The duty of austerity (tapa) enjoins the king to adopt simple habits, to develop self-control and to practise spiritual discipline. The self-indulgent ruler who enjoys an extravagant lifestyle and ignores the spiritual need for austerity was no more acceptable at the time of the Mahasammata then he would be in Burma today.
The seventh, eighth and ninth duties—non-anger (akkodha), non-violence (avihamsa) and forbearance (khanti)—could be said to be related. Because the displeasure of the powerful could have unhappy and far-reaching consequences, kings must not allow personal feelings of enmity and ill will to erupt into destructive anger and violence. It is incumbent on a ruler to develop the true forbearance which moves him to deal wisely and generously with the shortcomings and provocations of even those whom he could crush with impunity. Violence is totally contrary to the teachings of Buddhism. The good ruler vanquishes ill will with loving kindness, wickedness with virtue, parsimony with liberality, and falsehood with truth. The Emperor Ashoka[221] who ruled his realm in accordance with the principles of non-violence and compassion is always held up as an ideal Buddhist king. A government should not attempt to enjoin submission through harshness and immoral force but should aim at dhamma-vijaya, a conquest by righteousness.
The tenth duty of kings, non-opposition to the will of the people (avirodha), tends 15 to be singled out as a Buddhist endorsement of democracy, supported by well-known stories from the Jakatas.[222] Pawridasa, a monarch who acquired an unfortunate taste for human flesh, was forced to leave his kingdom because he would not heed the people's demand that he should abandon his cannibalistic habits. A very different kind of ruler was the Buddha's penultimate incarnation on earth, the pious King Vessantara.[223] But he too was sent into exile when in the course of his strivings for
9. Vessantara: one of the most recent incarnations of the Buddha, in the best-known Jakata tale. As a prince, Vessantara was known for his generosity. As a young king, he gave away a great white elephant that had become a symbol of his country. The people were so disheartened by the loss of the elephant that they lost their confidence in his leadership, leading him to relinquish the throne to his father and become an ascetic.
the perfection of liberality he gave away the white elephant of the state without the consent of the people. The real duty of non-opposition is a reminder that the legitimacy of government is founded on the consent of the people, who may withdraw their mandate at any time if they lose confidence in the ability of the ruler to serve their best interests.
By invoking the Ten Duties of Kings the Burmese are not so much indulging in wishful thinking as drawing on time-honoured values to reinforce the validity of the political reforms they consider necessary. It is a strong argument for democracy that governments regulated by principles of accountability, respect for public opinion and the supremacy of just laws are more likely than an all-powerful ruler or ruling class, uninhibited by the need to honour the will of the people, to observe the traditional duties of Buddhist kingship. Traditional values serve both to justify and to decipher popular expectations of democratic government.
UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT
What two kinds of arguments have opponents of democracy in Burma used to discredit their opponents? How does Aung San Suu Kyi refute these charges?
Why is democracy a relatively new concept to the Burmese people? In the words of the Buddha, what four causes of decline and decay have prevented Burma from fully prospering? How are these causes relatable to other troubled countries and governments in today's world?
By what three names is the legitimate ruler known in Buddhist tradition? What does each name signify? How does Aung San Suu Kyi translate these concepts into a more contemporary setting?
How does Aung San Suu Kyi combine the idea of a democratic government with Buddhist principles? How does one support the other? How are the Ten Duties of Kings similar to tenets of a democratic government? How do these duties protect the citizens from the government?
To what purpose does Aung San Suu Kyi use the traditional Buddhist stories of Sumedha, Pawridasa, and Vessantara? How does each story support the point that political power ultimately rests in the people's hands?
MAKING CONNECTIONS
Compare Martin Luther King Jr. (p. 425), Mohandas K. Gandhi (p. 560), and Aung San Suu Kyi as religious social reformers. In what way does each of them bring religious belief directly to bear on social problems?
Compare the ways that the religious views of Aung San Suu Kyi and Desmond Tutu (p. 450) influence their understanding of government's role.
WRITING ABOUT THE TEXT
Explore democratic governments' ability to incorporate traditional belief systems into policy. What gives democracy this flexibility? What are the pros and cons of, for instance, religious influences on contemporary American lawmaking?
Compare Martin Luther King Jr.'s use of Christianity in the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" (p. 425) with Aung San Suu Kyi's use of Buddhism in "In Quest of Democracy."
Compare different notions of the "social contract" across various cultures. How does Aung San Suu Kyi's understanding of this contract differ from Hobbes's (p. 94)?
desmond tutu
Nuremberg or National Amnesia: A Third Way
[1997]
IN 1984, the year that Desmond Tutu (b. 1931) won the Nobel Peace Prize, his country of South Africa was at the center of an international firestorm over its practice of apartheid. Apartheid, or "apartness," was a system of racial segregation that disenfranchised the black South African majority and subjected them to officially mandated inequalities in education, employment, legal status, and police protection. When it began in 1948, apartheid was comparable to the official segregation that existed in the American South and other regions of the world—except that, in South Africa, whites accounted for less than 10 percent of the total population.
By the 1980s, however, the civil rights movement in America and the decolonization of Asia and Africa had eliminated official segregation in nearly every other industrialized nation. South Africa became a pariah nation, subject to boycotts and diplomatic pressures from other countries and increasing protests at home. During this time, Tutu, an Anglican bishop and democracy advocate, became an international symbol of the struggle against apartheid. After winning the Nobel Prize in 1984, he became the Bishop of Johannesburg in 1985 and the Archbishop of Cape Town—as well as the first black cleric to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa—in 1986. All the while, he continued his resistance to apartheid and his advocacy of nonviolent resistance in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
Racial tensions nearly plunged South Africa into a civil war. Chaos was averted, however, when F. W. de Klerk (b. 1936) became prime minister in 1989 and, less than a year later, began dismantling the apartheid system. He rescinded the longstanding ban on the African National Congress and released its leader, Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), from jail after twenty-seven years of incarceration. In 1994, Mandela became the president of the newly democratic Republic of South Africa, with F. W. de Klerk as deputy president.
With the transition to democracy, South Africa's new government had to find a way to address the atrocities that had occurred during the apartheid regime without destroying the fragile truce that existed between the old and the new governments. It was Desmond Tutu who provided the solution to this problem. In 1996, Tutu retired as the Archbishop of Cape Town to become the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was set up in an attempt to provide healing, rather than retributive, justice. The commission was empowered to grant amnesty for criminal acts committed by both white officials and black protesters, on the condition that they fully disclosed the crimes for which they were seeking amnesty. Under Tutu's leadership, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, whose purpose he explains here, became an important element in the creation of a stable democracy in South Africa. "Nuremberg or National Amnesia: A Third Way" is the second chapter of Tutu's 1999 book No Future without Forgiveness.