Crimes committed in the name of religion

I've always been proud of my religion. Buddhism has long been praised as a religion of peace and its followers are reputed to possess a highly tolerant attitude towards people of different faiths.That's why there are hardly any reports of inter-religious conflicts in history involving Buddhists. Sadly, this fine reputation is now being badly damaged by our fellow Buddhists in Myanmar who seem to be haunted by the spectre of Islamic domination. Islamophobia has been whipped up to the point where Buddhists have gone berserk on several occasions, killing and injuring members of the Muslim minority in their midst, burning mosques, looting and destroying large numbers of shops and homes.

According to a recent report by a human rights group, 250 people, mostly Muslims, lost their lives and nearly 250,000, again mainly Muslims, were displaced during a string of clashes between Buddhist and Muslim residents of dozens of towns in Myanmar over the past two years.

The victims of the first two outbursts in western Myanmar last year were members of the Rohingya minority, officially stateless Muslims who are often labelled by Buddhist agitators as being illegal migrants from Bangladesh even though many of them have lived in Myanmar for generations.

More recently, however, the focus of these sectarian attacks has broadened in a disturbing way and shifted to target all Muslim communities throughout Myanmar. It is terrible to read of the atrocities committed by these rampaging Buddhist mobs and the worst thing is that authorities seem to be doing next to nothing to stop them, with police often reported as standing idly by while whole villages and sections of towns are razed.

Just two weeks ago Physicians for Human Rights called on the Myanmar government to halt the airing of anti-Muslim propaganda and stamp out what it perceived as a widespread culture of impunity. The New York-based group warned that Myanmar may face countrywide violence on a catastrophic scale if the authorities fail to take stringent measures to tackle the situation.

Only three days later, more violence broke out in a southern town with rioting Buddhists torching dozens of houses and shops, most of which belonged to Muslims.

It is hard to believe that hatred can run so deep in such a devoutly Buddhist country. Some 90% of Myanmar's estimated population of 60 million profess to follow the teachings of the Lord Buddha.

 

And it is especially shocking to find out that much of this anti-Muslim sentiment is actually being stirred up by Buddhist monks, some of whom hold prominent positions in the ultra-nationalist 969 Movement. The group likes to portray itself as a peaceful, grassroots movement dedicated to protecting and promoting Buddhism, but its adherents have been linked with some of the most egregious crimes committed against Muslims in Myanmar. Hate-filled speeches are regularly delivered to Buddhist followers by the group's leader, Wirathu Biwuntha, a 46-year-old monk who was given a lengthy jail sentence in 2003 for inciting anti-Muslim violence. Freed last year as part of an amnesty for hundreds of political prisoners, Wirathu has openly called on Buddhists to boycott Muslim shops, shun interfaith marriages and fight to protect their "religion and race".

Heavily criticised by many international media and civil rights groups for fanning the flames of hatred, Wirathu had the dubious honour of appearing on the cover of Time magazine's July issue, where his unsmiling visage was captioned: "The Face of Buddhist Terror".

While the monk has always rejected accusations that he promotes violence against Muslims, insisting that he only encourages Buddhists to "protect" their religion, I find it hard to agree with those who claim that he has been unfairly labelled as an extremist. And I think that an extract from a sermon Wirathu reportedly gave two months ago, which was subsequently translated and published in The Diplomat magazine,is very revealing of this man's real mindset.

"Muslims are fundamentally bad," he was quoted as preaching. "Mohammed allows them to kill any creature. Islam is a religion of thieves, they do not want peace." I don't know what makes so many Myanmar Buddhists so receptive to divisive ideology of this nature. Clearly, Wirathu is betraying a very basic injunction from the Buddha for his followers to practise universal love and kindness. And, worse, this monk is "borrowing the hands" of lay Buddhists in order to rid his country of the "kalars", a highly derogatory term he often uses to refer to Muslims.

While President Thein Sein of Myanmar is on record as describing him as a ``son of Buddha'', I can't help feeling that Wirathu is nothing more than a rabble-rousing preacher, a very cunning and dangerous man who does not deserve to be allowed to remain in the monkhood for one day longer.

A knee-jerk reaction to reports about the mayhem so-called "jihadists" cause around the world is to assume that Islam is an inherently aggressive religion. But the point to remember here is that not all those who claim to be Muslims are actually following the teachings of Islam. The majority of Muslims around the world do not regard these violent extremists as being real Muslims.

Now I am worried that we Buddhists are going to be tarred by the same brush. Although I do hope that sense will prevail and the international community will not judge Buddhism harshly purely on the basis of actions taken by murderers and arsonists in Myanmar who call themselves Buddhists.

It is perfectly understandable that people feel the need to stand up for their religion. But to do using immoral tactics can never be justified.

Phra Paisan Visalo, the much-respected Thai Buddhist monk, once wrote an article in which he made the following observation: "How they [Muslims] behave is not as important as how we [Buddhists] treat them. They might commit indecent deeds, but this is not an excuse for us to justify doing the same or worse things at all."

Isn't this the kind of mindset that monks in Myanmar should be promoting? Words like this included in a sermon might do a lot to pacify Buddhists enraged at some perceived misdeeds on the part of their Muslim neighbours.

And here is the most inspiring part of Phra Paisan's article: ``If some Buddhists choose to abandon the religion and convert to Islam, we should not accuse the Muslims of stealing our people. Instead, we should look back at ourselves to see if we have already tried our best regarding our duty, or not.''

Now I can only hope that certain monks in Myanmar will be encouraged to develop an attitude to people of other faiths that is worthy of a true "son of Buddha".

Source: bangkokpost.com (Sep. 4, 2013)