, the shooting of protesters is less important by far than what had happened a few hours earlier. In a series of cliched "pre-dawn raids" the army invaded a pair of Buddhist temple and monastery complexes. Scores of monks were hauled off in military trucks.

Here is where the pistol packing junta overlooked the recent history of Southeast Asia. Time to get a grip on it, the grip the junta lacks.

First, a couple of matters of context. Buddhist monks enjoy great prestige in Burma as in other countries of the region.

This fact is underscored by the fact that the protests in Burma only took on force and numbers as the monks became involved, culminating in nearly 100,000 citizens marching behind a phalanx of rust red robed monks.

It is important to note that contrary to the popular American view of Buddhism and Buddhist clerics as being otherworldly and detached from the realities of political or social concerns, in actuality Buddhist monks and other prelates can be and have been extremely focused on changing repressive regimes.

Forty plus years ago the classic case of the power of Buddhist protest occurred in South Vietnam. The regime of "our man in Saigon," President Ngo Dinh Diem and his secret police chief brother, Nhu, was, to put it as charitably as possible, repressive. One or another of Diem's or Nhu's lame-brained schemes hacked off enough South Vietnamese to reach a critical mass.

Demonstrations occurred in major cities including Hue and the capitol, Saigon.

At first the security forces left the streets to the demonstrators. The demonstrations continued. Grew slowly in size. No surprise there.

Then the Buddhist monks joined in with protests of their own. (In many US media of the day this was portrayed as a religious dispute between the Buddhists and the Catholics Diem and Nhu. Talk about the out-to-lunch bunch!)

Nhu's police and South Vietnamese Army units under the command of Catholic refugees from North Vietnam responded with force. Heads were cracked. Bullets met rocks. Blood stained the pavement.

Next the troops and cops raided the monasteries and temples.

Then came the move that changed South Vietnamese (and American) politics and history.

The new move has a nice, sanitary name: self-immolation.

A monk (or nun, Buddhism does not impose gender discrimination in this act) shows supreme commitment to the cause of political reform or regime change by committing suicide publicly and painfully.

The individual, accompanied by fellow clerics and after proper ritual, proceeds to a public place.

Next, the individual sits in a lotus position, pours gasoline over his/her head. Lights a match.

Burns to death.

Without a twitch or tremor, without a grimace of pain, burns until the half-consumed corpse collapses through its wreath of flame. A wilted lotus.

Back then there were no videophones, no satellite television relays, no Internet. It took hours for grainy black and white photographs to make it to the US media.

Even though the images were far from real-time, their emotional impact was awesome. The picture of a calm, composed human being, sitting cross-legged as the flames licked at the face,
shocked and repelled the American public. Protests flooded Washington. The flood reached Biblical proportions after Madam Nhu, wife of the secret police chief, made a comment on an American TV show while here on a good-will visit.

Her comment?

She referred to the self-immolations. (There had been several in the preceding days.) Madam Nhu called them, "Buddhist barbecues."

The feces hit the fan. President Kennedy halted US military shipments. That wasn't enough.

The Saigon regime kept on repressing. Harder and harder.

The Buddhists responded with more self-immolations.

The American public put more pressure on the White House and Congress.

Finally Kennedy made a most fateful decision. He instructed the new US Ambassador to South Vietnam to cooperate with one or another of the several coup plotting groups in the country. The outcome was a successful coup against Diem and the deaths of Diem and Nhu.

Another result was the further disintegration of South Vietnam with an increase in the success of the Viet Cong insurgents. (And, of course, the decisions which led to the US troop commitment.)

There is a lesson here. It is most appropriate to the Burmese junta. But, we should learn it as well.

The lesson is simple.

True, history never repeats itself. Burma today is not at all like South Vietnam in 1963. The world is not at all the same.

Still, the lesson is compelling. When Buddhist monks decide that regime change is a moral imperative, they are willing to die for that decision.

They may not be willing to kill for it. But, they are willing to die.

Get a grip on this. There are times and places where the power to die far outweighs the power of the gun to kill.

Burma is one of those places. Now could be one of those times.