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If you look in a newsagent today, you’ll see, gazing out from the cover of Time magazine, a Buddhist monk dressed in the dark-red robes of a Burmese Bhikkhu. His grave expression is far from the smiling, tranquil faces that more commonly represent Buddhism. His name is Wirathu and the headline reads: ‘The Face of Buddhist Terror: how militant monks are fuelling anti Moslem violence in Asia.’
Over the last year, Buddhist mobs have killed hundreds of Moslems in Burma’s Rohingya state while police stood by. Perhaps the most galling aspect for me is that monks like Wirathu have urged them on. Wirathu is particularly extreme, happy to be called ‘the Buddhist Bin Laden’; but he isn’t alone. While many Burmese monks are trying to dampen tensions and help persecuted Moslems, others support his campaign against them.
Tensions between Moslems and Buddhists have flared in southern Thailand and Malaysia. But the closest parallel to Wirathu’s militancy is the Buddhist nationalism of Sri Lanka. Monks urged on the war against the mainly Hindu Tamils and now support measures against ethnic and religious minorities.
There’s no doubt that that this goes against the Buddha’s teachings. He wasn’t exactly a pacifist, in the modern sense; but he counseled that actions motivated by hatred would always produce suffering. Many Asian Buddhists follow those teachings; but we can’t just dismiss monks like Wirathu as non-Buddhist, maintaining the fiction that Buddhism is a pure, uncontaminated religion of peace and tolerance. That may be good PR, but the truth is that Buddhism includes men like Wirathu and that Buddhists have frequently supported wars, and even led them...