Written by Our Correspondent - 16 Feb 2010, Temasek Review
A Buddhist monk Venerable Dhammika has expressed his doubts
about the effectiveness of inter-faith dialogue to prevent another
Rony Tan fiasco from arising.
An Australian by birth, Venerable Dhammika have been a Buddhist
monk for 32 years and am the spiritual advisor to the Buddha Dhamma
Mandala Society in Singapore.
Lighthouse Evangelism Pastor Rony Tan was hauled up for
questioning by the Internal Security Department (ISD) last Monday
for making disparaging remarks about Buddhism and Taoism during a
church session which was video-taped and uploaded to Youtube.
He has since apologized to the leaders of the Buddhist and
Taoist faiths and the government has refrained from taking further
action against him out of fear of sending “shockwaves” to the
Christian community.
The Straits Times carried a report yesterday quoting several
religious leaders as saying that inter-faith dialogue may be the
way to prevent such unpleasant episodes from recurring in the
future.
Venerable Dhammika, however, was unimpressed with the
inter-faith dialogues as conducted in Singapore. Writing on his
personal blog “Dhamma Musings”, he shared his experience at such
sessions:
“I doubt that inter-religious dialogue, at least as
it is conducted in Singapore, really
brings about a change in how the different religions feel about
each other. I have often attended inter-religious gatherings and I
have noticed that everyone is friendly, accommodating and
open-minded. The participants are already respectful of other
faiths. The ones who could do with a bit of tolerance – the bigots,
zealots, fundamentalists and the evangelicals, won’t come. Here in
Singapore several major denominations have pointedly refused to
join the Inter-religious Organization which they see as
fratranizing with Satan.”
The Singapore government frequently organized such inter-faith
dialogues to promote interaction between leaders of various
religious faiths in Singapore.
As they are not compulsory, the participants are usually those
who are tolerant and respectful of other faiths, as pointed out by
Venerable Dhammika and as such is “all too often just an exercise
in the converted preaching to each other.”
Venerable Dhammika proposed the government rewards tolerant
leaders to marginalize those who are intolerant:
“The government should consider something like the Public
Service Award, the PBM or the BBM, but to be given for service to
interfaith understanding. When such people are looked upon as
commendable, socially responsible and worthy, the bigots gradually
come to be seen as out-of-step, as a public nuisance, as
un-respectable. You can marginalize the intolerant by rewarding and
lauding the tolerant.”
While the state media has been quick to sweep the saga under the
carpet, religious fault-lines still lurk beneath the veneer of
normalcy in Singapore, waiting to be exposed once more.
Pastor Rony Tan’s running down of other religions would not have
come to light had he not video-taped his preaching and uploaded it
to Youtube where it was subsequently circulated in cyberspace.
With the combustible situation exacerbated by the
relentless influx of foreigners in Singapore, the social tension in
Singapore society is set to grow in the years ahead.
Read rest of Venerable Dhammika’s post here
I have similar views too. I have a Buddhist friend who is
working for a well-known Buddhist temple and is regularly selected
to attend inter-faith dialogues over lunches or dinners. He knows
very clearly that there are irreconcilable differences between each
religion, especially between Buddhism and monotheistic religions
such as Christianity and Islam.
There are indeed many Christian and other religious
denominations who choose not to attend any single inter-faith
dialogue so we cannot really give a clear proclamation of how
successful inter-faith dialogue has really been for Singapore.
Both the government and the media are very eager to sweep
everything under the carpet and we are persuaded to think
everything is back to normal once more, since apologies have been
made and the government continues to reiterate its strong
commitment to maintaining inter-religious harmony.
Indeed if Pastor Rony Tan had not video-taped his speech and
released it on his church's website, we would not have the chance
to know what is really being preached behind each church's
doors.
Pastor Rony Tan is not first one to do this, and neither will he
be the last. The leaders of the inter-religious organisation had
expressed their wish for such incidents to never happen again. To
me, they are just making politically correct statements to show
magnimousity and forgiveness, while deep inside their hearts and
minds, they know this won't be the last of such cases.
But no matter how forgiving we are, there are limits that can't
be tolerated further for the sake of appearing to be forgiving.
Appropriate punishments that send a very strong and consistent
signal to the public have to be enforced decisively at some point
in time. The difficulty is in judging what is considered severe
enough to merit a jail sentence or a mere official warning.
