Politics & Buddhism: Red & Yellow Monks

Red shirt movement (thory / Shutterstock.com)

I think I can say that the Sangha, the Buddhist community, has been in crisis since the beginning of this century. A crisis, which reached a – provisional – climax in the battle for the appointment of a new patriarch in 2017 when Phra Maha Munivong succeeded the late Somdet Phra Nyanasamvara as the highest authority of the Sangha. But you will soon read about this conflict in another contribution… Today I want to limit myself to the polarization that arose within the Sangha around the so-called Red Shirt Movement, that wave of protests caused by the army coup against the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in September 2006.

There has long been some ambiguity in the Sangha's relationship with Thailand's often turbulent politics. In principle, the monks have to keep away from all politics. One can almost speak of a theoretical separation of church and state according to the Western model. They don't even have the right to vote in elections. In fact, in Thailand they enjoy a status equal to or even higher than that of the royal family. An 'exalted' position that enables them to rise above the earthly concerns and to concern themselves only with spiritual matters. Especially with regard to the monarchy, this detached view of politics is a facade. And it's been that way for a long time. It started, as I wrote in a first contribution about Buddhism & Politics, with King Mongkut who created the Thammayut Order. A counter-movement that sought a purer, more intellectualized form of monastic Buddhism under royal patronage. One of Mongkut's sons, Prince Wachirayanwarorot, played a key role as patriarch of the Sangha around the turn of the century in assigning a central place to this, albeit numerically very weak, order within Thai Theravada Buddhism.

The introduction of the Sangha Act by King Chulalongkorn in 1902 effectively made the Sangha an instrument of central state authority, first of the absolutist monarchy and after 1932, of whatever regime was in power…. Despite the regime changes, this mutually beneficial relationship between the Sangha and the state has never fundamentally changed. Those who hold political power can use the Sangha to legitimize their power and give it a kind of moral aura based on religious values. In return, the monks of the Supreme Council of the Sangha enjoy the protection and material and financial benefits corresponding to their rank and granted by the state. Both parties have been anxious for decades to ensure that this fragile status quo is not broken. However, this also irrevocably led to sclerosis and immobilism. An attitude that led to abuses and eventually caused a crisis of authority, not only within the Sangha but also among the general public, which only widened the long-standing gulf between the people and the monastic orders. One of the most painful incidents was undoubtedly the criminal case involving Phra Yantra, a monk accused of nightclub & brothel visits and several rapes of minors, among others. Despite the overwhelming evidence, the 22 members of the Supreme Sangha Council refused to act against him. It was only after the press jumped on the matter and the government exerted heavy pressure that the Sangha took action and in 1994 he was officially stripped of the status of a monk…

The strict and extreme hierarchy within the Sangha structure and the fact that the highest placed within this organization have little or no accountability to the large mass of monks at the bottom of the ladder, has only contributed to the polarization. This became clear from 2005 when Buddhist monks started to get involved in politics. The ball started rolling at the end of that year with Sondi Limthongkul, a media tycoon and former supporter of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. He had come into conflict with Thaksin and started organizing meetings in Bangkok in which he accused the government of corruption. Many of the participants in these meetings wore yellow shirts, the royal color, to accentuate their attachment to the monarchy and soon became 'Yellow Shirts' referred to as the red-shirted Thaksin supporters as the ' Red Shirts' was qualified.

A monk joins a Yellow Shirts anti-Taksin protest in 2012 (1000 Words / Shutterstock.com)

Monks of the Santi Asoke order soon appeared in the yellow camp. This order is outside the hierarchy of institutionalized Thai Theravada Buddhism and is regarded by the Sangha as a dissident faction. It was founded by Rak Rakphong, a former TV producer who had entered a Thammayut monastery in 1970 as Phra Bodhirak. He soon took an independent course and wanted to return to the 'source of true Buddhism'. In 1973 he founded Daen Asoke, a private religious center near Nakhon Pathom. Originally, the ties between Santi Asoke and Thaksin were excellent. Some lay supporters of this dissident order were even involved in the establishment and development of Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai Party in 1998. But that changed dramatically when Thaksin softened his resistance to the influence of the International Monetary Fund on the Thai economist and at the same time profiled himself less and less as an advocate of small Thai businesses and firms. At the end of May 2008, during the short reign of Thaksin-friendly Samak Sundaraev, followers of Santi Asoke could again be seen at demonstrations by the Yellow Shirts.

Santi Asoke's political commitment, while irritating the Sangha leadership, was in fact a far cry from my bedside. After all, Santi Asoke was not recognized by the Sangha and was therefore not really their business. However, the evolution of the political situation in the country would cause the Sangha itself to become deeply divided. From the moment the Red Shirt in the period March - May 2010 they began to dominate the street scene in the Thai capital, they received support from monks, some of whom even manned the barricades. Author Jim Taylor estimated their number to be between 4 and 500, and curiously, they belonged to both the Mahanikai and Thammayut orders. The latter was disturbing, especially for the Sangha top, because the Thammayut order was always regarded as the most conservative and law-abiding representative of Buddhism in Thailand. The monks who showed their support for the red shirt protestors may be a small minority of the Buddhist faith community, but according to the findings of a study by Professor Surapot Thaweesak of the Suan Dusit Rajabhat University published in 2011 there would be 'a widespread sympathy for the Red Shirts cause within the monastic communities'.

A Red Shirt Monk (1000 Words / Shutterstock.com)

A large-scale survey of monks from southern, central, north and northeast Thailand revealed clear differences in terms of political preference. While the monks from central Thailand and the south indicated that they prefer to remain neutral or have no clear preference, 47% of the monks in the north and a whopping 57,3% of the monks in Isan had a strong preference for the Red Shirt. When the same survey showed that 27,3% of the monks from the south openly practiced the Yellow Shirts supported, this showed that the socio-political gulf between the two camps was now also manifesting itself within the Sangha. Figures and a statement that were almost immediately confirmed by a new study conducted by the historian Niddi Eoseewong.

In itself it was not surprising that most monks from the north and northeast, with the same social background and geographical origin as the Red Shirtdemonstrators, sympathized with them. For them, the choice to become a monk was often motivated by the possibility of receiving a better education and raising their status. A series of interviews that Surapot Thaweesak conducted with prominent monks in the north and Isaan revealed that they held values ​​such as social justice and good governance in high esteem. The fact that the Supreme Council of the Sangha was extremely surprised by the, in their view, unexpected support for the Red Shirt, especially proved how little feeling there was still at the top with the broad masses of the faith community. Who did realize in time how things were going was then Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who shortly before the start of the massive red shirtprotests in 2010, placed eleven leading monks under security guards. Among them were the abbot of Wat Phra Dhammakaya, Phra Dammachayo, the deputy abbot of Wat Saket, and the rectors of the two Buddhist universities in Bangkok, Mahachulalongkorn and Mahamakut…