The Women Land: avowal and contradictions

In our junior school years, Burmese Socialist Government prescribed history textbooks for us that were flatter than the slate of a modern Apple’s proud product, the iPad Mini. Fearing the dividend to my knowledge of history delivered by these lovely minions of the government’s curriculum was distorted, I explored beyond the fences and intellectually wandered in different directions, learning a number of dense history books written by private historians.

 My interest at that time was the detailed history of Burma’s independence movements against the British Raj. It was particularly fascinating to read Thakin Lay Maung’s Burma’s Political History that narrated the story of Burma’s final separation from India in 1937. Burma had a general election in 1932 for its people to determine whether they were willing to remain as a province in India or become a separate nation. Some Buddhists, steeped in textual studies emphasized that the Buddha was an Indian and that our Burmese’s ancestors were related to the blood of the Buddha, Kshatriyas, the caste of India into which Buddhas are born, supported the vote that Burma remain a part of India. In opposition, the separatists’ campaign emphasized the distinct social status of Burmese women from their Indian and Chinese counterparts. If Burma were to remain with India, the superior social status of Burmese women, even a higher status than in the democratic West, would be downgraded. 

I felt proud to discover our nation had a distinct idea – that of the very high social status of women. “Burmese guys are gentlemen to treat their ladies as their equal”, I believed. I had brave Arab lady friends who were fighting for women’s rights in their doctrinaire nations. I often made them feel jealous by saying:” our Burmese housewives are exchequers in their married life. The guy has to give all his monthly income to the lady and she authorizes his daily expenses. The ladies are the higher sex in our tradition”. In my simple assumption, I thought the higher social role of Burmese women compared to Arabs-Muslims, Chinese-Confucians and Indians-Hindus was significantly correlated with our Buddhist tradition.

 A closer examination can reveal that this assumed correlation could be highly confounded with the inelastic military rule that generally laid down protective walls for its social classes. The change into a democratic system got rid of these walls and in the middle of last year, along with the response of Aung San Su Kyi to Wairathu’s proposal of restricting interfaith marriage of Buddhist women, “You can not treat women unfairly like that, ” the evidence of the fall of the military’s protective wall for the women became evident.

 In particular, when a large number of Buddhist monks become involved in the mass campaigns for supporting Wairathu’s proposal, it is a time to reconsider our assumption of the higher social status of Burmese women that we think it is being privileged from our Buddhist tradition.

 My observation is that this assumption is at the least inconsistent. The point raised by Ma Khin Lay, a former political prisoner and gender activist, illuminated this inconsistency, “ Burmese women were discriminated within our Buddhist tradition. We are not given access to the upper square of the pagodas as our male counterparts do,” she said in her recent interview with the Irrawaddy. In contrast, Chinese temples allow women equal access to any public place.

P Moe Ninn, the leading thinker of our colonial time, contrasted the married life of a Chinese wife and a Burmese wife in this way: “when Chinese husbands go back home from work, he does remember to purchase food to feed his wife and children; Burmese husbands, these would-be-Buddhas, getting drunk in coming back home, beat his poor wife for she does not know how to cook good food for him”.

In our ‘Buddhist’ tradition, “inferiority” of women was widely acknowledged. The Buddhist scriptures laid down a monastic rule that a female disciple can never be raised to the status of the Bhikkhu (venerable monk). This rule has become relaxed, in some ways, in Sri Lanka and Thailand but the State Sangha Council of Burma so far has enforced that no woman can be ordained as a Bhikkhu in Burma.

 The scholarly Buddhist literature demanded that girls should ask their patrons for permitting their marriage and accordingly, even her younger brother has his ‘Buddhist’ legitimacy in imposing the ban on her marriage with a person he doesn’t agree. Not surprisingly, Buddhist monks feel their legitimate role for taking part in current anti-miscegenation campaigns. In their formative education period, they have been ingrained to think women, being of inferior sex, seriously lack of the judgmental capability to choose what is right for her.

Perhaps, the strongest evidence of discrimination against women for their ‘poor’ judgmental ability was the rise of anti-miscegenation movements during the colonial period and their current resurgence in modern times. The popular literature published in 1930s had a number of discussions to condemn the ‘degenerative’ marriage of Burmese women to Indians. Most discussions had a similar theme that Kalars (Indians) were seducing Burmese women. Lacking capacity to resist the seduction, a Burmese woman chose to marry a Kalar. Her children were all half-caste, and these ‘impure’ children would degenerate the race and tradition.

During the colonial period, Buddhist monks were high-handed in treating women. They were used to wandering about, holding sticks with a hook in them to tear down the clothes of women in public places if they were not wearing ‘safely’ according to the Burmese tradition.

These colonial features offered us strong counterfactual evidence to the 1930s politicians’ claim of “freedom of Burmese Buddhist women”. While it might be true that Burmese women have enjoyed some equality status in their education and profession, the above examples demonstrate convincingly that they are not necessarily related to our Burmese ‘Buddhist tradition’ and Burmese women don’t have a real higher social status as many have been deluded to believe.

 In fact, our past sentiments against “Indianization” of Burma by the British made our anti-colonial politicians claim that Burmese women are much more equal compared to their Indian-Chinese peers. The alleged superiority of Burmese women had become their testament to claim to autonomy of Burma from India. It also reaffirmed anticolonial politicians a legitimate feeling for the particularity of the “Burmese Buddhist Tradition”. As evident, the claimed particular superiorities are fictional rather than practical accomplishments.

 The modern Burmese monks, following the similar fictional reasoning line, warrant their current anti-miscegenation movements to preserve their “particularly accomplished tradition” that ‘protects’ the freedom of Buddhist women. I found two imminent problems in this fictional superiority of our ‘race’ (Amyo), ‘religion’ (Batar), and ‘tradition’ (Sasana). The first problem is we are ignoring the real huge challenges in society, like the long-established discriminatory practices against women and pretend as if our Buddhist tradition has addressed all problems that our foreign societies are still struggling to achieve. The second problem is while modern Burma is a nation of diverse multi-ethnic groups, and it indeed is a country composed by considerably large groups of Indians (Kalars) and Chinese (Tayoke) migrants, we like to exclude these other groups in our socio-political scenarios solely based on the reason that we have a particular superior tradition compared to “bad” traditions of those people.

            During the decades of her house arrest, the military government launched numerous attacks on the Lady’s personal life. Their accusation was mainly based on her “woman-ness” and marriage to Michael Aris, a British Buddhist scholar from the University of Oxford. “Suu Kyi failed to safeguard her own race, after she has married a British foreigner. Not only her, but her future generation is the ones responsible for the ruination of our race and our tradition”. Currently, we can also observe Wirathu’s line of reasoning to retain the Article 59(f), has its consensus with the military’s past justification of protecting against the ‘unhealthy’ children’s ruination of our “superior” tradition.

 My conclusion is that we, the people of modern Burma, have imprisoned ourselves in the fictional accomplishments that the past anti-colonial politicians created and consequently we have failed to observe the real challenges of our imminent discriminatory practices. This fictionally accomplished  “tradition” has spoiled us in a sense that we fail to see our multi-racial and multi-traditional diversity as strengths of the nation. Instead we Burmese have come to mistrust all “other” people, or whoever is from a foreign tradition.

            A saying by Confucius is “ how can I talk with such a person who claims himself as superior-minded but he does not want to speak in the same table with the person in poor clothes?” I think our democratic reform process has to overcome this psychological barrier of condescending the others that Confucius alerted.  We shall no longer be moonlighting by making our avowal of superior accomplishments in our tradition and retaining the contradictions of our prominent discriminatory ailments. We shall drop our infatuation for the fictional achievements and we need to develop an extensively inclusive socio-political tradition in Burma.

         [Please check out the abridged version at http://www.dvb.no/analysis/the-link-between-gender-and-racial-inequality-in-burma-myanmar/39936 ]

The Apology of Burmakin IX

updated on Feb 18, 2014 for better explanation.

Evil wishes

In Samyutta Nikaya, I find an excellent story reference in regard to the controversial issue of whether Buddhist monks should take political action and side with any political group. The story is as follows:

In Rajagaha, Ven. Ananda was wandering with a large group of Bikkhus and he came to meet with Ven. Kassapa who was dwelling there. By that time, thirty pupils of Ven. Ananda had returned to the lower life (To my understanding, they offended the Parajika Monastic Code and were no longer monks).

The senior one, Ven. Kassapa, inspiring to shame upon the junior one, Ven. Ananda, asked his junior: "Ananda, why Buddha laid down the rule that Bikkhus should not take meals among families in groups of more than three? "

Ven. Ananda, who seemed to be rather old at that time (meaning he had mastered most of Buddha's direct teachings) replied: " They are three reasons:(1) not to form evil wishes, (2) (sequentially) form a faction and create a schism in the Sangha, and (3) not to menace families".

Ven. Kassapa said "you youngster, didn't know your measure yet (though you learned from Buddha, you don't know what to observe) ".

Ven. Ananda was disappointed and snapped to his senior: "I have grey hair on my head, Sir. Why you called me (this hoary guy) ‘this youngster’?"

Ven. Kassapa asserted: " this youngster - wandered with such a large faction of Bikkhus."

The inclusion of the intense terms such as “evil” and  “schism” indicated Buddha was serious in imposing this limit of the number of monks allowable for wandering together in groups. It does not sound like a father’s flummoxed concern upon the potential party brawls of his boisterous Bikkhu sons. Rather, it looks like a military martinet’s bureaucratic rule for the prevention of moral depravity regularly arisen from clamorous group mechanisms.

I am curious “why group mechanisms become a critical issue for Buddha?” As far as I can look for the reason from his teachings, Buddha found group morality too unimportant to be justified. In many places of Pali Canon, I see that Buddha rejected any moral justification grounded in group affiliation. This rejection can be significantly observed in the Vasettha Sutta, “A mercenary is someone who is just skilled in warfare. I (Buddha) can’t pay my regard to this warfare person as a Brahmin; a priest is someone who is just skilled in priest craft. I can’t pay my regard to this priest-craft person as a Brahmin”.

So which ground of moral justification did Buddha authorize? The answer is Buddha will approve only individual conscience. I discover in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta which has its signification in recording Buddha’s final words, “Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves. Rely on yourselves. Hold fast to the truth as a lamp. Seek salvation alone in the truth”.

I have noted earlier that all three reasons shall be interpreted in relation to group mechanism. Another useful caveat in interpreting the text is I should not take mere literal meaning of words in these sentences. So evil wishes in the Number 1 sentence is “evil wishes arisen from group mechanisms”.

Ordinary wishes such as longing to visit Miami on my vacation or imagination to win the Mega Million lottery will not be named by our compassionate Buddha as evil wishes. Don’t forget the text should be always viewed from the angle of group mechanisms. My conclusion is by ‘evil wishes’ Buddha indicated insistent greedy wishes of people immersed in their group’s lust.

Groups’ wishes are marked as “evil” because they are evil in nature. An interesting point is they are also marked as “wishes” that normally occurr to either individuals or to groups. So why we do not like to call individuals’ wishes as evil, too.

I think the answer lies in the fact that collective thoughts and inspirations of a group can be readily authorized just by the significance of that particular group. In other words, groups have some imminent power to justify their morals while individuals are lacking of such magnificent power.

Especially, when a particular collection of people has significant authority or privileged social status in society, their thoughts and inspirations are often regarded as the big Truth by that society. Should collective wishes and social authority of particular groups justify what are morals, this will be the end of the Truth.

It will not be tempting for us to accept ‘state morality’, ‘military morality’, or any special interest group’s morality as the Sangha's morality. Nor there is any charming validity for us in insistent slogans of Burmese monks, ‘People must protect Burmese morality, Buddhism morality, and Buddhist society’s morality’. While these claims are evil wishes from reflections of their group ego, the monks deluded themselves the group morals are bigger morals than anything else with their obsessed worship of the group’s affiliation and government’s authority. Buddha was clear in directing us to choose the right things by our own self-conscience and this instruction is completely opposite to the current claims of Buddhist monks who are relentlessly urging “we must do the chosen right things”.

In Buddha’s days, Devadatta who created schism of Sangha colluded with the State and thus their Bikkhu team received sumptuous feasts of donations from the authorities. Such earnings are completely impure for a Buddhist monk because a monk is entitled to his earning only by his non blame-worthy livelihood. If Sanghas’ earning for their living come by their collusion with the authority or by serving as instruments for the State or a particular group, the term ‘Sangha’ (free man, non-member to any household) becomes completely meaningless. There is also a tendency of infinite transgression and one day the corrupted Bikkhus will say, “the military morality and Bikkhu morality are the One for they both are intended for the well-being of society”.

I guess Buddha made these points in relation to Devadatta’s corruption with the state. These points have a much broader social scope than apparent control of undisciplined monks. If we see the order of the points, the concern for schism comes before the concern for families. Buddha, who is well versed in Dharma, would not randomize his points so I think Buddha’s ultimate is concern is for the benefits of society (families).

The story line of Devadatta leads me to think Buddha was prescient about the involvement of political actions of the separated Bikkhu sect in many schism cases. The Lord’s concern is not for a party brawl of drunken monks, which will be fun to be recorded on their iPhones rather than threat to the families. The political aims of Bikkhus menace families because the political power is almost always the abusive power.

Political actions of monks always menace the families. Doing political actions means monks side with at least one particular political group that is vying for the power. And those in the power are thieves and robbers. I don't want to prototype Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand but this is inconvenient reality. The current political institutions in those countries are formed by particular factions, which use their incumbent political power to plunder the property of others and manage (steal) the nation’s resources to their best advantages. That is also the main reason why these countries face numerous social conflicts from time to time.

Frederick Bastiat, the liberal thinker of the famous Parable of the Broken Window, thought that politics is an alternative cycle of the haves and the have-nots in their struggle for gaining the property i.e., once a particular group gains the power, they formulate the laws to their most advantages. Indeed, Bastiat's finding is still strongly valid for today, not only for national politics but also for global politics. Thomas Pooge, a German philosopher and human rights activist, observed global institutions are mere instruments of the top-tier nations (social class) to formulate the rules that give their class the most advantages at the expense of the disadvantaged others.

Bastiat criticized all governments of every nation on earth, including slavery-ridden America, "their making Law is for legal plunder". Politically motivated monks will need to rightly understand any political authority they are supporting is inclined to steal and plunder many other peoples’ rights and property. Benefiting the incumbent political group in power always means the plundered group (victim group) is menaced. Benefiting a non-incumbent political group also means the incumbent group in power is menaced.

The monks who take part in political actions need to answer the moral dilemma: the Monastic Code for their rule of conduct vs. supporting a big authority, which is always big enough for menacing many families. So far, I don’t find any validity in various kinds of complex justifications these violent monk groups have made.

My final advice is as a sincere Sangha, no monk shall side politically with any incumbent politician, opposition parties or even civilians. Any kind of political collusion leads to menacing the potential victims or already suffering victims who are afraid of their property and their lives being taken. Strictly speaking from the standpoint of Buddhist monastic tradition which meticulously inhibits a plunder or killing under any guise or any kind of involvement, politically inspired monks are very liable to breach 2nd and 3rd Parajika offenses of The Buddhist Monastic code.