Abstract
When Buddhist monks joined Myanmar’s1 civilian protesters in September 2007, the subsequent Saffron Revolution2 challenged the nation’s nineteen-year-military junta. Photos and videos spread the news worldwide, and the holy men’s courageous stand won support from an admiring public. By helping to focus the global gaze on Myanmar’s repressive regime, the monks’ actions exemplified how religious groups accomplish public diplomacy. Although the junta harshly quelled the demonstrations, military leaders initiated steps to form a civilian government in 2011, and former opposition leaders—including Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi—won parliamentary seats the following April. In September 2012, Myanmar’s leaders were welcomed at the United Nations and restored to the good graces of the United States and the European Union ending years of political isolation and economic sanctions. Arguably, these stunning diplomatic turnarounds began with the 2007 demonstrations and the monks’ central role in galvanizing public opinion.
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Notes
See Ingrid Jordt, Burma’s Mass Lay Meditation Movement: Buddhism and the Cultural Construction of Power (Ohio University Press, 2007).
Larry A. Niksch, “Burma–U.S. relations (report),” Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports and Issue Briefs, 2007.
Jane Naomi Iwamura, Virtual Orientalism: Asian Religions and American Popular Culture ( New York: Oxford University Press, 2011 ), 22.
Carl Grundy-Warr, “Pacific Geographies and the Politics of Buddhist Peace Activism,” Political Geography 30 (2011): 191.
Seth Mydans, “Steep Rise in Fuel Costs Prompts Rare Public Protest in Myanmar,” New York Times, August 23, 2007, A 5.
Ann Blair, “The Buddhist Crisis in South Vietnam and the American Press,” The Melbourne Historical Review 20 (1990), 27.
Malcolm Browne, Muddy Boots and Red Socks: A Reporter’s Life ( New York: Random House, 1993 ), 11–12.
Lisa M. Skow and George W. Dionisopoulos, “A struggle to contextualize photographic images: American print media and the ‘Burning Monk,’” Communication Quarterly, 45.4 (Fall 1997 ), 406.
Rudy Busto, “ Chiariidaa o Sukue, Sekai o Sukue !”: “Nuclear Dread and the Pokémonization of American Religion in Season One of Heroes,” in Diane Winston (ed.), Small Screen, Big Picture: Television and Lived Religion (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009), 293.
Jane Iwamura, “The Oriental Monk in American Popular Culture,” in Bruce David Forbes and Jeffrey H. Mahan (eds.), Religion and Popular Culture in America ( Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004 ), 37.
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© 2013 Philip Seib
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Winston, D. (2013). Capturing the World’s Attention: Buddhist Media Diplomacy in Myanmar. In: Seib, P. (eds) Religion and Public Diplomacy. Palgrave Macmillan Series in Global Public Diplomacy. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137291127_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137291127_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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