-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Physicians for Human Rights has released a report (pdf) detailing their investigation of Buddhist terrorists who burned Muslim houses and killed Muslim students in the town of Meiktila in central Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). The victims, who attended the Mingalar Zayyone Islamic boarding school, included one boy who was decapitated and another who was set on fire. One Buddhist monk, in his red saffron robe, told the mob to wait until the Muslims leave the Buddhist part of town before killing them, “otherwise the Kalar’s ghosts will come here.” (Kalar means “foreigner” and is used as an anti-Muslim slur.)
On the evening of 20 March 2013 a mob of Buddhists, angered by – it doesn’t really matter, nothing could justify their actions – marched to the school. The seven teachers and 120 students fled into a nearby bog to hide in small groups in the tall grass. They remained standing in water-logged mud, filled with snakes, until about 4 am when a car’s headlights illuminated a boy hiding in the grass. The mob descended into the weeds and killed two boys. The other students fled to a nearby residential compound.
Inside the compound the students took refuge in four small buildings. The mob soon surrounded the compound and started throwing rocks and “fire sticks,” pieces of wood wrapped in cloth soaked in gasoline and then ignited. Police stood by on a nearby embankment and watched the attack. Onlookers cheered the mob.
At 8 am, approximately 15 to 20 riot police arrived and encircled the compound calling for those inside to come out with their hands on their heads. The teachers and students left the compound and went past the mob who threw bricks and clubbed the students. The riot police did not intervene to prevent the beatings. As the students neared the Muslim part of town, hundreds of people, including 10 monks, would not let them pass. When one of the boys moved to protect an elderly woman who was being beaten with a bamboo stick, one of the mob took his long knife and sliced the boy’s neck and then sliced off the boy’s face with a second blow.
Another student was beaten until he lay face down on the ground. When he lifted up his head, a man struck the back of his neck with a sword, decapitating him.
In another incident, one of the students was attacked by two men. The first used a sword to open a gash in the student’s thigh. The second man poured gasoline on the bleeding wound and set it on fire. A 10-year-old student was beaten with bamboo poles and gasoline was poured on him and set on fire.
Member of Parliment Win Htein said the police commissioner and district commissioner were present along with 200 other police and none did anything to stop the massacre.
During the three day period, 1500 Muslim homes were burned, more that a dozen mosques and three madrasas were destroyed, and more that 100 people, Muslims, were killed.
TIME International recently feature a cover story about Buddhist monk, Ashin Wirathu, and reported that “violence is being fanned by extremist Buddhist monks, who preach a dangerous form of religious chauvinism to their followers.” This issue has been banned in Myanmar.
H/T: Howard Friedman, New York Times, globalpost, New York Times.
Yes, Sanjuro fought because he was forced to do so–although he could have stepped completely out of character and ran away. But being “forced” to fight was also a theme for the Sanjuro character in Yojimbo, another Kurosawa classic. There, he had to choose between two equally bad groups of people, and he ended having to wipe-out both of them. The philosophy of Sanjuro was to avoid fighting (even though he was a master fighter), but if push came to shove, then he was 100% all-in.
The Muslim situation today has become so dangerous to civilization today, that if you are not 100% all-in, then they will destroy what remains of civilization.
Sanjuro fought in that scene only because Hanbei forced him to.
Oro,
Now that’s a book review. 😀
Lottakatz: Thanks for the tip.
GeneH: “do they have resources we want”. Yes they do. I believe it’s called “cheap labor”.
Ralph:
cut his heart right out. now thats some fancy sword play.
John Locke would be right on board.
Ahhh, the Leftists now refer to Buddhists as “terrorists.” In the vile perverted minds of the Leftists, any group of people that would attack the Muslims just has to be terrorists. Couldn’t possibly be that they recognize that the cult of Islam is a vile, dangerous, perfidious, and cancerous pestilence putting civilization in jeopardy now, could it?
Ohhh no. That could not possibly be. As all Leftists “know” that the Muslims are a deeply, religious, calm, warm, lovely, peaceful, highly cultured, and beneficent people.
Of course, back here in reality, the Buddhists understand better than most stupid Americans what the dangers of Islam are to humanity and civilization. They know that you don’t ignore or attempt to placate cancer–you must eradicate it, and ban it from existence.
If Sanjuro were with us today, he would know what must be done regarding the Muslim pestilence:
I often think derisively of those who foolishly parrot, “Islam is a religion of peace”, or similar nonsense. But, really, is it ever possible for a religion to be free from corruption, violence, greed, etc., if it holds a position of overwhelming political power? Jesus doesn’t lead Christianity any more than the Buddha leads Buddhists. Religious leadership is always in the hands of “man”, and men will always be imperfect beings. Given power, religious leaders will inevitably go through periods where corruption, abuse, and other factors results in the killing of heretics within their faith, as well as non-believers.
Not that religion is necessary to exercise mass murders. Just ask The NY Times about Uncle Joe starving millions in the Ukraine. Oh wait, they failed to report about that when it happened, and refuse to “return” the Pulitzer awarded to its Moscow correspondent who helped cover up the murders.
You know, I do have concern the move from depicting America as a melting pot, to depicting it as a “collage”, is having the unintended consequence(s) of groups coming to the U.S. and not feeling any pressure nor need to drop extremism(s)in their faiths. E.g., anyone familiar with the Muslim world knows that antisemetism is anywhere from a strong undercurrent to genuinely pervasive. The discomfort with asserting any sort of American cultural primacy could be problematical regarding this sort of problem.
My concern is that Muslim immigrants will bring the vehement antisemetism that is part of their cultures (whether all-consuming as in Egypt, or casual but accepted at the highest levels as in Malaysia, its simply part of present Muslim culture) to the U.S., and our multicultural-collage theory of immigration will permit the extremism to live far beyond the original generation that “brought” it. (N.B., I recognise that historically all immigrant groups have brought some sort of baggage with them, but the “American Melting Pot” seemed to do a pretty good job in the 20th Century of straining out most extreme prejudices. I also recognise issues with Blacks in the U.S. were not as successfully filtered out, though racism & prejudice against Blacks in the U.S. is a unique problem).
Is the present reluctance to teach the Enlightenment as a powerful, beneficial and Western contribution to civilisation justified? Is it really cultural imperialism to teach the superiority of ideas such as freedom of conscience or that government/governing derives from the will of the people, not a religious figure or belief? I know from reading parts of my teenagers’ textbooks that teaching any superiority of things “Western” in, e.g., the 19th & 20th Centuries, is considered inappropriate.
Oro Lee:
“Real evil is the refusal to acknowledge the self-evident basic dignity of all human life, and that the failure to honor another’s basic human dignity is to fail to honor the actor’s own dignity to his own harm . . .”
Of course but to do that you have to first understand your own humanity and value yourself as an individual. I have noticed that people who do not value themselves rarely value others and I have also noticed that people who are confident and do value themselves generally treat others with the same respect they would like and expect.
You have to love yourself before you can love others.
George Benson may not be an Objectivist but he certainly understands the necessity of believing in yourself and having confidence in your abilities.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fADr-rIIC78
Oro Lee:
is religion based on altruism or not? Is religion about sacrifice of the self or not?
Seems to me it is. The basic idea of Christianity is Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for our sins. What is that if it isnt altruism?
Many liberals I know are flawed individuals too. And so are many conservatives and libertarians. I have met some very flawed Objectivists as well. You may as well have said there are many flawed adults.
But I do understand that it is much easier to denigrate than form a cogent argument and certainly much more self satisfying for some.
Gene H. 1, July 6, 2013 at 1:11 pm
At this point, I’m thinking the benchmark is “do they have resources we want”.
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Bingo.
Otteray Scribe 1, July 6, 2013 at 12:19 pm
… I should have said “self-proclaimed” Buddhists, because it does not fit what I always thought Buddhism was all about.
On the other hand, when one stops to think about it, I don’t think Jesus would approve of the excesses and murders done in his name either.
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Bingo.
RTC, a dispute started in a jewelry/gold shop owned by Muslims, later the shop was trashed by Buddhists, then a Buddhist monk was killed in a particularly gruesome manner, then it just all went to hell. The article below is a snapshot but you can search it for more details:
http://news.yahoo.com/myanmar-muslims-jailed-killing-buddhist-monk-063258699.html
I think Nal is saying that it doesn’t matter how it started, it ended up somewhere it shouldn’t have gone fueled by passions and history that is divorced from any normal, proportional and sane rationale. It started centuries ago and while changing nominally over time is not looking like it will end soon. The administration of the country by the colonial Brits certainly didn’t help and the influx of Muslim refugees from conflicts elsewhere strained an already precarious situation. Overlay that with politicians that have their own agendas and It’s a mess that isn’t going away soon..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Muslims_in_Burma
Oro Lee,
Great book report.
Oro Lee, …… Beautifully stated.
OweL kwite aday, don’t know what to say!
Real evil is the refusal to acknowledge the self-evident basic dignity of all human life, and that the failure to honor another’s basic human dignity is to fail to honor the actor’s own dignity to his own harm — a compounding error diminishing both their full potential and hindering the advancement of human civilization. If there is such a thing as a natural law which can be broken, this is the only one.
To paraphrase Ghandi, “I love your Bhudda, but not these Bhuddists”
Re: Alturism, the Real Evil?
Please see –
http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/08/is-human-nature-fundamentally-selfish-or-altruistic/
Since the article mentions Atlas Shrugged, I present one of my favorite book reviews –
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.” ― John Rogers
neighbordave.
I absolutely believe it. I spent 2-1/2 years in a ship while in the Navy. It’s truly amazing the stuff you can see while tied up in Asian ports.
Of course, as you know, the difference between a fairy tale and a sea story is that a fairy tale starts out, “Once upon a time . . .,” and a sea story starts out, “Now, this is no s**t . . .” 🙂