Monks with guns

[rangerrebew]

 Monks with guns
Westerners think that Buddhism is about peace and non-violence. So how come Buddhist monks are in arms against Islam?
Members of the Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force) listen to a speech by Ashin Wirathu in Colombo, September 2014. Wirathu, a radical monk, is accused of stirring violence against Muslims. Photo by Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters

Michael Jerryson
 
Is Buddhism a peculiarly peaceful religion?
 

The recent violence in southern Thailand began on 4 January 2004, when Malay Muslim insurgents invaded a Thai Army depot in the southernmost province of Narathiwat. The next day, after the burning of 20 schools and several bomb attacks in a neighbouring province, the Thai government declared martial law over the three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat. Shortly after, two Buddhist monks were killed during their morning alms, and a third injured. In these provinces, the majority population is Muslim, and Buddhists are a minority. By the summer, journalists and scholars had written articles about the insurgents and the role of Islam in the violence. But since Buddhism was associated with peace, no one thought to investigate the role of Buddhism. How could a Buddhist monk participate in the violence? Yet clearly, Buddhism was involved in the conflict.

https://aeon.co/essays/buddhism-can-be-as-violent-as-any-other-religion

[Smokin Joe]

Interesting article, thanks!

[Fishrrman]

"Monks with guns..."

islam has a way of causing reactions like this, even amongst the otherwise-passive.

The greatest problem for The West is that currently, Christianity (including those who are erstwhile Christians) refuses to once again pick up its Crusader's sword and fight for its self-preservation.

Whether the Christian world will wake up and do so before it's too late -- or after -- will determine the fate of the entire Earth.

This will become the "great struggle" of The West:
Not the battle with islam itself, but rather the battle within The West's own collective consciousness between the desire for peace and the realization that to have that peace, such desires must be laid aside for the coming Armageddon, the ultimate confrontation between Good and evil.

The monks seem to be coming to their senses.
When will we do the same?

[Joe Wooten]

The myth of Bhuddism as a religion of peace was a product of the 60's radicals using any wedge to knock off Christianity. Anyone who reads history and has looked at SE Asia's history knows better. There have been Bhuddist empires and wars of conquest many times over the last 2000 years. .

[Smokin Joe]

"Monks with guns..."

islam has a way of causing reactions like this, even amongst the otherwise-passive.

The greatest problem for The West is that currently, Christianity (including those who are erstwhile Christians) refuses to once again pick up its Crusader's sword and fight for its self-preservation.

Whether the Christian world will wake up and do so before it's too late -- or after -- will determine the fate of the entire Earth.

This will become the "great struggle" of The West:
Not the battle with islam itself, but rather the battle within The West's own collective consciousness between the desire for peace and the realization that to have that peace, such desires must be laid aside for the coming Armageddon, the ultimate confrontation between Good and evil.

The monks seem to be coming to their senses.
When will we do the same?

For now, the fight is in the media, the courts, the schools, the hearts and minds of America who NEED to know that Islam and our Constitutional Republic are incompatible. That conflict will occur, either in the softer battlefields of courtrooms and school board meetings, or in the streets running with blood, and filled with the wailing of the dying and enslaved.

 We hope, we pray, the conflict can be won (not resolved, but won) in those relatively bloodless venues, but if not, we are armed, we quietly set aside what we may need in an uncertain future, and are attempting to instill the necessary resolve in yet another generation to fight.

We are undermined by everything from the strident hedonism of a culture sexualized at an early age and distracted from its moral footings at every turn by media, the schools, the mewling invertebrates generated in universities, and every other influence our enemies can muster, but we fight on, quietly for now, within the very constraints of the Law we attempt to use against the enemy, in order to demonstrate the difference between our Law and Sharia.

The people of America are a peaceful and forgiving folk, and our enemies steal along by night to keep from waking the sleeping dragon. However, they have been noticed by those who stand watch. The alarm has been raised. The question remains if any will heed it.