In the West, and perhaps especially in the United States, we seldom consider geopolitical matters that do not directly involve us. At present, most of us are familiar with the present circumstances surrounding Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover, but very few of us are aware that the people of Myanmar, otherwise known as Burma, have also suffered from a military coup d’etat and takeover this year.
Will There Be Peace in Myanmar?
Tatmadaw, Myanmar Armed Forces, staged a coup against the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and detained her under house arrest. Behind the nation's army lurks one of the world's major power working to gain its influence on Myanmar.
Many of us don’t bother to think about a place such as Myanmar because it seems alien to Western geopolitical interests. However, we live on a planet wherein all nations and people, despite being individuals, are ultimately connected and share in a common reality. What happens across the world has consequences throughout the world.
What if the coup d’etat in Myanmar was much more significant than most of us were led to believe? What if the takeover by the Tatmadaw military was influenced by outside forces? What if those forces have truly malevolent intentions, and intend to utilize Myanmar in a strategic fashion that may negatively impact other nations?
Will There Be Peace in Myanmar? addresses these concerns, and others, through a series of spiritual interviews. World Teacher, Rebirth of Buddha and the Modern-Day Savior, Ryuho Okawa has conducted spiritual interviews with the guardian spirits of former Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyu and Tatmadaw General Min Aung Hlaing. In addition, and appropriately because Myanmar is a Buddhist nation, Shakyamuni Buddha, Ryuho Okawa’s Guardian Spirit, is also interviewed to summarize the situation, and there is a final interview with a space being named Wilmar which means ‘those who believe in Buddha,’ an alien soul related to Aung San Suu Kyu, who has expressed concern about the long-term ramifications and hidden dynamics present in the Myanmar coup d’état.
The spiritual interviews in this text reveal many things. We are shown why and how some forms of Buddhism, and by extent other spiritual traditions, are inadequate to provide spiritual protection for a nation. The spiritual and worldly importance of democracy, and the threats to it in the world today, are also emphasized. Furthermore, the nuances of the role of China in the present circumstances of Myanmar are thoroughly revealed.
The present military dictatorship of Myanmar believes that it is using communist China to its advantage, while in fact it is China that is manipulating Myanmar as part of its own geopolitical strategy. A totalitarian nation like China, which is rapidly occupying more of the earth through direct and indirect means, can be very intimidating, and many nations have decided to effectively “bend the knee” to China, believing that this will ensure their own security and safety in the new world order that China intends to create.
Those of us in the West, though not subject to a communist China-influenced military coup d’état as of yet, are also living in a civilization that is now under communist influence. Much of our Western mass media must pass through censors of the Chinese Communist Party who demand that various elements of said media be removed. What may have begun as an effort to expand the market share of media consumption into China’s population has now become a movement of global censorship on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. There is quite literally a war of ideas happening all around us today. Can you be sure that any media you consume is not, in fact, influenced by communism?
It is only a matter of time before China expands even further into other areas of South-East Asia, as well as nations such as Japan. China has already pledged tolerance to the newly formed Taliban government of Afghanistan, and undoubtedly intends to utilize Afghanistan as a geopolitical strategic vantage point. When will this war appear more concretely in your nation? When will your people be physically oppressed by totalitarianism? Democracy is not something we can take for granted, and it can only be upheld where there are genuine spiritual principles in place throughout a nation.
There is hope, however, Shakyamuni Buddha states that we need to build a “spiritual revolution.” It is not enough that we satisfy worldly and material desires, and the popular secular belief that such would be sufficient is an indication of just how much progress China’s war of ideas has made in many nations throughout the earth.
We must all play our part in the ideological war that we are presently faced with. Self-reflection is paramount to this. We must weed out the atheistic and communist ideas that have been planted into our societies over previous decades. If we can do this for ourselves, and likewise develop a strong faith, then others will bear witness to the positive changes of progress and prosperity that it brings into our lives, and will follow suit.
Will There Be Peace in Myanmar? For now, it does not seem so. Let’s all do our part in ensuring that we may, at least, have peace in our own nation, and encourage our national governments to intervene where peace and democracy are threatened.
