Thai government prosecutes 84 year old scholar

Not only secular and liberal but religious people are also persecuted and prosecuted in religious nationalist states. Sulak Sivaraksa, a famous Buddhist social activist and scholar, was charged with insulting royalty under Thailand's draconian lese majeste law that could have resulted in a decade-long imprisonment of the old man. Sivaraksa's crime was not saying something about the current king. In an academic conference in 2014, he questioned a duel fought on the backs of elephants 400 years ago. In the end, the charges were dropped.

Source: Renowned Buddhist scholar faces jail for ‘criticizing’ Thai monarchy

Sulak Sivaraksa was charged in October under the draconian lese majeste law that protects the monarchy from libel and defamation. The Bangkok military court had agreed to hear views from historians and experts before it decided to drop the charges for lack of evidence.
Sulak, a veteran academic and proclaimed royalist, said he had petitioned Thailand's new king, Vajiralongkorn, for help in dropping the charges against him.
"I contacted many people for help but no one dared to. So I petitioned the king. If it weren't for His Majesty's grace, this case would not have been dropped," he said.
His case stems from a 2014 university lecture when he told the audience to "not fall prey to propaganda" and questioned whether King Naraesuan had really won the 1593 battle by defeating a Burmese prince in solo combat mounted on a war elephant. The story is one of Thailand's most celebrated historical feats and the date of the combat is marked each year with a military parade on Jan. 18.
Insulting the monarchy is punishable by three to 15 years in prison. The law in writing appears to only protect the king, queen, and heir apparent but in practice the rules are more widely interpreted.
Thailand's military government has been criticized for its frequent use of the law to silence critics since it seized power in May 2014. The law has been widely condemned including by rights groups and the U.N., which has called for it to be revoked. Some 100 cases of lese majeste have been prosecuted since the coup, according to the legal aid group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights.
Sulak has often criticized the lese majeste law and has faced at least five previous charges.
"In a dictatorial regime if people want to express opinions, to have freedom of speech, you have to be punished," he said. "And this is not the first time I have been punished." (see Thailand drops royal insult charges against elderly historian)

Is Theravada Buddhism more suited to religious nationalism?

There are two main branches of Buddhism, Theravada and Mahayana. Theravada (meaning ‘Doctrine of the Elders’) is more conservative of the two branches. It emphasizes belief in historical Buddha and the original teachings in Pali language. The Theravada Buddhism scripture is the Pali Canon, which is divided into 3 baskets (Tipitaka). Mahayana Buddhism (meaning ‘Great Vehicle’) recognizes more than one Buddha and considers other sutras, besides Pali Canon, as religious scripture. Furthermore, Mahayana Buddhism does not emphasize the learning of Pali language and local languages are used as languages of religious instruction. In Theravada, rituals are not underscored as in Mahayana. Finally, Theravada Buddhists are asked to focus on meditation and self-liberation, while Mahayana Buddhists also believe in helping other beings, besides themselves. 

In short, Theravada is the more conservative and scriptualist form of Buddhism and thus is probably more prone to religious orthodoxy than Mahayana, the Buddhism for the masses. More detailed information on differences between the two can be read here. Some experts consider Tibetan Buddhism, not part of Mahayana branch, but a separate branch called Vajrayana Buddhism. This branch is also popular is Mongolia and Bhutan.

Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism

Source: Buddhism and Shinto (original ground and manifest traces) 

Mahayana is considered to have the largest number of followers among the two/three branches of Buddhism. Sometimes Mahayana is called Northern Buddhism and Theravada Southern Buddhism because of their popularity in countries of East and South-East Asia respectively. Most of the Buddhists in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos belong to the Theravada branch while Mahayana Buddhists are concentrated in China, Japan, Korea, Bhutan, Mongolia, Vietnam, and Taiwan. 

During the last few decades, religious nationalism has been popular in countries like Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Thailand, leading some analysts to wonder about the elective affinity between Theravada Buddhism and religious nationalism. Following are the arguments given to support this thesis:

• Theravada Buddhism is more conservative and scriptualist than Mahayana Buddhism;
• Monks have a higher status in Theravada Buddhism which makes them wary of minority religions’ appearance/expansion and thus more ready to collaborate with political powers; 
• Most of the countries giving special status to Buddhism in state affairs are majority Theravada Buddhist;
• All three Buddhist countries (Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Thailand) where religious nationalism has recently gained popularity are Theravada-majority countries. (See Connecting the Dots on Buddhist Fundamentalism)

I have written about Buddhist religious nationalism in Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar and also about Buddhist fundamentalism. And I find the above thesis problematic: 

• Scriptualistism has never been a necessary condition for religious nationalism. For example, Hinduism, which is not scriptualist, has been used as the basis of Hindutva nationalism;
• Conservatism can be linked to religious nationalism but before one does that, one has to define conservatism. Religious traditions can be conservative in one way but liberal in another;
• The power of religious clergy given in the scriptures or in theology also has no relationship with religious nationalism. Quran, for example, does not even recognize a separate Muslim clergy but still Islam has been used for promoting religious nationalism;
• There are five countries in the world that give special status to Buddhism in their constitutions. These are Thailand, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Bhutan. The majority religion of first four countries is Theravada Buddhism but majority religion in Bhutan in Mahayana/Vajrayana Buddhism. Diluting the argument further is Laos, where the majority of the people are Theravada Buddhists, but it does not give any special status to Buddhism in its constitution.
• One might argue that a contested political environment (a struggling democracy/dictatorship) might be more susceptible to the use of religious nationalism. Religious nationalism is rising in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Thailand not because of them being Theravada- majority countries but because of the fragility of their political set-up. Compare the fragility of their political set-up with the political stability in Mahayana/Vajrayana-majority countries, such as South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and Taiwan.

My argument is that any religion can be used for supporting religious nationalism. To gauge the susceptibility of a country to religious nationalism, one has to study the history of that country, not the history of its majority religion. Hence, to explain religious nationalism in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Thailand, it would be more useful to analyze the emergence of these countries in the last hundred years than to focus on the characteristics of different branches of Buddhism.

Is religious nationalism rising in South East Asia /ASEAN ?

Is religious nationalism increasing in South East Asia? Michael Sainsbury, a Bangkok-based journalist, certainly thinks so. While explaining the Thai junta's decision to repatriate hundreds of Uighurs refugees to China, he argues in his article, Understanding the plight of the Uighurs:

Yet this action is one more example of how politics in Asia is unintelligible without factoring in the significance of religion. The common frequently focus is on military, trade and national rivalries that culminate in decisive and dismaying actions. But increasingly religion tied to national identity is integral to the events....

It’s the latest visible example that religious fault lines and an emerging trend of religious nationalism is now beginning to appear right across the region. It is one that poses a fresh threat to the ambitions of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Economic Nations Community that will come into being on December 31, 2015.

He mentions increasing Buddhist nationalism in Thailand, Cambodia, and Myanmar; Muslim nationalism in Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia; and Hindu nationalism in India.  

However, the decision to repatriate Uighurs, as Sainsbury also acknowledges is more to do with Thai military junta's need for powerful allies than to rise in religious nationalism in Thailand. Moreover, in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim-majority country in the world, last year elections results showed that religious nationalism is stagnant, if not in retreat (See Indonesian Elections: A Victory for Pancasila Nationalism)

In Bangladesh too, although it is not in South East Asia, religious nationalism is losing to ethnolinguistic Bengali nationalism (See Bangladesh's secular nationalism asserts itself). Similarly, religious nationalism suffered a defeat when Philippines government agreed to accommodate concerns of Muslims in the Southern islands last year. 

Moreover, like Thailand and Cambodia, Muslim-majority Malaysia also deported fellow Muslim Uighurs to China in 2013 ( See Malaysia Hit for Deporting Uyghurs). More recently, both Malaysia and Indonesia (along with Bangladesh) were reluctant to accept fellow Muslims Rohingyas, who were fleeing worst kind of religious persecution (See Malaysia's Duty to the Rohingyas), making a mockery of Muslim brotherhood and Muslim nationalism. Only after international pressure, some Rohingya refugees were accepted.

So, religious nationalism is South East Asia presents a mixed picture. It is rising in some countries but losing in others.

Separatist movements - the peaceful route to independence?

Scotland, in the end, decided not to be independent. However, it did encourage other separatist movements, many of which supported Scottish referendum. There is evidence that Catalonians from Spain helped the ‘Yes’ vote campaign and many Kashmiris in Scotland and England supported Mr. Salmond’s Scottish National Party, not for any love for an independent Scotland but for its positive implications for Kashmir region. Despite the negative results, referendum has shown that there is no need for fighting or killing for independence in the 21st century. As Jonah Blank, senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, writes in the Foreign Policy after the Scottish referendum (See From Glasgow to Kashmir) :

Almost every modern nation has some sort of local separatist movement, and the international community views nearly all of them either with indifference or contempt. Merely to be considered a quasi-legitimate candidate for independence, a group generally has to suffer generations of brutality bordering on genocide. Even then, the odds aren't great. Just ask the Kurds.

The vote in Scotland shows what modern-day secessionism should look like. What if an ethnic group didn't have to justify its bid for a separate state through a saga of historical oppression, or seek to achieve it through a violent insurgency? What if the standard for independence were nothing more than the statement: "We want out." London agreed to take aye for an answer.

Rest of the blog can be read http://www.calgarycgc.org/blog/separatist-movements-the-peaceful-route-to-independence

Buddhist Violence: Is it possible?

In a recent family gathering at my home, a friend talked about the peaceful message of Buddhism as compared to the monotheist religions. I acknowledged that Buddhism has a very peaceful message and it does not insist on being the 'only' right path as religions like Christianity and Islam do. However, I argued that religions are multivocal and can be used for all kinds of purposes. Almost all religions promote peace and reject violence even against non-believers but there are also religious teachings and histories that can be used to incite killings, even of fellow believers. Buddhism is no different. It can be and has been used for inciting violence. I have discussed this issue at length in a blog (See Buddhist Nationalism in Sri Lanka and Burma).

An article in Huffington Post in May 2014 discusses the same issue and links it to three countries, Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand (See Asian Buddhism's Growing Fundamentalist Streak Signals Growth Of Religious Nationalism In Several Countries). Authors Anuradha Sharma and Vishal Arora refer to what was discussed at my home; the contrast between what Buddhism teaches and how it is usually perceived and what is happening in majority Buddhist countries, where it is used as a tool of the state. Authors first cited some examples of Buddhist violence:

In Sri Lanka, where about 70 percent of the population is Theravada Buddhist, a group of monks formed the Bodu Bala Sena or the Buddhist Power Force in 2012 to “protect” the country’s Buddhist culture. The force, nicknamed BBS, carried out at least 241 attacks against Muslims and 61 attacks against Christians in 2013, according to the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress.

In Myanmar, at least 300 Rohingya Muslims, whose ancestors were migrants from Bangladesh, have been killed and up to 300,000 displaced, according to Genocide Watch. Ashin Wirathu, a monk who describes himself as the Burmese “bin Laden,” is encouraging the violence by viewing the Rohingya presence as a Muslim “invasion.”

And in Buddhist-majority Thailand, at least 5,000 people have died in Muslim-Buddhist violence in the country’s South. The country’s Knowing Buddha Foundation is not a violent group, but it advocates for a blashemy law to punish anyone who offends the faith. It wants Buddhism declared the state religion and portrays popular culture as a threat to believers.

Later, authors contrast the views of  Maung Zarni, an exiled Burmese who is a visiting fellow at London School of Economics and who writes regularly on the violence in Burma/Myanmar and Sri Lanka, with the views of Wirathu and other Buddhists, who advocate militancy.

Zarni argues:

No Buddhist can be nationalistic...There is no country for Buddhists. I mean, no such thing as ‘me,’ ‘my’ community, ‘my’ country, ‘my’ race or even ‘my’ faith...For sure, Thailand has its own brand of ‘Buddhist’ racism towards non-Buddhists...But, I am not sure the Thai society will go the way of those two genocidal Theravada Buddhist societies (Sri Lanka and Myanmar) — where racism of genocidal nature has enveloped the mainstream ‘Buddhist’ society.

Zarni warns that there are links among the fundamentalist 'anti-Dharma Buddhist networks' in Burma, Sri Lanka, and Thailand that are 'toxic, cancerous and deeply harmful to all humans anywhere.' Zarni is also concerned about the demand for an anti-blasphemy law in Thailand and considers it a distortion of Buddhism, a religion that is against allowing any 'organization that policies or regulates the faithful’s behavior or inner thoughts.

But Buddhist fundamentalists supported by the state argue that Buddhism needs protection and point toward the past when Buddhists were persecuted and their institutions destroyed. They demand laws and argue that state should promote knowledge of Buddhism to protect Buddhist culture which is again under threat. And they are proud to be called 'radical' by the West.

Sounds familiar, right?

Michael Jerryson, the co-author of the book Buddhist Warfare, with Mark Juergensmeyer, also had difficulty acknowledging that Buddhists could be violent. He called it a "bittersweet experience" that started with researching about peaceful Buddhism but culminated in writing about the "dark side" of Buddhism.

Jerryson, in an article, talked about military monks and why people have trouble accepting monks with guns:

One day after teaching an English class for Buddhist novices at a monastery a young monk came over and pulled back the folds of his robe to reveal a Smith & Wesson. I later learned that he was a military monk—one of many covert, fully ordained soldiers placed in monasteries throughout Thailand. To these monks, peacemaking requires militancy.

Since my initial realization in 2004 [about Buddhist violence], I began to look critically at my earlier perspective on Buddhism—one that shielded an extensive and historical dimension to Buddhist traditions: violence. Armed Buddhist monks in Thailand are not an exception to the rule; they are contemporary examples of a long historical precedence. For centuries monks have been at the helm, or armed in the ranks, of wars. How could this be the case? But more importantly, why did I (and many others) hold the belief that Buddhism=Peace (and that other religions, such as Islam, are more prone to violence)?

It was then that I realized that I was a consumer of a very successful form of propaganda. Since the early 1900s, Buddhist monastic intellectuals such as Walpola Rahula, D. T. Suzuki, and Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, have labored to raise Western awareness of their cultures and traditions. In doing so, they presented specific aspects of their Buddhist traditions while leaving out others. These Buddhist monks were not alone in this portrayal of Buddhism. As Donald S. Lopez Jr. and others have poignantly shown, academics quickly followed suit, so that by the 1960s U.S popular culture no longer depicted Buddhist traditions as primitive, but as mystical.

Although the book only arrived at bookstores last month, it apparently touched some nerves in the academic community before its release. Some have objected to the cover, which they feel is not an appropriate subject for Buddhism. Ironically, that is the very reason this collection of essays is so important: to address the apparent and widespread inability to acknowledge the violent side to religious traditions. It is this inability that robs its adherents of their humanity.

In a way, I wish I could return to that dream of Buddhist traditions as a purely peaceful, benevolent religion that lacks mortal failures and shortcomings. But I cannot. It is, ultimately, a selfish dream and it hurts other people in the process.

Buddhism, like other religions, is multivocal and can be used, like other religions, to commit atrocities. What is happening to Rohingyas in Myanmar is inconceivable for many but it is not rare or unusual.