In the morning, they pray and collect alms. At night, they march and shout for Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to resign.
Clearly these aren't your ordinary tranquil Thai Buddhists.
In fact, they are members of the Santi Asoke Buddhist sect, and have dubbed themselves the "Dharma Army," in reference to the teachings of the Buddha that promote virtue. It's a jarring name to people who associate Buddhism with pacifism.
PHOTO: AP
"It is our duty to Lord Buddha to oust the greedy and sinful Thaksin," says their charismatic and outspoken leader, Phra Bodhirak.
The group's members have joined the growing popular demonstrations to force Thaksin -- whom they accuse of corruption and abuse of power -- to step down.
A senior member of the sect, former Bangkok Governor Chamlong Srimuang, is one of the leaders of what have become nearly daily anti-Thaksin protests. He last played such a role in 1992, when pro-democracy demonstrators forced out a military-backed government.
Santi Asoke is not shy about flexing its political muscle, in the streets as well as at the ballot box. The group was in the vanguard of the 1992 demonstrations, and last year turned out in force to demonstrate against a beer company's plans to list on the Thai stock exchange -- alcohol being anathema to a virtuous Buddhist.
Once loosely affiliated with a political party founded by Chamlong, the group has now formed its own party known as "Pua Fa Din," or "For Our Land."
About 2,000 members of Santi Asoke are a steady presence at the anti-Thaksin rallies, which attract tens of thousands of people. Most wear the traditional blue Thai farmer's shirt called mohom, symbolizing their devotion to simplicity.
There is a strong tradition in some schools of Buddhism -- in India and Vietnam, for example -- to engage in organized social and political struggle. But Thai Buddhism generally reflects the country's easygoing nature, which is respectful of authority and generally avoids confrontation.
Even so, Santi Asoke's street marches are peaceful and disci-plined. The group prepared for a recent street action by viewing a video about the struggle of Mahatma Gandhi, Indian's national independence hero and apostle of nonviolence.
Members of the group -- which operates several vegetarian restaurants around the country -- man field kitchens at the site in Bangkok where protesters are encamped between rallies.
For all its discipline, however, Santi Asoke has always marched to the beat of a different drum. It never formally registered with the government's Department of Religious Affairs, and has been at odds since its founding in the 1970s with the Sangha Council, the country's ruling body for monks.
Sect founder Bodhirak was a TV presenter and songwriter named Mongkol Rakpong before becoming a monk in 1970, and three years later established his own Buddhist center, emphasizing self-reliance, simplicity and hard work.
Some people find the group's loudly proclaimed tenets of self-sacrifice dogmatic and self-righteous. Its implicit message -- that the mainstream Buddhist clergy don't live up to the religion's ideals -- has also earned it enemies, and resulted in Bodhirak's arrest.
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
RSS