Fifth Generation

Saffron Revolution

2007, due to increasing commodity prices, suffer of the population, thousands of monks led the protest.

The regime instrumentalized Buddhism to create an identity that would fundamentally speak against the desired harmony of the diversity within Myanmar, and Buddhist nationalism was born. In its rhetoric and ideology, the narrative of Myanmar was changed to a group of people, the Burmese, who were set as superior.

The junta’s security forces attempted to seal off as many monasteries and temples as possible with barricades and barbed wire to prevent the monks from sparking further demonstrations. The strategy has already succeeded around Burma’s national symbol, the Shwedagon, a giant golden pagoda in downtown Yangon. It shimmers in the soft dawn rays of the tropical sun, silent and utterly devoid of people.

Barricades block the access roads to Burma’s holiest site in the areas surrounding the Shwedagon, where the pagoda rises on a hill surrounded by a tangle of markets and monasteries. Elite government troops are now positioned behind those barricades. The situation is similar at the Sule Pagoda about two kilometres away, in Yangon’s decaying business district, where heavy iron gates now block the doors to the temple complex’s prayer and congregation rooms.

“We will fight until we have achieved democracy,” representatives of the All-Burma Monks Alliance, established in September, announced. The students have prepared their strategies well. They appear in groups of 2020 at a time, advancing toward Anawratha Street, a bustling commercial strip, where they occupy several intersections simultaneously. Then they confront the security forces in their defensive positions around the Sule Pagoda.

Refusal of alms is one of the monks’ most powerful weapons against the regime.