Original link here
Theravada fundamentalism is making headlines in Myanmar, Thailand and Sri Lanka. A Far-Right Buddhist monk has already made it to the cover of the Time magazine as the “Face of Buddhist Terror”. Is it for real or are we reading too much into it?
The Western world has lapped up Dalai Lama and his teachings affectionately in the past half a century, ever since he had to forcefully live in exile outside Tibet. Through him, the world has now known the basic tenets of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism (on which the Tibetan Buddhism is based) like Vipassana, mantras and chanting. In short, Mahayana Buddhism is extremely well illustrated in the Western popular culture and liberalistic order. However, there is another branch of Buddhism called the Theravada Buddhism that is considered to be more conservative about matters of doctrine and monastic discipline. Theravada Buddhism, being very prevalent in Sri Lanka and South East Asian nations, plays a very dominant role in their societies.
In the past decade, there have been occasional reports of Buddhist monks and far-right wing Buddhist groups advocating violence against the non-Buddhist minorities, especially the Muslims. There have been concerted efforts to build organizations that try to set the narrative that the Buddhists are being wronged or are being made vulnerable in their own lands. A few outbreaks of violence against Muslims have been attributed to these organizations but have remained unproven in the courts of law. Is Theravada Buddhism becoming hostage to a selective interpretation of far right-wingers who see themselves as the custodians of the Buddhist culture and heritage? Or are we reading too much into a few fringe occurrences? Does Theravada really consist of a pre-defined dogma asking all its followers to establish superiority of Buddhism over other religions especially against Islam? This warrants an understanding of Theravada and a detailed look at all the countries in question.
Sri Lanka
While Buddhism has been the oldest religion on the island, the other religions arrived through waves of immigrations spread over centuries. By and large the minorities have co-existed peacefully with the Sinhala majority population. When the Portuguese began persecuting the Muslims in the early 17th century, they found refuge in the Kingdom of Kandy inland ruled by Senarat Adahasin. However the trigger for distrust between the Muslims and the majority Sinhalese was the 1915 Sinhalese-Muslim riots which later paved the way for the independence movement. The Hindu Tamils too had sided with the Sinhalese although the Muslims and the Hindus both spoke the same language. This mistrust was never eliminated completely even after independence. From the 1980s, Sri Lanka was witness to a horrific civil war between the Sinhala majority army and the Tamil minority. To state that the atrocities carried out by either side were inhuman would be a gross understatement. During the civil war, the rebel group Liberation of Tamil Tigers Eelam was responsible for ethnic cleansing of Muslims in the Northern and Eastern parts of Sri Lanka where they intended to create a monolithic Tamil state. Much later, LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran had indicated in an interview that he had apologized to the Muslim community for the atrocities committed on them by his group. Since the end of the civil war, the Muslims are now slowly returning to these affected areas in an attempt to set up their livelihood.
In the post civil-war era, the Sinhala nationalist sentiments are on the rise again. Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) is an ultra-nationalist Buddhist organization formed in 2012. One of the reasons attributed to the formation of BBS is the alleged ill treatment of Sri Lankan Buddhists in the Middle East for practicing idol worship. BBS accuses large scale international funding by radical Christian and Muslim groups in Sri Lanka and wants Buddhist groups and the general population to isolate themselves from these foreign influences. BBS has been accused of masterminding many anti-Muslim riots in Sri Lanka, which they continue to deny. However, BBS has not been able to sustain its reach and popularity among the Buddhists. Majority of the Sinhalese reject the ideology of BBS and want it to be banned. Politically too, most national parties criticize the Sena for its ideology and actions. BBS now remains a spent force with no major support base. As a testimony to the fact that people of various ethnicities in Sri Lanka have lived amicably all along with rare flare-ups in between, there was just 1 Sri Lankan Muslim who enrolled himself in ISIS in 2015 and died subsequently the same year as per the ISIS mouthpiece Dabiq.
Thailand
The rebel groups have frequently resorted to jihadi style violent attacks. The common gripe of the Theravada Buddhists found across the region that there is a forced change in demographics is seen here too. The Muslim Malays are accused of resorting to ethnic cleansing in the remote parts of the region driving the Buddhists out to cities and even out of the region. Such actions by the rebels have prompted stern action from the government. Thai military has complete immunity on their actions in controlling the secessionist activities. Thai Buddhists who at first ignored the conflict assuming it to be political now see it as a struggle for identity. Thereby, the monks do not condemn any military excesses. There have also been reports of local Buddhist monks encouraging religious vigilantism.
The fact that the military is extremely powerful in Thailand and that it has time and again successfully carried out coups against democratically elected governments, makes the issue of Buddhist fundamentalism in Thailand an extremely tricky issue to handle. The clergy is attempting to provide a moralistic stamp of approval to the actions of the military. This not only emboldens the military even further, but there is also a possibility that the opinion of the local Buddhist population might be swayed in favor of a wider conflict.
Myanmar
Similar to Sri Lanka, the Buddhist monks took active role in the independence movement. Post independence, Myanmar has largely seen military junta rule which was seen to be averse to guaranteeing basic human rights for the minorities.
Since the 1980s, hate crimes based on religion have been recorded only against the Rohingya Muslims and a couple of Christian tribes. However the other Muslim tribe Kamein (also called Kaman) has lived peacefully in Myanmar without any threat (they are one of the 135 ethnic tribes that make up the Myanmarese population). Unfortunately, they have become collateral damage in the fight against Rohingya Muslims and have been forced to quit their homes and live in camps or move to other parts of the country in search of medical aid and jobs. On their part, Rohingyas have been waging a low-intensity insurgency movement since 1947 when Burma gained independence. Myanmarese haven’t forgotten the fact that the Rohingyas had even approached M A Jinnah asking for assistance to cede their part of the land in Arakan state to East Pakistan in 1947. The Myanmar Army, also called the Tatmadaw, has relentlessly carried out the violence reported against the Rohingyas since they consider them as a foreign ethnic group that seeks to secede from Myanmar. There is no documentary evidence yet of BBS being directly involved in any violence against the Rohingyas in Arakan state in the recent wave of communal riots.
Amidst all the confusion of the fight against the military for restoration of democracy, sprang a nationalistic movement called the 969 Movement during the late 2000s. Essentially, it was a grassroots leaderless group of monks promoting Buddhism and militant nationalism throughout Myanmar. Similar to other Buddhist movements in the region, the 969 Movement too was formed to challenge and oppose the changes in the demographics attempted by the Muslims and the Christians. In fact, the term 969 is a challenge to 786 – symbol of Basmala in Islam. Its leader, monk Ashin Wirathu made it to the cover of the Time magazine in 2013 when it carried out a detailed article on what it called Buddhist terrorism. Wirathu has denied carrying out any provocative violent attacks on Muslims although he was jailed for seven years for his role in inciting anti-Muslim pogroms in 2003. He advocates economic apartheid that tries to isolate the Rohingya Muslims by not engaging in any trade with them.
Lack of headlines around the world
Is there dogma in Buddhism?
And finally…
There is a need for the global intelligentsia to delineate Theravada Buddhism from the violence employed by the practicing monks and thus spare the conservative Theravada of any ignominy. If Christianity can be delineated from Ku Klux Klan to spare the blushes, if Judaism can be delineated from Zionist movements to spare the blushes, surely Theravada has a stronger case by virtue of not advocating violence in the first place. Having said that, it is also imperative to prevent the opinions of the monks from influencing the state’s decision. The states need to guarantee basic human rights to citizens irrespective of the community they belong to. Spread of Jihadist doctrine is an apparent root cause for the monks to take a hardline stance. The governments in this region will have to ensure that the Jihadists do not cause any more harm to the delicate secular balance witnessed in the past decade.
Leave a Reply