Remembering Burma, Overturning the bowl

General Ne Win, the founder of military authoritarianism in Burma, was secretly trained during World War II by the fascist-allied military regime of Japan. Four decades later, during the 1988 popular uprising in Burma, the general warned that when Burma's army shoots, it shoots to kill. That year, thousands of protesters were killed on the streets of Burma. Little has changed in the country during the intervening two decades. As such, it was not particularly surprising this past September when, during the massive public uprising that has since been dubbed the 'Saffron Revolution', Burmese soldiers shot and killed over 100 citizens. That number included members of the country's venerated clergy.

Although public demonstrations had been ramping up for weeks, the Saffron Revolution can be thought of as beginning on 5 September 2007, when thugs thought to be connected to the junta government attacked a group of monks in Pakokku. Doing so was in direct violation of Buddhist teachings, something of which the military had long been cognisant, largely due to the massive public support that the clergy holds in Burma. Urging the military leaders to reflect on their action, Burma's Sangha, the national council representing the country's Buddhist monks, demanded an apology from the military within 12 days. When the junta refused to do so, the clerical leaders began a religious boycott, dubbed the "overturning of the alms bowls". This was an act of severe moral rebuke, in which monks refused to accept alms from military families, thereby denying them important religious merit. This had only happened a few times before –when the Burmese people rebelled against British colonialism and, more recently, following the country's nullified 1990 elections.