Why are
Buddhist monks attacking Muslims?
By Alan Strathern Oxford
University 1 May 2013
Last
updated at 23:16 GMT
Of all the moral precepts instilled in
Buddhist monks the promise not to kill comes first, and the
principle of non-violence is arguably more central to Buddhism than
any other major religion. So why have monks been using hate speech
against Muslims and joining mobs that have left dozens
dead?
This is happening in two countries
separated by well over 1,000 miles of Indian Ocean - Burma and Sri
Lanka. It is puzzling because neither country is facing an Islamist
militant threat. Muslims in both places are a generally peaceable
and small minority.
In Sri Lanka, the issue of halal slaughter
has been a flashpoint. Led by monks, members of the Bodu Bala Sena
- the Buddhist Brigade - hold rallies, call for direct action and
the boycotting of Muslim businesses, and rail against the size of
Muslim families.
While no Muslims have been killed in Sri
Lanka, the Burmese situation is far more serious. Here the
antagonism is spearheaded by the 969 group, led by a monk, Ashin
Wirathu, who was jailed in 2003 for inciting religious hatred.
Released in 2012, he has referred to himself bizarrely as "the
Burmese Bin Laden".
March saw an outbreak of mob violence
directed against Muslims in the town of Meiktila, in central Burma,
which left at least 40 dead.
Tellingly, the violence began in a gold
shop. The movements in both countries exploit a sense of economic
grievance - a religious minority is used as the scapegoat for the
frustrated aspirations of the majority.
On Tuesday, Buddhist mobs attacked mosques
and burned more than 70 homes in Oakkan, north of Rangoon, after a
Muslim girl on a bicycle collided with a monk. One person died and
nine were injured.
But aren't Buddhist monks meant to be the
good guys of religion?
Aggressive thoughts are inimical to all
Buddhist teachings. Buddhism even comes equipped with a practical
way to eliminate them. Through meditation the distinction between
your feelings and those of others should begin to dissolve, while
your compassion for all living things grows.
Of course, there is a strong strain of
pacifism in Christian teachings too: "Love your enemies and pray
for those who persecute you," were the words of Jesus in the Sermon
on the Mount.
But however any religion starts out, sooner
or later it enters into a Faustian pact with state power. Buddhist
monks looked to kings, the ultimate wielders of violence, for the
support, patronage and order that only they could provide. Kings
looked to monks to provide the popular legitimacy that only such a
high moral vision can confer.
The result can seem ironic. If you have a
strong sense of the overriding moral superiority of your worldview,
then the need to protect and advance it can seem the most important
duty of all.
Christian crusaders, Islamist militants, or
the leaders of "freedom-loving nations", all justify what they see
as necessary violence in the name of a higher good. Buddhist rulers
and monks have been no exception.
So, historically, Buddhism has been no more
a religion of peace than Christianity.
One of the most famous kings in Sri Lankan
history is Dutugamanu, whose unification of the island in the 2nd
Century BC is related in an important chronicle, the
Mahavamsa.
It says that he placed a Buddhist relic in
his spear and took 500 monks with him along to war against a
non-Buddhist king.
He destroyed his opponents. After the
bloodshed, some enlightened ones consoled him: "The slain were like
animals; you will make the Buddha's faith shine."
Burmese rulers, known as "kings of
righteousness", justified wars in the name of what they called true
Buddhist doctrine.
In Japan, many samurai were devotees of Zen
Buddhism and various arguments sustained them - killing a man about
to commit a dreadful crime was an act of compassion, for example.
Such reasoning surfaced again when Japan mobilised for World War
II.
Buddhism took a leading role in the
nationalist movements that emerged as Burma and Sri Lanka sought to
throw off the yoke of the British Empire. Occasionally this spilled
out into violence. In 1930s Rangoon, amid resorts to direct action,
monks knifed four Europeans.
More importantly, many came to feel
Buddhism was integral to their national identity - and the position
of minorities in these newly independent nations was an
uncomfortable one.
In 1983, Sri Lanka's ethnic tensions broke
out into civil war. Following anti-Tamil pogroms, separatist Tamil
groups in the north and east of the island sought to break away
from the Sinhalese majority government.
During the war, the worst violence against
Sri Lankan Muslims came at the hands of the Tamil rebels. But after
the fighting came to a bloody end with the defeat of the rebels in
2009, it seems that majority communal passions have found a new
target in the Muslim minority.
In Burma, monks wielded their moral
authority to challenge the military junta and argue for democracy
in the Saffron Revolution of 2007. Peaceful protest was the main
weapon of choice this time, and monks paid with their
lives.
Now some monks are using their moral
authority to serve a quite different end. They may be a minority,
but the 500,000-strong monkhood, which includes many deposited in
monasteries as children to escape poverty or as orphans, certainly
has its fair share of angry young men.
The exact nature of the relationship
between the Buddhist extremists and the ruling parties in both
countries is unclear.
Sri Lanka's powerful Defence Secretary
Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was guest of honour at the opening of a
Buddhist Brigade training school, and referred to the monks as
those who "protect our country, religion and
race".
But the anti-Muslim message seems to have
struck a chord with parts of the population.
Even though they form a majority in both
countries, many Buddhists share a sense that their nations must be
unified and that their religion is under threat.
The global climate is crucial. People
believe radical Islam to be at the centre of the many of the most
violent conflicts around the world. They feel they are at the
receiving end of conversion drives by the much more evangelical
monotheistic faiths. And they feel that if other religions are
going to get tough, they had better follow suit.
Alan Strathern is a fellow in
History at Brasenose College, Oxford and author of Kingship and
Conversion in Sixteenth-Century Sri Lanka: Portuguese Imperialism
in a Buddhist Land
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