Buddhism And Burma's Political Development

Buddhism has the extremely important status in the Burmese history,playing certain role in Burma political development.In Burmas politicaldevelopment, each special interest group exerts respective influencebased on the different item place and the reason to Burmas politicalreform. But people often only concerned about the political changepromoted by the international economy and domestic political groupsand easily ignored influence of the traditional culture of a nationsinherent in this transformation. Among them, Buddhism is very importantmotivating factors which promote the political transition.Since the1960s soldiers had established the military regime bymilitary coup détat, Burmas democratic political activity happenedfrequently, resulting in the decline of the domestic economy, thepoverty-stricken livelihood of the people, the international socialeconomic sanctions and political isolation. In such a harsh social reality,people resolve the conflict between the two sides and create thepeaceful social atmosphere with its theory of compassion which comesfrom Buddhism. Buddhism has supreme influence and gives thepopulace traditional religious concern. Meanwhile Buddhism adds fuelto the flames to the democratic movement,and actively plays theirown influence. In the development of politics it plays incomparable roleto other factors. In the Burma political development,the functions ofBuddhism elements are as follows: First of all, Burma, as a BuddhistKingdom, has a long history of a Buddhist culture, no one can erase theBuddhist influence in the history and political development. Secondly,the features of Buddhism in Myanmars political process is very notable,and it not only can affect the formulation and execution of law but alsothe Constitution is under the influence of it. For political instability andethnic conflict in Burma, Buddhism can unite people, provide the centripetal force of the people.And it can provide the nonviolentpeaceful resources and relax tensions between the two sides of theconflict, and so on.Certainly it should be pointed out that Buddhism is only one ofmany factors in the political developments in Myanmar, while we donot ignore the Buddhist factor, other factors should also be seen hadinfluence on the political process in Myanmar. Especially in Myanmarspolitical transition, the biggest obstacle is the military regime controlledby the military. And other political strength is relatively much weakerthan it including the NLD. The military regime has been reluctant to turnover the authority to the civilian Government, which causes Burmaspolitical process to be hard to start.