Because supporters insist that the primary objective of the movement
is to defend Buddhism, it also creates a space for monastic political
action, something usually frowned upon in the Burmese tradition.
One of the ways in which monks have historically justified political
engagement has been to frame it as part of their necessary monastic
duties of protecting and spreading the religion. In the Theravada tradition,
education has traditionally been the province of monastics. Although
their control of this field has waned since the colonial period,
it is still universally accepted that monks ought to be teachers of the dhamma. This gray area of “traditional monastic duties” also allows for
a wide range of interpretation of appropriate actions. In response to
the ban on 969 organizations, one monk replied: “We don’t take part
in political affairs, steal others’ possessions, attack or lie to others. So
you cannot say we violate the ethics of a Buddhist monk. We just make
our special efforts in order to preserve our race and religion” (May Sitt
Paing 2013). Monks have used this interpretive space throughout Buddhist
history to justify various methods of political engagement, and it
will remain an important aspect of religious life in Myanmar, especially
if space continues to open up for political organizing more generally