Young Men's Buddhist Association (Burma)
A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject. (June 2021) |
ဗုဒ္ဓဘာသာကလျာဏယုဝအသင်း | |
Anti-colonialism Burmese nationalism | |
Location | |
---|---|
Chairman | U Ye Htun [1][6] |
Patron | Senior General Min Aung Hlaing [6] |
Myanmar portal |
The Young Men's Buddhist Association (YMBA;
History
The YMBA was founded in
The YMBA started its first open campaign against British rule in 1916,[8] and after many protests obtained a ruling that abbots could impose dress codes on all visitors to Buddhists monasteries.[9]
The organization split in 1918 when older members insisted that it should remain apolitical, whilst younger members sought to enter the political sphere, sending a delegation to India to meet the Viceroy and Secretary of State to request the separation of Burma from India.[3]: p.153–154 Further lobbying delegations were sent to London in 1919 and 1920. Following its key involvement in the 1920 student strike,[3] the most nationalist elements of the YMBA broke off and formed a political party known as the General Council of Burmese Associations,[10] whilst a senior faction later formed the Independent Party.[citation needed] After Burma was granted independence in 1948, YMBA pledged to exit from politics.[11]
YMBA returned to the political scene in 2019, closely aligning itself with the Myanmar military and its proxy political party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party.[11] In October 2019, YMBA bestowed an honorary title, the Mahāmaṅgalādhammajotikadhaja, on Min Aung Hlaing, the military's commander-in-chief, and granted him the role of permanent patron.[12] In February 2020, YMBA granted Min Aung Hlaing its highest honorary title, the Aggamahāmaṅgalājotikadhaja.[12] The granting of honorary titles was heavily criticised on social media.[12]
Following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état in February 2021, YMBA became the first civil organisation to issue a public statement supporting the Tatmadaw.[4] Political observers have speculated that YMBA has ambitions to succeed the Patriotic Association of Myanmar, which was banned by the civilian-led government in 2017.[11][12]
Membership
In August 2020, YMBA had 30,000 members.[12] Members pay annual dues, which are discounted for military officers.[12]
Activities
The organization has founded multiple schools. YMBA operates Dhamma training classes and Dhamma summer schools nation-wide, through its township chapters.[11] The schools have been criticised for stoking ethnoreligious tensions and promoting military propaganda.[11]
References
- ^ a b "YMBA အသင်းသူ/သားများအနေဖြင့် YMBA ဗဟိုအမှုဆောင်များအား ကြိုတင်အသိပေးတင်ပြခြင်းမရှိဘဲ မိမိသဘောဆန္ဒအလျောက် မီဒီယာများကိုဖြေကြားခွင့်မပြု". People Media (in Burmese). 11 January 2021.
- ^ သမိုင်း၊ အဋ္ဌမတန်း၊ Grade-9 [History Textbook, Eighth Standard, Grade-9]. Ministry of Education, The Republic of The Union of Myanmar.
- ^ a b c Fukui, Haruhiro (1985). Political parties of Asia and the Pacific. Greenwood Press. pp. 131–132.
- ^ a b c "Tatmadaw supporters march in Yangon". The Myanmar Times. 2021-02-03. Retrieved 2021-02-16.
- ^ "Complaints against YMBA's operations continue". The Myanmar Times. 2016-01-12. Retrieved 2021-05-28.
- ^ a b နေဝန်းထက် (23 October 2019). "ဗုဒ္ဓဘာသာကလျာဏယုဝအသင်းချုပ် (YMBA)အနေဖြင့် အမျိုး၊ ဘာသာ၊ သာသနာ၊ ပညာကို တစိုက်မတ်မတ် လုပ်ဆောင်ရန် အသင်း၏ ရာသက်ပန်နာယက ဗိုလ်ချုပ်မှူးကြီးမင်းအောင်လှိုင် မှာကြား". Eleven News (in Burmese). Eleven Media Group Co., Ltd.
- ^ Human Rights Watch (2009) The Resistance of the Monks: Buddhism and Activism in Burma p12
- ^ William Roger Louis (1999) Oxford History of the British Empire, Vol. 4, Oxford University Press
- ^ History of Burma Michigan State University
- ^ Here Today, Gone Tomorrow The Irrawaddy, 8 November 2009
- ^ a b c d e "'Psychological violence': Nationalist Dhamma schools make a comeback under junta". Frontier Myanmar. 2023-05-24. Retrieved 2023-05-28.
- ^ a b c d e f Thar, Hein (2020-08-10). "Is the YMBA planning a return to politics?". Frontier Myanmar. Retrieved 2023-05-28.
Further reading
- Michale W. Charney. A History of Modern Burma. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. p. 31.
- Georgetown Berkeley Center article on this organization