Modern Buddhist Conjunctures in Myanmar: Cultural Narratives, Colonial Legacies, and Civil Society by Juliane Schober (review)

Schober’s book is another welcome addition to a number of recent publications that have examined Myanmar/Burma’s modern religious and political trajectories in an attempt to learn from its past and foresee future directions. The book comprises eight chapters that engage with Myanmar’s modern history from the precolonial period in the seventeenth century right up to the event marked by the uprising of Buddhist monks in the country in September 2007. By means of historical enquiry and sociological analyses drawing from previous works of Western scholarship, Schober unravels the tension brought upon the country as a result of colonialism, nationalism, modernity, and secularism.

Chapter 1 examines Buddhist institutional structures that informed the political discourse in precolonial kingdoms. The discussion draws on Tambiah’s model of galactic polities and describes how the cycle of rituals and religious exchanges affirmed the positions of regional subjects, consolidating the hegemonic power of royal courts. The following chapter describes how modernity was articulated as part of the colonial project. Schober sees “colonial modernity” to have instigated the widespread collapse of traditional cultural institutions, eroding the Buddhist monastic authority and leading to a profound restructuring of Myanmar society. Chapter 3 follows on this idea and examines the attempts made by colonizers to educate the “other”. In this discussion Schober juxtaposes Western knowledge and traditional monastic education, focusing particularly on the debate about the place of Buddhist education in an increasingly secular society. As in Chapter 2, Chapter 3 also discusses the ways in which colonial rule introduced secular structures through which Buddhism’s traditional role as legitimator of power was eclipsed under the growing influence of the modern state.

In the following chapter, Schober focuses on “modern Buddhist communities” such as the YMBA (Young Men’s Buddhist Association) and how their emergence appealed to urban intellectuals, “who longed for spiritual renewal at a time of disenchantment with modern society and a perceived loss of national identity and religious values” (p. 66). She saw members forging rational Buddhist identities and transnational connections, which contributed to further development of Buddhist rationalism. Among the middle class, the construction of such modernist Buddhist identity was one way of responding to the colonial reality, although this new identity was becoming submerged under the waves of Burmese nationalism.

Chapter 5 examines the attempts made by successive regimes to “infuse political ideologies” with Buddhist meaning as they tried to control the sangha while enhancing their political legitimacy. In order to realize their respective visions of nationhood, Prime Minister U Nu instituted Buddhism as the state religion to enhance unity in the Union of Burma, which however had the reverse effect, while General Ne Win was more intent on controlling the monks’ revenue sources to curb the millennial potential in the country. Both the SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council) and SPDC (State Peace and Development Council) regimes are seen by Schober to have promoted a far more totalizing vision of Buddhist nationalism, and especially in the absence of the national constitution between 1990 and 2008, the state actively appropriated the sāsana (Buddha’s dispensation) to impose their notion of Buddhist nationalism in the era of “Myanmarsization” (p. 91).

Chapter 6 examines various expressions of resistance to the modern Myanmar state, and Buddhist identities are seen to have assumed a core role in mobilizing resistance against the colonial government as well as expressing opposition to the state after independence. Schober argues that the 1988 uprising, in particular, was seen as a “defining moment” in Myanmar’s post-independence history, and describes how monks and students emerged as an oppositional force: “Monks provided logistical support for widespread antigovernment mobilization, relayed information through an internal monastic network, and even stepped up to administer some judicial and civil infrastructure” (p. 107). At this juncture, Schober deliberates on the moral vision of Aung San Suu Kyi, described to have derived from “a modern, rational...