Buddhists pray for end to Rohingya conflict

?Hopefully the Myanmar government will be able to end the conflict soon,? one of the Buddhist monks said as he led the prayers at an altar in the southern yard of the temple.

Buddhist nun Daya Kusala of the Buddha Mahayana Community Council expressed the same hope, expecting the Myanmar government to handle the Rohingya conflict with love , not violence.

?Are the killers in Rohingya really Buddhist monks? If they are, they shouldn?t have done so because Buddha taught love,? Daya Kusala said.

She also expressed hope the Rohingya conflict would not influence Indonesians and they should remain living in harmony.

The prayers at the Mendut Temple were led by the nine councils grouped under the Indonesian Buddhist Council (Walubi). In their prayers, the monks also asked God to free Indonesia from ethnic, religious, race and inter-group conflicts as well as from natural disasters.

Buddhists were seen following the prayers solemnly under tight security from the local police and the Yogyakarta Police?s Mobile Brigade (Brimob). The bomb squad was also deployed.

Monk Wongsin Labiko Mahatera led the meditation procession held ahead of the enlightenment moment at 11:24:39. When the moment came, director general of Buddhist community supervision of the Religious Affairs Ministry, Joko Wuryanto, hit a gong three times.

Chairman of the International Buddhist Sangha Mahayana, Monk Tadissa Paramitha Mahasthavira, called on Buddhists to implement the teaching of Sang Buddha Gautama.

?The teaching must be understood thoroughly and not partially. That way you will also be able to develop wisdom,? Tadissa said.

The ritual at Mendut Temple continued with a parade to accompany the journey of the holy water, holy flame and the Buddhist relic from Mendut to Borobudur Temple. .

The whole Waisak celebration was closed with the release of 1,000 decorative lamps to symbolize enlightenment in life and hope.

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Conflict in Buddhism: 'Violence for the sake of peace?'

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Hong Kong, China -- For Thailand's Queen Sikrisit, the 2007 attack on a minibus in southern Thailand's Yala province -- in which suspected Muslim militants shot eight Buddhists through the head in broad daylight -- was simply further proof of what she'd been saying for more than three years.

<< Buddhists monks in Meiktila, Myanmar, where violence between Muslims and Buddhists left 43 dead last month

"We have to help people there to survive. If they need to be trained, train them. If they need to be armed, arm them," she was quoted as saying by one of her military staff, according to media reports.
Meanwhile, Thailand was convulsed by demonstrations condemning the attack.

Her response was to boost her support for the Or Ror Bor or Village Protection Force, the militia the Royal Aide-de-Camp department, under Queen Sirikit's direction, established in 2004.

Unlike other militia in the strife-torn region, whose make up reflects the local demographic, the Or Ror Bor is exclusively Buddhist, is often stationed near temple compounds and is tasked with protecting Buddhist communities.

While Buddhism is associated in the Western mind with pacifism, Buddhist nations such as Thailand, Myanmar and Sri Lanka have been engaged in vicious conflicts.

 Deadly ethnic unrest spreads in Myanmar New realities for Tibetans in China Why Buddhists, Muslims clash in Myanmar

In Thailand, state security is now locked in an increasingly bloody civil war with the Muslim minority near its border with Malaysia, in Myanmar civil strife looms between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State and Sri Lanka has just concluded a protracted civil war with its Tamil minority.

Cycle of birth and death

Buddhism, with its emphasis on karma and samsara -- the idea that the cycle of birth and death is driven by the actions of an individual -- is traditionally deeply averse to killing, believing it creates negative karma that will be revisited on a person in their own lifetime or in subsequent reincarnations.

So how do the largely Buddhist state security in these countries square their beliefs with the need to fight?

Michael Jerryson, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Florida's Eckerd College and co-editor of the book Buddhist Warfare, says that warfare is part of the human condition irrespective of religion.

"The first thing to remember is that people have a penchant for violence, it just so happens that every religion has people in it," Jerryson told CNN.

History of conflicts

He said that while Buddhism has a 1,600-year well-documented history of monastic-led rebellions and conflicts, the association of Buddhism in the Western mind is with pacifism.

"Buddhism certainly has a lot within its precepts about pacifism. In fact, almost every global religion does," he said.

However, Buddhism differs in that the act of killing is less the focus than the "intention" behind the killing, he said.

"When there are Buddhist monks traveling with soldiers in Sri Lanka and chanting with them and blessing them, their perspective is that they are not trying to support the violence but ... it's better to have soldiers with a cool, calm, clear head, with good intentions, than those that are hot headed," Jerryson said.

Self-immolations

He said Tibet's Dalai Lama spoke of the same focus on "intention" when asked about the recent spate of self-immolations in Tibet.

"He pointed out that these people are not on drugs, they don't seem insane but they're doing it for a cause - the intention seems to be clear," he said. "This is often used to rationalize violence within Buddhist circles but as we're seeing now with Myanmar and Thailand, cool heads are not prevailing now."

He said Buddhist states often mesh nationalism with Buddhism, justifying war on the grounds that a fracture in the nation state is a tear in the sacred fabric of a land which represents the well-spring of their belief.

"Sri Lanka often speaks about 'the little teardrop island' as the last true vestige of true Buddhism. So when the LTTE, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, tried to separate a portion of that 'teardrop island' it was analogous to attacking the mother," Jerryson said.

Political rhetoric

As with most countries that use violence to solve disputes, Jerryson says the political rhetoric will begin to assume that the means justifies the ends.

"The rhetoric of violence as a defense, and this is not unique to Buddhism, is the idea of violence for the sake of peace," he said. "That although this is an infraction, although we are gaining negative karma, it's for the greater good -- prima facie anyway."

Buddhist nation states have historically sought to use Buddhist doctrine to justify war. During the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s, for instance, soldiers were told not only that they were defending Buddhism but that emptiness in Buddhism is the only true reality, therefore, in the end, nobody was being killed, Jerryson said.
Ultimately,added Jerryson, Buddhist countries battling insurgencies will find that their root problems are economic rather than sectarian.
"How many strong Buddhists states are we looking at in the world? How many of them are economically strong? Because with economic strength and vitality comes less likelihood of civil insurrections and wars.

"Of course, we see a lot violence with Islamic countries now, but we also see a lot of poverty with them too."

Identity crisis

For Thailand-based security analyst Don Pathan the problems in Thailand's south have less to do with religion than with identity.

"The fact that the Or Ror Bor is exclusively Buddhist, doesn't say anything about Buddhism in ethical terms; it's just something that sets them apart from other security units," Pathan told CNN. "The issue is not about religion."

He said that while there were many factors influencing the insurgency -- economic, historical and the fact, he says, that the violence has migrated from rural areas to the cities -- he had also noticed a generational dimension to the problems.

"My experience with the older generation is that I still sense a strong fabric of society that still gets along together -- people are still friends whether they are Muslim or Buddhist.

"But I don't get that sense very strongly with the younger generation."
He said that while older Buddhists generally speak functional Malay to communicate with their neighbors, younger people have little interest in learning the language, regarding it as something only their grandparents do. The state emphasis on speaking Thai at schools has created problems, he said, reinforcing differences between the two communities.

"And it's not just Thai, but Central Thai -- that's how ethnocentric the Thai nation state can be. But they don't seem to understand that's a problem; that we need to accommodate the local identity," Pathan said.

He said the confusion between culture and religion was one of the driving forces behind the violence.

"It's like (groups) that say they practice correct Islam, but what is correct Islam? Islam is a religion not a culture," he said. "The problem (in southern Thailand) is that they don't separate these things; for them it's two sides of the same coin."

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Miscreants trying to provoke conflict between Buddhists & Muslims

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Dharamsala/Jammu, India -- The Central Tibetan Administration based in Dharamsala deeply disturbed and concerned over the circulation of a misleading photograph in some section of the media showing Tibetan monks in their reports on the recent violence in Myanmar involving Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, said in a statement issued from Dharamsala.

Statement said that a photograph of Tibetan monks standing in front of a pile of dead bodies appeared in many websites in the Muslim countries, especially Pakistan. This photo of Tibetan monks was actually taken during their relief work in Kyegudo (Yushul), eastern Tibet, after a devastating earthquake hit the region on 14 April 2010. The Tibetan monks extended remarkable service in the rescue and relief operations at the time.

The relevant department of the Central Tibetan Administration wrote a letter to a website in Pakistan (ColumPk.com, Urdu Current Affairs Portal) on 30 July to remove the photo from its website, which it did so the next day. But the photo is still in circulation, as some Muslims carrying the photo during their recent protest in Mumbai on 11 August 2012, appeared in Zee News, a leading news channel in India.

Statement appeals to the media across the world not to use this photo, which is being circulated by miscreants to provoke conflict between the Buddhist and Muslim communities.

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The Arakan Conflict and Nationalist Threats In Burma

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On-going anti-Rohingya campaign poses danger to ethnic harmony in Burma

Rangoon, Burma -- The continuing strife in western Burma signifies a dangerous future for an ethnically diverse country that has experienced ethnic conflicts for more than 60 years. It is not simply a campaign against the minority Rohingya as a group. It is a reflection of a tragic political hangover of the nation-state system that operates through an ominous and troubling nationalism.

The Arakan conflict is about nation-state building and state territorialization, which are being articulated by mainstreaming a singular ethno-religious identity - Buddhist Burmese, the basis of official nationalism. The root cause of the historical antagonism between the dominant Burman leadership and ethnic groups has been reactivated.

Politics of identity and difference

The first danger the anti-Rohingya campaign poses to ethnic harmony at the national level, not just at the Arakan (also known as Rakhine) state level, relates to the politics of identity and difference. Historically, ethnic Rakhine were antagonistic to ethnic Burmans for ‘destroying’ the Rakhine kingdom in the 18th century despite the fact that the majority of both ethnic groups were Theravada Buddhists. Nationalists now have mobilized Buddhist Burmans for their campaign against the Rohingya by presenting Arakan state as the western gate of Buddhist Burma against ‘flooding’ Muslims from Bangladesh.

As the anti-Rohingya campaign began to intensify in November 2011, Buddhism became the common ground for fostering an alliance between the Rakhine and Burmans. Discourses of anti-Rohingyas came to be constructed in term of protecting amyo barthar thartana - race/nation and religion. Religion refers exclusively to Buddhism.

In this situation, the already unclear definition of amyo (race/nation), and the elements that constitute this category, further blur the boundary between ethnic Rakhine, Burmans and Burmese citizenry. But it takes the general categorical form of ‘Buddhist and/or Burmese’ where ‘Burmese’ generally refers both to the country’s citizens as well as the majority ethnic Burmans. They also blur the boundaries between Rohingyas, Islam and Burmese Muslims. Ethnic Burmans, with or without the Rakhines’ mobilization, joined the campaign in the name of “safeguarding the nation.”

Therefore, differences and historical antagonism between ethnic Rakhines and Burmans have temporarily faded into a common “Buddhist Burmese” identity vis-à-vis the Rohingya. This merger is obvious as the Burmese government as well as senior opposition leaders from Aung San Suu Kyi’s party including Tin Oo, Nyan Win and Win Tin jumped on the bandwagon to speak out against the Rohingyas. Well-known celebrities, scholars and well-respected writers agreed.

The supposed global champion of freedom and democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, said during her Europe trip in June this year that she did not know if Rohingya were citizens of Burma. She did not even say one clear word that insults and deadly attacks on vulnerable Rohingyas must stop immediately.

Ko Ko Gyi, the leader of the 88 Generation Students, even denounced the Rohingya as a threat to national security. Likewise, Burmese freedom fighters and refugees in the West have openly campaigned against the Rohingya, arguing that denial of citizenship for them is the majority’s desire, however racist and exclusive, effectively turning democracy into mob rule. Some activists, just like the junta, claim that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not fit with Burma.

The Burmese media, especially the domestic journals, also launched a media war by supporting attacks and expulsion of the Rohingya from Arakan state – all in the name of protecting the nation.

The most disturbing statement came from President Thein Sein who told UN refugee agency officials that the Rohingya would be sent to camps and delivered to third countries as refugees. All these are a reflection that those who dominate Burma’s political and social lives express and engage in political actions based on deeply ingrained nationalist sentiment, however deadly and violent.

Geographical misconception of history and territory

Another important factor in the Arakan conflict is the public’s geographical imagination of national history and territory. For example, the title of a book written by a retired army officer, Thaung Wai Oo, is literally translated as We love [the land] because it is the inheritance from our forefathers. These words are also the lyrics of the national anthem. The book is about Thaung Wai Oo’s experience working with army officers who were deployed in counterinsurgency operations in various parts of the country.

It is odd that the author, being a Burmese military officer from the central plain of modern Burma, imagines ethnic territories beyond the plain as an inheritance from forefathers as if these ethnic territories have been part of modern Burma since time immemorial. Such a perception misses an important historical reality — that modern Burma itself is very new. Today’s ethnic territories that appear on the national map as unified ethnic states were separate and relatively independent polities with distinct ethnic groups, cultural practices, and political histories.

It was only in 1947 when the rulers and leaders of these polities voluntarily attached their lands to “Burma Proper” [the lowland plain region in central Burma] to establish the Union of Burma. They were convinced by the promises of independence hero General Aung San and his forward-looking colleagues to join the Union on equal terms.

As General Aung San and his fellows were assassinated before independence, the Burmese nationalists also killed Aung San’s promises. The result is internal colonization. When the dictator Ne Win took over the country in 1962 in the name of protecting the nation from disintegration, he denied Aung San’s promises to ethnic peoples. Over time, Ne Win’s self-important textbook history convinced the public that they are indigenous to all the lands within the modern national borders, as imagined by Thaung Wai Oo.

The reality is that these ethnic states are not in any way the inheritance of Burman elites. They are lands historically, politically, and symbolically specific to ethnic minority groups. Failure to understand the historical geography of the nation has led the public to internalize Ne Win’s lies that ethnic groups demanding the fulfillment of Aung San’s promises are separatists and ‘rebels’. The Burmese term for insurgents ‘thaung gyan tu’ means rioters, looters and criminals – or a combination thereof.

Constructing official nationalism vis-à-vis foreigners and ethnic ‘separatists,’ Ne Win instilled a strong nationalistic attitude among the public. Before his coup, Burman nationalists’ promulgation of Buddhism as a state religion in 1961 dismayed ethnic groups whose majority members practice Christianity or traditional belief systems.

In short, imagining the entire national territory as a singular entity and the land mass as that of the Burmese (whatever the term refers to exactly), and deeming the country a Buddhist nation led to inscribing the national space with singular ethno-religious identity, a common but problematic practice of nation-state building.

This predicament has results in burning churches, and beating and killing religious leaders in the Kachin, Chin, Karen and Karenni states and making the accusation that Christianity is encroaching on a Buddhist nation. In the ongoing Kachin conflict, churches have been turned into temporary military camps. Worse, Kachin News Agency reported in May 2012 that Burmese soldiers gang-raped an ethnic Kachin woman in a church.

The same logic applies to the Arakan conflict. Imagining the Arakan state as a unified territory in the west of Buddhist Burma, it is deemed to be an entirely Buddhist Burmese space. This completely disregards the fact that Arakan state is a combination of multiple territories inhabited by peoples with distinct cultures, religions and languages, just as in the Shan state where there are territories of the Wa, Kokant, etc.

Imagining a different reality in political centers far away from Arakan state, the Burmese disregard the reality that non-Buddhists, non-Burmese and non-Rakhine also have lived in different territories within Arakan state for centuries. Just as with all other borderlands in the world, peoples from both sides of the border move around in the Burma-Bangladesh borderland, known today as Arakan state. Having ‘illegal’ immigrants does not negate the reality that a segment of Muslims – whether they call themselves Rohingya or not – are indigenous to some territories in Arakan state.

This reality does not matter. The Burmese from political centers, alongside Rakhine nationalists, claim Muslims’ territories by means of wiping them out: Thein Sein’s plan, which is supported by the public. All these examples of state territorialization signify that internal colonization from the political centers is still the principle of politics in Burma.

The Arakan conflict and Burma’s ethnic future

The nationalist response to the Arakan conflict raises an important question of what this conflict means to the country’s broader ethnic relations. The Arakan conflict is testimony that the political mainstream continues to be nationalistic. Just like the state, mainstream oppositions stand up not for the principles of freedom, democracy and human rights, but for their own interests against power. They united against the Rohingya with complete disrespect for human life, dignity and human rights. Who would guarantee that they would not react to potential crises involving other minority groups just like the way they responded to the Rohingya?

This is a legitimate question especially because the mainstream political opposition has never taken the plight of ethnic peoples seriously. For the mainstream opposition, both at home and in exile, the problems are about the lack of democracy, human rights, and lately the ‘rule of law’.

According to them, ethnic affairs that consist of broken promises to ethnic groups, loss of territorial rights, human rights violations in ethnic states, cultural oppression, and a federal state based on equal political representation are not the primary concerns. Their fight for democracy has rather sidelined anything ‘ethnic’.

That is why the mainstream opposition has not taken any proactive stance against a decades-long history of deadly violence in ethnic states despite the military’s openly stated commitment to ‘wiping out’ all insurgent groups. As witnessed, the military’s attempt to ‘wipe out’ insurgent groups does not discriminate between insurgents and civilians, resulting in mass execution, torture, sexual violence and expulsion of people.

Even in a reformed Burma where people can speak freely, the mainstream opposition including Aung San Suu Kyi has not spoken out clearly against the Burmese military’s offensives and human rights violations in Kachin State. This is an indication that the mainstream political opposition is not on the same page as ethnic groups.

In such a political environment, bolstering Burmese nationalism, although in opposition to Rohingyas in the context of defining who belongs to the nation, reinforces the centrality of Buddhist Burmese in the political life, which automatically further relegates the position of minorities to oblivion.

The Arakan conflict demonstrates that the political mainstream can be easy prey if nationalism is exploited. This is even disconcerting as those who dominate political stage, the media, the youth, celebrities etc. are all prepared to not only speak the language of oppressors but also to act with them in the name of race/national and religion or national security.

If the government frames a potential conflict with an ethnic group just as the Arakan conflict was framed along nationalist lines, who will guarantee that the majority with the tools of power would be fair? Who would guarantee that they would not band together and parade behind the military against those they deem to be the nation’s enemies, as plotted by the government’s sick drama via discourses of amyo barthar thartanar?

Until the mainstream Burmese stand up for the principles of freedom and human rights including enfranchisement of the minorities, the ethnic minorities are vulnerable. Until the people realize that modern Burma as a nation-state is not homogenous, but composed of territories with diverse cultures and religions, internal colonization and conflict will ensue.

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Sai Latt is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography at Simon Fraser University in Canada. This article first appeared in Asia Sentinel. The views expressed in this article are his own

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