Mind you reforming Islam might stand a better chance over time than reforming the Burmese military elite – root and branch reform or better still uproot and burn as we learned in an agriculture lesson om plant diseases at Phaunggyi under MaHsaLa (BSPP).
“… how bad some of the appointments are …” Well, I think you need to awake to the dire reality of politics: you campaign for one thing to get elected, then you choose your appointees to placate all the groups that may have stood down to allow you to rise to where you are on the platform you rode on. Q.v. Obama and “promising” to close Guantanamo. If I understand anything about your country’s politics then it is that the “civilian supremacy” in practice never really existed and hence the more “reformist” you lean, the more closer to the military do you need to choose the defense minister or risk a putsch or other obstructions.
The Malays arm them, the Malays aid them, the Malays defend them at the UN, and the Malays even give them rickety boats. But how many Rohingya are actually given asylum in Malaysia, their greatest defenders ? And when it comes to victims, the Rohingya have no sole claim on merit; the Malaysian government does a fine job of abusing their own citizens. I never said the Rohingya were bad people; I never said they were all extremists; and I never said all ethnic Bamar are Buddha’s gift to the Earth. I DID say that the Rohingya are Bangladeshis; they are not indigenous to Burma (or Myanmar, if you prefer); and I said that they have been manipulated politically by their own leaders, by Bangladesh and by Malaysia. It seems on New Mandala, only Burma manipulates them, as if the Rohingya live in a Burmese vacuum, totally devoid of any role for the OIC and the Ummah (global Muslims). This is rarely mentioned, lest one find that Muslim hands outside Burma, are bloodier than Bamar hands in Burma (Buddha forbid !).
To quote Michael Stipe of REM:
“The crime of good men who can’t wrestle with change, or are too afraid to face this life’s misjudged unknowns..”
“You’re not hurting anybody else’s chances,
but you’re disfiguring your own…”
“Give me a minute and I’ll tell you the setup for The worst joke ever, I never..”
“I’ll tell you my version of the greatest life story. Don’t bore me, I NEVER..
Give me a minute and I’ll tell you the
setup…”
There is the perception that that tribe in Burma may have some “ideological” difference with the Bangladeshi in that whereas Bangladeshi couldn’t stand the Pakistani and for that they died in millions, this crowd wants to be with Greater Pakistani country which is like Burmese saying “dog longing for the elephant’s organ” as Pakistani do not want them either and will not take them. The so much Wahabi-ish Saudi put them in jails in thousands.
And they are simply pawns for people who want to use them for their own ends. These Uddin, Sadiqque, etc. are not interested in their welfare but simply to use them to beat up the Bamar and hope to get a bridgehead of Muslim enclave under their own name.
Meanwhile, it would be so, so naive to assume UN is anything but a brothel. This guy Ban is worse than any Hollywood extra reading his lines.
Regardless, those Sri Lanka associated Nazi Buddhist practitioners, naive but ruthless public and internationally pampered rabidly racist- racism is the cheapest of human quality- one simply needs to be borne-, Sit-tut guys do put most ugly and despicable situation out of all these.
And there is no end. Who are the good guys here? No one.
still the hard-core fact is : the bedrock of real, solid opposition against this current coup, will come from within Isarn, with its’ long, long history of refusing to submit, or be part od the Thai State – and the Thai equal refusal of Isarn.
For the now growing number of Isarn separatist movement activists, Cambodia is not the best place to go. Despite Hun Sen’s undoubted past support of Thaksin.
The best front-line states for Isarn separatists are the Lao PDR, and Malaysia (which seems especially sympathetic).
Doubtful so long as Burma remains Burmese to see the last days of a time when structural and institutional bias in society still privileges Buddhism at every turn greatly amplified in recent decades under military rule whereas citizens used to be recognised and promoted based on individual merit before.
Islamophobia is hardly a monopoly of Third World countries. Far from it as this report from Britain indicates. However much laudable and commendable reforming Islam seems like a forlorn hope. Indeed tolerance has its limits even in the liberal West.
Though it has its base in Mon country the origins of the 969 Movement can be traced back to the military regime. We just seem to be studiously ignoring the elephant in the room or rather propitiating it like a malevolent god.
Hi Matt,
Many thanks for your comments, I really appreciate it. First of all, congratulations on the report, there is certainly a need for this understanding on all sides.
I offered General Aung San’s perspective not so much as a possible solution, but rather to recognise that other kinds of alternatives have been raised in the past. I do think it highlights the selective collective memory we have of Aung San. I am sliding into my own research interests here, but I think its unusual that no one has commented either way about the fact that Islam is officially recognised in Myanmar’s Constitution today. But that is probably more a reflection on the status of law and the Constitution in Myanmar, rather than on the current tensions.
Anyway, thanks again for your report and the perspective it offers on these issues
Melissa
The teachings of Asoka (Ashoka), Vishnu and Zoroaster (Zarathustra), and the Gautama Buddha, have nothing whatsoever to do with Islam and the teachings of the Nabi, Muhammad. Jainism teaches absolute reverence for life; so might say to extremes. If there was a terrorist group made up of Jains, they wouldn’t even get to the stage of arguing who to kill. They wouldn’t even know where to begin. Killing to them is anathema, as it was to the Buddha, as it was to Vishnu, and as it was to Zoroaster. Killing is not anathema to Islam, but it is to some Muslims, as it is in Judaeo-Christian traditions. Hinduism and Buddhism isn’t free from violence. The ancient Khmer kingdoms weren’t famous for hospitality (ask the Thais) and the Khmer Rouge weren’t great house guests either. But this is about acknowledgment of religion’s limitations. There is only one religion that punishes those who choose not to follow their own belief system: Islam. Muslims are happy to accept converts and ignore those friends and family members who chafe at their loved one’s converting. Muslims ask why ? Muslims chafe when one of their own, leaves Islam, and in fact do more than chafe. Non-Muslims ask why ? The Surah in the Qur’an that states that there is no compunction in religion is about as hard to find, as a corned beef sandwich in Brooklyn. Since the Qur’an is the word of Allah, then the command that there is no compunction in religion comes from the highest authority. Non-Muslims rightly ask, then why do you disallow apostasy; is it because there are other Surahs that admonish Muslims not to leave their faith (and even not to befriend those of other faiths) ? It’s like a smorgasbord buffet of all the deserts you like and all the meat that you hate, but you must eat it all. ALL. There is no such dichotomous exercise in any Eastern religion, and Judaism and Christianity (sans devout believers at either end, that brook no dissent) have accepted reform, which means that, they may not like those who leave the faith, but they do not whip, cane, jail, fine, stone and behead, those who do.
It is easy to understand why, in many ways, those who defend Islam and those who defend Leftist ideology have an ironic alliance of sorts, and it has to do with Burma in a way, more specifically, George Orwell. It comes down to the old Animal Farm line, but we can substitute religion and ideology, for animals: All religions (ideologies) are equal, but some religions (ideologies) are more equal than others. Karl Marx said Communism was the one and true system, and the Qur’an says Islam is the one and true religion. No other religion makes such a claim, even if its followers may believe it; they have no doctrine on which to make such a claim. Islam does, and therefore, as much as many Muslims are demanding increasing global respect apparently in proportion to some Muslims in the Middle-East showing little signs of it, it is only natural that non-Muslims (whether Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, whatever) ask, “If you are the ONE and TRUE religion, prove it”.
To the list of references above, for a general and less teleological approach to Buddhism, I would add any of the works by
Professor Donald Lopez at the University
of Michigan.
There is much to contest in this short post here, but more so with the policy statement “Contesting Buddhist Narratives” put out by Walton and Hayward.
I will address the section “A Theravada Buddhist Argument for Religious Pluralism in Contemporary Myanmar” and within that mainly A┼Ыoka.
The authors selectively quote from the A┼Ыokan Rock Edict 12 after explicitly stating “it is worth quoting in full” (p.43). This appears in order to prove their point that A┼Ыoka “declared his support for tolerance for those of all faiths” (p.43) but especially that one should not criticize the religion of others as those in 969 movement often do. However, the lines in the edict directly before those quoted by the authors – lines that are omitted – say “This progress of the doctrine takes many forms, but its basis is the control of one’s speech, so as not to extol one’s own sect or to disparage another’s on unsuitable occasions, or at least to do so only mildly on certain occasions” (Thapar p.282). It is obvious that the edict states that one can criticize another religion.
It is also interesting to note what “religions” A┼Ыoka explicitly mentions in his edicts: Brahmans and ┼Ыramaс╣Зas, Jainism, Aj─лvaka, and Buddhism. Will the authors explain how Islam fits into this group of religions? On the face of it, A┼Ыokan Edicts concerning religions appear to stand in opposition to Islamic teachings on religions. To test this, in part, are there quotes from a Caliph that approximate the time laps from the Buddha to A┼Ыoka (dating this laps is difficult so let’s say a Caliph about 150-200 years after the death of Muhammad)?
The Theravada image of A┼Ыoka was not informed or re-informed by his edicts until the modern era. The sources for Theravada “history” of A┼Ыoka come from “… the Pali Chronicles, and in particular the Mahavamsa …” (Norman p.148). In the Mahavamsa, A┼Ыoka is a Theravada hero because converts to and supports Buddhism, purifies the sangha of charlatan bhikkhus, and he held the third Buddhist council; the result of which Theravada Buddhism claims as validation of its teachings.
Finally, A┼Ыoka never disbanded his army and so why not also preach the section of Rock Edict 13 to Myanmar Buddhists where A┼Ыoka warns forest tribes that:
“And the Beloved-of-the-Gods conciliates the forest tribes of his empire, but he warns them that he has power even in his remorse, and he asks them to repent, lest they be killed” (Thapar p.383).
This teaching seems much more appropriate for contemporary Myanmar because since the end of British rule the Myanmar Buddhist majority has been engaged in combatting several violent rebellions, early on from Muslims in Western Rakhine, and then almost continuously from Christian, and sometimes Buddhist, ethnic minorities.
References cited:
Norman, K. R. 2006. A Philological Approach to Buddhism. Pali Text Society.
Thapar, Romila. 2014, 3rd edition. A┼Ыhoka and the Decline of the Mauryas. Oxford University Press.
“… whether Elara and/or Manuniticolan have been real persons …” – when delving deeper into religious history, the science of religion (as opposed to scripture-bound theology) and the sociology of religion we time and again find that even rather “recent” (i.e. only a few centuries old) religious figures always seem to be clad into a kind of mist that makes serious scholars question their historic veracity. And as this seems to go for ALL religions (even modern Mormonism already has its legends …) we may wonder if the history of it all matters and if not these “histories” are pretexts to install Jungian archetypes but shield them from being criticized as “phantasies”?
1) Extreme inflammatory prejudicial unjustifiable alleged incidence attributed to one party.
2) Elements that will gain mostly criminally or otherwise i.e. Political, religious fanning the flame directly and indirectly further.
3) Failure of or rather here absent of the Rule of Law.
At any time during above 3 points with proper ROL intervention and interdiction riot can be minimized if not stopped.
Myanmar has very good Intelligence Services since Ne Win era.
With every whiff/hint of rioting especially political one against the regime, all opposition leaders are rounded up summarily to be “The guest of the Government” until unapproved rioting is no longer possible.
With the above facts in mind let us not pursue Buddhism as a factor any longer.
Instead let us get the whole picture that Make Myanmar situation unique rather that HR related.
Facebook 
Twitter 
Soundcloud 
Youtube 
Rss
In the shoes of reporters in Naypyitaw
An original report !!!!
Jokowi in the one convenient place
Related Jokowi’s videos can be found here: http://jokowideo.com
🙂
Reality check on Islam, Buddhism in Myanmar
Mind you reforming Islam might stand a better chance over time than reforming the Burmese military elite – root and branch reform or better still uproot and burn as we learned in an agriculture lesson om plant diseases at Phaunggyi under MaHsaLa (BSPP).
Jokowi fails his first test
“… how bad some of the appointments are …” Well, I think you need to awake to the dire reality of politics: you campaign for one thing to get elected, then you choose your appointees to placate all the groups that may have stood down to allow you to rise to where you are on the platform you rode on. Q.v. Obama and “promising” to close Guantanamo. If I understand anything about your country’s politics then it is that the “civilian supremacy” in practice never really existed and hence the more “reformist” you lean, the more closer to the military do you need to choose the defense minister or risk a putsch or other obstructions.
King denies royal rumour
That is indeed the rumour, that the poor animal was assassinated by a member of the royal household. Use your imagination as to who was the killer.
Myanmar’s Muslim mosaic and the politics of belonging
U Rashid or any Muslims of that era were not living in Arakan and were in need of an identity as the Rohingyas.
The fact that you keep calling the Muslims in Burma s Kala shows your disposition which obviously stems out of complex inferority.
Myanmar’s Muslim mosaic and the politics of belonging
Ohn,
The Malays arm them, the Malays aid them, the Malays defend them at the UN, and the Malays even give them rickety boats. But how many Rohingya are actually given asylum in Malaysia, their greatest defenders ? And when it comes to victims, the Rohingya have no sole claim on merit; the Malaysian government does a fine job of abusing their own citizens. I never said the Rohingya were bad people; I never said they were all extremists; and I never said all ethnic Bamar are Buddha’s gift to the Earth. I DID say that the Rohingya are Bangladeshis; they are not indigenous to Burma (or Myanmar, if you prefer); and I said that they have been manipulated politically by their own leaders, by Bangladesh and by Malaysia. It seems on New Mandala, only Burma manipulates them, as if the Rohingya live in a Burmese vacuum, totally devoid of any role for the OIC and the Ummah (global Muslims). This is rarely mentioned, lest one find that Muslim hands outside Burma, are bloodier than Bamar hands in Burma (Buddha forbid !).
To quote Michael Stipe of REM:
“The crime of good men who can’t wrestle with change, or are too afraid to face this life’s misjudged unknowns..”
“You’re not hurting anybody else’s chances,
but you’re disfiguring your own…”
“Give me a minute and I’ll tell you the setup for The worst joke ever, I never..”
“I’ll tell you my version of the greatest life story. Don’t bore me, I NEVER..
Give me a minute and I’ll tell you the
setup…”
Myanmar’s Muslim mosaic and the politics of belonging
Peter,
Ain’t that true, your words?
There is the perception that that tribe in Burma may have some “ideological” difference with the Bangladeshi in that whereas Bangladeshi couldn’t stand the Pakistani and for that they died in millions, this crowd wants to be with Greater Pakistani country which is like Burmese saying “dog longing for the elephant’s organ” as Pakistani do not want them either and will not take them. The so much Wahabi-ish Saudi put them in jails in thousands.
And they are simply pawns for people who want to use them for their own ends. These Uddin, Sadiqque, etc. are not interested in their welfare but simply to use them to beat up the Bamar and hope to get a bridgehead of Muslim enclave under their own name.
Meanwhile, it would be so, so naive to assume UN is anything but a brothel. This guy Ban is worse than any Hollywood extra reading his lines.
Regardless, those Sri Lanka associated Nazi Buddhist practitioners, naive but ruthless public and internationally pampered rabidly racist- racism is the cheapest of human quality- one simply needs to be borne-, Sit-tut guys do put most ugly and despicable situation out of all these.
And there is no end. Who are the good guys here? No one.
Myanmar’s Muslim mosaic and the politics of belonging
Simplistic view with the same rhetoric. The article wasn’t even talking about the Muslims from the Western Burma. Gee!
Review of Kingdom in Crisis
still the hard-core fact is : the bedrock of real, solid opposition against this current coup, will come from within Isarn, with its’ long, long history of refusing to submit, or be part od the Thai State – and the Thai equal refusal of Isarn.
Asylum seekers, refugees and Cambodia’s “national” interest
For the now growing number of Isarn separatist movement activists, Cambodia is not the best place to go. Despite Hun Sen’s undoubted past support of Thaksin.
The best front-line states for Isarn separatists are the Lao PDR, and Malaysia (which seems especially sympathetic).
Reality check on Islam, Buddhism in Myanmar
Doubtful so long as Burma remains Burmese to see the last days of a time when structural and institutional bias in society still privileges Buddhism at every turn greatly amplified in recent decades under military rule whereas citizens used to be recognised and promoted based on individual merit before.
Islamophobia is hardly a monopoly of Third World countries. Far from it as this report from Britain indicates. However much laudable and commendable reforming Islam seems like a forlorn hope. Indeed tolerance has its limits even in the liberal West.
Though it has its base in Mon country the origins of the 969 Movement can be traced back to the military regime. We just seem to be studiously ignoring the elephant in the room or rather propitiating it like a malevolent god.
Reality check on Islam, Buddhism in Myanmar
Have to disagree – Islam seems to preach “violence” Take a look at the speeches of the Ulamas, even in so called “moderate” Malaysia.
William Young dies in Thailand
Not necessarily Don Parsons : Jesus said “give unto God, that which is God’s – give unto Caesar, that which is Caesar’s”.
Reality check on Islam, Buddhism in Myanmar
Hi Matt,
Many thanks for your comments, I really appreciate it. First of all, congratulations on the report, there is certainly a need for this understanding on all sides.
I offered General Aung San’s perspective not so much as a possible solution, but rather to recognise that other kinds of alternatives have been raised in the past. I do think it highlights the selective collective memory we have of Aung San. I am sliding into my own research interests here, but I think its unusual that no one has commented either way about the fact that Islam is officially recognised in Myanmar’s Constitution today. But that is probably more a reflection on the status of law and the Constitution in Myanmar, rather than on the current tensions.
Anyway, thanks again for your report and the perspective it offers on these issues
Melissa
Myanmar: The calm before the storm?
The teachings of Asoka (Ashoka), Vishnu and Zoroaster (Zarathustra), and the Gautama Buddha, have nothing whatsoever to do with Islam and the teachings of the Nabi, Muhammad. Jainism teaches absolute reverence for life; so might say to extremes. If there was a terrorist group made up of Jains, they wouldn’t even get to the stage of arguing who to kill. They wouldn’t even know where to begin. Killing to them is anathema, as it was to the Buddha, as it was to Vishnu, and as it was to Zoroaster. Killing is not anathema to Islam, but it is to some Muslims, as it is in Judaeo-Christian traditions. Hinduism and Buddhism isn’t free from violence. The ancient Khmer kingdoms weren’t famous for hospitality (ask the Thais) and the Khmer Rouge weren’t great house guests either. But this is about acknowledgment of religion’s limitations. There is only one religion that punishes those who choose not to follow their own belief system: Islam. Muslims are happy to accept converts and ignore those friends and family members who chafe at their loved one’s converting. Muslims ask why ? Muslims chafe when one of their own, leaves Islam, and in fact do more than chafe. Non-Muslims ask why ? The Surah in the Qur’an that states that there is no compunction in religion is about as hard to find, as a corned beef sandwich in Brooklyn. Since the Qur’an is the word of Allah, then the command that there is no compunction in religion comes from the highest authority. Non-Muslims rightly ask, then why do you disallow apostasy; is it because there are other Surahs that admonish Muslims not to leave their faith (and even not to befriend those of other faiths) ? It’s like a smorgasbord buffet of all the deserts you like and all the meat that you hate, but you must eat it all. ALL. There is no such dichotomous exercise in any Eastern religion, and Judaism and Christianity (sans devout believers at either end, that brook no dissent) have accepted reform, which means that, they may not like those who leave the faith, but they do not whip, cane, jail, fine, stone and behead, those who do.
It is easy to understand why, in many ways, those who defend Islam and those who defend Leftist ideology have an ironic alliance of sorts, and it has to do with Burma in a way, more specifically, George Orwell. It comes down to the old Animal Farm line, but we can substitute religion and ideology, for animals: All religions (ideologies) are equal, but some religions (ideologies) are more equal than others. Karl Marx said Communism was the one and true system, and the Qur’an says Islam is the one and true religion. No other religion makes such a claim, even if its followers may believe it; they have no doctrine on which to make such a claim. Islam does, and therefore, as much as many Muslims are demanding increasing global respect apparently in proportion to some Muslims in the Middle-East showing little signs of it, it is only natural that non-Muslims (whether Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, whatever) ask, “If you are the ONE and TRUE religion, prove it”.
To the list of references above, for a general and less teleological approach to Buddhism, I would add any of the works by
Professor Donald Lopez at the University
of Michigan.
Myanmar: The calm before the storm?
There is much to contest in this short post here, but more so with the policy statement “Contesting Buddhist Narratives” put out by Walton and Hayward.
Find the policy statement here: http://www.eastwestcenter.org/sites/default/files/private/ps071.pdf
I will address the section “A Theravada Buddhist Argument for Religious Pluralism in Contemporary Myanmar” and within that mainly A┼Ыoka.
The authors selectively quote from the A┼Ыokan Rock Edict 12 after explicitly stating “it is worth quoting in full” (p.43). This appears in order to prove their point that A┼Ыoka “declared his support for tolerance for those of all faiths” (p.43) but especially that one should not criticize the religion of others as those in 969 movement often do. However, the lines in the edict directly before those quoted by the authors – lines that are omitted – say “This progress of the doctrine takes many forms, but its basis is the control of one’s speech, so as not to extol one’s own sect or to disparage another’s on unsuitable occasions, or at least to do so only mildly on certain occasions” (Thapar p.282). It is obvious that the edict states that one can criticize another religion.
It is also interesting to note what “religions” A┼Ыoka explicitly mentions in his edicts: Brahmans and ┼Ыramaс╣Зas, Jainism, Aj─лvaka, and Buddhism. Will the authors explain how Islam fits into this group of religions? On the face of it, A┼Ыokan Edicts concerning religions appear to stand in opposition to Islamic teachings on religions. To test this, in part, are there quotes from a Caliph that approximate the time laps from the Buddha to A┼Ыoka (dating this laps is difficult so let’s say a Caliph about 150-200 years after the death of Muhammad)?
The Theravada image of A┼Ыoka was not informed or re-informed by his edicts until the modern era. The sources for Theravada “history” of A┼Ыoka come from “… the Pali Chronicles, and in particular the Mahavamsa …” (Norman p.148). In the Mahavamsa, A┼Ыoka is a Theravada hero because converts to and supports Buddhism, purifies the sangha of charlatan bhikkhus, and he held the third Buddhist council; the result of which Theravada Buddhism claims as validation of its teachings.
Finally, A┼Ыoka never disbanded his army and so why not also preach the section of Rock Edict 13 to Myanmar Buddhists where A┼Ыoka warns forest tribes that:
“And the Beloved-of-the-Gods conciliates the forest tribes of his empire, but he warns them that he has power even in his remorse, and he asks them to repent, lest they be killed” (Thapar p.383).
This teaching seems much more appropriate for contemporary Myanmar because since the end of British rule the Myanmar Buddhist majority has been engaged in combatting several violent rebellions, early on from Muslims in Western Rakhine, and then almost continuously from Christian, and sometimes Buddhist, ethnic minorities.
References cited:
Norman, K. R. 2006. A Philological Approach to Buddhism. Pali Text Society.
Thapar, Romila. 2014, 3rd edition. A┼Ыhoka and the Decline of the Mauryas. Oxford University Press.
Living in and under Jakarta’s streets
Well, Mr. Zhong Wanxie (Basuki Tjahja Purnama a.k.a Ahok) had seen the movie. Now I wait him to do something about it.
Another view of the Ramkhamhaeng inscription
“… whether Elara and/or Manuniticolan have been real persons …” – when delving deeper into religious history, the science of religion (as opposed to scripture-bound theology) and the sociology of religion we time and again find that even rather “recent” (i.e. only a few centuries old) religious figures always seem to be clad into a kind of mist that makes serious scholars question their historic veracity. And as this seems to go for ALL religions (even modern Mormonism already has its legends …) we may wonder if the history of it all matters and if not these “histories” are pretexts to install Jungian archetypes but shield them from being criticized as “phantasies”?
Reality check on Islam, Buddhism in Myanmar
Anatomy of any riot
1) Extreme inflammatory prejudicial unjustifiable alleged incidence attributed to one party.
2) Elements that will gain mostly criminally or otherwise i.e. Political, religious fanning the flame directly and indirectly further.
3) Failure of or rather here absent of the Rule of Law.
At any time during above 3 points with proper ROL intervention and interdiction riot can be minimized if not stopped.
Myanmar has very good Intelligence Services since Ne Win era.
With every whiff/hint of rioting especially political one against the regime, all opposition leaders are rounded up summarily to be “The guest of the Government” until unapproved rioting is no longer possible.
With the above facts in mind let us not pursue Buddhism as a factor any longer.
Instead let us get the whole picture that Make Myanmar situation unique rather that HR related.