The Orbis

Issue date: 10/2/07 Section: News/Features

Myanmar's Buddhist monks have become central activists in the recent surge in resistance to the military junta.

Southeast Asian nation Myanmar, also known as Burma, is the latest example of a nation's people rising together to fight governmental tyranny and oppression. September's display of protests, led by thousands of Buddhist monks, are strong signs of revolutionary tendencies to overthrow the military junta that has controlled this nation-state for over four decades.

The pro-democracy movement has been alive in Burma for quite some time, but the military's ruthless suppression of its own people and the spread of ideas has limited the influence of democratic principles.

In the early 1990s it looked as if Myanmar achieved the hopes of its people. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of Aung San, the revolutionary hero during Burma's break from British imperial rule, won the democratic parliamentary elections to become prime minister, a true watershed moment for this impoverished nation. But, almost as swift as the victory for the democratic movement came the nullification of its ruling mandate and the re-institutionalization of the military coup. The military refused to recognize her as its leader and placed her under house arrest.

A dramatic turn of events occurred this past August. A decision by the military government to sharply raise fuel prices led to rounds of street protests in the capital, Yangon. The situation turned very serious when large numbers of the nation's Buddhist monks, widely revered, joined the resistance.

Some of the monks have chanted "Release Suu Kyi" as they have demonstrated in the streets. On Sept. 23 over 100,000 joined in processions led by monks, according to an estimate by The Associated Press, about 500 of the monks marched to the gate of Suu Kyi's home where she greeted them, the first time she had been seen in public for four years. The government responded the next day by warning senior Buddhist clerics of a crackdown if the monks were not reined in.

Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, remains a martyr and rallying symbol for the population. It is precisely this aspect that fuels and strengthens the possibility for a successful popular uprising.

Even in detention, with her words virtually silenced, she is still the symbol for consciousness, egalitarianism, and nonviolent resistance. Like Gandhi and Mandela before her, she has suffered greatly, but her calls for democracy have not gone unheard. In one of her landmark speeches entitled "Freedom from Fear" she notes, "It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it."

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools