In an exclusive interview with Borderless News Online, prominent Burmese monk Shwe Nya War Sayardaw said Myanmar’s government is stirring up religious divisions in a bid to maintain a firm grasp on power. This comes amid citizens’ ongoing complaints that change in the newly-opened country is happening at too sluggish a pace, after decades of economic isolation from the rest of the world. The comments also come in the run-up to November’s elections — the first open elections in 25 years. The outspoken monk, a frequent critic of Myanmar’s government, is one of only a handful of civic leaders to meet with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her visit to the country in 2011.
“They (the government) are unable to actually effectively implement change and reform that impacts the social, political and economic development of people. The only alternative they can give is through riling people up, is through tapping into people’s religious and nationalistic beliefs, and taking advantage of the situation,” he said in an exclusive interview in August with Borderless, through an interpreter, during a visit to Washington D.C.
“Religion is the best tool for political profiteering, and that’s exactly what is happening in Myanmar today,” said the Myanmar-based monk.
The comments came just days after Myanmar President Thein Sein signed into law the last of four bills that critics blast as discriminating against the country’s minority Muslim population. Those include laws that punish marriages between Muslims and Buddhists, part of the Race and Religion Protection Laws, which are trumpeted by the Ma Ba Tha, Committee for the Protection of Nationality and Religion — an influential Buddhist organization.
Hardline Buddhist monks see the laws as a win for their cause, as they perceive their religion as being under threat. Radical Buddhist monks have made international news in recent years for stirring up hatred against Muslims, and in 2013 the newly opened country saw a rash of Buddhist-Muslim clashes and anti-Muslim mob violence that left more than 250 people dead and displaced more than 140,000, most of them Muslim. That included an attack against an Islamic boarding school, in which a deadly mob armed with machetes and chains murdered 32 teenage students and four teachers while security forces allegedly stood by and watched.
“(Some) monks are taking extremist views and promoting violence, a lot of people have become very critical of them, and this has created shifts between the people and the monks, and among monks themselves. And that is the government’s very strategic political approach – dismantling a coalition that would otherwise have been very effective in bringing them (the government) down,” he said.
“As we saw in 2007, the government’s biggest fear is a united coalition of monks,” he said, referring to the massive demonstrations in which thousands of monks took to the streets amid growing unease over the country’s stagnant economy, which was one of the world’s poorest.
“(The monks) are the only crowd that can fully rile up the people if they wish to, or calm the people if they wish to. And they have played that role in Burmese society forever. So when this government – and by this I mean the military-backed civilian…government – when they come to power, they go after this.”
Shwe Nya Wa Sayadaw ‘s comments come in the run-up to November’s elections. But the question remains whether the military-backed ruling party will let go of power if defeated at the polls. Indeed, Myanmar’s ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) is backed by the military, and experts said last month’s internal coup — in which Speaker of the Lower House of Parliament Shwe Mann was ousted from office for allegedly getting too cozy with the opposition — showed that the military is still in charge, experts said.
Shwe Nya War Sayardaw called the government “cunning,” and billed its alleged actions as a “strategic approach at using religion as a tool to advance a political agenda has long existed in Burmese politics.”
“If you look at Ne Win, he was highly involved in the strategic use of monks in carrying out his agenda when he wanted to make change or when he wanted to distract people from a certain legislative or policy matter and when he wanted (people’s) attentions diverted, he would start a Myanmar-Muslim conflict,” he said, referring to Myanmar’s military dictator who led the country for nearly three decades.
“A lot of times, he used monks as tools to carry out his agenda,” he said. “He did this through…favoring them over others. This is constantly how it’s been implemented,” he said.
“Because of the respect that monks hold in the country, if you associate closely with monks and get their approval, it’s as if monks are telling people to approve you as well. And that way you can get legitimacy,” he said.
This is one of a several part interview that will be released in the lead-up to Myanmar’s elections.
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