A plan is beneath method for Min Aung Hlaing, head of Myanmar’s army and chief of final yr’s coup, to construct the largest sculpture of a sitting Buddha on this planet – a part of his try to forge a legacy as a protector of Buddhism.
However, within the final yr, troopers immediately beneath his command have killed practically 1,500 individuals in a crackdown on the army’s opponents that violates Buddhism’s first and most vital precept: to abstain from killing.
”Their Buddhism is a pretend present, they don’t should be known as Buddhists. We don’t kill different individuals. What they’re doing proper now’s all reverse of Buddhism,” stated Agga Wantha, a 30-year-old monk from Mandalay who has been main protests towards the coup.
“They’re simply saying that they’re Buddhist however they’re doing this simply to come up with the nation.”
Min Aung Hlaing has turned to strategies used previously to try to declare some sort of legitimacy on this 90-percent Buddhist nation that has been beneath army management for a lot of the previous 60 years.
That has meant alliances with high-profile monks and common reminders of the high-ranking officers’ devotion to the Buddha, regardless of a unbroken marketing campaign of violence.
Obeisance, alms and scorched earth
In late October, the army initiated a scorched-earth marketing campaign in Thantlang, in northwestern Chin State, destroying tons of of buildings and forcing hundreds to flee their properties.
Days later, Min Aung Hlaing visited a number of monasteries in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-biggest metropolis, making obeisance and giving alms. Among the many monks he met was Bhamo Sayadaw, chairperson of the State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee, a government-appointed physique of high-level monks that oversees Buddhism and the clergy in Myanmar.
Navy management visits to high-profile monks are revealed nearly every day within the state-run media as a part of the general public relations effort. A report from the USA Institute of Peace final month confirmed that public shows of army help for Buddhism elevated nearly four-fold after the coup.
“The military has been very intelligent about utilizing faith as their promoting level. For those who’re a monk within the society you have got absolutely the respect of the inhabitants. For this reason the army needs to make use of them as a result of it’s a very efficient software for them to control society,” stated Sai Thet Naing Oo, Myanmar nation consultant on the Pyidaungsu Institute for Peace and Dialogue, which works to deliver collectively completely different political voices in Myanmar.
“So regardless that there are lots of different issues he may very well be doing, Min Aung Hlaing all the time takes time to go to the favored monks.”
‘Nearly everyone hates them’
The army has confronted appreciable opposition because it deposed civilian chief Aung San Suu Kyi and her get together, the Nationwide League for Democracy (NLD), in a coup it claimed was obligatory due to fraud within the November 2020 elections.
A powerful resistance motion emerged nearly instantly, with demonstrations and a mass motion of civil disobedience resulting in the event of a decentralised community of armed teams, often called the Folks’s Defence Drive (PDF), that’s now in common battle with army troops throughout the nation.
The worldwide group has additionally condemned the regime with the USA and the European Union imposing sanctions towards a number of army leaders and military-owned companies. On the United Nations, the nation continues to be represented by the ambassador appointed by the NLD authorities.
With overwhelming resistance at house and a scarcity of help internationally, the army is determined for any help it may possibly get, in response to Richard Horsey, Myanmar adviser on the Worldwide Disaster Group.
In early September, army authorities introduced that that they had launched Ashin Wirathu, a monk identified for his Buddhist nationalist views, particularly his bigoted stance towards Muslims.
Horsey says that whereas the army has maintained a ways from Wirathu and has not but absolutely “thrown itself one hundred pc behind the Buddhist nationalist agenda”, they need to hold the hardline factions available.
“They don’t have many associates. They’re trying to hold or acquire no matter associates they will in a context the place nearly everyone hates them,” Horsey informed Al Jazeera.
“Clearly Buddhist nationalism is without doubt one of the playing cards they will play, one of many constituents they will attain out to, and it’s definitely one thing they’ve been sending alerts about, regardless that they haven’t absolutely adopted via on that but.”
The army’s efforts to make use of Buddhism and Buddhist nationalism as a legitimising tactic have additionally prolonged internationally.
When Min Aung Hlaing’s second-in-command, Normal Soe Win, visited Russia in September to supervise an arms deal, he was accompanied by Sitagu Sayadaw, one other controversial monk identified for holding hardline views. Horsey explains that a part of this determination was in all probability a “credibility difficulty” and that travelling with a monk “reveals that you’ve some kind of spiritual backing”.
Sitagu, who’s a regime favorite, was one of many main monastic voices throughout the 2017 “clearance operations” by which hundreds of principally Muslim Rohingya have been killed and tons of of hundreds fled into neighbouring Bangladesh. Sitagu defended the army’s actions, saying that “non-Buddhists are usually not human so killing them is justified.” The Rohingya crackdown is now the topic of a genocide investigation.
Whereas the army will not be embracing Buddhist nationalism in its entirety, it does appear to have resumed its outdated technique of focusing its assaults on the elements of the nation with massive non-Buddhist populations.
“You see extra of the armed battle nowadays taking place in majority non-Buddhist areas. They [the military] don’t say that they’re attacking a bunch of individuals from a distinct faith, however you’ll be able to see who they’re focusing on. They let their actions converse for them,” Sai Oo informed Al Jazeera, referring to current assaults in Chin, which is 85 % Christian and Kayah, house to the nation’s largest group of Roman Catholics.
Spiritual discrimination
The army has additionally used Buddhism in its makes an attempt to tarnish the legitimacy of its opposition, launching smear campaigns towards the quickly rising resistance motion and its detained leaders.
Articles revealed in state-run media accuse PDF fighters of murdering monks, claiming that “terrorist teams deliberately kill the monks of Buddhism as the religion professed by the nice majority of the residents.”
Earlier than the coup, the army additionally portrayed Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD as “insufficiently supportive of Buddhism” to discourage help from the clergy by sparking concern that the civilian authorities was overly liberal and secular, in response to Horsey.
This line of assault has continued for the reason that coup. In a speech in August, Min Aung Hlaing stated that “Buddha devotees have been disheartened of their religion in Buddhism throughout the earlier 5 years”, referring to the interval by which the NLD authorities was in workplace.
However this propaganda, whereas embraced by some inside the monastic group, particularly its extra hardline members, presents a really completely different image to the expertise of non secular minorities in Myanmar.
Salai Za Uk Ling, who serves because the deputy govt director of the Chin Human Rights Group, a rights-based group representing the Christian-majority Chin inhabitants, says that even when Aung San Suu Kyi was in workplace, Buddhism was a dominating drive in politics.
“Christianity is regarded as a international faith in [Myanmar] and Christians have been handled like second-class residents. Below the civilian authorities we noticed nearly nothing change when it comes to insurance policies – the coverage manifested in a extra refined method, however there was no actual, severe efforts to handle the basis causes of discrimination towards spiritual minorities,” stated Za Uk.
“And what we’re seeing now beneath the present army junta is simply the continuation of this lengthy coverage.”
Nonetheless, regardless of the NLD’s comparable stance on Buddhism, the army’s marketing campaign towards Aung San Suu Kyi and now the resistance motion does seem to have had some affect.
Throughout earlier durations of political unrest, monks have been typically on the forefront of the protests. In 2007, the “Saffron Revolution“, named for the color of the monks’ robes, erupted in response to a rise in gas costs and for greater than a month hundreds of monks flooded the streets all throughout the nation.
However monk and protest chief Agga Wantha says that monks’ lack of visibility within the anti-coup motion just isn’t as a result of the clergy helps the army. Quite, he says, many monks haven’t been capable of take part brazenly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the involvement of those that have is being overshadowed by the high-profile monks who’ve aligned themselves with the army.
“For the reason that army coup, Min Aung Hlaing has bribed and gained favours for monks to be on his aspect however we don’t want civilians to suppose that we aren’t supporting the [protest movement]. We, as monks, additionally don’t agree with the army taking up the nation,” stated Agga Wantha.
But, because the army leans on faith and its alliances with the clergy to strengthen its grip on energy, the army is popping on others inside Myanmar’s Buddhist group who’re making it more and more clear that they won’t help the exploitation of their faith by a regime that kills its personal individuals.
“We’re affected by their ruling too. If we encounter them on the road, they shoot at us and, if we’re unlucky, we get arrested too,” stated Agga Wantha. “This isn’t what we do as Buddhists so we’ll proceed to protest.”