‘Buddhist’ Thugs Make Their Comeback

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Meiktila, Myanmar -- There is no doubt that the violent attacks on Muslims in Meiktila, a garrison city in central Burma, were politically motivated. It has been a gruesome spectacle. Muslims were beaten, dragged out into the streets, doused with petrol and burned alive.

The police were slow to restore law and order. As the attackers, who were armed with knives, machetes and walkie-talkies, roamed the city, the police just stood by and watched. Some thugs allegedly pushed though police lines to attack Muslims, and still the police did little to protect them, according to eyewitnesses.

Min Ko Naing, a former student leader and prominent activist, rushed to the scene with some monks to stop the violence. At one point, a group of people involved in the attacks threatened to kill them.

When he arrived Meiktila, Min Ko Naing pleaded with the marauding mobs to stop their attacks. His words were not well received, however, and he was forced to retreat. Within hours, photos likening him to an Al Qaeda terrorist were posted on Facebook. This came after weeks of anti-Muslim vitriol filled social media sites. Clearly, there has been a very well-orchestrated campaign to vilify Muslims in Burma and discredit anyone seen as sympathetic to them.

Journalists were among those singled out for intimidation. Despite efforts to silence them, however, many said that the violence they witnessed seemed systematic and well-planned.

Several witnesses and reporters on the ground said that the killers rode around the city on motorcycles looking for Muslims to murder. Nobody made any attempt to stop them. In addition, “monks” from other parts of the country joined in the carnage, while local authorities stood idly by.

It’s hard to believe that Burma’s security forces and riot police, who have a reputation for ruthlessly suppressing protests, have suddenly lost their nerve. In 1988, they did not hesitate to gun down people who took to the streets to call for an end to military rule. And in 2007, they violently cracked down on monks without a second’s thought. So what happened in Meikhtila?

Many suspect that last week’s violence in central Burma involved the same people who took part in attacks and riots in Arakan State last year. But so far there is no evidence to support this claim. I’m more inclined to believe that masterminds behind the Meikhtila attacks are people too big to catch. The government has yet to apprehend anyone involved in the recurring spasms of violence that continue to traumatize the country.

So who organized the attacks? One theory is that hardcore elements in the establishment are behind the violence. Some speculate that they may be enemies of the Thein Sein government who want to undermine the president’s reforms. Others suggest that the malefactors may be powerful countries and businessmen who feel that they are losing out because of Burma’s new opening to the outside world.

At any rate, the clear winners here are the military, which was called in to quell the riots after Thein Sein ordered a state of emergency last Friday. In the current atmosphere, the sight of troops in the streets is almost reassuring. This has raised fears that if the situation deteriorates further, the military could take over the reins of power completely to restore law and order.

It is also clear that Burma’s Buddhists—particularly its monks—have suffered an enormous black eye due to the actions of a shadowy group of chauvinists who have used religion as a pretext for terrorizing a segment of Burma’s population.

The sad truth, however, is that this is not the first time that Buddhism has been twisted beyond recognition to serve the interests of a tiny cabal with malicious intentions. After all, for half a century, successive military dictatorships employed a grotesque parody of Buddhism to manipulate the masses.

Non-Buddhists have always had a hard time in Burma’s armed forces, at least since independence in 1948. But the situation deteriorated even further after the military seized power in 1962, after which only ethnic Burman Buddhists stood any chance of rising through the ranks.

The military also sought to impose ethnic purity on the nation as a whole, by relegating non-Burmans and non-Buddhists to the very fringes of society. Eventually, even Buddhists, who watched helplessly as their religion was degraded by power-hungry murderers, were marginalized along with everyone else who did not wear a uniform.

Although they portrayed themselves as devout Buddhists, Burma’s military rulers showed no compassion toward anyone who did not bow before them. They repressed not only ethnic minorities, but also critics and dissidents, often with brutal force.

The outcome is that we now have countless “Buddhist extremists” in Burma. Sadly, they are everywhere. They are out on the streets and sitting in Parliament, wearing military fatigues, business suits and monk’s robes.

So the rise of “Buddhist” fascists in Burma comes as no surprise to anyone who has witnessed the machinations of the country’s rulers over the past half-century. Their presence in the streets of Meikhtila is no more than a throwback to the darkest days of military rule, and one that will not be exorcised easily.

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Aung Zaw is founder and editor of the Irrawaddy magazine. He can be reached at aungzaw@irrawaddy.org.

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Buddhists, Reconstructing Sacred Tibetan Murals, Wield Their Brushes in Nepal

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LO MANTHANG, Nepal -- Dozens of painters sat atop scaffolding that soared toward the roof of an ancient monastery. With a swipe of their brushes, colors appeared that gave life to the Buddha. Gold for the skin.

<< A local woman worked on a historic mural at Thubchen Monastery in Lo Manthang, Nepal.

They worked by dim portable electric lights. Dusty statues of Tibetan Buddhist deities gazed on. From openings in the roof, a few shafts of sunlight fell through the 35 wooden pillars in the main chamber of the enormous Thubchen Monastery, the same edifice that had awed Michel Peissel, the explorer of Tibet, when he visited a half-century ago.

“In Nepal, no one knows how to do this, so we have to learn,” said Tashi Gurung, 34, a painter participating in what is one of the most ambitious Tibetan art projects in the Himalayas.

Financed by the American Himalayan Foundation, the project is aimed at restoring to a vibrant state the artwork of two of the three main monasteries and temples in Lo Manthang, the walled capital of the once-forbidden kingdom of Mustang. Bordering Tibet in the remote trans-Himalayan desert, Mustang is an important enclave of Tibetan Buddhist culture.

Tibetan leaders, including the Dalai Lama, say their culture is under assault in the vast Tibetan regions ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, which occupied central Tibet in 1951. That, along with the encroachment of modernity, means that the act of preserving or reviving Tibetan art is arguably more important than at any time since China’s devastating Cultural Revolution.

The project in Lo Manthang has stirred debate. Some scholars of Tibetan art assert that the painters in Lo Manthang are altering important historical murals and jeopardizing scholarship by painting new images atop sections of walls where the original images have been destroyed. Those involved in the project argue that residents want complete artwork in their houses of worship.

The project’s director is Luigi Fieni, 39, an Italian who first came to work here after graduating from an art conservation program in Rome. Mr. Fieni and other Westerners have trained local residents to work on the art, creating a 35-member team that includes 20 women and one monk (though there was initial reluctance from local men to tolerate the women’s participation).

There are three major religious buildings in Lo Manthang. Two of them are monasteries, and one is a temple traditionally used for ceremonies by the royal family. Their thick, red walls rise among alleyways that wind past whitewashed mud-brick homes. An 80-year-old king and his family reside in a palace in the town center. The town was founded in the 14th century, and the oldest religious buildings date to the 15th century.

Much of the Tibetan art here reflects a Newari influence, which comes from the Katmandu Valley. Centuries ago, Newari artisans were welcomed by some Tibetan rulers, especially those who followed the Sakya branch of Tibetan Buddhism, which is common throughout Mustang.

The art project began in 1999 with the cleaning of murals in Thubchen Monastery, after an initial round of architectural reconstruction. Then the painters moved on to Jampa Temple, where the dark main chamber has a towering statue of Maitreya, the future Buddha.

The walls on the first floor are adorned with remarkably detailed mandalas, a form of geometric art considered a representation of the cosmos. Here, Mr. Fieni decided to deviate from the initial approach taken at Thubchen. He wanted his team, rather than do purely restoration, to paint sections of the walls where an original mural had disappeared or been destroyed.

The painters would then try to recreate those pictures based on tradition and on what had been painted elsewhere in the chamber. Mr. Fieni also consulted with monks to ask what pictures they wanted on the walls. In 2010, the team returned to Thubchen to adopt the new approach and paint large sections.

“Call this painting, not restoration or conservation,” Mr. Fieni said. He added that this method helped restore the living nature of the artwork, as opposed to what he called the Western “colonialism” approach of preserving the old above all else.

“When we arrived, we started working following the Westerners’ theories of conservation,” Mr. Fieni said. “Then, while working and living within the community, I changed my point of view, and I decided to follow the needs of the culture I was working for. So I decided to start reconstructing the missing areas.”

Once taught how to paint, local residents decide how they want to decorate the monasteries, Mr. Fieni said.

 “All the other conservation projects I’ve seen are Westerners doing the artwork, locals fetching clay,” he said. “This is the first one where we train the locals.”

There were challenges. Painters in higher castes initially did not want artists in lower castes sitting on the scaffolding above them. And there were religious beliefs to accommodate. At the buildings, an abbot used a mirror to absorb the spirits of the gods in the statues and murals before the painting began; after the project is completed, the abbot is expected to release the spirits from the mirror so they can return.

Mr. Fieni’s approach to restoring the temples and monasteries has been contested. Christian Luczanits, a senior curator at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York, which displays Himalayan art, said he blanched at what he saw when he traveled to Mustang in 2010 and 2012. Mr. Luczanits said that sufficient scholarship had not been done into the original paintings. Now, because of the new painting, any scholar wanting to study the originals must look at photographs rather than rely on what is present in the temple, he said.

“The temple now after restoration cannot be understood anymore without the previous documentation,” Mr. Luczanits said in an interview.

Last year, he made his opinion known at a contentious meeting at the palace in Lo Manthang. Among those present were Mr. Fieni, an abbot, the prince of Mustang and representatives of the American Himalayan Foundation, which gives financial support to many development projects in Mustang. (The foundation’s president, Erica Stone, said the total being spent on the building renovations in Lo Manthang alone was $2.58 million. An additional $768,000 had been spent for restoring the town wall and constructing drainage.)

There was vigorous debate, and the royal family and the abbot both backed Mr. Fieni. The ceremonial prince, Jigme Singi Palbar Bista, said in an interview that the buildings “are renovated very well.”

Thoroughly painting Thubchen Monastery would take another three to four years, but the project’s budget will run out this year. Mr. Fieni estimated there was a total of about 3,660 square feet of wall space to paint.

He said he was thinking about moving on to restoration projects in India or Myanmar with some of the painters he had trained here. In 2006 and 2007, he took five of them to work with him at a Tibetan monastery in Sichuan Province, in western China, a project that was never completed because the Chinese authorities shut down access to the area after a Tibetan uprising in 2008.

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Isan monks helping their communities

Home Asia Pacific South East Asia Thailand

Development monks help their poor communities with economic and educational needs, living examples of why monks still matter.

Bangkok, Thailand -- Fed up with rogue monks? Losing hope in ability of the lax and closed clergy to lead the way? Meet Luang Por Ang, Luang Por Chair, and Phra Kru Somsri. All Isan monks. All dedicated to lift the livelihood and spirituality of their villagers. All are living examples of why monks still matter. Probably more so now than ever.

The three so-called "development monks" were in Bangkok earlier this week to talk about their past work and present challenges at a time when the rural folks' way of life and political awakening have dramatically changed from four decades ago.

Luang Por Ang, or Phra Kru Pattanakijjanuwat, is abbot of Wat Huay Bueng in Nakhon Ratchasima's Dan Khun Thot district.

"I finished only Prathom 4," said the elderly monk. "I never thought of such high words as inequality or development. But scarcity was all around me. Right from when I first became a monk, I kept asking myself what I could do to repay the poor villagers who feed me."

He led the villagers in building roads and bridges so that the sick could go to the hospital and farmers could sell their crops. He set up medicine banks, learned how to use needles and syringes, taught himself to be a mechanic, a house builder, and filled in whenever the rice paddies needed more labour. He helped the villagers set up community savings groups and welfare funds. He also succeeded in convincing the villagers to donate land to build a reservoir for common agricultural use.

When dusk fell, the monk completed his day's mission by talking to the villagers about the use of dharma in one's life.

At the height of the communist insurgency in the '70s, he was accused by the authorities of being a communist. "But that didn't bother me. All I wanted was to help the villagers."

He was not alone. Other development monks, like Luang Ta Chair or Phra Kru Amornchaikhun of Wat Asom Dhamatayat in Korat, faced the same fate when he led the villagers to save their community forests from the local mafia.

Fast-forward 40 years. Isan has now changed. So have the Isan people's aspirations.

Transportation, public health and electricity are no longer a concern. The region is now deep in the cash economy with all its urbanisation benefits and pitfalls. Modern telecommunications have connected the villagers with the world, reshaping the villagers' world-views, consumption patterns and life dreams. Farming, meanwhile, is still a losing business. Perennial debt and extra off-farm work have left the villagers little time for the community as before. Like the rest of the country, many villages have also slipped into the deep political divide.

How have development monks dealt with the new challenges?

Knowledge - both in technical skills and management - is now the key, said Phra Kru Somsri, whose official title is Phra Kru Bhodhivirakhun, abbot of Wat Bhodhikaram in Roi Et.

His temple operates as a non-formal education centre offering a wide range of occupational training free of charge so as to give the youth new skills and opportunities.

The temple has also set up a community grocery store, managed by the villagers as a cooperative. The community savings has also grown into a community bank, run transparently by elected village committees to provide low-interest loans, with profits going back to community welfare funds.

Working together is at the heart of these activities. And when the communal, open management structure is already in place, the community can deal with any new challenge, he said, including the political divide which is bridged only when the villagers have to rely on kinship and communal ties to solve common problems.

"When in the temple, they also have the chance to pray, to reflect, to be close to dharma to guide their lives," he added with a smile

More changes are coming. "But don't be alarmed," said Luang Ta Chair pensively. "You can't stop change. Nothing stays the same. It's part of dharma, the way things are. Our duty is to help the villagers be ready to cope with it."

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Sanitsuda Ekachai is Assistant Editor, Bangkok Post

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