It was a match made in heaven, if heaven had a wrestling match. A few hundred monks from the Sangha Buddhist Alliance faced off with 150 soldiers on Monday at Phutthamonthon park, saffron vs green, tonsured vs crew-cut, as a mini brawl broke out between the two sides over the contested supreme patriarch nomination. Choice photos show a monk head-lock a soldier, jujitsu-style, while soldiers were blocking the angry brethren from entering the park. It was an unholy mess. I thought we were watching news from Myanmar, only that Myanmar seems peaceful these days.
The scene was perfect symbolism of the curse we’re enduring: Uniformed men, monks and military, the pillars of faith and security, men who wield power over the way we live and think — some of these men are angry, arrogant, heavily politicised by interest and ego, by factions and power. At least the gonzo evangelist Phra Buddha Isara was stopped from joining the Monday melee.
It was a match made in heaven because these are the two institutions — religion and army — that desperately need reform but never admit it, thinking they’re too good for that. Locking horns, the monks and the military can’t see that they actually have a lot in common, such as the way they spend, the way they remain beyond inspection, the way they refuse to release their grip on centralised rule, or the way they take for granted the power we have given them. One of them has a colour designated in the national flag, the other doesn’t, and yet they don’t need it because they can wrap the whole flag and tuck it under their strong arm.
Venerable monks outnumber questionable ones, certainly, and soldiers who know their job description (which doesn’t include running a country) should be applauded. But the powerful factions of both institutions, again, share the same guiding principles that shape the way society is instructed: nationalism and intolerance, because religious fundamentalism is a form of dictatorship. The military wants to control your body. Religion wants your body and your soul. Myanmar comes to mind again with its potent cauldron of military rule (no more?) and hard-liner clergy. Or from a different angle, Iran and its 1979 Revolution, with the Ayatollah rallying the convulsive changes whose physical and spiritual repercussions are still felt.
What did the Sangha Buddhist Alliance want when they gathered at Phutthamonthon on Monday? Besides pressuring the government to nominate Somdet Phra Maha Ratchamangalacharn as the new supreme patriarch — despite the “Holy Motor-gate” about his collection of dubious Mercedes — the monks also want Buddhism declared as the official state religion in the new constitution. This is not new. But when the vociferous demand came out in the same week as when we heard reports of another group of monks campaigning to prevent a Halal food business being set up in Chiang Mai, and just a few weeks after a proposed plan to build a Buddhist park in a southern Muslim area — the signs grow obvious, and the effect is disturbing.
On paper we are a secular state, and secularism is integral to the democratic society that honours the freedom of the human body and soul (look at how some countries punish adulterers, thieves, or homosexuals, or how they suppress worshippers of other faiths, how mono-spirituality is enshrined). Yet in practice, we’re not completely secular, as a jumbled mixture of Buddhism, Hinduism and superstition asserts its great pull on our social and legal prescriptions. We have religious holidays, we cite moral and religious reasons for so many arguments, from alcohol hours to casino plans and even film censorship. Culturally, it may be defendable to an extent, but to declare Buddhism the state religion would send the wrong message to the world. Politically, it would further entrench the monastic community in its tower, possibly unchecked and unaccountable, fodder for extreme ideology that would not benefit anyone. And we haven’t mentioned the tricky detail: which sect, which school, which branch of Buddhism would be named official? The post-Buddha spaceship and the traditional temple would launch another round of scuffles, while the military would certainly join the foray to pursue its own alliance of power.
For now, PM Prayut Chan-o-cha says his job is look after every faith, a way of saying no to the call for state religion. That is the right thing to say, though we have already seen that as a military person, he has his own idea about imposing control over our head and our heart. A match made in heaven between the two powerful institutions may not be so smooth at the moment, but once they realise that their goal is the same, what we'll have to contend with is a match made in, well, hell.
Kong Rithdee is Life Editor, Bangkok Post.