Politics and the profanity of disbelief
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Last October “Doo Phra”, the oil painting above by Thailand’s Warthit Sembut, won one of the Young Thai Artist Awards meted out annually by the cultural foundation established by Siam Cement, one of the country’s leading corporations and one with deep royal connections. The foundation invited Warthit to bring his family to the awards presentation in Bangkok; his parents drove all the way from Chiang Rai in the far north to attend.
When they got to the venue, they found an empty frame dangling among the other prize-winning works.
The foundation, supposedly made of concrete, had collapsed at the mere possibility that Warthit’s painting would draw complaints for its depiction of Buddhist monks sinning — they’re lustily looking over amulets. The Buddha advised us to detach ourselves from material things and be free of desire. For the clergy who carry his message to be coveting superstitious trinkets is surely a dual sin.
The title of the painting, “Doo Phra”, means “monks watching” or, if you turn the translation slightly, “watch the monks”.
The Siam Cement Foundation had reason to worry about complaints. The month previous there’d been an unholy row over another painting that showed monks in a bad light. Anupong Chanthorn’s “Bhikku Sandan Ka” — meaning “Monks With Traits of a Crow”, a phrase the Buddha used — won the gold prize at the 2007 National Artist Awards and was displayed at host Silpakorn University. This one depicted two squatting monks with the beaks of crows and in the company of crows.
A storm descended on the campus. Dozens of monks and scores of laymen from Buddhist universities staged a series of protest rallies, demanding that the university withdraw the award and remove the painting from the show because it insulted the clergy. Some protesters wreathed a photo of Anupong and, as it was incinerated, monks chanted a funeral prayer.
The soundbites for the TV news came from a leader of the People’s Network to Protect the Nation, Religion and the Monarchy. This group had been involved in the summer rallies outside Government House where the drafters of Thailand’s new constitution were prodded to include a passage declaring Buddhism the national religion. Several monks staged a hunger strike to underscore how much this meant to them.
They stopped when Her Majesty the Queen, clearly endorsing the belief upheld in every Thai constitution that the King is the defender of all religions in Thailand, including Islam and Christianity, said in her birthday speech that Buddhism shouldn’t be involved with politics. Politics was at work in this demand for a “national” religion, 80% of Thais agreed, according to a poll. That fight would have to be put on hold until the election in December, and, the deposed prime minister’s proxy party having won it, we’ll see what the protectors of the old power structure, the old privileges and the old restrictions, do next. See the rest.
