As my colleagues (shout out to @ProfIRMF and @mpgPhD ) regularly point out, religion is what people do. The idea that monks are “supposed to renounce worldly affairs” is just that. It has been appropriated by states and monastic authorities to silence other monks/Buddhists. https://twitter.com/pravitr/status/1298264528057065475

Monks and novices I’ve interviewed in Thailand have diverse points of view (which should be painfully obvious, but isn’t).

Many of them agree that monks should not be concerned with politics. Many of them think monks should be allowed to vote. Some also think that monks should know, but it’s okay that they don’t vote because they are supported by the people. They are supposed to be “in the center.”

But what exactly “in the center” and “above politics” means is in the eye of the beholder.

Another aspect that is important is that many monks and novices have told me that they are from specific communities, and they reflect the interests of those communities (again, should be obvious, but we ask monks about Buddhism first, and not what they are thinking about).

Most Thais i have interviewed think that most monks come from North and Northeast (there is precious little sociology on the issue though). And so they reflect a politics that used to be referred to as that of the “red shirts.”

Popularly, this has meant that there is a fear that monks are very pro-democracy. And so this picture is unsurprising.

There are other, less positive aspects about this though. Some of the interviews I have conducted suggest that monks from the North are more likely to express Islamophobic views.

This evidence is spotty, though, and my point isn’t that these monks are good or bad. It’s that we need to start seeing them as humans who do stuff, shaped by politics, institutions, culture and history, and ideologies, not romanticize them as religious heroes.