Why Myanmar monks protested?
Sep. 27th, 2007 by AlThis is really getting bad as I watched the evening news myself, even the monks have taken to the streets to demonstrate on Yangon, the capital of myanmar.What has resulted in a peaceful demonstration has led to a military crackdown by the regime.
9 has been killed so far including a japanese reporter, and 11 are wounded.Army units raided the monastaries in Yangon and arrested the monks en masse.Why the people and monks suddenly fired up in this incident?
This may have something to do with the 100% fuel hike the government imposed last month.Real democratic movement cannot be developed if the country is too poor to feed themselves and that’s why to simply cite it’s a democratic protest is oversimplifying myanmar society.Asians are generally pragmatic lot, what use is more freedom without food on the table?
As fuel prices increase, everything become more expensive like daily necessacities, transportation costs used to carry the goods will passed on the consumers.As a poor country,the myanmar people bear the most burden of this fuel hike.
I believe the monks also needed the patronage of the public to survive, how else can monastaries able to sustain without generous donations from the believers.If the people donations fall, can the monks survive without any sources of incomes for long?So by connecting the events from the fuel hike leading to a mass demonstration by the monks proved that everyone is affected even if you removed yourself from a secular society which the monks found themselves in a petroleum led world.
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