5 January 2009: Cambodia’s first Broadway-style production angers Buddhist leaders with representations of monks singing, dancing and falling in love
(Photo: A monk at the Preah Vihear temple. 7 November 2008. By Isabelle Roughol)
By Isabelle Roughol and Rann Reuy
The Supreme Sangha Council will request of the government that the rock opera “Where Elephants Weep” never again be allowed to be seen in any form in Cambodia, or anywhere else in the world, Supreme Patriarch Non Nget said.
The musical is disrespectful to Buddhism and therefore it should not again be played on stage or broadcast on television, Non Nget said.
“They cannot use monks’ robes to wear and play like that,” he said in an interview Sunday.
“Monks throughout Cambodia completely oppose any attempt to replay or broadcast this story in Cambodia or in the world,” he said, who saw the musical in its first television broadcast Dec 25 on CTN.
In the musical, monks are seen singing and dancing. A young man who had entered the monkhood for three months disrobes early against his abbot’s advice to be with the woman he loves. He eventually separates from the woman and returns to the monkhood.
A complaint from the council already led to the cancellation of a second CTN broadcast Thursday. The complaint requested an apology to Buddhist monks from the show’s director, writer and performers.
Venerable Sao Chanthol, high adviser of the council, said the council would also write to the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications asking that the show’s Web site be blocked.
Though the site is hosted in the US, Minister of Post and Telecommunications So Khun said he would write to Cambodian Internet providers upon receiving the monks’ complaint for them to block the site locally.
Great Supreme Patriarch Tep Vong, however, said he did not take part in the complaint, as he had not seen the show and did not know what in it might offend Buddhist values.
The Buddhist council’s complaint comes at a time when monks themselves have been heavily criticized for a series of scandals involving pornography and alcohol, and even arrests for rape and murder. At an annual Buddhist congress mid-December, Ministry of Cults and Religion Min Khin demanded that monks behave.
“In my opinion, it is monks that first must be worthy of respect,” said Constitutional Council member Son Soubert.
“It is not the opera that doesn’t respect religion, it is those monks, those bad monks.”
Son Soubert said he saw the opera and thought it was spreading a positive message about Buddhism. He added the artists were allowed freedom of expression under the constitution and that the monks had no authority to stop their performances.
Show composer Him Sophy said he had received praises about the show, including from high officials, and was waiting for the government to set up a meeting between him and the Buddhist leaders to settle the issue.
