Buddhist leaders call for a stop of violence against Muslims in Burma

Seventeen Buddhist leaders from around the world, plus the Dalai Lama in absentia - have issued a statement urging Buddhists in Burma to show mutual respect and compassion to Muslims in the Rakhine State. 

In a statement, they wrote: “We are concerned about the growing ethnic violence and the targeting of Muslims in Rakhine State and the violence against Muslims and others across the country.” The statement continued, “The Burmese are a noble people, and Burmese Buddhists carry a long and profound history of upholding the Dharma.” “We wish to reaffirm to the world and to support you in practicing the most fundamental Buddhist principles of non-harming, mutual respect and compassion.”

It is good to see that eventually Buddhist leaders are waking up to the ugliness of their religion, as demonstrated by their savage practitioners in Myanmar, esp. the Rakhine state. They are afraid of the tarnishing effect of their romanticized religion in the West. For too long, these Buddhist monks have sold a mythical Buddhism that was anything but true. They claim to be non-violent who honor life, but a visit to any of their countries would tell you that they kill and eat anything which does not look like a chair or a table. Worst of all, very few religion in our world can match the bloody record of brutality in the name of Buddha, sangha and dharma as demonstrated by the Buddhist zealots/fanatics time and again.

For hundreds of years their Maghs terrorized southern Bangladesh, brought in more than a hundred thousand Muslims/Hindus to work in captivity in Arakan and elsewhere. And yet, the children of many of these captives are denied the right to have any freedom. This is the worst form of apartheid system in our time.

Unlike the rosy picture drawn by the Buddhist leaders, Burma's history has never been noble. It is full of murderous orgy, unfathomable bigotry, hatred, racism and phenomenal deception. To call, the Burmese people noble is a joke! Yes, they have been upholding dharma, as the statement says, but at whose price? Why upholding Buddhism has to translate into ethnic cleansing of non-Buddhists? If that dharma calls for uprooting an indigenous people that had lived for more than a millennium, is that the kind of dharma that our globalized world needs? Surely, not.

Sooner the Buddhist community around the world understands that their savagery at home against the 'other' people is soiling the romantic view about their religion which they try to paint, and that it is high time to put a stopper to such displays of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Myanmar the better it is for the Buddhist community worldwide, let alone our world.