BY Nai Marn: Mon State youth are complaining of being increasingly targeted for surveillance efforts by Burmese government authorities since the arrest of Ashin Uk Kong Sah, a Mon monk, in Thanphyuzayart this January. A youth leader in Moulmein informed IMNA that youths are particularly scrutinized when wearing traditional Mon dress.
“Mon Youth” refers to the unofficial Mon State-wide organization of the state’s youth population. The group is largely made up of university students and recent graduates, and leaders and representatives are selected from individual villages and township quarters. These in turn congregate at their own discretion. The Moulmein youth leader that IMNA spoke with explained that the increased surveillance was interfering with youth-led activities and meetings.
“The special police were following us while we dressed in the Mon national uniform, when we made donations to the monks at the monastery on March 6th [in Moulmein] . The youths can’t hold activities because of being shadowed by the special police after Ashin Uk Kong Sah was arrested”, he explained.
Ashin Uk Kong Sah is a Mon monk, and frequent participant in Mon youth activities, who was arrested in Thanphyuzayart in January 2010 in connection to the “No 2010” campaign, which involved the aforementioned phrase being graffitied onto buildings and roads throughout Mon State on New Years Eve.
Cultural and religious festivals – monk ordination festivals, pagoda festivals, a most recently the festival on March 2nd, when ornamental umbrellas are placed on pagodas – are held in Mon State on a monthly basis. Most of these ceremonies and events necessitate the wearing of traditional Mon dress. The Mon youths from Moulmein that IMNA spoke to complained of feeling torn between tradition and security, and being targeted for police scrutiny merely for wearing traditional garb at appropriate times.
A second youth leader, who asked that his village in Mudon Township not be specified, reiterated the sentiment of feeling trapped between cultural norms and safely; the incident he related occurred during the recently celebrated Mon traditional festival of welcoming for putting the ornamental umbrella on the pagoda.
“On March 2nd, when about 50 villagers joined the ceremony, where we welcomed putting the ornamental umbrella on the pagoda in our village by wearing Mon traditional dress, and holding religious flags, the special police came and inspected us indirectly by talking to the people around us. And then the people around us told them that we were just welcoming the ornamental umbrella on the pagoda, and they went away”, he described.
