Nor is the general likely to frame the crisis in religious or Buddhist nationalist terms, as some fear he might do in an attempt to win over the Sangha. Despite his performative religiosity, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is very unlikely to be convinced by any monk, however venerable, to eschew violence or set a radically different political direction. Critically, the monks, scholars, resistance fighters and activists interviewed by Crisis Group agreed that even should the monastic community unite behind a particular position, it would be unlikely to influence the conflict’s outcome. Most of the monastic community, however, has avoided taking any public position, wary of supporting a secular-minded resistance movement engaged in armed struggle, fearful of the consequences of openly challenging the regime and also reluctant to incur the wrath of public opinion by supporting it.Īs a result, it seems unlikely that the Sangha will emerge as a strong voice either for or against the junta. Some prominent monks have curried favour with the regime by explicitly supporting it and some others have been vociferous opponents. But since the coup, the Sangha has been divided. In previous periods of political struggle in Myanmar – the independence movement of the early 20th century, political protests in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and the 2007 Saffron Revolution – monks were highly visible, despite widespread religious and cultural unease with monastic involvement in political affairs. While Myanmar’s future path is unclear, these trends are likely to be important as they could herald social upheaval, intercommunal tensions or a conservative counterreaction. It has also made room for youth – particularly young women – to take on prominent roles in the struggle, an important shift from a tradition of elderly, male leadership drawn predominantly from the Burman Buddhist majority. The Sangha’s step to the side is a break from the past, when monks played a significant and vocal role at moments of political crisis. The National Unity Government (NUG) and its revolutionary allies are pursuing an agenda that is secular and that embraces armed resistance, both features that the monastic community find hard to reconcile with Buddhist teachings. The Myanmar Sangha – the country’s community of Buddhist monks and nuns – has played a mostly marginal role in the anti-regime resistance following the military’s February 2021 coup d’état.
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