PAPER FOR PARLIAMENT OF THE WORLD’S RELIGIONS: ‘SECULARISM
AND VIOLENCE IN THE BUDDHIST STATE: THE CASES OF THAILAND
AND MYANMAR’, 7 DECEMBER 2009
1
SECULARISM AND VIOLENCE IN THE BUDDHIST STATE: THE CASES OF
THAILAND AND MYANMAR
*Helen James
Abstract:
The term, ‘post-secular society’ would be almost inexplicable to citizens of Thailand
(Siam) and Myanmar (Burma) because the concept of a ‘secular’ society itself would be
inconsistent with socio-cultural norms, despite the rampant consumerism which pervades
the one and the endemic poverty the other. Far from being ‘secular’ societies, defined as
those in which religion has a subordinate or minimal role in public life and is divorced
from the policy-making centres of power, the contemporary states of Thailand and
Myanmar have established their national identities on the cornerstone of Buddhism. In
official parlance, to be Thai or Burmese is to be Buddhist. This exclusionary formula is
pursued despite each of these two nation states giving official support to the international
mantra, ‘freedom of religion’, and each of them having substantial minorities who follow
the Muslim, Christian, Hindu or other faiths. Religion is so tightly interwoven with
political life in these two countries that one might ask whether it is possible that they
could be conceived as religio-political societies in the manner of the pre-Reformation
Italian city states. This paper explores the integral relationship between religion and
public political society in contemporary Thailand and Myanmar in the context of
Buddhism’s philosophy of non-violence, its reification of ahimsa (non-violence, nonharm), and commitment to atman (selflessness) and moksha (non-attachment to
materiality) as essential values for transforming socio-political relations.
INTRODUCTION
Both Thailand/Siam and Myanmar/Burma are Theravada Buddhist countries in which
over 92 per cent of the population nominates as being Buddhist. Although both purport
to be ‘secular’ states, without an ‘official’ religion, Buddhism has such a central,
controlling, integrating and structuring role in their societies that it is a de-facto official
religion. Sulak Sivaraksa, the noted Thai Buddhist social critic and political scientist,
refers to Buddhism with a capital ‘B’ to distinguish from Buddhism with a small ‘b’ in
both countries. He considers the former to be a debased form of state-centred religion
2
characterized by mutually beneficial and close relationships between the upper strata of
the Buddhist Sangha and the ruling elite, thus providing them with legitimation; 1 the
latter the form following what he considers the true precepts of The Lord Buddha which
Khun Sulak finds inheres to the traditional, agriculture-centred village lifestyle
predominant in rural areas. 2 In an address at the University of Helsinki in 1992 after
being pursued by the military government of General Suchinda Kraprayoon for his
challenge to the military coup of February 1991, Khun Sulak, founder of the International
Network of Socially Engaged Buddhists, proclaimed:
My country [is] one of the only Buddhist kingdoms left in the world. Burma is supposed to
be a Buddhist country, as well as Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Laos, not to mention China, Japan,
and Korea which used to be Buddhist countries. What is wrong with it? The difference is
between Buddhism with a capital “B” and Buddhism with a small “b”. It is the same as
Christianity with a capital “C” and Christianity with a small “c”. The same goes for Islam
with a capital “I” and Islam with a small “i”. The original teaching of Christ, the Buddha,
or Mohammed were for love, compassion and sacrifice. You must be willing to turn the other
cheek to those who torment and persecute you. When it becomes an institution,
however, the church and state develop into something strong. You identify yourself with that
religion. You identify with your nation. It becomes chauvinistic and exploitative. Sometimes
it becomes capitalistic. …
Religion can be both oppressive and liberative. When it becomes oppressive, it identifies with
certain groups, cliques, and certain elements in the name of nationalism, in the name of
development, and in the name of whatever it is. …
Buddhism teaches that we are interrelated. We care for the suffering. We want to change the
world in a very meaningful way. But first we must change ourselves to be peaceful and
nonviolent…We are all fellow sufferers and all interrelated to each other. 3
Author of over 100 books and articles who established the Social Science Review and
founded numerous NGOs to improve the livelihoods of impoverished people, Khun Sulak
1
Bardwell Smith, (1978) Religion and Legitimation of Power in Thailand, Laos, and Burma,
(Chambersburg, PA: ANIMA Books) explores the ritual bases of Buddhism in legitimating traditional
rulers in mainland Southeast Asia.
2
See Niels Mulder, (1994) Inside Thai Society: an interpretation of everyday life, 4th ed. (Bangkok: Duang
Kamol Books) and William Klausner (1994) Reflections on Thai Culture: Collected Writings of William J
Klausner, 4th ed. (Bangkok: Siam Society) for detailed analyses of the Thai Buddhist spirit world and
social frameworks in the Thai agricultural village sector.
3
Sulak Sivaraksa, (1993) When Loyalty Demands Dissent, (Bangkok: Sathirakoses-Nagapradipa
Foundation), p. 257.
3
was a Nobel Peace Prize nominee in 1992. He is a committed proponent of the
philosophies of non-violence, a trenchant critic of all forms of human rights abuses and
avowed antagonist of military intervention in the governance of public life. Over the past
30 years his writings and speeches on these themes have established the central place of
the sacred in Buddhist public life. As signalled by his International Network of Engaged
Buddhists (INET), he views Buddhism not as a religion which retreats from the very real
problems of contemporary societies, but one which engages with the important public
issues to seek to offer practicable solutions which are consistent with the basic
philosophical precepts of Buddhism – ahimsa, the principle of non-harm, non-violence;
atman, the principle of selflessness; moksha, the principle of non-attachment to
materiality. Most of the problems of modern society, Khun Sulak considers, evolve from
the propensity of human beings to act contrary to these principles.
Despite the official appropriation of the ‘secular’ Western concept known as
‘Separation of Church and State,’ all public life, political society and socio-economic
policy in Thailand/Siam and Myanmar/Burma have been centred on the integrating
dynamics of being a practicing Buddhist. Thus the term, ‘post-secular society’ would be
almost inexplicable to citizens of Thailand (Siam) and Myanmar (Burma) because the
concept of a ‘secular’ society itself in the Western sense, is inconsistent with sociocultural norms, despite the rampant consumerism which pervades the one and the
endemic poverty the other. Buddhism in Thailand and Myanmar is a publicly expressed
affirmation of faith; it is not consigned to the private sphere. Every Buddhist home in
Thailand and Myanmar has its spirit house or Buddhist shrine; many of the old homes in
Yangon and Mandalay still have their traditional water cisterns outside the front gate
4
where itinerant monks or weary travelers can slake their thirst. When a young man enters
the monkhood, or kathin robes are presented to monks, the public ceremonies and rituals
participated in by the community are an integral part of being Buddhist. Far from being
‘secular’ societies, defined as those in which religion has a subordinate or minimal role in
public life and is divorced from the policy-making centres of power, the contemporary
states of Thailand and Myanmar have established their national identities on the
cornerstone of Buddhism. 4 In official parlance, to be Thai or Burmese is to be Buddhist,
at least, under Buddhism with a capital ‘B.’ Religion is so tightly interwoven with
political life in these two countries that it is possible to ask whether they could be
conceived as religio-political societies, perhaps in the manner of the pre-Reformation
Italian city states, exhibiting what Peter Berger has called ‘caesaro-papism’, a sociopolitical structure in which the religious sector is absorbed by, and subordinate to, the
state, 5 not separate from, but grafted onto the body politic like the rib of Adam.
BUDDHISM AND STATE VIOLENCE
The central, integrating principle of Buddhism in Thai society proceeds initially
from the Three Pillars – Chat (State), Sangha (the Buddhist Establishment) and
Phramahakasat (the Monarchy) – which all Thai citizens are expected to uphold with
unswerving devotion. Like the English Monarch, the Thai Monarch is Defender of the
4
For detailed analysis of the interactions of various Buddhist sects with the state in Burma/Myanmar see
Melford. Spiro (1982) Buddhism and Society: a great tradition and its Burmese vicissitudes, (Berkeley:
University of California Press). The resistance role of Buddhist monks in challenging the military state
since 1988 is set out in Gustaaf Houtman, (1999) Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics: Aung San Suu
Kyi and the National League for Democracy, (Tokyo: Institute for the Study of the Languages and Cultures
of Asia and Africa).
5
Peter Berger, (1967) ‘Religious Institutions’, in N. J. Smelser, (ed.) Sociology: An Introduction, (New
York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.), p. 360.
5
Faith and presides over all state-level official Buddhist ceremonies as did the kings of
Siam during the previous Sukhothai and Ayutthaya dynasties. The Three Pillars were
created as official policy under the nationalist, militaristic Prime Minister
Pibulsonggkram (1948-1957) who renamed Siam, Thailand. He formulated the policy
that only a Buddhist could join the civil service, or attend the army or naval academies,
causing a number of non-Buddhists to change their religion. 6
Similarly in Myanmar/Burma, the central, integrating principle of Buddhism is a
cornerstone of the current unitary military state. In an obvious attempt to emulate the
pre-colonial monarchs of Burma, the current head of the Myanmar military government,
Senior General Than Shwe and his junta colleagues participate in public religious
ceremonies with the senior monks of the Burmese Sangha in order to imbibe the
legitimation which such patronage of the Sangha confers. The ceremonies are publicly
televised and recorded in the state-controlled media. Buddhist monks who resist and
challenge the Myanmar military state overtly reject this form of legitimation by upturning
their begging bowls, the bowls in which they receive food, and refuse to accept alms
from military personnel whom they consider to have insulted the Buddhist Sangha
through numerous instances of violence. This happened both during the 1988-1990
period of civil unrest, and during the 2007 so-called ‘Saffron Revolution’ when monks
led protests against the government in Upper Myanmar in Sagaing Province and in
Yangon. By refusing to accept alms, the monks implicitly denied military personnel
access to Buddhist acquisition of spiritual virtue which almsgiving entails.
6
Sulak Sivaraksa, (1993) When Loyalty Demands Dissent, (Bangkok: Sathirakoses-Nagapradipa
Foundation), p. 256.
6
In both countries, there is considerable divergence between the loyalty to the
ruling elite evinced by the senior levels of the Sangha, and the often antagonistic, critical
and resistance stance which permeates the lower echelons of the Buddhist monkhood. In
both countries, monks have a history of challenging state authorities and policies, in the
pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial eras. The protests of the Forest Monk, Phra
Prajak, in Buriram, North-East Thailand, in 1992, and the so-called ‘Saffron Rebellion’ in
Myanmar in September 2007 are only two of the most recent of a long line of such
challenges to state power by the lower echelons of the monkhood in both countries which
have elicited similar punitive responses by the guardians of state unity. Phra Prajak was
imprisoned by the Thai State for leading resistance to illegal logging companies
supported by the Thai military; monks who participated in the Saffron Revolution were
disrobed, often tortured, some were killed, others put on trial and imprisoned, as is U
Gambira at present.
Though Thailand, like Myanmar, has an official policy of subscribing to freedom
of religion in accordance with the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),
both countries at various times have been involved in violent suppression of their
minority religious communities, especially their Muslim communities. Since 1990,
violence between Buddhist and non-Buddhist communities has occurred frequently in
Rakhine and Chin State, and in Sagaing Division in Upper Myanmar, leaving a still
unresolved issue of Muslim state-less refugees in neighbouring Bangladesh. In the Thai
south, renewed insurgency during the premiership of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra
7
(2001-2006), led to extreme human rights abuses and hundreds of deaths. The notion that
such violence would abate once Thaksin was no longer Prime Minister, has proved
fallacious. In what could be construed as part of a pattern of reprisals, on 3 November,
the Bangkok Nation carried the story of the murder of the last Buddhist family in
Narathiwat, a family which had already lost its main breadwinner just 12 months
previously to the state-initiated communal violence. Alternate views in the Thai
governing elite and in the popular press about how to resolve this violence remain
unresolved; one camp advocates continuing to treat the issue in the national security
context with hardline suppression measures, the other advocates a political solution
driven by concerns for justice, a better understanding of the needs and cultural context of
the Thai Muslim communities and their distinctive history. Certainly, hopes for what
Duncan McCargo has called, ‘a more reflexive, more compassionate, and more
imaginative Thai government’ approach following the forced departure of Thaksin
Shinawatra, remain unfulfilled. 7
Both Siam/Thailand and Burma/Myanmar have been the subject of Christian
missionary endeavour for over 400 years, yet in both only a very small percentage of the
population adopted Christianity, despite the educational and medical services the
missionaries brought. 8 In the post-World War II era, a resurgent Buddhist nationalism
saw state-sponsored Buddhist missionizing programs to the ethnic minority communities
as part of a concerted official policy to discourage conversion to Christianity and
7
Duncan McCargo, (2007) Rethinking Thailand’s Southern Violence, (Singapore: NUS Press), p. 173.
George B. McFarland (ed.) (1999) Historical Sketch of Protestant Missions in Siam, 1828-1928, with
Introduction by Herbert Swanson, (Bangkok: White Lotus Press) provides a detailed history of the sociocultural impact of the American Presbyterian mission in Siam, and in particular its significance for the
development of modern educational and medical services.
8
8
encourage the adherence to Buddhism. Under General Ne Win’s military government
(1962-1988), mission operated schools and medical facilities were taken over by the state
as part of his homogenizing programs under the Burmese Way to Socialism. While
Burmese scholars lamented the decline of Buddhist monastic education during the
colonial era and its displacement by the new Anglo-Vernacular schools, they also quickly
saw that General Ne Win’s educational and religious policies were not intended to restore
a central role for monastic education, but to exert tight control over the Sangha in all its
aspects and to subsume it to the priorities of the military government. 9 Since the early
20th century, the state-controlled education system in Siam/Thailand has been one of the
most important means by which the modern Thai State has inculcated loyalty to the Three
Pillars – Chat, Sangha, Phramahakasat – and has sought to circumvent any possibilities
of civil unrest sponsored by a competitive institution. Thus control of the Sangha in both
countries is a concerted State policy to guard against successful challenges to State
authority and legitimacy.
Similarly, in the pre-modern era in both Siam and Burma under their traditional
monarchs, periodic purification of the Sangha was intended to bring the Sangha firmly
under the control of the ruler, a practice which was continued and given legislative basis
under General Sarit in Thailand and General Ne Win in Burma, during the 1960s. In
Burma, during the parliamentary democracy era of the late Prime Minister, U Nu (194858, 1960-62) Burmese Buddhists took to the streets to protest against U Nu’s intention to
declare freedom of religious practice for all the communities in the country. In the face
9
See H. James (2005) Governance and Civil Society in Myanmar: Education, Health and Environment,
(London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon) for a discussion of educational development in
Burma/Myanmar and the role of the missionary endeavour.
9
of religiously based communal violence, U Nu wavered, inclined to declare Buddhism in
Burma the official religion, which displeased the Christian minorities, Muslims and other
religious groups. 10 The resulting civil unrest was a major contributing factor in the
military coup of 2 March 1962 by General Ne Win, who, on seizing power, proceeded to
declare the country officially a ‘secular’ state, a condition re-iterated under the new 2008
Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. But this is simply a unifying
strategy, or more precisely, a strategy to thwart communal tensions. The Western
concept of the titular separation of ‘Church and State’ would have been incomprehensible
to the rulers of both the monarchical states and the modern polities. Such a separation
would be thought to fatally weaken, disunify the polity by depriving the ruler of the
sources of religious affirmation and the Sangha of the patronage of the ruler. Both
‘Church and State’ in pre-modern and modern Thailand/Siam and Myanmar/Burma need
each other. It is not just a symbiotic relationship; it is mutually beneficial. Burmese had
felt bereft when, in 1885 the colonial power, Britain, removed both the head of the
Sangha (Thatanabaing) and the monarch. In the post-colonial era, independence
presaged restoring the Sangha to its central place in Burmese Buddhist cultural, social
and political life. Moreover, if there were any dispute within the Sangha, there was no
doubt that the monarch of the day had the power to settle it, as did both Bodawpaya
(r.1809-1819) in Burma and Mongkut (r.1851-1868) in Siam. Though both institutions,
State and Sangha, were socio-politically superior to others, the institution of the
monarchy, the ruler, was supreme above all others.
10
See Donald E. Smith, (1965) Religion and Politics in Burma, (Princeton: Princeton University Press) for
detailed analysis of the communal violence which destabilized the U Nu government.
10
In both Thailand/Siam and Myanmar/Burma in the modern era, Buddhism has
been closely associated with socio-political violence, either directly or indirectly. In the
colonial era, in Burma, a group of monks attacked a group of Western women in
Mandalay in 1920 because they did not take off their shoes on the platform of a Buddhist
temple, a very serious offense in Buddhism, akin to sacrilege. This became known as the
‘Shoe Question,’ a shorthand way of alluding to the unequal relations between the
Burmese and the colonial administration. It articulated directly into the fermenting
nationalist movement of which, since 1906, the Burmese Buddhist Sangha had become
the nucleus, forming initially the Young Men’s Buddhist Association (YMBA) modeled
on the YMCA, then in 1920 the General Council of Buddhist Associations (GCBA), and
the General Council of Sangha Sametggyis (GCSS). 11 Burmese Buddhist monks, U
Ottama (a close associate of Gandhi) and the martyr U Wizara, stoked the nationalist
movement. Under the guise of fostering the religion, these Burmese Buddhist
Associations actively encouraged the socio-political ideas which would eventually raise
the political consciousness of enough Burmese to form a dedicated independence
movement. Their ideas bore fruit in the tragic 1930-1932 rebellion of a Burmese
Buddhist monk, HSaya San, who with Weberian charisma led his group of peasants in the
forests of Tharrawaddy district against the might of the colonial state to protest taxation
policies. Despite initial successes which required a substantial riposte by the colonial
administration, swords and wooden sticks, and belief in Buddhist amulets and
incantations proved no match for British guns. In 1933, a Burmese judge in the service of
the colonial State, Sir J. A Maung Gyi, pronounced sentence of execution on the former
11
See Helen James, (2004) ‘The Shoe Question’, ‘The GCBA,’ and ‘YMBA’ in K. Ooi, (ed.) Southeast
Asia, an historical encyclopedia from Angkor Wat to East Timor, 3 vols. (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO), pp.
1196, 540, 1906.
11
monk 12 whose uprising partially inspired the nationalistic turmoil which engulfed the
country from 1936 onwards. In 1938, these Buddhist religio-political associations
supported the ‘Year 1300’ revolution/uprising initially against the oil companies to
protest unfair working conditions for Burmese workers, but spreading rapidly to mount a
concerted challenge to the colonial state. 13 The lower echelons of the Buddhist Sangha in
Burma/Myanmar have always been highly politicized, attracting violent ripostes from
both the colonial and post-colonial states. Nevertheless, it is clear, that because of
historical and cultural factors, the Burmese Sangha has taken, and continues to take, a
central integrating role in the public expression of Burmese Buddhist identity, national
spirit, and structuring of the socio-political life. This is often against the State as
elements in the monkhood resist the contemporary State’s assimilative and coercive
policies.
Buddhism in post World War II Siam/Thailand has exhibited similar
characteristics in terms of being a force simultaneously for the public expression of Thai
identity and the coalescence of anti-government resistance movements who challenge the
official narratives of Thai destiny. Though not under the same colonial-originated sociopolitical pressures as Burmese Buddhism, Buddhism in the Thai state has at times
exhibited viparious fissures deriving from various socio-political tensions. Major cases
have involved the Santi Asoke sect whose leader in the early 1990s was subject to
excommunication, causing his one-time follower, Chamlong Srimuang, to distance
himself from the sect; and the Abbot of Wat Thammakai, Phra Dhammachayo, who was
12
Patricia Herbert, (1982) The Hsaya San Rebellion (1930-32) re-appraised, (Monash University: Centre
of South East Asian Studies).
13
Khin Yi, (1988) The Dobama Movement in Burma, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).
12
investigated by the Religious Affairs Department and the State Security Apparatus for
endangering Buddhism ie the official version of Buddhism sanctioned by the Thai State.
Even leading intellectuals and human rights advocates such as Dr Prawase Wasi
concurred with this charge. 14 Another is the imprisonment of the Forest Monk, Phra
Prajak, who ordained trees in the northeast province of Buriram to protect them from
loggers. In all cases the angry voices in the public arena bespoke the distance between
Buddhism with a capital ‘B’ and Buddhism with a small ‘b’, between the official public,
state-led religion and the religion held by people in their hearts. Indeed, Streckfuss and
Templeton go so far as to deny that the Thai State upholds ‘freedom of religion’ as it is
defined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Concerning the above
case of the Abbot of Wat Thammakai, they write:
What is disturbing is that few have spoken out against the treatment of the Thammakai group as a
human rights abuse. A distressingly large number of those generally associated with the defence
of human rights have supported the state’s suppression of Dhammachayo. Leading progressive
human rights activists and NGOs have expressed in private the need for Dhammachayo to be
defrocked. Rather than coming to the defence of the accused, the head of the Law Society of
Thailand has suggested ways to ‘cut out all the red tape’ so that heretical monks could be more
efficiently and quickly defrocked. Such measures, he said, were needed ‘for the sake of the
religion.’ (The Nation, 20 June 1999). Others have suggested that the state should permit
Thammakai followers to believe what they will, but that it should deny them the right to call
themselves Theravada Buddhists. ...Even if Thammakai followers did ‘stop’ being Buddhists and
attempted to set up their own sect, it is uncertain whether the state would permit them to follow
their beliefs. With the …legal proviso that religious practice may not be contrary to ‘civic duties,
public order or good morals,’ and with intolerance of religious diversity among the public, groups
like Thammakai would always risk being denied rights.’ (Streckfuss and Templeton, 2002, 78)
14
David Streckfuss and Mark Templeton, (2002) ‘Human Rights and Political Reform in Thailand,’ in D.
McCargo, Reforming Thai Politics, (Copenhagen: NIAS Press), pp. 73-90, note that ‘The Buddhist
hierarchy described the abbot’s philosophy as ‘heresy’, [he had stated that Nirvana was atta and had form
rather than anatta, formlessness] and the Supreme Sangha Council ordered the abbot to renounce his
teachings in March of 1999. (The Nation, 12 Jan, 19 May, 6 Aug 1999). But the matter did not end with the
Supreme Sangha Council’s proclamation. Emerging in full force was a national security apparatus, which
has been largely undisturbed by all the commotion over political reform and which has been dedicated for
well over half a century to defining and then intimidating and silencing enemies of the state.’ (p.76)
13
Contemporary Issues: Seeking Non-violent Resolutions?
Since late 2006, Thailand has been engulfed by political turmoil arising from the
Bangkok urban elite’s opposition to two elected governments, one led by former Prime
Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, in exile in Cambodia where he was invited by Cambodian
PM Hun Sen to advise on economic matters and to escape imprisonment arising from
corruption charges; and the other by his political heirs, the late former Prime Minister
Samak Sundaravej who died on 24 November 2009; and then his brother-in-law, Prime
Minister Somchai Wongsawat who took over after Samak was forced to step down by the
Constitutional Court. The two opposing groups, the People’s Alliance for Democracy
(PAD) and the People’s Power Party (PPP), successor to Thaksin’s now defunct Thai Rak
Thai (Thais Love Thais) party, both sought to appropriate the three pillars of political
legitimacy in Thailand: the Sangha (Buddhist establishment), the Monarchy and the
State. PAD leaders Chamlong Srimuang and Sondhi Limthongkul and their supporters
wear the royal colour, yellow, proclaim their devotion and loyalty to the Monarchy,
Sangha and the Thai State, and participate in Buddhist ceremonies of merit-making
whilst simultaneously invoking the pursuit of violence in their confrontation with the
government. PPP supporters wear red, and also proclaim their loyalty to the three
pillars. They too pursue violent methods against their opponents. After an audience with
the Monarch, former Prime Minister Somchai was noticeably sporting a yellow tie, as he
bravely sought to conduct government from offices in the former international airport at
Don Muang; PAD protestors had ignominiously driven him and his government from
Government House. When violence erupted on 7 and 29 October 2008 leading to three
14
deaths and many critical injuries, it was a consequence of tensions which had been
building since June when the government of former Prime Minister Samak had sought to
amend the 2007 constitution as a means to absolve Thaksin Shinawatra of corruption
charges. The PAD and PPP have been on a collision course, neither prepared to negotiate
and both seeking to enlist the army to instigate a coup against the other. Wisely, and in
contrast to previous occasions in Thai history, Army Chief General Anupong Paochinda,
declined, telling both to sort out the situation through negotiation and proper
parliamentary processes. In the midst of the turmoil, in early September 2008, a
government spokesperson proclaimed: ‘For goodness sake, don’t get the monks
involved!’ It was acknowledgment of the central place the Buddhist Sangha has in Thai
political and social life; its moral suasion could have tilted the balance of righteousness
towards one side or the other. In recognition of the perilous situation emerging with
potentially disastrous consequences for the Thai State, Khun Sulak, on 30 October 2008
called for both sides to remember their Buddhist training, to end their violence, and
negotiate their differences. ‘You must not hate Thaksin,’ he said, ‘hate only what
Thaksin did.’ 15 For Khun Sulak, hatred is part of the world of illusion which includes
greed, lust and ignorance. Both sides in the confrontation were exhibiting karma-forming
attachment to selfhood, rather than selfless paths to resolution of the impasse.
This is not the first occasion in which the ‘balance of righteousness’ inhering to
the Buddhist Sangha has been imported into the Thai political cauldron. It was
intuitively appropriated by the students during the 1973 uprising. As hundreds of
thousands marched down Rajdamnoen Avenue on that fateful 14 October, they carried
15
Bangkok Nation, 30 October 2008.
15
before them not only portraits of the King and Queen, but also of the Buddhist Patriarch
and Buddhist flags. It did not protect them from the tanks and the helicopter gunships of
Narong Kittikachorn. But when the carnage ceased that day, the sense of a moral order
disrupted and torn asunder was palpable. Both the military and the dictators, Thanom
Kittikachorn and Prapass Charusatien, had lost all moral authority. At the King’s behest,
they went into exile. Thanom’s return in 1976, to adopt the robes of a Buddhist monk
and take up residence at the royal temple, Wat Bowornives, precipitated the next eruption
of violence on 6 October 1976. The public transformational power of the Sangha was
evident. As a monk, no longer a dictator, Thanom enjoyed the high status and privileges
of the Buddhist Sangha. The King went to pay respect to him, a momentous event of
which the student, labour and farmer demonstrators took insufficient cognizance. The
image of the revered Monarch paying his respects to Thanom the monk at the royal
temple, a very carefully orchestrated event, negotiated in minute detail prior to Thanom’s
return, should have given the student demonstrators cause to pause; to reflect on changed
circumstances and the symbolic import of the occasion.
The central sanctity of Buddhism in Thai public life also informed the tragic
course of the 26 March 1977 coup by General Chalard Hiranyasiri, the ninth since the 24
June 1932 putsch by a group of military officers and civilian intellectuals ushered in the
constitutional monarchy. Prior to the violent events of the 1973-1977 era, coups rarely
resulted in casualties. Usually they brought a change in the top echelons of power while
the populace went on with their ordinary lives. In the 1980s, abortive coups in 1981 and
1985 (in which Neil Davis, the Australian cameraman was killed) by the Young Turks,
16
led to terms of imprisonment or demotions for those involved, but not to capital
punishment. However, General Chalard suffered public execution by firing squad;
moreover, the event was televised on state television, intended to impress the heinous
nature of his crime. His punishment was not just because of his challenge to state
authority, at that time the extreme right-wing government of Thanin Kraivichien which
itself had come to power as a result of a coup against the elected government of M. R.
Seni Pramoj, and was implicated in the violent deaths of hundreds of students at
Thammasat University on 6 October 1976. Rather, General Chalard’s fate was sealed
when he shot to death a fellow officer on a Buddhist altar. It was not even the murder
which was the primary cause of his punishment; it was the sacrilege involved in
committing the foul deed on the altar, desecrating the altar with his violent act. Few
today ever hear of General Chalard. His actions have been buried in the silence of the
traumatic past which Thais apply to those memories it is not considered rieb roy – proper
– to explicate. The violence which characterizes such memories is painfully inconsistent
with the received Thai sociological narrative of a unified and peaceful democratic polity.
But it is the massacre of students at Thammasat University on 6 October 1976
which catalyzes the integral relationship between Buddhism and violence in Thailand.
Demonizing the students as communists, a Buddhist monk, Kittiwutto Bhikku, instigated
the attack by right-wing elements of the Red Gaurs, the Nawaphon and the Border Patrol
Police. Public tensions had been running high over the previous 12 months owing to
constant demonstrations by farmers, labourers and students, and the communist victory in
Indo-China. In neighbouring Cambodia, the spectacle of murders of Buddhist monks
17
following the Khmer Rouge victory in April 1975 added to the context in which any
violence against perceived enemies of the religion was considered justified. Thongchai
Winichakul, academic and former student activist, has accurately described the horror:
Outside the university, after the besieging forces had stormed into the campus, they dragged some
students out. Lynching began. Two were tortured, hanged and beaten even after death on the trees
encircling Sanam Luang (or Phramen Ground)…A female student, chased until she fell to the
ground, was sexually assaulted and tortured until she died. On the street in front of the Ministry of
Justice, on the other side of Sanam Luang opposite Thammasat, three bodies, alive but
unconscious, were piled up with tyres, soaked with petrol, then set alight. These brutal murders
took place as a public spectacle. Many of the onlookers, including young boys, clapped their
hands with joy.’ (Thongchai: 2002: 243)
Thongchai has argued that Thais cover such public trauma with silence, with a refusal to
commemorate events such as 6 October 1976 because they ill suit the official identity
narrative that Thais have of themselves as peaceable people; hence the event is not
commemorated or acknowledged as are other events in the democratic narrative.
Referring to the massacre, Thongchai states: ‘It can only be described as a state crime
against its own people.’ 16 In that highly charged atmosphere, no limits were set or
acknowledged to the extent of the violence which could be perpetrated. Hence the Thai
democratic narrative is often regarded as commencing in May 1992 so that the public
memory of the 1973-1977 era remains submerged.
16
Thongchai Winichakul, (2002) ‘Remembering/Silencing the Traumatic Past’, in Shigeharu Tanabe and
Charles F. Keyes (eds) Cultural Crisis and Social Memory: Modernity and Identity in Thailand and Laos,
(London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon), p. 263 Thongchai’s description (p.243)of the atrocities on 6
October and the incident on 5 October which was the pretext for the assault on the university - the hanging
of the straw effigy at the tree in front of the Liberal Arts Faculty which the rightist newspaper, Dao Sayam,
alleged was intended to represent the Crown Prince - is accurate. I was standing on the verandah of the
Faculty on the afternoon of 5 October 1976 with the then Dean and witnessed the event. It did not strike
me, or the Dean, that the straw figure represented anybody. The carnage started at 5:30am on 6 October as
rockets slammed into the crowd of around 5,000 students who had gathered on the playing field in front of
the Law Faculty to protest the return of the former dictator, Thanom Kittikachorn. I can testify that on 6
October bazookas were also used. At the end of the day, the buildings surrounding the oval were devastated
by the shells which struck them.
18
This failure to deal with the consequences of State-led violence may be one of the
fundamental reasons for the recurrent cycles of violence in Thai socio-political public
life. As the PAD and their opponents the PPP (or Democratic Alliance against
Dictatorship, DAAD, as the pro-government group now styles itself) engage in a
flamingo dance, constantly circling each other to see if the other will resile from public
positions taken, each rejects the need to negotiate to achieve a non-violent resolution. If
one accepts John Keane’s prescription that democracy and violence are inimical 17 , real
democracy in Thailand seems as difficult to realize as in neighbouring Myanmar. In
Khun Sulak’s words, proponents of violence in both countries ‘have to learn that what is
right is might, and that might never becomes right.’ (Sivaraksa 1993: 47)
CONCLUSION
In this paper I have sought to draw out the linkages between religion and politics in
Thailand/Siam and Myanmar/Burma. I have highlighted the distressing coalescence in
each of these Theravada Buddhist countries between state-led violence and official
Buddhism. This paper raises the question whether this coalescence is a consequence of
the absorption of the upper levels of the Buddhist Sangha and their appropriation by the
unitary State to its policy ends expressed in terms of social control, identity integration,
and structural delineation of the society. It asks whether the socio-cultural emphasis on
the Buddhist ethic of non-violence may correlate directly with the extent of actual
violence in the socio-political framework, the two opposing philosophical positions being
parts of a dialectical whole rather than dichotomies in the Western sense. If so, then it is
17
John Keane (2004) Violence and Democracy, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
19
small wonder that the notion of the ‘secular’ society has been appropriated to, and
absorbed within a form of the ‘post-secular’ religio-political state.
Helen James
ADSRI, ANU
December 2009
20
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21
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22
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23
Dr Helen James is an Associate Professor (Adjunct) with the Australian Demographic
and Social Research Institute, ANU
24