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| Helping Hand: Displaced Burmese line up for food at a Buddhist monastery in Dalah, outside Rangoon. The state is pushing people
into state-run camps, which may not be well supplied. Getty Images |
Burma: monks vs. junta
Officials move refugees out of monasteries to stem monks' influence.
from the May 16, 2008 edition
Page 3 of 3
But many monks, after last year's crackdown, have scattered. Though cyclone winds blew the roofs off a few monasteries in Yangon, there were few reports of serious injuries. Ananda says this reflects the fact that many monks have been afraid to return to their monasteries, because the government has forced them to reapply, with photos and background information, to return.
"The regime checks the photos to see if the monks were involved in the demonstrations, and will arrest them," he says. "So monks are afraid to live in big monasteries in Yangon and Mandalay.... Many have moved to the countryside."
He says he is communicating with monks via an underground network in the delta. "We can share the news. They have survived cyclone Nargis, but now they tell me it's very difficult to survive," he says. "People in the delta think the US will help them, but unfortunately, the military is only allowing in a little bit."
On a visit this week by this reporter to the Burmese border town of Myawaddy, Buddhist monks, normally eager to meet visitors, were noticeably reluctant to speak. But several Burmese said privately that cyclone Nargis was the result of bad Buddhist karma.
"The victims did something bad in their last life. So they have a bad experience in this life," said one man who works in the market area along the Asian Highway between Myawaddy and Rangoon. "Many Burmese people think they cannot do anything about the suffering in the delta. The Buddha teaches us that life is suffering. We cannot change that. We are simple people."
But Ananda says this view of karma, though common, does not reflect scientific reality. "If the government would have warned people, they would not have died. So this disaster is not karma; it is a natural case of cause and effect by humans. If the government was good, they could have saved the people. That is also karma."
Critics charge that the government has systematically manipulated religious belief to justify poverty and their divine right to rule. "Many Burmese Buddhists believe that they are poor because they did something wrong in their previous life," Ananda says. "They cannot compare Burma to other countries. So they don't know the truth."
He says that in addition to having few or no supplies, victims in the delta are anguished as they cannot observe Buddhist rituals for the dead. "In our culture, if somebody dies, they invite monks who recite literature and lecture about morality. Burmese believe that if they cannot have a ceremony, they cannot release the soul into the next life's incarnation."
He notes that Buddhism prevents killing. But the government, he adds bitterly, is "not allowing people to help people. So it's like killing people."
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