天堂.受难记

Reuters

Meritorious service

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THE generals who rule Myanmar must have been hoping they had successfully crushed the protests over their drastic increase in fuel prices last month. Arrests of suspected protest leaders and attacks on demonstrators by civilian goon-squads seemed to be doing the trick. But then, earlier this month, the army incurred the wrath of the country's respected Buddhist clergy by firing over the heads of a group of protesting monks in the central town of Pakkoku.

Some reports said monks were also beaten and arrested. The clergy demanded an apology. The junta refused. So the monks took to the streets of Yangon and other cities in their thousands, marching and chanting prayers. They urged laymen not to join the protests. They have also threatened, in effect, to excommunicate the junta by refusing to accept alms from them.

Raising the stakes, the army fired tear-gas canisters and warning shots to break up one of the biggest protests this week, in the western town of Sittwe. For two days, plain-clothes security men blockaded the golden Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, the country's most sacred Buddhist shrine. On September 20th they gave way and allowed around 1,000 monks, who had marched on the shrine through the pouring monsoon rain, to enter it. Irrawaddy, a newspaper run by Burmese exiles from neighbouring Thailand, claimed the junta had declared an emergency and authorised its forces to open fire on protesters if necessary.

All of this has recalled the mass pro-democracy uprising of 1988, which the regime put down harshly with the loss of thousands of lives. That, too, began in economic disgruntlement when the junta abruptly cancelled high-value banknotes. It then spread to a political movement in which students and monks played leading roles. Two years later the clergy imposed a boycott of military families similar to the one now being threatened.

This week's, like other, smaller protests over the years since then, failed to budge the junta. Hopes have risen, time and again, that demonstrations would gather momentum and trigger an unstoppable revolt, only to fade away.

But if there is one group in Burmese society that the generals might hesitate to confront, it is the clergy. Not just because it might whip up the masses to overthrow their tyranny at long last, but because of the influence Buddhists believe they have over the process of rebirth. Giving alms to monks is one of the main ways to make “merit”, so if this is denied the generals, they may lose their chance of advancement in their next life. A punishment amply merited.