Desktop versionMobile version

Buddhism and Politics in Thailand

 | 
Arnaud Dubus

Buddhism and nationalism

Full text

1In parallel with the increased political polarization, the long-running campaign to make Buddhism the national religion of Thailand has intensified since 2005. Nourished by the conflict in southern Thailand between Muslim insurgents and the central state—and the subsequent growing unease between Thai Muslims and Buddhists—but also by the political divisions within the monkhood, this campaign advocates a reinforcement of the links between the monastic community and the political authorities as well as of the role of the sangha as a state auxiliary, leading to a growing alienation between the Buddhist hierarchy and local communities.

Buddhism and the South: Strengthening nationalism

  • 107 Eiji Murashima, “Building of the Official State Ideology in Thailand,” International Relations 84 ( (...)
  • 108 Ibid.
  • 109 Thongchai Winichakul, “Buddhist Apologetics and a Genealogy of Comparative Religion in Siam,” Numen(...)

2The ongoing ethno-religious conflict in the Thai south is a powerful illustration of the consequences of the close association between Buddhism and state in Thailand. The national ideology, which has been officially defined since the reign of King Vajiravudh (1910–25) as consisting of three pillars—Nation, Religion and King—with “Religion” and “King” being fundamental elements of the traditional Thai Buddhist theory of kingship.107 According to this theory, the king, supposedly elected by the assembly of the people, “should practice justice as the protector and as the person to be relied on by the people under the restraint of the moral law of Buddhism.” 108 Even if the term used in the elements of the national ideology is “religion” (Thai: satsana; Pali: sāsana), and not Buddhism, and even if King Vajiravudh insisted on religious tolerance, his frequent mention of the “superiority of Buddhism” compared to other religions meant that Theravāda Buddhism has been “an integral element of Thai identity.” 109 At a lecture c.1914 for his personal paramilitary, the Wild Tiger Corps, King Vajiravuth makes his stance clear:

  • 110 Ibid.

Every religion is suitable to particular nations and races. Buddhism is suitable to the Siamese race and ‘inseparable from our nation’. In other words, Buddhism is for Thai people. Besides, no other countries in the world knows Buddhism better than Siam, and Buddhism is only secure in Siam.110

  • 111 Michael K. Jerryson, Buddhist Fury: Religion and Violence in Southern Thailand (New York: Oxford Un (...)
  • 112 Interview, Suwanna Satha-Anand, May 2016.
  • 113 “Pattani Buddhist Park Project Put on Hold,” The Nation, January 21, 2016.

3This association between nation and Buddhism has perpetuated itself until today. Although this does not mean that non-Buddhists are excluded from the national community, it can create discomfort and even resentment among non-Buddhist groups. The problem is especially acute for the Malay Muslims of southern Thailand as they constitute 80 percent of the population of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat provinces as well as in five districts of Songkhla.111 In spite of being a demographic minority in the region Buddhists, especially representatives of the central state, sense their hegemony, given the conflation between Buddhism and national identity. This contradiction between a “superiority complex” and local reality opens the door to tensions and even to conflicts between Buddhists and Muslims in this region.112 An illustration of this was the project made public in January 2016 by the Pattani provincial authorities, in agreement with local sangha leaders, to create a 16-hectare Buddhist Park in a Muslim-majority district. Faced with the prospect of massive protests by the local Muslims, the military government forced the provincial authorities to shelve the project.113

  • 114 Jerryson, Buddhist Fury.
  • 115 Ibid.

4As Michael K. Jerryson shows in Buddhist Fury: Religion and Violence in Southern Thailand, the Thai state is using Buddhist monks as “living symbols of the Nation”—and they are so perceived by the Thai Muslims of Malay culture and ethnicity in the southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, with their decades-long ethno-religious insurgency, and which have seen an upsurge in violence since 2004 partly due to the Thaksin government’s confrontational approach.114 This stance transformed Buddhist monks into targets for the Muslim insurgents: at least twenty-three have been killed in the region since 2004. The monks are vehicles of a powerful combination of religion and nationalism. Each murder of a monk in the south, even if it has nothing do with the insurgency, is transformed from a localized incident and added to the state’s narrative of an ongoing conflict between Muslim separatists and the Buddhist nation-state, or in other words, into a religious war.115

5The militarization of southern temples, now occupied and guarded by soldiers and police, along with the presence of “military monks”—soldiers who are ordained and keep their weapons while officiating as monks—reinforces this conflation between the Buddhist religion and nationalist politics in the eyes of Thai Malay Muslims. As Jerryson shows, Buddhist monks in the south, however they behave individually, are unable to counter the pervasive use of their personae as symbols of the state.

  • 116 Duncan McCargo, “The Politics of Buddhist Identity in Thailand’s Deep South: The Demise of Civil Re (...)

6Some monks, however, are enthusiastic participants of this process, actively reinforcing the perception that they act in the name of the central state. On October 20, 2005 for instance, the Pattani Sangha Council published a twenty-point declaration four days after a violent attack on a Buddhist temple in the Panare district of Pattani, during which an elderly abbot and two temple boys were killed. The chief monk of Pattani province, Phra Maha Thawing Khemkaro, who initiated the declaration, argued that the southern monks should get involved in politics because they had kept quiet for a long time in the face of violence by Muslim insurgents and had not seen any results.116 The declaration was also strongly critical of the National Reconciliation Commission, an independent commission led by former prime minister Anand Panyarachun aimed at developing ways to lower tensions in the three provinces and help resolve the conflict. Khemkaro and some other monks felt that the commission was pro-Muslim and had sold out their interests.

Box 11 - A bridge between Buddhist nationalisms in Thailand and in Myanmar

In June 2015, the first signs emerged of links being built between Buddhist nationalists in Thailand and the anti-Muslim Buddhist movement Ma Ba Tha (Association for the Protection of Race and Religion) in Myanmar. The Bangkok-based World Fellowship of Buddhist Youth, led by Pornchai Pinyapong, donated THB1.5 million (US$42,000) to Ma Ba Tha in order for the ultra-nationalist movement, which had led a violent anti-Muslim campaign since 2012 aimed at the Rohingya of western Myanmar and other Muslim communities in the country, to set up two radio stations to broadcast its confrontational message.

  • 117 “Shun Hateful Buddhists,” Bangkok Post, July 6, 2015.

At the official donation ceremony in Yangon, Pornchai said to local journalists that the issue of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state “was the same problem as the southern part of Thailand.” 117

  • 118 Sanitsuda Ekachai, “Dangerous Path Toward Religious Extremism,” Bangkok Post, March 23, 2016.

A new step was taken in February 2016 when Ashin Wirathu (b. 1968), Ma Ba Tha’s extremist monk-leader, received an award in Bangkok on behalf of his movement for “being an outstanding Buddhist peace organization.” The award was organized by the World Buddhist Leaders Organization, also chaired by Pornchai Pinyapong. But the award ceremony was presided over by an elder from the Supreme Sangha Council. During his stay in Bangkok, Wirathu was also received with great pomp at the Dhammakaya temple as well as at the Mahachulalongkorn Buddhist University.118 In February 2017, Ma Ba Tha and Ashin Wirathu organized two demonstrations in Myanmar to show their support for the Dhammakaya temple while it was surrounded by thousands of police officers who were trying to arrest Phra Dhammachayo. All these institutions and temples have been actively campaigning to make Buddhism the national religion, as well as helping to strengthen the presence of Buddhist clergy in southern provinces with Muslim majority populations.

  • 119 Panu Wongcha-um, “Prominent Buddhist Monk Fans Anti-Muslim Sentiment in Thailand,” Channel News Asi (...)

7Some monks outside of the south have been pouring oil on the fire. One of these is Maha Aphichat, the 30-year-old monk of the Mahanikai temple Wat Benchamabophit in Bangkok, who in October 2015 launched a call on his Facebook page “to burn a mosque for every Buddhist monk killed in the south.” His call elicited many reactions both in support and in opposition until the military government forced him to take his page down. His call, reminiscent of Kittiwuttho’s words, is testimony to the views on political violence of some within the sangha: if Buddhism is attacked, then violence is justified on grounds of self-defense.119 Maha Aphichat and some other radical Thai monks have established bridges with ultra-nationalist Myanmar monks, led by Ashin Wirathu, who has been advocating violence against the Muslim Rohingyas living in western Myanmar close to the border with Bangladesh (see Box 11).

  • 120 McCargo, “The Politics of Buddhist Identity in Thailand’s Deep South,” 26.

8The setting up of Buddhist volunteer militias in the south like Or Ror Bor (Village Protection Volunteers), under the patronage of Queen Sirikit, has also fed Buddhist chauvinism and anti-Muslim hatred. According to field interviews by Duncan McCargo, the volunteers are armed and trained, not only to defend their Buddhist villages but also in preparation for a future civil war when Muslims will launch “large scale attacks” to drive Buddhists out of their homes en masse.120

  • 121 I attended one such sermon at Sam Chuk temple, Suphanburi province, in November 2015.

9The long-standing campaign to make Buddhism the national religion in the constitution has been fed by the violence against Buddhists and especially against monks in the south, which has given this campaign new momentum. For the southern Buddhist monks, who consider that the official sangha hierarchy is too slow to act and have formed their own associations—for instance, the Center of Buddhist Affairs in Support of the Southern Three Border Provinces (CBA) —the violence committed against Buddhists and monks in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, as well as in several districts of Songkhla, is proof that Buddhism is under threat from Islam in Thailand and needs special protection. In 2015 and 2016, petitions circulated in temples across the country, and some monks asked their temple’s followers to sign it in fiery anti-Muslim sermons.121

  • 122 Interview, Phra Pasura Dantamano, February 2016.
  • 123 Jesada Buaban, ความทรงจำในดวงแก้ว: ความทรงจำที่แปรเปลี่ยนไปเกี่ยวกับวัดพระธรรมกายภายใต้ปริมฑลรัฐบาล(...)

10The Dhammakaya Temple has been especially active in this campaign to gather signatures to make Buddhism the national religion as well as to help southern Buddhist monks, sending them monthly relief funds, and sending monks to the region for temporary stays.122 Jesada Buaban’s recent and thorough study of several Facebook pages set up by Wat Phra Dhammakaya has demonstrated that the temple has deftly managed to use the southern conflict to garner the support of Buddhists and to undermine the campaign to reform Buddhism launched by the military government since 2014.123

  • 124 Ibid.
  • 125 Interviews with Dhammakaya followers, March 2017.

11Dhammakaya has consistently emphasized that the reform campaign led by Paiboon Nititawan to audit the assets of and levy taxation on all temples, and ensure doctrinal conformity with orthodox Theravāda Buddhism would undermine the sangha and facilitate the rise of Islam in Thailand. Dhammakaya goes so far as to speak about a concerted campaign by the military government and Muslims to weaken Buddhism. It has also used this as an argument to ask for Buddhism to be made the national religion of Thailand so that it can get more government support. According to the number of “likes” and comments on these Facebook pages, the temple’s tactic has been quite successful.124 There is indeed a deeply-rooted belief among a number of Dhammakaya lay followers that there is a long-term “Muslim plot” to “take over Buddhist Thailand.” 125

The push to make Buddhism the national religion

Buddhism and the Constitution

  • 126 Since the overthrow of the absolute monarchy in 1932, Thailand has had 20 constitutions, which is a (...)

12Every time a new constitution of Thailand is drafted, some Buddhist associations—for instance, the Buddhist Academics Association and the Voluntary Buddhist Council of Civil Society—launch a campaign to have the future constitution stipulate that Buddhism is the national religion of Thailand.126 So far, these efforts have failed, but each time, particularly in the two last constitutions, these conservative groups have gained some ground.

  • 127 Interview, Gothom Arya, September 2016.

13For instance, the 2007 Constitution stipulated in its section 79: “The state shall patronize and protect Buddhism which the majority of Thais have followed for a long time and other religions.” The words “which the majority of Thais have followed for a long time” were an addition compared to section 73 of the 1997 Constitution. This was a concession made to the radical Buddhist lobby who had unsuccessfully pushed for Buddhism to be made national religion.127 But the traditional mention of the importance of “promoting religious harmony” was written in section 79 of the 2007 Constitution as it had been in most of the previous constitutions.

14Radical Buddhists made more progress with the junta’s 2016 draft charter, which was approved by referendum on August 7, 2016. This time, section 67 went further and stipulated:

With a view to patronizing and protecting the Buddhism, which has long been professed by the majority of the Thai people, the state shall promote and support education in and propagation of the principles of Theravāda Buddhism for the purpose of mental and intellectual development, and shall establish measures and mechanisms to prevent the desecration of Buddhism in any form. The state shall also encourage the participation of all Buddhists in the application of such measures and mechanisms.

15This constitutional call to Buddhists to participate in the protection of Buddhism and the prevention of the desecration of Buddhism understandably made Thais of other faiths, in particular the Muslims of southern Thailand, uncomfortable. Buddhism was this time clearly put at a level superior to other religions. One indication of the Muslim discomfort was the very high number of “no” votes to the draft charter in the southern provinces during the August 7, 2016 referendum as well as the high number of defaced and spoiled ballots.

16The draft Section 67 went even further and completely dropped the traditional call for “religious harmony.” The military junta apparently realized, when analysing the referendum results, that something was amiss, and that there was a high risk of increasing discontent among the Muslims. Thus on August 22, barely two weeks after the referendum, Prayuth Chan-ocha issued an order under section 44 of the interim charter—which gives him absolute power for the good of national security—trying to correct the effects of section 67 of the draft charter.

  • 128 “Religion S44 order ‘clears confusion,’” Bangkok Post, August 24, 2016.
  • 129 Interview, Angkhana Neelapaijit, member of the Thai National Human Rights Commission, September 201 (...)

17The order set up a panel to “prevent acts which threaten Buddhism and other religions” and mentioned this time the duty of the state to “promote good understanding and harmony among followers of all religions.” This affirmation that “the state must protect all religions equally,” according to the words of Deputy Prime Minister General Prawit Wongsuwan,128 went some way to reassure believers of other faiths, but the confidence of Muslims in the attitude of the government towards them had been eroded.129

The debate on Buddhism as national religion

  • 130 Interview, Phra Pasura Dantamano, February 2016.

18The promoters of Buddhism as the national religion are mostly found among monks linked to the Red Shirts, which may be surprising as they may appear to be more “progressive.” Wat Phra Dhammakaya is a strong supporter of the campaign, as is Phra Methee Dhammachan, the vice-rector of Mahachulalongkorn Buddhist University. Their argument is based on several grounds. The first is cultural. Buddhist nationalists justify their call by the fact that Buddhism has for many centuries played a dominant role in shaping Thai culture and the Thai ethos or Thainess. “The kindness, calmness, generosity and sense of compromise of the Thais,” say these proponents, comes from Buddhism.130 They also emphasize that the high proportion of Thais who are Buddhist—around 95 percent—would also amply justify Buddhism being declared the national religion.

  • 131 Interview, Phra Methee Dhammachan, May 2016.

19They often make comparisons with other countries to make their point, emphasizing, for instance, that Islam is the official religion of neighboring Malaysia, even if only 55 percent of Malaysians are Muslims.131 The fact that there are countries where the religion of the majority is not enshrined as the state religion, for instance, in the cases of Hinduism in India or Islam in Indonesia, does not seem relevant to them.

20Second, promoters of Buddhism as the state religion argue that it needs protection. For them, Buddhism is being weakened by the aggressiveness of Thai Muslims—illustrated by the killing of monks and lay Buddhists in the south—as well as by the rise of criticisms against Buddhism as shown in the Somdet Chuang case, and finally by the lack of discipline and misbehavior of some monks.

  • 132 Nanchanok Wongsamuth, “Push to Make Buddhism State Religion,” Bangkok Post, October 25, 2015.

21They feel that constitutionally enshrining Buddhism as the state religion would be a first step to protecting and strengthening Buddhism, but some want to go further. For instance, the secretary of the Committee to Protect Buddhism as the State Religion, Korn Meedee, is asking for “heavy penalties, such as jail terms for monks who cause harm and disgrace.” He also wants the authorities to help “eradicate images that do not properly represent Buddhism, as well as non-pure forms of Buddhism.” 132 The idea is to create legal protection for Buddhism similar to Article 112, which protects the king, queen, heir apparent and regent from threats, insults and defamation—that is, to establish a crime of lèse-Buddhism.

Box 12 - Interview with Louis Gabaude, Professor Emeritus of Buddhist Studies, École Francaise d’Extrême-Orient, July 2016

What is your view on the evolution of Thai Buddhism at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century?

Louis Gabaude: I think we have not analyzed enough the role of King Chulalongkorn in the destruction of local cultures. I am not sure if it was intended, but when he standardized the Thai writing system across the country—what we call today the modern Thai writing—the effect was to put out of fashion all the regional scripts. The Thai script was not used in the Buddhist texts of central Thailand, where khorm, a form of Khmer script, was used for these texts. Not only the local religious culture of central Thailand, but also the cultures of the northeast and the north were progressively erased.

Little by little, people became unable to read in the regional alphabets, and, thus, unable to benefit from what was transmitted by these local texts. The cultural and religious past of large parts of Thailand became inaccessible, except for a few individuals. Chulalongkorn’s policies unified the country politically, but destroyed it culturally, or at least destroyed the sub-cultures.

And since that time, has there been really no change to the administrative organization of the monastic community?

When the monks were organized at a national level, the honorific titles took precedence over everything else. Monks study Pali language, not with the intention of having a deeper understanding of the texts, but to obtain their Pali graduations: Pali 4, Pali 5, until Pali 9. Because they know that with these titles, they can climb up the Bangkok hierarchy, as all the local titles—like khruba and so on—have been destroyed.

This transferred the prestige of religious authority to a realm that was not spiritual. That is why, in parallel to the Bangkok hierarchy, there is a spiritual hierarchy that has emerged, based on miraculous powers or on the concentration or meditation powers attributed to some monks. This second hierarchy is built on the reputation of these monks, a little bit like the reputation of the Saints was built up in Christianity. But today, the Bangkok press is also echoing this “local reputation,” which therefore is not only local anymore.

Would the campaign to make Buddhism the national religion somehow be a logical consequence of the fact that Buddhism has been used by the central state as a tool of legitimation?

When the new leaders of Siam wrote the constitution in 1932, they played on the ambiguity of the word satsana. For the monks and most of the people, it means “teachings (of the Buddha)” or “Buddhism,” but for intellectuals and secular people the word actually means “religion.” Pridi Banomyong had been trained in France and was probably for secularism, but he and the others used the ambiguity of the word to say that the king was the protector of religions or of the religion, without saying that he was especially the protector of Buddhism.

  • 133 Interview conducted in French.

From the viewpoint of the monks, they think that if Buddhism were the national religion, they would have a stronger institutional guarantee for their security, what I would call their “alimentary security.” But clearly, politicians do not want this, particularly today with the Muslim problem in the south. It would be a time bomb.133

  • 134 Interviews with Phra Paisal Visalo, April 2016; Suwanna Satha-Anand, May 2016; Vichak Panich, Febru (...)

22The opponents to making Buddhism the national religion are a more diverse group. They include virulent anti-Dhammakaya monks, like Phra Buddha Isara, but also more moderate figures like the forest monk Phra Paisal Visalo and many lay Buddhist intellectuals, such as Suwanna Satha-Anand, Vichak Panich or Sulak Sivaraksa.134 Most of them emphasize that making Buddhism the national religion would embolden Buddhist radicals and increase the tensions between Buddhists and Muslims. For them, the linkage made since the nineteenth century between Buddhism and the nation is at the root of many of the problems in the religion: Buddhism was made a tool of the Thai state, which created a gap between the sangha and the people. Monks have become disconnected “from the suffering of the people” and enshrining Buddhism’s status as state religion would only accentuate the problem.

23In their view, the fact that Buddhism is de facto the dominant factor in shaping Thai culture is enough, and there would be no advantage to have a constitutional section “imposing” Buddhism as state religion. This would even be an admission of failure as it would be an acknowledgement that Buddhism has weakened so much that it is not able to positively influence Thai society. Thus, they think that the priority should be to better explain and promote the essence of Buddhist values, and more widely, of religious values in Thai society, rather than to adopt legal protection of Buddhism.

Notes

107 Eiji Murashima, “Building of the Official State Ideology in Thailand,” International Relations 84 (1987): 118–35.

108 Ibid.

109 Thongchai Winichakul, “Buddhist Apologetics and a Genealogy of Comparative Religion in Siam,” Numen 62, no. 1 (2015): 76–99.

110 Ibid.

111 Michael K. Jerryson, Buddhist Fury: Religion and Violence in Southern Thailand (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

112 Interview, Suwanna Satha-Anand, May 2016.

113 “Pattani Buddhist Park Project Put on Hold,” The Nation, January 21, 2016.

114 Jerryson, Buddhist Fury.

115 Ibid.

116 Duncan McCargo, “The Politics of Buddhist Identity in Thailand’s Deep South: The Demise of Civil Religion?” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 40, no. 1 (2009): 30.

117 “Shun Hateful Buddhists,” Bangkok Post, July 6, 2015.

118 Sanitsuda Ekachai, “Dangerous Path Toward Religious Extremism,” Bangkok Post, March 23, 2016.

119 Panu Wongcha-um, “Prominent Buddhist Monk Fans Anti-Muslim Sentiment in Thailand,” Channel News Asia online, February 8, 2016; http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/-asiapacific/prominent-buddhist-monk-fans-anti-muslim-sentiment-in-thailand-8170856 (accessed October 31, 2017).

120 McCargo, “The Politics of Buddhist Identity in Thailand’s Deep South,” 26.

121 I attended one such sermon at Sam Chuk temple, Suphanburi province, in November 2015.

122 Interview, Phra Pasura Dantamano, February 2016.

123 Jesada Buaban, ความทรงจำในดวงแก้ว: ความทรงจำที่แปรเปลี่ยนไปเกี่ยวกับวัดพระธรรมกายภายใต้ปริมฑลรัฐบาล. ทหารปี . . 2557–2559 [Memory in Crystal: Changing memory on Dhammakaya Movement under the umbrella of military junta 2014–2016] Southeast Asian Studies Program, Walailak University, Nakhon Si Thammarat, 2016 (unpublished).

124 Ibid.

125 Interviews with Dhammakaya followers, March 2017.

126 Since the overthrow of the absolute monarchy in 1932, Thailand has had 20 constitutions, which is an average of about one every four years. The most recent constitution, drafted in 2016, was enacted in April 2017.

127 Interview, Gothom Arya, September 2016.

128 “Religion S44 order ‘clears confusion,’” Bangkok Post, August 24, 2016.

129 Interview, Angkhana Neelapaijit, member of the Thai National Human Rights Commission, September 2016.

130 Interview, Phra Pasura Dantamano, February 2016.

131 Interview, Phra Methee Dhammachan, May 2016.

132 Nanchanok Wongsamuth, “Push to Make Buddhism State Religion,” Bangkok Post, October 25, 2015.

133 Interview conducted in French.

134 Interviews with Phra Paisal Visalo, April 2016; Suwanna Satha-Anand, May 2016; Vichak Panich, February 2016; Sulak Sivaraksa, April 2015.

The text and other elements (illustrations, imported files) may be used under OpenEdition Books License, unless otherwise stated.

Search OpenEdition Search

You will be redirected to OpenEdition Search