Strange Bedfellows

Another cartoon from the Burmese artist JMP which needs no translation of words. A straight-forward comic depicting a monk and a general holding hands inside a bowl that reads 969, meaning the anti-Islam monastic movement which galvanized the country in the 2010s. To this day, the military's complicity in pushing forth this propaganda into various sectors of the monkhood remains unknown, but later the annals of history will reveal to just what degree the military utilized information and psychological warfare as a means of brainwashing the devout Bamar Buddhist population. Therefore, this cartoon represents the collusion between military and monkhood to use the country's Muslims as a scapegoat in their own ambitions towards power.

However, one must call attention to the uncomfortable gay tropes that JMP may be using to make his point. In a traditional society that is still marked by unquestioned homophobia, the depiction of the monk and soldier as possible gay lovers could be seen as a further insult to their masculinity. For an artist who is becoming one of the leading revolutionary cartoonists, this is a disturbing turn that demands greater sensitivity going forward.