Mahn Ba Zan & the Karen Revolution

President Mahn Ba Zan and Religion

As a Christian who came from the sacred matrimony of two Christian parents, Mahn Ba Zan was a person who believed and worshipped Christ with total devotion. Throughout his life, he committed himself to Eternal God, keeping Him in the foremost, to be his guide and to lead him in his work. In his life and all along the course of the revolution, he followed the holy teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the case of how to deal with enemy prisoners of war, his POW policy was based on Christ’s teachings about how the enemy should be regarded, found in St.
Mathew 5:43-45, which says:
(Love your enemies)
(Bless them that curse you)
(Do good to them that hate you).

The revolution was not for his personal gain, but it was to repay the nationality citizens, and such philosophy of Mahn Ba Zan came directly from the discipleship of Christ to be found in St. Luke 14:13.

“But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind:” as indicated (by Christ). Our Karen nationality is subjected to oppression, slavery by fellow human beings, the blood-sucking torturous suppression by the super-nationality(race), and thus has become dirt poor. In entering the fight to be free from them, we should not be selfishly looking out for our own well being, was the exhortation that he (by Mahn Ba Zan) left us.

Christ the Lord has given the way that life is to be lived for human beings. Given to us, brothers and sisters, as inherited religious scriptures are those chapters of Psalm 23, 27 and 91. Armed with these Biblical words, every battle that we have fought has been successful without any danger or mishap to us. Regarding religious teachings, my grandfather Mahn Sein Bwint had left a letter written to my father.

The letter said, “My son, the revolution that you are involved in now is a correct undertaking. This has to be successful. The one thing that you’ll have to understand is that in your work, if you keep the Lord our God at the top in every endeavor, there will be achievement.” In conjunction with this, when the second program was laid down, the three main root systems of Marxism were studied. They were the realities of dialectical materialism, historical materialism and philosophical materialism, comprising a ‘superstructure’ grafted onto a society ---. Among these, the philosophical materialism cannot be acceptable. What this means is, in the tape that he left, he has this to say about religion, (The idea that there is no God, and there is no Creation, is not acceptable to me. I personally believe in God.) Should President Mahn Ba Zan be irreligious and an atheist, and had accepted Marxism’s materialism, he would not, as a patriotic Karen revolutionary, have worked in the KNU, but rather, he would have been one who advocated materialism and a Communist member of the Worker’s Party.

In the procedures of his Second Program, concerning religion, he had clearly indicated that everyone and every nationality could freely follow and worship in any religion that he/she believes in. However, he did make a note on the different denominations, on the fact that there were so many of them. The enemy could make political capital out of these differences in denomination. Thus he had cautioned and he led and trained us.

On the last occasion of our parting before I departed for the frontline, I paid homage to him with the customary three genuflections, and he put his hand on my head and prayed for me. He prayed that God would look after me, keep from danger, and that my efforts would be successful. I will be convinced for the rest of my life that my father Mahn Ba Zan was a revolutionary and patriotic Karen national who was a truly religious believer in God.

I sincerely wish that Mahn Ba Zan is able to rest at the foot of our Lord Jesus Christ in Everlasting Peace.