As anti-coup protests continue, where are Myanmar's monks?

Ignoring history, some prominent Buddhist clergy have sided with the military

A Buddhist monk protests the arrest of Wirathu, an ultranationalist monk who has been accused of conspiring to persecute Muslims, in Yangon in January. Even well before the coup, the military and some racist monks were tapping into a latent xenophobic strain among the country’s mainly Buddhist ethnic Burman majority to target Muslims and other minorities. © AP

DENIS D. GRAY, Contributing writer

August 28, 2021 08:00 JST

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- In the days following Myanmar's Feb. 1 coup, social media abounded with scenes of angry protesters and brutal security forces. Among them were pictures of Buddhist monks, often standing silently with candles or marching with placards denouncing the military.

But monks have played a far less prominent part in the events of 2021 than in previous anti-military protests, when they were often in the front lines, reflecting their deeply ingrained role in the lives of Myanmar's people and their sympathy with popular opposition to the army, which has clung to power for most of the past six decades.