Buddhism, Sex And Politics In Fast-Changing Thailand

ON Sept. 5th, an article in The Seattle Times that first ran in The Los Angeles Times concerned "Buddhist monk Phra Winai La'Ongusuwan." The article, by Tony Perry, reported that Winai, now living as a monk in Lilac, Calif., had sought political asylum in the United States because "governmental, religious, and military leadership in his native Thailand have been pursuing Winai with charges of criminality and heresy since the early 1990s."

Nowhere in this long article is there any mention of the extraordinary sexual scandal involving Winai that was the basis for his having been defrocked in 1995. Winai, formerly known as Phra (the venerable) Yantra, had achieved a reputation for exceptional piety and religious charisma prior to 1994 when stories about his sexual activities began to surface.

These stories, which were nearly as prominent for over a year in the Thai press as stories about the O. J. Simpson case were in the American press, raised among many Thai questions about which monks could be considered to manifest a moral authority that stems from their strict adherence to the teachings and model of Buddha, and which monks offered only a packaged piety ("with sex appeal" in the case of Yantra/Winai) that appeals to an intensely consumer-oriented society.

I have followed this case closely because of my work over three decades on Buddhism and society in Thailand, and the Winai/Yantra case figures prominently in a forthcoming paper on "Moral Authority of the Sangha and Modernity in Thailand" that I have written.

The rules of the Buddhist sangha established by the Buddha himself over 2500 years ago are quite emphatic that a monk who has sexual intercourse with a female, even a female animal, must immediately leave the monkhood. Few monks who have broken this rule deny doing so and they return to lay life without much public attention being given to their failure to maintain their vow of celibacy. Phra Yantra, however, sought to remain in the monkhood even when evidence of his sexual activities became impossible to refute.

In 1994, Phra Yantra was accused of having a long affair with a woman who gave birth to his child, of having sexual relations with a number of other women, and of having visited brothels in Australia (using a credit card provided by one of his female followers). Although Phra Yantra denied these charges, the Supreme Council of the Buddhist Sangha found the evidence so compelling that he was ordered to disrobe and to reassume his lay name of Winai.

Subsequent to his disrobing, criminal charges were brought against him for defaming the Supreme Patriarch of Thai Buddhist monks and for impersonating a monk. He jumped bail in Thailand and made his way to the United States. After coming here, proceedings were begun to deport him on the grounds that he had given false statements on his application for admission to the United States, the most significant being his self-identification as a monk in good standing when, in fact, he had been defrocked. The Thai government has also sought his deportation to stand trial on the charges pending against him.

Winai has apparently convinced some Americans that the effort to deport him is based on political rather than legal considerations. In his article in The Los Angeles Times, Perry seeks to construct a case that the effort by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to deport Winai stems from the "manipulation" of the U. S. government by an anti-democratic Thailand because of the importance of trade links between Thailand and the U. S. Such a view is not based on any real understanding of Thai politics.

Since the mid-1980s, those seeking to make Thai society more open and democratic have gained in strength, often drawing inspiration both from monks and from Buddhist lay leaders who are recognized as speaking with moral authority. In 1992, democratic forces were able to mobilize sufficient strength to force - after a bloody confrontation - authoritarian military rulers to withdraw from power.

While governments since 1992 have come to power through elections, almost all have depended heavily on patronage politics that has led to their using their power more for the benefit of their supporters than for the common good. Their actions have been a major cause in producing this year the worst economic crisis Thailand has faced since World War II.

Those who are currently speaking out against political corruption have gained very large followings and may even succeed at pushing through constitutional changes that would curtail the excesses of patronage politics. While it is possible that anti-democratic forces might still prevail and that there might, thus, be some who would feel that they would need to flee the country to escape persecution, this is far from the case at present. Thus, Winai's justification for seeking asylum on the basis that he was a victim of political persecution in Thailand is entirely specious.

Despite the fact that most in Thailand believe that Winai forfeited all claims to moral authority when he was proven to have engaged in sexual activities, there are still some Americans and Thai who remain impressed by the appearance of piety that Winai is able to project. In both countries, some find packaged religiosity convincing even when the package contains nothing of true religious value.

Charles Keyes is a professor of anthropology and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Washington.