Mon Culture: Dying or Reviving?

Mon Culture: Dying or Reviving?: "One of Southeast Asia’s oldest cultures is under threat of extinction. Defenders of Mon identity and language are working to ensure its survival. During his defense hearing at a court in the Mon State capital of Moulmein, Mon Buddhist abbot U Palita refused to speak in Burmese, even though he knew it well enough. 'This is Mon-land,' he argued, 'where I should be able to speak Mon in official matters.' The authorities eventually acquiesced and arranged for an interpreter to translate his words into Burmese. That was 1975, a year after Burma’s socialist government granted statehood to the Mon in Burma’s southeast. Yet despite this concession, the Mon were without any real autonomy. Rangoon continued to control many of the state’s affairs and insisted that the Mon speak Burmese in all official matters. The following year, U Palita wrote a poem for the magazine Gatab Ket (Modernization). His poem warned the Mon that their state was not genuine and advised them 'not to taste the tasteless Mon State.' The poem landed him in jail. In 1976 he was sentenced to seven years, but he served only three. And his incarceration did nothing to erode his fierce nationalism. Now aged 79, U Palita has written more than 30 books in Mon and heads the monastery at Kamawet village in Mudon Township, Mon State. The abbot chairs a summer school program in Mon literacy, and through his work he has inspired hundreds of young Mon to continue writing in their native tongue. 'U Palita is the greatest Mon patriot of our time,' says Nai Kasauh Mon, editor of the Thai-based Independent Mon News Agency. The editor describes the abbot as the Mon equivalent of Thakin Kodaw Hmaing, the Burman nationalist and cultural leader from the independence movement. Assimilation, dislocation and suppression have put a strain on Mon identity, and the people rely on Buddhist monks to preserve what they can of it. 'Several well-known (and not-so-well-known) Mon Buddhist monks play an important role in fostering Mon identity, giving life to our people,' says Nai Kasauh Mon. The largest group of ethnic Mon live in Burma’s Mon State, but large Mon communities also reside in western Thailand, Karen State and in various Burmese villages. And their increasing fragmentation has led experts to say that their language is dying and their culture is in serious decline. It was not always thus. 'Mon-land' once covered the wide green plain of what is now central and western Thailand and southern Burma. Perhaps the most important legacy of Mon civilization is Theravada Buddhism, which became the dominant religion in Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Regional languages were also influenced by Mon. Said to be the oldest literary vernacular among Burmese languages, Mon is of the Mon-Khmer linguistic group. The Mon script, which can be traced back as far as the fifth century AD, influenced the development of character sets now in use in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Burma. While the Burmese language is considered a derivative of Tibeto-Burman, its script borrows heavily from Mon as well. Mon abbots mentored the Burmese kings after King Anawrahta sacked the Mon capital of Thaton in the 11th century and carried its king, monks and cultural treasures to Pagan. Until the following century, Burma’s royal edicts were inscribed in Mon. Mon kings ruled from Pegu until they capitulated to Burmese King Alaungpaya in 1757. Burmese invaders decimated the Mon and founded 'The End of Strife', or Yangon (Rangoon), on the site of the small Mon town called Dagon. The city later became the Burmese capital. Under colonial rulers after the 19th century, Mon identity was further repressed. British administrators made Burmese the language of government and encouraged a mass migration of Burman, Indian and Chinese workers into Lower Burma. These moves had a particularly devastating effect on Mon identity, writes Burma expert Martin Smith. Vast areas of Mon-land were also cleared for rice cultivation, Smith adds. Within two generations Mon civilization in Lower Burma was virtually erased. In 1891, the census found that 'the process of [Mon linguistic] decay ... has ... advanced too far to be checked by any transient revival of national feeling.' After independence in 1948, the Mons were one of many ethnic minorities to join the armed insurgency against Rangoon. Under a 1958 ceasefire, the democratically elected U Nu government agreed to work towards the creation of a Mon State. According to Dr Emmanuel Guillon, a scholar on Mon history, Mon culture flourished again under U Nu, as people were allowed to publish periodicals and celebrate traditional ceremonies. U Nu’s government continued to allow schools with Mon-language instruction, but when Gen Ne Win’s military government seized power in 1962, teachers of Mon literature were forced to resign.

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