Buddhism and political legitimation in Burma (1988-2003)

Abstract

To examine the Burmese military government's utilization of Buddhist symbols and traditional belief that can be associated royal right and power. The focus is from 1988, which was the year the military government ascended to power by making a coup and killing hundreds of people who protested. It therefore attempted to find out how the detestation could continue to rule the country for almost 15 year. The study found that the SLORC government has faced with a grave legitimacy crisis on many grounds. The massacring of indignant people and students, and its continuing to rule without people's consent made the military government unadmirable. Trying to establish legitimacy, the government firstly declared that elections would be held in 1990, as well as claimed that it would improve the economy of the nation and made Burma/Myanmar a peaceful and prosperous nation. In order to achieve those goals, the government made a promotion of the economy, as well asthe enhancement of one's national pride among both Burmese and ethnic minorities. But these goals seemed to be never reached. Therefore, the government would never gain legitimacy from those campaigns as well. Instead, its image became undermined from the fact that the economy had never been improved, but even increasingly worsened. Therefore the government brought back Buddhism to legitimize its absolute right to rule. Evidences showed that the military government imitated the model of Burmese kings. The large-amounted utilization of Buddhist belief and symbols aims to manifest to the people as well as its political rival that the military government has an absolute power and therefore the right to rule. Significantly, as being auspicious signs, those religious works have also been utilized to convince people about the nearly-happened prosperous time of Myanmar. As the economic situation have never been improved but deteriorated, the SLORC in order to keep persuading the people its right to rule, has continued to produce such kinds of religious works. However, it has still been illegitimate. Though the people were convinced at the first place, they saw that there was no improvement