Sri Lanka on Tuesday banned the sale of the latest issue of Time magazine because of the newsweekly’s feature article on terrorism, describing recent clashes between Buddhists and Muslims.
We publish below the Full text of the cover story “The Face of Buddhist Terror” in July 01, 2013 TIME magazine;
The Face of Buddhist Terror
It’s a faith famous for its pacifism and tolerance. But in several of Asia’s Buddhist-majority nations, monks are inciting bigotry and violence — mostly against Muslims
By Hannah Beech / Meikhtila, Burma, And Pattani, Thailand
His face as still and serene as a statue’s, the Buddhist monk who has taken the title “the Burmese bin Laden” begins his sermon. Hundreds of worshippers sit before him, palms pressed together, sweat trickling down their sticky backs. On cue, the crowd chants with the man in burgundy robes, the mantras drifting through the sultry air of a temple in Mandalay, Burma’s second biggest city after Rangoon. It seems a peaceful scene, but
Buddhist blood is boiling in Burma, also known as Myanmar–and plenty of Muslim blood is being spilled. Over the past year, Buddhist mobs have targeted members of the minority faith, and incendiary rhetoric from Wirathu–he goes by one name–and other hard-line monks is fanning the flames of religious chauvinism. Scores of Muslims have been killed, according to government statistics, although international human-rights workers put the number in the hundreds. Much of the violence is directed at the Rohingya, a largely stateless Muslim group in Burma’s far west that the U.N. calls one of the world’s most persecuted people. The communal bloodshed has spread to central Burma, where Wirathu, 46, lives and preaches his virulent sermons. The radical monk sees Muslims, who make up at least 5% of Burma’s estimated 60 million people, as a threat to the country and its culture. “[Muslims] are breeding so fast, and they are stealing our women, raping them,” he tells me. “They would like to occupy our country, but I won’t let them. We must keep Myanmar Buddhist.”
Such hate speech threatens the delicate political ecosystem in a country peopled by at least 135 ethnic groups that has only recently been unshackled from nearly half a century of military rule. Already some government officials are calling for implementation of a ban, rarely enforced during the military era, on Rohingya women’s bearing more than two children. And many Christians in the country’s north say recent fighting between the Burmese military and Kachin insurgents, who are mostly Christian, was exacerbated by the widening religious divide.
Radical Buddhism is thriving in other parts of Asia too. This year in Sri Lanka, Buddhist nationalist groups with links to high-ranking officialdom have gained prominence, with monks helping orchestrate the destruction of Muslim and Christian property. And in Thailand’s deep south, where a Muslim insurgency has claimed some 5,000 lives since 2004, the Thai army trains civilian militias and often accompanies Buddhist monks when they leave their temples. The commingling of soldiers and monks–some of whom have armed themselves–only heightens the alienation felt by Thailand’s minority Muslims.
Although each nation’s history dictates the course radical Buddhism has taken within its borders, growing access to the Internet means that prejudice and rumors are instantly inflamed with each Facebook post or tweet. Violence can easily spill across borders. In Malaysia, where hundreds of thousands of Burmese migrants work, several Buddhist Burmese were killed in June–likely in retribution, Malaysian authorities say, for the deaths of Muslims back in Burma.
In the reckoning of religious extremism–Hindu nationalists, Muslim militants, fundamentalist Christians, ultra-Orthodox Jews–Buddhism has largely escaped trial. To much of the world, it is synonymous with nonviolence and loving kindness, concepts propagated by Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, 2,500 years ago. But like adherents of any other religion, Buddhists and their holy men are not immune to politics and, on occasion, the lure of sectarian chauvinism. When Asia rose up against empire and oppression, Buddhist monks, with their moral command and plentiful numbers, led anticolonial movements. Some starved themselves for their cause, their sunken flesh and protruding ribs underlining their sacrifice for the laity. Perhaps most iconic is the image of Thich Quang Duc, a Vietnamese monk sitting in the lotus position, wrapped in flames, as he burned to death in Saigon while protesting the repressive South Vietnamese regime 50 years ago. In 2007, Buddhist monks led a foiled democratic uprising in Burma: images of columns of clerics bearing upturned alms bowls, marching peacefully in protest against the junta, earned sympathy around the world, if not from the soldiers who slaughtered them. But where does political activism end and political militancy begin? Every religion can be twisted into a destructive force poisoned by ideas that are antithetical to its foundations. Now it’s Buddhism’s turn.
Mantra of Hate
Sitting cross-legged on a raised platform at the New Masoeyein monastery in Mandalay, next to a wall covered by life-size portraits of himself, the Burmese bin Laden expounds on his worldview. U.S. President Barack Obama has “been tainted by black Muslim blood.” Arabs have hijacked the U.N., he believes, although he sees no irony in linking his name to that of an Arab terrorist. About 90% of Muslims in Burma are “radical, bad people,” says Wirathu, who was jailed for seven years for his role in inciting anti-Muslim pogroms in 2003. He now leads a movement called 969–the figure represents various attributes of the Buddha–which calls on Buddhists to fraternize only among themselves and shun people of other faiths. “Taking care of our own religion and race is more important than democracy,” says Wirathu.
It would be easy to dismiss Wirathu as an outlier with little doctrinal basis for his bigotry. But he is charismatic and powerful, and his message resonates. Among the country’s majority Bamar ethnic group, as well as across Buddhist parts of Asia, there’s a vague sense that their religion is under siege–that Islam, having centuries ago conquered the Buddhist lands of Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Afghanistan, now seeks new territory. Even without proof, Buddhist nationalists stoke fears that local Muslim populations are increasing faster than their own, and they worry about Middle Eastern money pouring in to build new mosques.
In Burma, the democratization process that began in 2011 with the junta’s giving way to a quasi-civilian government has also allowed extremist voices to proliferate. The trouble began last year in the far west, where machete-wielding Buddhist hordes attacked Rohingya villages; 70 Muslims were slaughtered in a daylong massacre in one hamlet, according to Human Rights Watch. The government has done little to check the violence, which has since migrated to other parts of the country. In late March, the central town of Meikhtila burned for days, with entire Muslim quarters razed by Buddhist mobs after a monk was killed by Muslims. (The official death toll: two Buddhists and at least 40 Muslims.) Thousands of Muslims are still crammed into refugee camps that journalists are forbidden to enter. In the shadow of a burned-down mosque, I was able to meet the family of Abdul Razak Shahban, one of at least 20 students at a local Islamic school who were killed. “My son was killed because he was Muslim, nothing else,” Razak’s mother Rahamabi told me.
Temple and State
In the deep south of Burma’s neighbor Thailand, it is the Buddhists who complain of being targeted for their faith. This part of the country used to be part of a Malay sultanate before staunchly Buddhist Thailand annexed it early last century, and Muslims make up at least 80% of the population. Since a separatist insurgency intensified in 2004, many Buddhists have been targeted because their positions–such as teachers, soldiers and government workers–are linked with the Thai state. Dozens of monks have been attacked too. Now the Buddhists have overwhelming superiority in arms: the Thai military and other security forces have moved into the wat, as Thai Buddhist temples are known.
If Buddhists feel more protected by the presence of soldiers in their temples, it sends quite another signal to the Muslim population. “[The] state is wedding religion to the military,” says Michael Jerryson, an assistant professor of religious studies at Youngstown State University in Ohio and author of a book about Buddhism’s role in the southern-Thailand conflict. Muslims too are scared: more of them have perished in the violence than Buddhists. (By proportion of population, more Buddhists have died, however.) Yet Buddhists are the ones who receive the greater state protection, and I listen to monk after monk heighten tensions by telling me that Muslims are using mosques to store weapons or that every imam carries a gun. “Islam is a religion of violence,” says Phratong Jiratamo, a former marine turned monk in the town of Pattani. “Everyone knows this.”
It’s a sentiment the Burmese bin Laden would endorse. I ask Wirathu how he reconciles the peaceful sutras of his faith with the anti-Muslim violence spreading across his Bamar-majority homeland. “In Buddhism, we are not allowed to go on the offensive,” he tells me, as if he is lecturing a child. “But we have every right to protect and defend our community.” Later, as he preaches to an evening crowd, I listen to him compel smiling housewives, students, teachers, grandmothers and others to repeat after him, “I will sacrifice myself for the Bamar race.” It’s hard to imagine that the Buddha would have approved.
- Time-
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The Face Of Buddhist Terror: Sri Lanka To Ban Time Magazine
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The Face of Buddhist Terror
It's a faith famous for its pacifism and tolerance. But in several of Asia's Buddhist-majority nations, monks
are inciting bigotry and violence — mostly against Muslims
By Hannah Beech / Meikhtila, Burma, And Pattani, Thailand Monday, July 01, 2013
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ADAM DEAN / PANOS FOR TIME
U Wirathu, the spiritual leader of the 969 Buddhist Nationalist movement, and his entourage leave after
giving a sermon, at a monastery in Mandalay, Myanmar (Burma) on May 22, 2013. U Wirathu is an abbot
in the New Maesoeyin Monastery where he leads about 60 monks and has influence over more than 2,500
residing there. He travels the country giving sermons to religious and laypeople encouraging Buddhists to
shun Muslim business and communities.
His face as still and serene as a statue's, the Buddhist monk who has taken the title "the Burmese bin
Laden" begins his sermon. Hundreds of worshippers sit before him, palms pressed together, sweat
trickling silently down their sticky backs. On cue, the crowd chants with the man in burgundy robes, the
mantras drifting through the sultry air of a temple in Mandalay, Burma's second biggest city after Rangoon.
It seems a peaceful scene, but Wirathu's message crackles with hate. "Now is not the time for calm," the
46-year-old monk intones, as he spends 90 minutes describing the many...
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2146000,00.html#ixzz2Zx0zsv1U
Wirathu Blames ‘Islamic Terrorists’ for Mandalay Explosion
By ZARNI MANN / THE IRRAWADDY| Tuesday, July 23, 2013 |
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The car that an explosion reportedly emanated from on Sunday is pictured. (Photo: Mann Thar Lay / The
Irrawaddy)
MANDALAY — Nationalist Burmese monk U Wirathu has claimed that Islamic terrorists are behind a
bomb blast that took place during a Dhamma sermon he was conducting that injured at least five Buddhist
devotees on Sunday night.
“I think the culprit might be the Islamic extremists and the terrorists,” he told The Irrawaddy, adding that a
video titled “Mohamed is now asking for Wirathu and Pyinnyarwara. Who will bring them?” was being
spread in Mandalay, with a message against U Wirathu, fellow monk U Pyinnyarwara and the Buddhist
nationalist movement that the two support.
“Since their plan to fight me via Time magazine has failed, they are now targeting my Dhamma events and
the devotees with explosive devices,” U Wirathu said, referring to a Time article in the magazine’s July
issue that took a critical tone toward Wirathu’s teachings and labeled him “The Face of Buddhist Terror.”
Shortly after the sermon began on Sunday, an explosion startled those in attendance, about two-thirds of
whom proceed to exit the venue in fear. The sermon proceeded nonetheless, with local police guarding the
site following the blast.
“I feel no fear and will not keep a security detail with me because I’m not a special person. I will continue
with what I must do but have to condemn this action, as this is affecting the devotees and peace,” he
added.
Soe Nyein, a superintendent of the Mandalay divisional police, said U Wirathu’s assertion was premature.
“It is too early to say that the perpetrators were Islamic terrorists,” he told The Irrawaddy, adding that he
was not at liberty to elaborate on the investigation, which is ongoing.
Wirathu is a leader of the 969 movement, which encourages Buddhists in Burma to support fellow
Buddhists and boycott Muslim-owned businesses. Among other anti-Muslim positions espoused by the
movement’s supporters, 969 followers say Burma’s minority Muslims, who make up about 5 percent of the
population, threaten to one day overtake Buddhists as the demographic majority. Some 90 percent of
Burma’s people are currently followers of Buddhism.
Sunday’s incident comes just as a period of increased activity among Burma’s Buddhist community kicks
off.
“Since Buddhist Lent is starting, there will be many religious ceremonies and Dhamma sermons from
prominent monks will be taking place every week. We are worried that devotees might not come to the
ceremonies and sermons in fear of their safety. We want authorities to provide security for the monks and
the devotees,” said Ko Jay, an organizer of Sunday night’s Dhamma sermon.
The exact nature of the attack is unclear, with varying accounts of the source of the explosive device. One
devotee told The Irrawaddy that the bomb had fallen from above and struck a loud-speaker that was affixed
above the crowd.
“It [the explosion] took place about 20 minutes from when Sayadaw [U Wirathu] began the sermon. In the
area of the crowd, something fell from above with sparks and later I heard a thundering sound and saw a
car was hit and its tires were on fire. Many people tried to extinguish the fire by throwing sand [on the
flames]. Five people were hit by shrapnel on their legs and arms while many others returned to their homes
in fear,” said Ye Htun, who attended the sermon.
According to police, the bomb was thrown into the venue, where hundreds of devotees were listening U
Wirathu’s sermon.
“It was a manmade bomb that included pieces of iron, nails and wires, designed to injure many people.
Luckily, the bomb did not land among the crowd and went instead under a car that was parked near the
area. Five women and a young monk were hit by those pieces of iron but just have minor injuries,” said an
officer from the Mandalay divisional police office.
Other reports said the explosive device was planted inside or beneath the car.
Police said they were investigating the incident and planned to provide bolstered security at Dhamma
sermons and religious ceremonies, especially during Buddhist Lent, which began on Monday and lasts
three months.
In the Media
TIME: 'Burmese bin Laden' — The face of Buddhist terror
LIKE THIS ARTICLE16By Eko Armunanto
Jul 11, 2013 in World
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A Buddhist monk Wirathu calling himself Burmese bin Laden was recently labeled on the cover of Time magazine as the Face of Buddhist Terror. He is the Buddhist monk accused of stoking religious hatred across Burma, said NBC News contributor MacGregor.
Briefly describing what’s in its printed version entitled “The Face of Buddhist Terror,” TIME says “His face as still and serene as a statue's, the Buddhist monk who has taken the title ‘the Burmese bin Laden’ begins his sermon. Hundreds of worshippers sit before him, palms pressed together, sweat trickling silently down their sticky backs. On cue, the crowd chants with the man in burgundy robes, the mantras drifting through the sultry air of a temple in Mandalay, Burma's second biggest city after Rangoon. It seems a peaceful scene, but Wirathu's message crackles with hate: Now is not the time for calm.”
Sparked widespread protests across the country, Burmese government banned the TIME magazine portraying Ashin Wirathu as the Burmese bin Laden. Circa said Wirathu leads the radical Buddhist group 969 which says that the country's Muslim minority threatens national security and racial purity. Violence against Muslims has resulted in 250 deaths and displaced 150,000 people in the past year.
NBC News contributor Fiona MacGregor said Wirathu had been accused of inciting violence against Myanmar's Muslim minority with fiery sermons claiming the growth of Islam is putting Buddhism and Burmese culture at risk. About 200 people have been killed by violence since religious riots erupted in June 2012 and tens of thousands fled after homes owned were burned by mobs. “I believe Islam is a threat not just for Buddhism, but for the people and the country and the religion,” NBC said citing the monk. Wirathu laughed at the TIME report branding him the Buddhist bin Laden. As cited by NBC he said "People used to write things like that about me on Facebook, call me that, and the 'bald Bin Laden,' all sorts of names," he said. "I ended up calling myself that as a joke ... and it got reported from there."
Members of Burma’s Buddhist majority, including some of its much-respected monks, are increasingly persecuting the country’s long-suffering Muslim minority and adopting an ideology that encourages religious violence, said Washington Post.
It seems a far away from the Buddhism typically associated with stoic monks and the Lama, who has condemned the violence, and more akin to the sectarian extremism prevalent in troubled corners of the Middle East
— Washington Post.
Talking about the same monk, the New York Times said that after a ritual prayer atoning for past sins, Ashin Wirathu sat before an overflowing crowd of thousands of devotees and launched into a rant against what he called the enemy — the country’s Muslim minority. “You can be full of kindness and love, but you cannot sleep next to a mad dog,” Ashin Wirathu said, referring to Muslims. “I call them troublemakers, because they are troublemakers,” Ashin Wirathu told a reporter after his two-hour sermon. “I am proud to be called a radical Buddhist.”
The world has grown accustomed to a gentle image of Buddhism defined by the self-effacing words of the Dalai Lama, the global popularity of Buddhist-inspired meditation and postcard-perfect scenes from Southeast Asia and beyond of crimson-robed, barefoot monks receiving alms from villagers at dawn. But over the past year, images of rampaging Burmese Buddhists carrying swords and the vituperative sermons of monks like Ashin Wirathu have underlined the rise of extreme Buddhism in Myanmar — and revealed a darker side of the country’s greater freedoms after decades of military rule.
It was Wirathu who led a rally of monks in Mandalay to defend President Thein Sein's controversial plan to send the Rohingya to a third country said the Guardian. One month later, more violence broke out in Rakhine state. Thein Sein and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi have been criticized for not taking a greater stand against the violence that has racked Burma in recent months. Some have pointed to the seemingly planned nature of many of the attacks; UN special envoy Vijay Nambiar said the violence had a "brutal efficiency" and cited "incendiary propaganda" as stirring up trouble.
Read more: http://digitaljournal.com/article/354198#ixzz2Zx1gzI9f
That's the real face of buddhism under the guise of the alleged compassion....
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