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RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES ON HUMAN RIGHTS

E-Newsletter
Vol.2 No.23
June 5, 2000


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Religious Perspectives on Human Rights is now available online at: http://www.rghr.net

Religious Perspectives on Human Rights is a weekly e-newsletter issued by Buddhist, Muslim, Catholic and Christian Groups on Human Rights, initiated by the Asian Human Rights Commission.

Dear Friends,

The images, the feelings, the horror of the war are never or hardly spoken of. It is only the body count that matters. It is in this context that we are happy to publish a letter sent to us by Ms. S. Coorey where a glimpse into the tragedy of war and of the human feelings are briefly portrayed. Do we want to leave a legacy of war and bloodshed to the posterity, or the images of maturity and audacity where problems were sorted out through discussion and negotiations is the question that is indirectly posed to us by her.

In our recent editions of the newsletter, you might recall, references were made to a move by a group of Burmese monks to march to the city in case their call for dialogue was not heeded. . The repots reaching us seem to indicate that the planned activity did not take place. Here we have some thought provoking reflections by "Antevasika" where the ambiguity surrounding the roles of legitimizing and contesting played by the monks are brought to the fore and where the emphasis is placed on the conviction that the Sangha will continue the struggle to fulfill Gautama's mandate to defend the human rights and the dignity of Burma.

1) Indu's last letter from the War
2) State and Sangha in Burma - "Antevasika"

1)Indu's last letter from the War

Under hard weather conditions in the Jaffna peninsula of Sri Lanka a soldier wrote a letter on the last day of January. His name was Indu. It was his last letter to his sister, Nishathi, Nishanthi received the letter one month after her brother, Indu's funeral, bruising the newly healing wound again.

In a country like Sri Lanka, where war has fatigued a nation, the contents of the letter may inevitably be of no importance to anyone but his loved ones. But for me as a friend of Nishanthi, and as a national of this small island, it is a momentous document.

Excepts of the letter refer to earlier brushes with death:

"After heavy clashes somehow my life was saved, and the only things that were preserved were my trousers, T-shirt and my pair of boots, (everything else was destroyed)."

"Some of my friends who died were newly married. They couldn't even get the first leave." (They had not gone home even once after they left home soon after marriage)

"I'm hundred percent sure that I will not die from this war. I have confidence that I'll live."

It is a letter full of irony. On the 1st of February 2000 Indu died of a mortar attack. His body lost one leg and one hand; they were blown away by the mortar.

Like any youth Indu had the same aspirations, same emotions and the same kind of distresses. But on the summit of everything he had one thing on his mind, it is to come home at dusk one day when the war is over.

All of us will certainly agree that Indu is a war hero, but most of us will not agree to the fact that his life was sacrificed in vain. In my opinion, it is a deception to express the view to die in the North-East war is gallantry. To sacrifice an incomparable life in the war is futile; since war can never be the answer to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.

After an exhausting 17 years of war in the country Sri Lankans have reconciled themselves to the situation generated by it. Today no one really bothers much to find solutions to end the war. Now people tend to look at the bright side of the war. The North-East War has become trivial in people's hearts like the rain in the monsoons.

To me war is a shower of misery. It is a fountain of destruction. We can gain nothing from it. As Sri Lankans we bestow the fiery heritage of bloodshed to the generations ahead in the next decades to come.

2) State and Sangha in Burma - "Antevasika"

Gautama Buddha envisaged a role for the Buddhist clergy, the Sangha, as moral guardian of political life: "In the Aggana Sutta the sociogenesis of political power is traced to a social contract. In his discourses to kings, the Buddha indicated his preference for consensual government based on just laws... Unleashing state terror against the people, the Buddha warned rulers, would drive resentment underground. Violence would erupt again and society would be caught in an unending spiral of violence and counter-violence." (Nalin Swaris, The Buddha's Way to Human Liberation, 1997, p. 403.) Other discourses, such as the Satta Aparihaniya Dhamma, offer rulers advice on ensuring their people's prosperity.

In Burma, the Buddhist clergy historically served as a counter-weight to oppressive governance. For centuries, kings both sought the Sangha's approval and attempted to limit its power, as monks held a range of unique social, political and economic sanctions with which to undermine incompetent rulers. Later, under the colonial regime, their legitimising influence was no longer sought and government agents merely viewed monks with suspicion: "Nearly every, if not every, serious uprising against the British Government was concocted in some form of monastery... It seems strange that monasteries, rather than courts of justice or private dwellings, were the favourite haunts of these scheming scoundrels." (WW Cochrane, The Shans, Vol. 1, 1915, p. 212.) Given that the Europeans had comprehensively dismantled the social structures through which monks and nuns derived authority and consistently desecrated Buddhist places of worship, monastic opposition to their presence should perhaps have been less surprising.

The Sangha's traditional relationship to the government underwent renewal in more recent times. Both the post-independence government and successive military regimes have desired the clergy's sanction, yet have attempted to diminish its influence to a passive non-threatening level. The current regime has taken both to new lengths. In the absence of another governing ideology it has developed a role for itself, in mimicry of ancient monarchs, as religious patron. Almost daily generals queue to offer donations and oversee openings of new religious institutions (see official media at www.myanmar.com/nlm). Simultaneously, the government exercises control through a central committee of senior monks and a programme for "purification" of the Sangha, amounting to the systematic eradication of anti-military elements within its ranks. Years of infiltration and intimidation have seemingly weakened resistance, yet monks and nuns both prominent and obscure continue to defy government edicts.

Recent editions of this newsletter reported on the latest public conflict between State and Sangha. It said to have begun when two popular abbots, Pegu Kyahkhatwine Sayadaw and Maha Gandhayon Sayadaw, admonished both the armed forces and democratic opposition for the ongoing political stalemate in the country, ten years since results of the last election were rejected by the military. In response, the army began imposing restrictions on the abbots and lay-followers. The conflict grew and soon, according to exiled monks in Thailand, plans were afoot for a march on Rangoon. Official media sources reported that police met with select senior monks and told them "to be on guard against the insidious danger of some members of the Sangha". About one hundred monks arrived individually in Rangoon from Mandalay, in spite of restrictions imposed on travel, but authorities were aware of their presence. In the capital, the deadline for protests passed apparently without incident. Independent radio stations reported on disturbances in Mandalay, and Mergui in the south, however these appear to have been stifled by an intimidating military and police presence.

That nothing much seems to have happened is not surprising. Almost without exception, mass uprisings in Burma have occurred spontaneously. Proclamations for change have met with vigilance from authorities and corresponding muteness from the populace. But nor should the absence of open confrontation be taken as a lack of activism on the part of either clergy or lay-people. Numerous examples testify to the stand by monks and nuns in Burma against militarization, such as when Aung San Suu Kyi was welcomed by the famous Thamanyar Sayadaw after her release from house arrest in 1995. Photographs of the meeting were widely circulated and this simple act by the old abbot was enough to send military minds reeling. And while the actions of important persons attract widespread attention, courageous acts of less-prominent religious figures have also become the stuff of legend. In the east of the country, a local militia commander in a civil war area informed an abbot that his soldiers were going to burn down a nearby church. The Sayadaw replied, "When you have finished, come back and burn down my monastery too" and spoke to the officer on the virtue of all religions, averting the arson. The devotees of an abbot in the north were forced to labour on a road rather than attend a religious festival, so the monk came to the construction site. The villagers laid down their tools while the abbot preached that suffering occurs in countries with rulers who have breached the moral laws laid out by Buddha in the Cakkavatta Sihanda Sutta. In Burma to make such criticism of the military, however obtuse, is nothing less than a life-threatening act.

No doubt the last decade has left Burma's Sangha the worse for wear. The intimidation, arrests and subjugation of "destructive elements" within its ranks have been thorough and relentless. However, reports suggesting it has been weakened to the point of ineffectuality are ultimately unconvincing, as recent events serve to demonstrate. They tell us more of the media's weaknesses than those of the clergy. Currents of resistance often run deep, not easily recognised by the casual observer. Regardless of headlines, the Sangha will continue the struggle to fulfill Gautama's mandate in quiet day-to-day defence of human rights and dignity in Burma.