James Crabtree in Colombo and Michael Peel in
Bangkok Financial Times
December 28, 2014 12:42 pm
Shahabadeen Sahira had a traumatic first-hand view of a new wave of militant Buddhist nationalist groups, whose rise across parts of Asia has triggered growing international alarm.
Wearing a black headscarf, the elderly Muslim former schoolteacher recalls her ordeal in June, when a gang burst into her home near the southern Sri Lankan coastal town of Aluthgama, during the worst religiously inspired violence to hit the tropical island nation in three decades.
“They came and took everything I had,” she recalls of the men from the country’s largely Buddhist Sinhalese majority, who burned dozens of homes in two days of clashes with Muslims. Three people were killed. “My house was ruined. All my money, all my jewellery, was gone,” she says. “If I could meet those responsible, I would ask: ‘Sir, does your Lord Buddha teach this?’”
The bloodshed was sparked by a street-corner disagreement between a Buddhist monk and a young Muslim. But Alan Keenan, analyst at the International Crisis Group think-tank, says it is part of a wider trend: the rise of a new generation of militant anti-Muslim Buddhist organisations. The most prominent in Sri Lanka is the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), or Buddhist Power Force.
According to Mr Keenan, BBS, formed in 2012 by two hardline monks, played a critical role in stoking June’s violence. The outbreak followed a fiery rally addressed by senior BBS leaders.
In addition to its increasingly high-profile role in Sri Lankan politics, the BBS has also forged ties with other extreme Buddhist groups in Asia – notably in Myanmar.
There, the so-called 969 nationalist movement – the three digits denote nine special qualities of Buddha, six of his teachings and nine of the monkhood – has also been accused of inciting anti-Muslim sentiment.
Ashin Wirathu, a prominent 969 leader, travelled to Sri Lanka in September to sign a pact with the BBS, ostensibly aimed at protecting global Buddhism, while Galagoda Gnanasara, a BBS co-founder, also visited Myanmar.
The exchanges helped deepen ties between those who view themselves as guardians of the Theravada doctrine of Buddhism, which claims at least 100m followers and dominates the faith in Cambodia, Thailand and Laos, as well as Myanmar and Sri Lanka.
Matt Schissler, a community activist in Myanmar, says these new links reflect fears of an “existential threat” among some Buddhist thinkers.
“It is a very long arc of history that people are looking at, and they are looking at it globally,” he says. “There is an affinity between Buddhist communities in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, so they would be natural allies in defending against this perceived global threat.”
Many of the grievances expressed by these groups stem from purely domestic factors. Radical monks in Myanmar tap into local anxieties over poverty, for instance, or perceived anti-Buddhist discrimination. In Sri Lanka, many link the rise to the end of the bloody civil war against Tamil separatists in 2009.
“Now the Tamils have been beaten, the extreme Buddhist Sinhalese are worrying much more about the threat of Islam,” says Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director at the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a Colombo think-tank.
Yet their increasing prominence has an international dimension too, notably the sense that Buddhists around the region – including those in Thailand, and minorities in countries such as Bangladesh – feel under threat from sinister outside forces.
September’s BBS/969 deal warned of “incursions taking place under the guise of secular, multicultural and other liberal notions,that are directly impacting on the Buddhist ethos and space”. The perceived threat from Islam looms large in both groups’ rhetoric as well, despite little evidence that jihadist groups have made inroads in either country.
Asia’s changing geopolitics has also played a role, with analysts noting a sense of civilisational encirclement among the smaller nations where Theravada Buddhism dominates, all of which are located close to one or both of the region’s great powers: Hindu-dominated India and China, with its officially communist ideology.
Such links are not entirely new: missionaries have for centuries flowed between Sri Lanka, Myanmar and their Buddhist-majority neighbours. But, aided by vibrant and often incendiary discussions on social media, these newer ties between Asia’s extreme Buddhist organisations have already had an effect, says Matthew Walton, a Myanmar expert at the University of Oxford.
Religion is playing an increasingly prominent role in Myanmar’s social and legal systems, with draft laws floated this year to outlaw interfaith marriage, as well as a sharp growth in “Sunday schools” promoting a Buddhist-based curriculum.
Mr Walton notes that “organised nationalism in Myanmar” has over the past year “clearly started to look like what Sri Lanka has looked like for a while”. This is not necessarily negative, he adds: “It could be a productive thing to try to build networks among monks that are focused on peace and religious tolerance . . . But there is also this danger there.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2014.
December 28, 2014 12:42 pm
Shahabadeen Sahira had a traumatic first-hand view of a new wave of militant Buddhist nationalist groups, whose rise across parts of Asia has triggered growing international alarm.
Wearing a black headscarf, the elderly Muslim former schoolteacher recalls her ordeal in June, when a gang burst into her home near the southern Sri Lankan coastal town of Aluthgama, during the worst religiously inspired violence to hit the tropical island nation in three decades.
“They came and took everything I had,” she recalls of the men from the country’s largely Buddhist Sinhalese majority, who burned dozens of homes in two days of clashes with Muslims. Three people were killed. “My house was ruined. All my money, all my jewellery, was gone,” she says. “If I could meet those responsible, I would ask: ‘Sir, does your Lord Buddha teach this?’”
The bloodshed was sparked by a street-corner disagreement between a Buddhist monk and a young Muslim. But Alan Keenan, analyst at the International Crisis Group think-tank, says it is part of a wider trend: the rise of a new generation of militant anti-Muslim Buddhist organisations. The most prominent in Sri Lanka is the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), or Buddhist Power Force.
According to Mr Keenan, BBS, formed in 2012 by two hardline monks, played a critical role in stoking June’s violence. The outbreak followed a fiery rally addressed by senior BBS leaders.
In addition to its increasingly high-profile role in Sri Lankan politics, the BBS has also forged ties with other extreme Buddhist groups in Asia – notably in Myanmar.
There, the so-called 969 nationalist movement – the three digits denote nine special qualities of Buddha, six of his teachings and nine of the monkhood – has also been accused of inciting anti-Muslim sentiment.
Ashin Wirathu, a prominent 969 leader, travelled to Sri Lanka in September to sign a pact with the BBS, ostensibly aimed at protecting global Buddhism, while Galagoda Gnanasara, a BBS co-founder, also visited Myanmar.
The exchanges helped deepen ties between those who view themselves as guardians of the Theravada doctrine of Buddhism, which claims at least 100m followers and dominates the faith in Cambodia, Thailand and Laos, as well as Myanmar and Sri Lanka.
Matt Schissler, a community activist in Myanmar, says these new links reflect fears of an “existential threat” among some Buddhist thinkers.
“It is a very long arc of history that people are looking at, and they are looking at it globally,” he says. “There is an affinity between Buddhist communities in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, so they would be natural allies in defending against this perceived global threat.”
Many of the grievances expressed by these groups stem from purely domestic factors. Radical monks in Myanmar tap into local anxieties over poverty, for instance, or perceived anti-Buddhist discrimination. In Sri Lanka, many link the rise to the end of the bloody civil war against Tamil separatists in 2009.
“Now the Tamils have been beaten, the extreme Buddhist Sinhalese are worrying much more about the threat of Islam,” says Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director at the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a Colombo think-tank.
Yet their increasing prominence has an international dimension too, notably the sense that Buddhists around the region – including those in Thailand, and minorities in countries such as Bangladesh – feel under threat from sinister outside forces.
September’s BBS/969 deal warned of “incursions taking place under the guise of secular, multicultural and other liberal notions,that are directly impacting on the Buddhist ethos and space”. The perceived threat from Islam looms large in both groups’ rhetoric as well, despite little evidence that jihadist groups have made inroads in either country.
Asia’s changing geopolitics has also played a role, with analysts noting a sense of civilisational encirclement among the smaller nations where Theravada Buddhism dominates, all of which are located close to one or both of the region’s great powers: Hindu-dominated India and China, with its officially communist ideology.
Such links are not entirely new: missionaries have for centuries flowed between Sri Lanka, Myanmar and their Buddhist-majority neighbours. But, aided by vibrant and often incendiary discussions on social media, these newer ties between Asia’s extreme Buddhist organisations have already had an effect, says Matthew Walton, a Myanmar expert at the University of Oxford.
Religion is playing an increasingly prominent role in Myanmar’s social and legal systems, with draft laws floated this year to outlaw interfaith marriage, as well as a sharp growth in “Sunday schools” promoting a Buddhist-based curriculum.
Mr Walton notes that “organised nationalism in Myanmar” has over the past year “clearly started to look like what Sri Lanka has looked like for a while”. This is not necessarily negative, he adds: “It could be a productive thing to try to build networks among monks that are focused on peace and religious tolerance . . . But there is also this danger there.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2014.
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