{"id":7521,"date":"2011-09-21T15:06:39","date_gmt":"2011-09-21T19:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=7521"},"modified":"2011-09-21T15:07:04","modified_gmt":"2011-09-21T19:07:04","slug":"rifle-toting-soldiers-tag-along-protecting-thai-monks-collecting-traditional-alms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/rifle-toting-soldiers-tag-along-protecting-thai-monks-collecting-traditional-alms","title":{"rendered":"Rifle-toting soldiers tag along, protecting Thai monks collecting traditional daily alms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With a Muslim insurgency threatening to destabilize Thailand&#8217;s south, armed soldiers have begun shadowing the area&#8217;s Buddhist monks as they make their daily rounds begging for alms.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With its barbed wire, sandbag bunker and armed guard, Wat Lak Muang in Thailand&#8217;s strife-torn deep south looks more like a military outpost than a typical Buddhist temple,&#8221; writes Didier Lauras for AFP, the French news agency:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Since a deadly insurgency erupted in the Muslim-dominated region seven years ago, the army has become inseparable from religious rituals in the region, where troops live side-by-side with monks in monasteries.<\/p>\n<p>Since 2004, Thailand&#8217;s three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, near the border with Malaysia, have been riven by a complex insurgency that has claimed more than 4,800 lives, both Buddhists and Muslims.<\/p>\n<p>In the early morning, monks in pairs go on the traditional collection of alms &#8212; normally gifts of food &#8212; from the Buddhist faithful in the centre of Pattani, reciting prayers as they go. It could be a scene from anywhere in the country &#8212; apart from the armed bodyguards who closely follow the monks, surveying each doorway, blocking access to each street.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.buddhistchannel.tv\/index.php?id=52,10470,0,0,1,0\" target=\"_blank\">CLICK HERE to read more<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With a Muslim insurgency threatening to destabilize Thailand&#8217;s south, armed soldiers have begun shadowing the area&#8217;s Buddhist monks as they make their daily rounds begging for alms. &#8220;With its barbed wire, sandbag bunker and armed guard, Wat Lak Muang in Thailand&#8217;s strife-torn deep south looks more like a military outpost than a typical Buddhist temple,&#8221;&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[972,54],"tags":[224,2208,667],"class_list":["post-7521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhist","category-muslim","tag-buddhism","tag-islam","tag-thailand"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Rifle-toting soldiers tag along, protecting Thai monks collecting traditional daily alms<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/rifle-toting-soldiers-tag-along-protecting-thai-monks-collecting-traditional-alms\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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bunker and armed guard, Wat Lak Muang in Thailand&#8217;s strife-torn deep south looks more like a military outpost than a typical Buddhist temple,&#8221;&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/rifle-toting-soldiers-tag-along-protecting-thai-monks-collecting-traditional-alms","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-09-21T19:06:39+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-09-21T19:07:04+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/rifle-toting-soldiers-tag-along-protecting-thai-monks-collecting-traditional-alms","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/rifle-toting-soldiers-tag-along-protecting-thai-monks-collecting-traditional-alms","name":"Rifle-toting soldiers tag along, protecting Thai monks collecting traditional daily 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