The Second Wave

9/30/09 4:22pm

They are calling it the “Second Wave of Saffron Revolution” which is intended to take place starting 7:30am this Saturday, October 3rd, 2009. Last night while out, Ashin Sopaka, the monk that lead the peace walk discussed in the previous post, came out to talk about this second wave. He said that the monks in Burma will be acting in unison to head to the streets and protest, once again, about the way people are being treated in Burma. The Burma Digest states:

The Buddhist monks of Burma have delivered an ultimatum to the Burmese military government: If the government will not apologize for and stop the persecution, assassination and contempt of Buddhist monks and the people of Burma… a second wave of the Saffron-Revolution including demonstrations of the monks will take place, starting on October 3rd in Burma.

In solidarity, demonstrations in Thailand and the USA (that took) place:
- 21st September: Peace march in Mae Sot, northern Thailand led by the exiled Burmese monk Ashin Sopaka
- 23rd September: Protest at the UN Headquarters for 2nd Anniversary of the Saffron Revolution

Currently the All Burma Monk Alliance (ABMA) is organizing members at the monastery schools across Burma to unite. From what I hear the military is most threatened by protests from monks since they are highly respected individuals in their society and therefore hold a lot of strength when it comes to demonstrations/revolutions. In the past other forms of protests by the monks have included denying blessings to military personnel, which I guess is the ultimate slap-in-the-face. It’s interesting to me how some of the staff hasn’t heard about this yet which makes me wonder how large of a revolution it will be. Regardless, the ball is a rollin’ and it’s worth keeping an eye on.