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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Monday, December 29, 2014

Buddhist militancy triggers international concern

James Crabtree in Colombo and Michael Peel in Bangkok December 28, 2014

Sri Lankan soldiers of the special task force patrol the streets of Aluthgama, a town in the south of the country, following clashes between Muslims and an extremist Buddhist group in June Shahabadeen Sahira had a traumatic first-hand view of a new wave of militant Buddhist nationalist groups, whose rise across parts of Asia has triggered growing international alarm. Wearing a black headscarf, the elderly Muslim former schoolteacher recalls her ordeal in June, when a gang burst into her home near the southern Sri Lankan coastal town of Aluthgama, during the worst religiously inspired violence to hit the tropical island nation in three decades.

“They came and took everything I had,” she recalls of the men from the country’s largely Buddhist Sinhalese majority, who burned dozens of homes in two days of clashes with Muslims. Three people were killed. “My house was ruined. All my money, all my jewellery, was gone,” she says. “If I could meet those responsible, I would ask: ‘Sir, does your Lord Buddha teach this?’” The bloodshed was sparked by a street-corner disagreement between a Buddhist monk and a young Muslim. But Alan Keenan, analyst at the International Crisis Group think-tank, says it is part of a wider trend: the rise of a new generation of militant anti-Muslim Buddhist organisations. The most prominent in Sri Lanka is the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), or Buddhist Power Force.......To Read More....

My Take: As I've said in the past, I've been following this story with special interest. On July 10, 2013 I posted a link to this story:

The Mad Monks of Myanmar

Myanmar is home to a growing wave of anti-Muslim sentiment, as seen in the troubling 969 movement. The numerical significance of the digits is rooted in Buddhism’s Three Jewels (Tiratana), which comprise 24 attributes: nine special attributes of Lord Buddha, six core Buddhist teachings, and nine attributes of monkhood. Co-opted by members of Myanmar’s nationalistic Buddhist majority, the number has become a symbol of religious division that has led to both discrimination and violence. Even the government, under President Thein Sein, has taken controversial actions that seem to align with its anti-Muslim stance, from its ongoing purge of the nation's Muslim minority Rohingyas to its highly contentious two-child policy, applied solely to the same group.

While the movement has infiltrated the country’s mainstream over a long period of time, a prominent Buddhist monk, Ashin Wirathu, has recently become its unofficial leader. A photograph of Wirathu in crimson robes, with the words “The Face of Buddhist Terror”, made the cover of the July issue of TIME Magazine, causing a furor in Myanmar and drawing international attention to the country's heated religious tensions……To Read More…

My TakeI have been following this story and my first link was on Thursday, April 18, 2013 with the article, Monks Gone Bad,To Read More…. “My Take” at the time was;

“There is a question not answered, nor is it asked in this article. Why? The author talks about poverty as a vehicle for inclusion into the religious orders, but that isn't an explanation as to why this particular group of monks she discusses have decided to be violent against Muslims. There is much more to this story that isn't being told, and it is my belief the right questions aren't being asked.

This article answers those unasked questions when a monk named Wirathu says:
 
 “Muslims are fundamentally bad. Mohammed allows them to kill any creature. Islam is a religion of thieves, they do not want peace.”

I have stated in the past that at some point there is going to be a backlash against Muslim violence. What I didn’t expect was to see it started by Buddhists. What I also find interesting is how much the world bemoans violence against Muslims, and yet those same voices seem to be silent at violence perpetrated by Muslims. The world has gone nuts. This much is clear though. When it starts it will become more unpleasant than anything we have seen for a long time.

Further Comments: I stand by that prediction. This isn't going to be isolated. The West, and especially Americans, finds the idea of a religious war anathema. We just won't accept that concept. Well, much of the rest of the world, particularly the Muslim world, views religion as the basis for war as a very real concept, and in the case of Muslims it's a religious requirement. 
 
Furthermore, they don't much care what the West thinks, and in point of fact, they like the West's reticence. That way they can use our own values against us and declare any effort to identify Islam as a warmongering criminal organization disguising itself as a religion as Islamophobia! 
 
All done with the help of ideologically corrupt elite leftists in government and the media. But reality will eventually overcome ideology. This is going to grow worldwide and become more unpleasant than anyone ever thought could happen in a modern world.

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