Global Peace Centre

One of those refugees from Burma is Ashin Kovida. Here, he is just a young man with a warm smile and a heavy accent, but in Burma, he is a symbol of survival and freedom.
Reporter Laura Klivans spoke with Ashin.
LAURA KLIVANS: Class is just about to start at the College of Alameda. Twenty-seven-year-old Ashin Kovida points out who’s who in this large class of immigrants.
Kovida’s classmates make up an alert and captive audience in this English as a Second Language course.
As class begins, Kovida adjusts his saffron-colored robes and crosses his sandal-clad feet. His clothes give away that he is a Buddhist monk, and if you ask him, he’ll tell you he is from Burma, also known as Myanmar.
Like others in this class, Kovida’s story is one of risk-taking, sacrifice and hardship. But many of his classmates came to this country out of choice, and Kovida is here out of necessity.
Kovida’s story begins in a small village thousands of miles from here and over two decades ago in western Burma. Back then, like now, Kovida wanted an education. But there were no opportunities in his village to study.
At first, Kovida didn’t know what a monk was, but he quickly adapted to a life wearing saffron and maroon robes, shaving his head and waking before sunrise to collect alms each morning. To further his education he joined an even larger monastery in Rangoon, the former capital of Burma.
Exposure to the city inspired questions.
Kovida explains that those people were members of the military government. It gained control in 1962, and to this day maintains censorship over all information going into and out of the country.
Kovida shares that the regime used forced labor, enlisted child soldiers and jailed political activists--all practices, Kovida says, the government continues.
He decided he had to do something. In Rangoon, he discovered a secret network of monks studying subjects beyond Buddhist teachings.
Kovida began taking covert trips across the border to Thailand so he could study more. It didn’t take long for him to realize:
Kovida sold his extra robes to make copies of books about human rights and democracy. He visited other monasteries to distribute information and to talk about his new ideas for freedom.
Then in August 2007, a small number of monks staged a protest against a government hike in fuel prices. By the end of the day, members of the military junta beat and injured dozens of these monks.
Kovida saw this as a chance to step up the pressure on the regime by collectively demanding an apology.
No apology came. So the monks took action.
According to Kovida, 300 monks in his monastery were the first to gather, with numbers later swelling to:
The colors of monks’ robes flooded the streets of Rangoon, inspiring the movement to be called “The Saffron Revolution.” Some estimate the crowd reached over 50,000 in number.
In a matter of days, the regime cracked down on the protestors. Arrests, deaths, and raids on monasteries followed.
They didn’t find Kovida that night. But he had heard reports of friends getting arrested and monks being killed. So he boarded an airplane for the first time and flew to a country 8,000 miles away.
Kovida describes his time here in the U.S. as a struggle.
He’s too political of a figure to be housed at any local monasteries within the Burmese community, and he’s been turned down by around ten of them. So he lives alone, in a white-walled, sparsely decorated room above a lingerie and adult film store. He supports himself with a day job catering.
Kovida tells me he’s focused on studying now, so one day he can contribute to lasting change in Burma. As we walk out of the classroom, he shows me his political science textbook. He opens it and points to a picture of hundreds of monks marching. The deep red of their robes meshes into one continuous stream whose beginning and end fall off the pages.
I ask him if he sees himself on this page. “No,” Kovida tells me, “I was in the front. Always in the front.”
For Crosscurrents, I’m Laura Klivans.


Ref: Kalwnews