INEB: Don’t allow religious and ethnic lines to worsen

Home Issues

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Isolation between races and cultures will lead to mistrust and fear as groups grow more separate, warns an international Buddhist group.

The chairman of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB), Dr Harsha Kumara Navaratne, from Sri Lanka, said isolation would happen if a country allowed religious and ethnic lines to worsen.

“The people in Sri Lanka live in separate areas, attend separate schools and speak separate languages. This isolation contributes to mistrust and fear,” he said, adding that other groups become abstract and were easily stereotyped.

Dr Harsha was speaking at the International Buddhist-Muslim Forum on Peace and Sustainability which was held at the Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia (Ikim) on Friday.

The other speakers included Ikim director-general Datuk Nik Musta­pha Nik Hassan and International Movement for a Just World (JUST) secretary-general Anas Zubedy.

“If Buddhist and Muslim communities can overcome the challenges that confront them, there is tremendous potential for the growth and development of ideas and values that may help to transform the region,” said Dr Harsha.

More than 200 people attended the forum held to promote Buddhist and Muslim relations in the region.

Ikim deputy director-general Prof Datin Dr Azizan Baharuddin, JUST president Dr Chandra Muzzafar, INEB founder Ajarn Sulak Sivaraksa and INEB advisory committee’s Rev Alan Senauke, who were also at the forum, discussed moderate ways of addressing social issues between the two religions.

Dr Chandra noted that in the South-East Asian region, Muslims and Buddhists made up 40% and 42% of the population, respectively.

“If we allow violence to erode relations between followers of the faiths, it could destabilise peace in the region. Thus, we must come together to maintain relations,” he said.

The INEB conference has been held every two years since its inaugural gathering in Bangkok in 1989.

The conference has since been hosted in countries such as India, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Taiwan.

This year’s conference also discussed the Buddhist and Muslim tensions that occurred in certain countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

View the original article here

INEB: Don’t allow religious and ethnic lines to worsen

Home Issues

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Isolation between races and cultures will lead to mistrust and fear as groups grow more separate, warns an international Buddhist group.

The chairman of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB), Dr Harsha Kumara Navaratne, from Sri Lanka, said isolation would happen if a country allowed religious and ethnic lines to worsen.

“The people in Sri Lanka live in separate areas, attend separate schools and speak separate languages. This isolation contributes to mistrust and fear,” he said, adding that other groups become abstract and were easily stereotyped.

Dr Harsha was speaking at the International Buddhist-Muslim Forum on Peace and Sustainability which was held at the Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia (Ikim) on Friday.

The other speakers included Ikim director-general Datuk Nik Musta­pha Nik Hassan and International Movement for a Just World (JUST) secretary-general Anas Zubedy.

“If Buddhist and Muslim communities can overcome the challenges that confront them, there is tremendous potential for the growth and development of ideas and values that may help to transform the region,” said Dr Harsha.

More than 200 people attended the forum held to promote Buddhist and Muslim relations in the region.

Ikim deputy director-general Prof Datin Dr Azizan Baharuddin, JUST president Dr Chandra Muzzafar, INEB founder Ajarn Sulak Sivaraksa and INEB advisory committee’s Rev Alan Senauke, who were also at the forum, discussed moderate ways of addressing social issues between the two religions.

Dr Chandra noted that in the South-East Asian region, Muslims and Buddhists made up 40% and 42% of the population, respectively.

“If we allow violence to erode relations between followers of the faiths, it could destabilise peace in the region. Thus, we must come together to maintain relations,” he said.

The INEB conference has been held every two years since its inaugural gathering in Bangkok in 1989.

The conference has since been hosted in countries such as India, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Taiwan.

This year’s conference also discussed the Buddhist and Muslim tensions that occurred in certain countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

View the original article here

Dhamma Or Ethnic Buddhism

Home Dharma Dew

Singapore -- Buddhism is my religion and has been for nearly 43 years. I consider the Buddha to have been the greatest mind in human history. I believe that the Dhamma is the closest humanity has come to ethical and spiritual perfection.

I have been teaching Dhamma for about 25 years and  I have never got tired of it, and I still discover aspects of  it that I had not noticed before. As an outgrowth of all this I have also developed a deep interest in Buddhist societies and cultures and have been fortunate enough to visit nearly every region where Buddhism prevails. During my travels I have generally found Buddhists to be open, gentle, generous and kindly folk.

But I am not blind. As samsaric beings Buddhists have their defilements just as people of other faiths do. They are capable of being stupid and greedy, prejudiced and uncaring, provoked and provoking, self-centred and inflexible, tradition-bound and superstitious.

They practice their religion as often as they fail to practice it – just as people of other faiths do. Despite this there has long been the illusion in the west that Buddhists, unique amongst humanity, practice their religion with complete fidelity - that because the Buddha taught gentleness, understanding and love, Buddhists follow these teachings unfailingly.

Well, it looks like those with such  illusions might be about to be disillusioned. It started some years ago with news reports of Sri Lankan monks being involved in racist politics and ethnic violence.

The Dorje Shugden and the Karmapa rumpus had little impact on public opinion because of the obscure issues involved, although they shocked and perhaps disillusioned some western Tibetan Buddhists.

Then the riots in Tibet gave a rather un-Shangri La picture of the troubles in that country.

Now it’s the ethnic riots in Burma. I quite understand that thoughtful people are deeply disturbed by these happenings.

I am too. But there is an added dimension to the reports about these as opposed to troubles beyond the Buddhist world. And it is this. Commentators and observers continually express their surprised to discover that Buddhists, monks included, can be provoked to violence, that they have chauvinistic feelings, that they are capable prejudices, and that they can resort to violence.

On the one hand this disillusioning worries me. Why? Because it tends to happen that when an illusion gives way to reality there is often a strong reaction in the other direction. When the deluded finally see the real situation they do not blame themselves for being unrealistic, they blame that which they were previously deluded about.

I suspect that Buddhists, and by implication Buddhism, previously held  so unrealistically high is  gradually going to be put down far lower than it should be.

On the other hand I am not  entirely unhappy that a more realistic view of Buddhists and Buddhist lands is beginning to emerge. Why? Because I have long seen the danger, not to say the foolishness, in the  “ethnic” approach to Dhamma.

When a western monk in the west asks to be addressed as Ajahn or Gelong, Sayadaw, Roshi or Sensei rather than their English equivalent he is identifying himself, not just as a Buddhist, but with a particular ethnic expression of Buddhism.

When they chant in the Tibetan or the Burmese or the Chinese way the same impression can be created.  When you tie yourself to a particular culture or country you involve yourself in people’s minds with that culture or country. And when that country or culture looks bad people see Buddhism as bad.

Dhamma is universal, it transcends culture and ethnicity. The practice of the Dhamma is not the special preserve of any particular ethnic group.

Let us practice the Buddha’s teaching, not Thai Buddhism, not Tibetan Buddhism, not Burmese Buddhism or any other culturally-specific expression of the Dhamma. Let us practice the Dhamma with a minimum of cultural trappings.

View the original article here

Burma: Aung San Suu Kyi Pleads For Ethnic Minority Rights

Home Asia Pacific South East Asia Myanmar

Rangoon, Burma -- In her first speech before the Myanmar parliament, pro-democracy activist and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has pleaded for the country to respect the rights of its various ethnic minorities.

<< In her first speech before the Myanmar parliament, pro-democracy activist and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has pleaded for the country to respect the rights of its various ethnic minorities.

Suu Kyi’s comments come after weeks of unrest and violence in the Rakhine state of western Myanmar (also known as Burma) where the Muslim minority Rohingya have been attacked and targeted by the majority Buddhists. Government troops are also still fighting the ethnic tribes in Kachin state in the northern part of the country.

"To become a truly democratic union with a spirit of the union, equal rights and mutual respect, I urge all members of parliament to discuss the enactment of the laws needed to protect equal rights of ethnicities," she said.

"Furthermore, the flames of war are not completely extinguished.”

Suu Kyi, however, did not explicitly mention the Rohingya by name and has been strangely silent on the issue of the ethnic clashes in Rakhine.

The Nobel Peace Prize recipient, who recently returned from a global tour, also called for the government to address the widespread poverty found among ethnic minorities.

Burma has a large number of ethnic minority rebel groups, some of whom the government has entered into peace deals with in recent years.

According to Stimson, a research and analysis group, Burma has at least fourteen ethnic minority groups, with the Shan (9 percent) and the Karen (7 percent), the two largest by population.

The Shan are closely related to the peoples of neighboring Thailand -- their communities are endangered by huge construction projects, including dams at the Irrawaddy and Salween rivers, as well the proposed Sino-Burma oil and gas pipeline.

The Karen have fought the Burmese ever since the nation was granted independence from Britain after World War II. As a result of decades of military conflict, a large population of Karen refugees reside in crowded camps on the Thai border.

The Burman (or Bamar) majority are believed to represent about 70 percent of the nation’s population.

View the original article here

Myanmar is reminded of its ethnic realities

Home Asia Pacific South East Asia Myanmar

Communal violence flares up even as the country tries to return to democracy

Arakan, Myanmar -- A week ago, a Buddhist woman was raped, allegedly by a Muslim man in the Rakhine province (once known as Arakan) in Myanmar, once known as Burma. Incensed Buddhists stopped a bus which had many Rohingyas, who are Muslim, and killed at least ten, injuring others.

The death toll in the unrest since has risen to 21. Myanmar is sending troops to the region. Rohingyas are fleeing their villages for Bangladesh, which has rushed its own troops to the border. Yesterday, the Bangladeshi border authorities sent back three boats full of civilian Rohingyas fleeing conflict.

The stream of good news coming from Myanmar had to stumble at some point, and this is perhaps the time, where Myanmar’s horrific past and tragic presence have cast a shadow on its future. That this week Aung San Suu Kyi will receive her Nobel Prize 23 years late combines the ironies of the country impeccably.

This reality check doesn’t come from some generals expressing unhappiness with the effortless re-emergence of Aung San Suu Kyi in public life, but it reveals a far older problem, of how the country treats its minorities.

As an ethnic pot, heterogenous is a mild word to describe Myanmar. While Burmans (or Bamars, as they are known in the country) form the majority - and hence the country’s former name, Burma - there are other minorities dominant in specific geographic terrains, such as Kachins, Karens, Chins, Shans, Mons, and Karennis. Many of these groups have fought battles for decades against the army, with some demanding more autonomy and others demanding independence. The government has signed ceasefire agreements with all but one community, although some agreements are fragile. Aung San Suu Kyi has said reconciliation with the ethnic groups is important, and she draws on the Panglong Agreement her father signed, representing the Burmese Army, with three key groups before independence in 1948.

Notice the absence of Rohingya Muslims in the conversation. This group is a minority in Myanmar, and they “look” South Asian and not Southeast Asian. They follow a different faith - Islam - unlike the majority Buddhists. (Some ethnic groups which have fought the Burmese army are majority Christians). Since independence, relations between Rohingyas and the Buddhists have been poor, and in the 1980s the government actively pushed them out, with most of them becoming de facto refugees in Bangladesh. Myanmar denies them citizenship rights and places many restrictions on their personal lives. Over the years, Bangladeshi governments have negotiated with Myanmar and repatriated some Rohingyas. Officially, there are fewer than 30,000 Rohingyas in Bangladesh, but there are claims that the real figure is ten times larger.

The unrest has brought out horrendous atavistic emotions. When Irrawady, the independent magazine based in Bangkok that opposes the generals and is cautious about the current reforms, reported the riots, its message board began looking like the worst of the no-holds-barred comments against the Rohingyas. They’re not Myanmar citizens, said one; other epithets and comments were more pejorative. (Myanmar citizens who object to give citizenship to Rohingyas apparently don’t seem to mind Chinese nationals acquiring citizenship in their country. China has invested heavily in Myanmar, creating tens of thousands of jobs - for Chinese migrants in Myanmar. But let that pass.

It is in that context that Bangladesh’s decision to close its border, and turning back Rohingyas leaving Myanmar for Bangladesh, is cruel and unjustified, and possibly a violation of international obligations to refugees. Meghna Guha Thakurta, a peace and reconciliation expert in Dhaka told me at the time of the April by-elections which, Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy won, that dealing with the Rohingya issue will be a real challenge for her. That challenge has arrived sooner than she may have wanted.

And yet, Bangladesh’s response flies in the face of its own history. In 1971, nearly 10 million people from the land that became Bangladesh fled for India, as Pakistani troops unleashed brutality on an unprecedented scale, to suppress Bangladeshi nationalism. At that time, India opened its doors. Bangladesh has sought humane treatment of Bangladeshis who continue to cross the Indian border illegally since then. Surely its leaders know, then, that they should open their border with Myanmar, so that those who have well-grounded fears of persecution can feel safe.

More than that, Myanmar’s president Thein Sein has to use his imagination and political capital with the same skill with which he is guiding the country’s return to democracy. Aung San Suu Kyi can help, but the government has to reassure the victims first.

View the original article here