Explosions in Bangkok

The previous post was supposed to be my last for a while, but I just saw on the news that bombs have exploded in Thailand's capital of Bangkok.

The Bangkok Pundit is liveblogging the events. There's also an up-to-date summary of news at ScandAsia. It's not clear at this time who planted the bombs.

May all beings be safe.

南無阿彌陀佛

Hiatus and Happy New Year

I will be very busy in the upcoming month, so I'll probably not post here again until the end of January.

I wish everyone a Happy New Year.

南無阿彌陀佛

Discrimination against Dalits in India

More on the murder of a Buddhist Dalit family in India, which I wrote about in this previous post, and the on-going discrimination suffered by the Dalits in India. From BBC News:

The brutal killing of a family from the lower castes – known as Dalits – in India's western state of Maharashtra has revived the community's demand to be treated as equals in a society that has labelled them as outcasts.

The incident took place in a remote village called Khairlanji in Bhandara district situated in the north-east of the state.

On 29 September, Surekha Bhotmange, her 17-year-old daughter Priyanka, and two sons, 19-year-old Roshan and 21-year-old Sudhir were at home when an upper-caste mob broke into their mud hut and murdered them.

The details are gruesome. The four were reportedly dragged out and beaten with bicycle chains, sticks and other weapons. The mother and daughter were allegedly stripped and raped by the mob, many of whom lived in the same village and were possibly their neighbours.

The father and only surviving member, Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange, is a broken man but shows steely resolve when demanding justice for his family.

[...]

Thirty-year-old Baby Manohar Ramteke is a Dalit by birth and works in the fields.

She has lived in Bhabal, a village about two hours drive from the city of Nagpur, all her life and says they have always been ill-treated by others on the basis of their caste.

"First they wouldn't let us fill water from the common well, then there was an incident of someone vandalising the village temple statue so they blamed us for it. They keep calling us names and telling us we are dirty people," she said.

She finally got a separate water tap installed in the village for Dalit families.

[...]

In order to escape the caste system, many Dalits have adopted Buddhism as their new faith, as their leader, Dr Ambedkar, did.

The chief architect of the Indian constitution, Dr Ambedkar was born a Dalit but rose to a respectable position in society despite all odds. He enjoys iconic status among his people.

Retired professor and social worker Dr Rupa Kulkarni says those who followed him have forged ahead in life socially and financially. She said many of them have become top doctors, writers and bureaucrats.

"Leaving Hinduism and accepting Buddhism changed the entire mentality of Dalits, made them believe that even they were someone. They realised they had to revolt against the caste system and because of this their self-respect awakened," she said. [...]

Dr Kulkarni said discrimination in cities may not be as obvious as that in the villages, but it still exists and Dalits are not allowed to forget the caste they were born into.

"Before giving a house out on rent here, the tenant's caste is asked and Buddhists are banned completely even though their economic condition is such that they can buy the place. Inter-caste marriages are still prohibited.

"No matter how progressive people call themselves, that really progressive element – a generous and big heart – is still missing."

Mob violence, separate water taps, exclusion from certain neighbourhoods, and prohibitions against mixed marriage — why does all that sound so familiar?

南無阿彌陀佛

Buddhist temple built in Sri Lanka with Turkish funds

From Hürriyet (via The Buddhist Channel):

Among the 450 homes ordered built by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a Buddhist region of Sri Lanka hit hard by the tsunami two years ago, a Buddhist temple was also built with Turkish funds. State Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin yesterday recounted his impressions of the work done in Sri Lanka following the tsunami to the Council of Ministers in Ankara.

Sahin had newly returned from a ceremony in the region dedicating the new homes to the victims of the tsunami in both Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

Said Sahin yesterday "In particular, the Buddhist temple built by Turkey in Sri Lanka has attracted a lot of interest. In fact, Buddhist monks came to two mosques in Colombo to thank the imams there for Turkey's initiative." Sahin reported that in both Sri Lanka and Indonesia, gratitude to Turkey for keeping its promises following the tsunami disaster was at an all time high.

A shining example of interfaith solidarity.

南無阿彌陀佛

Fire of hatred continues to burn in southern Thailand

In this previous post, I wrote about how Islamist insurgents in southern Thailand are targeting civilians and using fire as a weapon. It's now more than a month later, and the fire of hatred continues to burn. From the International Herald Tribune:

Two teachers were shot and burned to death in Thailand's restive south Friday by suspected Muslim insurgents, while a government worker and a grocery store owner were killed in other attacks, police said.

[...]

Despite offers of peace and reconciliation by the country's military-backed government, violence has increased in recent months.

Just as Christians worldwide aren't paying enough attention to what's happening to their co-religionists in the Middle East (see this previous post), Buddhists worldwide haven't been paying enough attention to the changing nature of the interaction between Muslims and Buddhists, and between Islam and Buddhism, in Southeast Asia (see these previous posts).

---

Update: The following article from The Nation refrains from naming the religion of the victims or that of the killers and bystanders, despite explicitly alluding to religious differences:

The wife of a teacher who was shot dead and set on fire by suspected militants has accused local villagers of doing nothing while her husband and his colleague were set ablaze.

On Friday, suspected militants shot dead Chamnong Chupatpong, the director of the Ban Bado elementary school, and a teacher, Manoe Sonkaew, and set their bodies on fire on a road just 100 metres away from the village school at which they worked in Yala's Tambon Yupo.

Kawin Chupatpong said the attack on her husband and his colleague had taken place in front of the villagers, who remained inside their homes instead of coming out to help the two victims.

"My husband has been helping them and educating their children for the past decade, and the differences in our religious beliefs was never an obstacle. But this shows that our good deeds were not reciprocated," Kawin said.

"My father and his school helped raised money for the construction of the local mosque, so the children could have a place to pray. He even used his own money," said the couple's daughter Monthida, a senior at Kasetsart University.

The context makes it clear that the victims were Buddhists while the villagers were primarily Muslim. While I understand the family's anguish, the villagers were probably too terrified for their own lives to do anything to prevent the murders.

Police Maj-General Phaitoon Choochaiya, commander of the Yala Provincial Police, told reporters yesterday that the absence of eyewitnesses has made his work much more difficult.

He said the brutal attack had sent a chilling message to the entire community, and hence the refusal of the villagers to come forward with information. [...]

Authorities said a new generation of militants have effectively shattered the fabric of the local community by singling out monks and teachers, along with security officials and their informants. [...]

This sentence is written in code: "monks and teachers" means "Buddhists", "informants" means "Muslims" (i.e., those who are sympathetic to Buddhists), and "shattered the fabric of the local community" means "driven a wedge of distrust and fear between them". And that is precisely the goal of the terrorists.

南無阿彌陀佛

Salon profiles B. Alan Wallace

In "Buddha on the brain", Salon profiles B. Alan Wallace, the author of "Contemplative Science":

The debate between science and religion typically gets stuck on the thorny question of God's existence. How do you reconcile an all-powerful God with the mechanistic slog of evolution? Can a rationalist do anything but sneer at the Bible's miracles? But what if another religion — a non-theistic one — offered a way out of this impasse? That's the promise that some people hold out for in Buddhism. [...]

B. Alan Wallace may be the American Buddhist most committed to finding connections between Buddhism and science. An ex-Buddhist monk who went on to get a doctorate in religious studies at Stanford, he once studied under the Dalai Lama, and has acted as one of the Tibetan leader's translators. Wallace, now president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies, has written and edited many books, often challenging the conventions of modern science. [...]

In his new book, "Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge," Wallace takes on the loaded subject of consciousness. He argues that the long tradition of Buddhist meditation, with its rigorous investigation of the mind, has in effect pioneered a science of consciousness, and that it has much to teach Western scientists. [...]

I have a long list of books on the theme of "Buddhism and Science". Someday I will actually get around to reading them — and when I do, I will post my reviews here.

For now, however, my list has just increased by one.

南無阿彌陀佛

Merry Christmas, everyone

Yes, I wrote "Merry Christmas" — and not "Happy Holidays" or something more generic.

Even though I'm not a Christian, I think there's nothing wrong with wishing someone Merry Christmas or having someone (Christian or not) wishing me the same. People who avoid saying the word "Christmas" because of its religious connotation are just being silly.

Regardless of what one calls it, it's still a Christian holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. Yes, I'm aware that many aspects of Christmas (including its date) originate in pre-Christian European pagan beliefs and practices. The exact same argument can be made of Vesak Day, the Buddha's birthday, with respect to the pre-Buddhist customs and religious beliefs of the Asian cultures for which it is now a holiday. If we can't refer to a holiday by its name because it borrows elements from pre-existing customs or because it might be perceived as exclusive, we'd have to refer to most holidays by generic names.

In the spirit of the season, here is a link to a list at fanpop! of 101 Classic Christmas videos which can be viewed online.

南無阿彌陀佛

Christians disappearing from Bethlehem and the Middle East

The town of Bethlehem [בית לחם], the birthplace of Jesus according to Christian tradition, is emptying of its Christian population. From the Daily Mail:

It is one of the most sacred sites in Christendom, but there are no tourists queuing to see it.

Just 500 yards down the road, Joseph Canawati is not looking forward to Christmas.

The expansive lobby of his 77-room Hotel Alexander is empty and he says: "There is no hope for the future of the Christian community.

"We don't think things are going to get better. For us, it is finished."

Life for Palestinian Christians such as 50-year-old Joseph has become increasingly difficult in Bethlehem — and many of them are leaving.

The town's Christian population has dwindled from more than 85 per cent in 1948 to 12 per cent of its 60,000 inhabitants in 2006.

There are reports of religious persecution, in the form of murders, beatings and land grabs. [...]

The sense of a creeping Islamic fundamentalism is all around in Bethlehem.

A mosque on one side of Manger Square stands directly opposite the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, while in the evening the muezzin's call to prayer clashes with the peal of church bells. [...]

This isolation was heightened when, last year, Bethlehem found itself behind Israel's security wall, a 400-mile-long concrete barrier which separates Jewish and Palestinian areas and is designed to stop suicide bombers - in 2004, half the Israeli fatalities caused by such attacks were committed by extremists from Bethlehem. [...]

The terrorists obviously chose the town of Bethlehem as a staging ground for strategic as well as symbolic reasons. If Israel had build its security wall to include Bethlehem, it would have left itself vulnerable to attack. By excluding Bethlehem, however, Israel is effectively strangling one of the holy places of Christianity and thus earning the ire of Christians. Either way, the terrorists win.

Here are two articles about Christian disapproval of the Israeli wall due to its isolation of Bethlehem:

• Yahoo! News: Anglican leader criticizes Israeli wall
• Catholic online: Catholic church to replace Nativity scene with replica of Israeli wall

The following article from Times Online begins by placing the blame for the flight of Christians from the Middle East squarely on the shoulders of the West:

Christians in the Middle East have paid a high price for the Iraq war, the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad and the Pope’s controversial remarks about Islam.

Egyptian Copts, Iraqi Chaldeans and the Palestinian Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant communities have faced violence and even death at the hands of their Muslim neighbours. [...]

The problem with this theory is that Middle Eastern Christians have been persecuted by and "faced violence and even death at the hands of" their Muslim neighbours long before the relatively recent events mentioned above. The article is accompanied by the following graphic and even notes that the flight of Christians from the Middle East started more than a century ago:

Christians in Jordan and other neighboring states began leaving for the West more than a century ago to escape the poverty of the Ottoman Empire. Estimates put the number of Arab Christians living in the diaspora at 4 million, with between 10 million and 15 million living in the Middle East.

It is a pity that the West, which is ostensibly Christian, does not pay more attention to the plight of Christians in the Middle East.

南無阿彌陀佛

China ordains Catholic bishop without Vatican approval

In this previous post, I discussed the Chinese government's attempts to assert control over Tibetan Buddhism by taking over the process of choosing the next incarnation of Tibetan Lamas.

The Chinese government also ordains its own Catholic bishops without Vatican approval. From The New York Times:

China and the Vatican exchanged renewed criticisms over the weekend about China’s selection of a new bishop over the Vatican’s objections, but there were hints on each side that the dispute might be papered over in the months ahead.

[...]

The Vatican said in a statement on Saturday that Pope Benedict XVI was “deeply pained” by the ordination of Wang Renlei [王仁雷] last Thursday as a bishop in Xuzhou [徐州] Diocese in Jiangsu [江蘇] Province in eastern China. The statement was slightly shorter and slightly less condemning than the one issued when the state-approved mainland church consecrated two other Chinese bishops last spring over the Vatican’s objections; a statement at that time said the pope “has learned of the news with profound displeasure.”

The pope warned then of the excommunication of the two bishops, Liu Xinhong [劉新紅] and Ma Yinglin [馬英林], although the Vatican has not begun the paperwork for such an action. In his statement on Saturday, he cited the same section of canonical law that includes excommunication for clergy who defy the Vatican. The Vatican’s statement was less directly critical of Beijing than the statement issued here late Thursday night by Cardinal Joseph Zen [陳日君], who is the bishop of Hong Kong and the only Chinese cardinal. He accused the Chinese government of kidnapping clergy and forcing them to participate in the consecration on Thursday, and he said the government sought to disrupt the unity of the Roman Catholic Church.

Liu Bainian [劉柏年], the vice president of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church Association [中國天主教愛國會], which oversees the government-approved mainland church, denied in a telephone interview that anyone had been kidnapped or coerced. He also provided further details of the selection of Wang Renlei to become the auxiliary bishop of the diocese. [...]

China has a history of religiously inspired rebellions, and the loyalty of large numbers of Chinese citizens to any organisation outside of state control makes the Communist Party very nervous.

南無阿彌陀佛