What Does It Really Mean Religious #Freedom, #Polity, #Protection, #Support?
Author: Minimal Modernist & Virtual-world Indy
Posted on: 15th October 2021
Keywords: #government, #monk, #supervision, #legitimation
Length: 948 words
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Western perspectives on religious #freedom and toleration tend to place the importance on the independence of individuals and groups. #Government’s powers of #supervision or state’s oversight on the religion seem to go against that value.
In Thailand, on contrary, Thai Buddhists insist that state involvement in Buddhist institutions is a necessary condition for the #freedom and independence of the religion. To guarantee religious #freedom for Buddhism requires that Buddhist-majority polities do not merely stay out of the way of the religion, but actively #support it in a manner consistent with that of earlier Buddhist kings who were not only a good #supporter but also a religious defender.
The royal role model of being a righteous king emulated by many Buddhist monarchs in Southeast Asia was the legendary King Asoka of the ancient India. According to the history, he was a good Buddhist. He offered food, materials and financial #support to the religion. Moreover, in his reign, he involved in cleansing the #monkhood of lax, undisciplined and heterodox #monks. Historical records explain that the Buddhist #monks, because of their occasional penchant for schism or laxity, must be periodically purified by kings or #governments. The Asoka’s involvement in the cleansing clearly demonstrates that the King was not only taking the role of a religious defender, but also acting as a reformer, auditor and administrator of the Sangha members.
This so-called Asokan paradigm stands behind contemporary arguments for legislation that permits state intervention in the Sangha as a necessary part of maintaining Buddhism continuity and Buddhists’ #freedom on religion. However, Buddhist Sangha and Thai #government still agree that the health of Buddhism depends upon political intervention by the state because Thai Sangha and the state believes that the religion at some points has vulnerability and history of royal #support has prevented the religion from decline.
It emphasizes the Buddhist’s belief that after the great demise of the Lord Buddha, the religion is in a process of progressive deterioration. Therefore it cannot simply be isolated from political involvement, but it must be actively #supported by powerful laypersons, especially political elites in order to thrive.
The idea that the religion requires active #support to combat its decline stems from the doctrine which is the central to Buddhist philosophy, that everything in the world is impermanent. Thus, the religion is no different to anything else in the universe: it comes into being, grows, declines and disappears. However, Buddhists around the world hold different views about the length of the religion’s lifespan.
#Supporting a declining Buddhism has been an important rationale for twentieth-century #governments to give special #protections to religion within the ambit of protecting #freedom of religion generally. The #supports include the restoration of Buddhist sacred sites and monasteries, the revitalization of monastic education and projects designed to #support Buddhist teaching, the creation and consolidation of national and transnational Buddhist organizations, the spread of Buddhist meditation techniques and the critical editing, translating and publishing of important Buddhist texts.
Whereas, the state #protection means the #legitimation of government agency interventions into monastic governance and systems of #government oversight for Buddhist #monks. The state officialized and standardized a set of regulations on the doctrine taught in monasteries, as well as the status of ordained #monks. The Sangha Administration Act which was introduced in 1902 brought about present-day Thai Buddhism as a uniform institution that organizes monasteries and #monks into a single bureaucratic pyramid which has the kings take the title of the supreme defender of religion.
To sum up, this type of religious #supporting and #protecting model gives the king and #government ministers the right and obligation to audit and oversee the discipline and administration of Thai #monks and their facilities by issuing a set of special law under the sign of #freedom and #protection of religion.
It is an irony in these
unique legal arrangements given to Buddhism in Thailand the special prerogatives
under the guise of protecting the #freedom and wellbeing of the religion, in
fact, limit the autonomy of Buddhist monastic institutions and give added religious
powers to the state. From the view of liberal
political philosophy, this sort of interchange is the primary entity against religious
rights. Many see that it happens because Buddhism does not have clear institutional hierarchies or networks of international #support making it hard for the religion to stand strong on its own without state #support and #protection.
Laypeople on the other hand are left out of the scope of the religious administration, and the minimum requirement for laypeople is simply to select one religion on their citizen ID cards.
These are the components of general reality that Theravada Buddhist countries have embraced, enjoyed and tolerated religious #support and intervention from the state within the vision of having religious #freedom. Whether or not the present Theravadin generations and non-Theravadin thinkers accept or reject, endorse or challenge this idea and interpretations of #freedom of religion, and the modalities of toleration based on ancient Buddhist texts, it showcases a certain unique Buddhist practice among the diversity of #freedom of religion in the conceptual or legal rubric.
With the pushing-forward strength of the Gen.Y liberalists’ secular state ideology, it is interesting to see how the state will address the challenge to balance and maintain the grip of its long-stand religious influence and #supervision. Meanwhile, if Buddhism on the other hand without state #support and #protection will be in trouble or stand independently and stronger; after that how the relationship outlook between the Thai state and Theravada Buddhism is going to look like.
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