Exposing Fascist Monks
In Myanmar, it has been exceedingly rare, and widely frowned upon, for lay people to criticize the monkhood. This is not only true today, but has the code here for centuries. Monastics are seen to be operating on a higher ethical plane, and by doing so derive a greater power than those still enmeshed in worldly society. It is in this traditional, conservative, religious society where the punk anthem “Fuck Religious Rules” was released. The song, as Kyaw Kyaw of Rebel Riot tells me, was his attempt to speak out agains those Burmese monks who were promoting hate speech by encouraging violence against Muslims. He describes the genesis of this song in more detail.
“We said they are not monks… they are fascist monks!”
“If you say something bad thing about monks, then you are horrible. You are an evil guy. But when the Ma Ba Tha group began with hate speech to Islam 2013, we criticized them. We said they are not monks… they are fascist monks! This is what I believe.
This international news was huge in 2013, and this was before the song. So after this, some newspaper arrived by Burmese translation. So a lot of people sent messages to Rebel Riot, and they wanted to kill us because we are so rude to monks! Even though these monk are horrible!
So I got scared, because if I went out, maybe they will kill me or they will fight with me… but it gave me more energy. I didn’t care, and after this, in 2014, we made this song.
At this time, we got criticism from religious people. But some young people agreed what we said, and some open-minded people agreed. But the religious people didn’t like it.”