Saffron Revolution
| Saffron Revolution | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Colour Revolutions | |
Protesters in Yangon with a banner that reads non-violence: national movement in Burmese, in the background is Shwedagon Pagoda
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| Date | 15 August 2007 – September 2008 |
| Location | Burma |
| Causes |
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| Goals |
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| Methods | Civil resistance, demonstrations, nonviolent resistance |
| Result | Uprising suppressed, political reforms and election of a new government |
Saffron Revolution is a term used to describe a series of economic and political protests and demonstrations that took place during August, September and October 2007 in Burma (also known as Myanmar). The protests were triggered by the decision of the national military government to remove subsidies on the sales prices of fuel. The national government is the only supplier of fuels and the removal of the price subsidy immediately caused diesel and petrol prices to increase by 66%--100% and the price of compressed natural gas for buses to increase 500% in less than a week.
The various protests were led by students, political activists, including women, and Buddhist monks and took the form of a campaign of nonviolent resistance, sometimes also called civil resistance.
In response to the protests dozens of protesters were arrested or detained. Starting in September 2007 the protests were led by thousands of Buddhist monks, and those protests were allowed to proceed until a renewed government crackdown in late September 2007. Some news reports referred to the protests as the Saffron Revolution, or ရွှေဝါရောင်တော်လှန်ရေး ([sw̥èi wà jàʊɴ tɔ̀ l̥àɴ jéi]).
Some of the prominent or symbolic individuals who figured in these events included
The exact number of casualties is not known, but estimates range from 13-31 deaths resulting from the protests and reprisals by the government. Several hundred people were arrested or detained, many (but not all) of whom were released.
Senior General Than Shwe remained in power until he retired in 2011 at age 78.
The phrase "Saffron Revolution" connects the protests against Myanmar's military dictatorship to the saffron-coloured robes widely associated with Buddhist monks, who were at the forefront of the demonstrations. However, this nomenclature is misleading as the majority of monks in Burma wear maroon (reddish-brown) robes, not saffron (golden-yellow) robes (see saffron). While similar terms for protests (see colour revolution) had been used elsewhere to describe the process of gradual or peaceful revolution in other nations, this seems to be the first time it has been associated with a particular protest as it is unfolding, and the international press seized upon the term in reporting on the Burmese protests. However, the idea that the monkhood is connected to specifically Burmese ideas about revolution has been argued by British academic Gustaaf Houtman, partly in critique of an alternative view held by a political scientist, that Gen. Ne Win's 1962 revolution was the only successful revolution in Burma. Burmese concepts of "revolution," however, have a much longer history and are also employed in many but not all monastic ordinations.
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