Interviewed: Luis Josué Salés, Scripps College; Rachel Mikva, Chicago Theological Seminary; Samira Meht University of Colorado Boulder; Steven K. Green, Willamette University; Susan M. Shaw; Oregon State University.

Since the first indications that the U.S. Supreme Court could overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, following a leaked draft opinion on May 2, 2022, religious leaders from many denominations have been working to preserve access to abortion care, even as others prayed for Roe to indeed be overruled. A minister in Texas was among those working on coordinating abortion care, including flying women to New Mexico to get abortions.

Religious communities in the U.S. have long been divided over the issue of abortion. A 2017 Pew Research Center survey found that 57% of Americans were supportive of legal abortion. A majority of those who identified as evangelical were opposed to abortion.

Before June 24, 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, The Conversation asked several scholars to explain the multiple views across faith groups and also the differences within denominations. Here are five articles from our archives:

1. Abortion rights as religious freedom

Steven K. Green, director of the Center for Religion, Law and Democracy at Willamette University, explained why restricting abortion interferes with religious freedom.

The strong opposition of some Christian churches, such as the Catholic Church or the Southern Baptist Convention, is based on their views about the time of “ensoulment,” the moment at which the soul is believed to enter the fetus. Conservative Christians believe this happens at the moment of conception.

Not all Christian denominations agree. As Green wrote, the United Church of Christ, for example, passed a resolution in 1981 that said “every woman must have the freedom of choice to follow her personal and religious convictions concerning the completion or termination of a pregnancy.”

Additionally, other faith groups such as Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism have differing beliefs about ensoulment.

2. What Jewish texts say

Judaism allows for abortion and even requires it when a woman’s health is endangered, according to Rachel Mikva, professor of Jewish studies at Chicago Theological Seminary. The majority of foundational Jewish texts assert that a fetus does not attain the status of personhood until birth.

There is some difference of opinion among Orthodox rabbis, but there is room to consider diverse perspectives.

Overall, according to a 2017 Pew survey, 83% of American Jews believed that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Even ultra-Orthodox leaders, as Mikva found, have resisted anti-abortion measures that do not allow religious exceptions.

3. Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist views

Beliefs from other faith traditions such as Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam also show that religions place ensoulment at different moments and give it varying degrees of importance, according to Samira Mehta, assistant professor of women and gender studies and Jewish studies at University of Colorado, Boulder.

Muslim scholars and clerics, for example, have a range of positions on abortion. “Some believe abortion is never permitted, and many allow it until ensoulment, which is often placed at 120 days’ gestation, just shy of 18 weeks,” according to Mehta. In general, classical Islamic law sees legal personhood as beginning at birth, and many Muslim religious leaders therefore permit abortion to save the life of the mother.

Views in Hinduism and Buddhism are diverse. “Most Hindus believe in reincarnation, which means that while one may enter bodies with birth and leave with death, life itself does not, precisely, begin or end. Rather, any given moment in a human body is seen as part of an unending cycle of life – making the question of when life begins quite different than in Abrahamic religions,” wrote Mehta. For Buddhists, a decision about abortion is treated with compassion and considered to be a “moral choice,” depending on the circumstances.

4. Shift in views of Southern Baptists

Scholars have also pointed out how in conservative faith groups, beliefs have shifted over time. Scholar Susan M. Shaw, who has long studied the Southern Baptists, explained that they have not always been opposed to abortion.

According to Shaw, the change in Southern Baptist views started in the 1980s, when a more conservative group took charge of the denomination. At that time a “resolution on abortion” was drafted that declared that “abortion ends the life of a developing human being” and called for legal measures “prohibiting abortion except to save the life of the mother.”

Additionally, as Shaw found, another “interesting shift” happened in that resolution – instead of referring to fetal life, as earlier resolutions did, the 1980 resolution called fetuses “unborn” or “pre-born” human life or “persons.” The fetus, as she wrote, “was no longer a developing organism dependent on a woman’s body, but rather it was a full human being with the same status and human rights as the women.”

5. Reproductive options in premodern Christianity

Scholars have pointed out that among premodern Christians, too, views on abortion were more complex. According to religion scholar Luis Josué Salés, pregnancy prevention and termination methods thrived in premodern Christian societies, especially in the medieval Roman Empire.

Indeed, premodern Christians may have actively developed reproductive options for women, Salés found. Sixth-century Christian physician Aetios of Amida and Paulos of Aigina, who came a century later, were said to have provided instructions for performing abortions and making contraceptives.

In the U.S., the first abortion restrictions were enacted only in the 1820s. As Mehta aptly put it, “We tend to think of the religious response to abortion as one of opposition, but the reality is much more complicated.”

Kalpana Jain, Senior Religion + Ethics Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

More than 300 people have now been confirmed killed in the Easter attacks in Sri Lanka. Several sources had suggested a domestic Muslim Islamist group may have been linked to the atrocity – but Islamic State (IS) has now also claimed responsibility.

Sri Lanka’s Muslim community is spread across the country, but they make up 9.7% of the island’s population. Even though most Sri Lankan Muslims are Sunni, it is a diverse community, with some following the mystical form of Islam, Sufism. Linguistically, most have Tamil as their mother tongue, often leading them to be categorised as part of the island’s Tamil minority, alongside Hindus and Christians. There are, however, Muslims who speak the majority Sinhala language.

The origins of Sri Lanka’s Muslim community can be traced back to the historic trading routes between South and Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Traders from the Middle East (Arabs and Persians) developed commercial interests in southern India in the seventh century, which also spread to Sri Lanka. These Middle Eastern merchants married Tamil and Sinhalese women and settled in the east of the island around Batticaloa and Ampara.

The Portuguese, who started to control Sri Lanka in the 16th century, used the term “Moor” to describe the island’s Muslims (as they did other Muslim communities they encountered throughout the world). As a consequence, a local “Moorish” identity was established. In the early 20th century, some Muslims promoted this as a unique “Ceylon Moor” racial identity (the island was called Ceylon during the colonial period). They presumed an Arab heritage, which distinguished them from the local Tamil community, which has its origins in southern India and northern Sri Lanka.

Muslim political leaders have continued to promote this “Moorish” identity, focusing on a collective Arab “blood connection” and pointing out that the island’s Muslims are not bound to any specific language (even though most of them speak Tamil). This is different to Muslims in Tamil Nadu, India, who see themselves as Tamils who adhere to the Islamic faith.

Civil war

In 1956, the so-called Sinhala Only Act made Sinhalese the country’s official language and was considered discriminatory by Tamil-speaking groups, who started to form militant groups.

Tensions boiled over in 1983, when Tamil attacks on the Sri Lankan army triggered Sinhalese mobs to attack Tamils during a period known as “Black July”. As many as 3,000 Tamil civilians were killed, triggering a civil war that was fought between the Sri Lankan government and a number of Tamil groups, most notably the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and lasted until 2009.

Early in the conflict, some Tamil-speaking Muslims sided with the Tamil struggle. But that soon changed as Muslims also became a target for Tamil separatists. In one such attack in 1990, around 150 people were killed by the LTTE when it raided two mosques in the town of Kattankudy.

In the midst of the Tamil Tigers’ rebellion, da’wa (missionary) Islamic movements came to Sri Lanka. With this, “new” ideas of political Islam and different rules for clothing were brought to the country. This also triggered clashes between different Muslim groups. In one 2006 incident, for example, Islamic fundamentalists attacked a Sufi Mosque, highlighting two developments: the Muslim community was divided in Sri Lanka and Islamic fundamentalism was emerging.

Another conflict has has also come into focus recently. Buddhist extremists and Sinhala nationalists have also clashed with Muslims on several occasions in recent years, leading to the death of several Muslims.

Indeed, given that Muslims in Sri Lanka have been targeted both by Tamils and Sinhalese, why would a radical Muslim group specifically target another minority group like the Christians? Most likely, this militant group (if it is indeed behind the attacks) is inspired by the global jihadi discourse that sees the West and Western institutions, including the Christian church, as the overarching global enemy. What the outcome for the country will be after these attacks we cannot know. But a new chapter of violence appears to have begun in Sri Lanka and old divisions may yet again escalate further.

The first paragraph of this article has been updated to include new developments.

Andreas Johansson, Director of Swedish South Asian Studies Network (SASNET), Lund University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

Boston University: “Bawa Muhaiyaddeen and the Making of a Transnational Sufi Family – Prof. Frank Korom”

A bloody military campaign that started last August forced some 700,000 of the effectively stateless minority over the border into Bangladesh, where they have recounted allegations of rape and extrajudicial killings.

The UN and US have called the campaign ethnic cleansing. Myanmar denies the accusations, saying it was responding to an attack by Rohingya militants.

But Fortify Rights said its report, based on months of research in Myanmar and Bangladesh and hundreds of interviews with both victims and authorities, found that security forces disarmed Rohingya civilians and trained non-Rohingya communities to fight.

The Myanmar army also cut off food aid from Rohingya and removed fencing from their homes for a clearer line of sight, according to the report.

“Myanmar authorities made extensive and systematic preparations for the commission of mass atrocity crimes against indigenous Rohingya civilians during the weeks and months before Rohingya militant attacks on August 25, 2017,” Fortify said.

The report also said that deadly August attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, which Myanmar has cited as a reason for its counteroffensive, was a far more ad hoc operation than previously believed, and that crackdown plans were already under way.

Fortify co-founder Matthew Smith told journalists at the report’s launch in Bangkok that security forces made the Rohingya Muslim population in Rakhine weaker and vulnerable to attack.

The Rohingya have long lived in Rakhine but are seen as outsiders in Buddhist-majority Myanmar after years of marginalisation propaganda from successive military regimes.

“This is how genocide unfolds. And this is how genocide has unfolded in Rakhine State,” he said.

Fortify echoed calls by other organisations for the UN Security Council to refer the case to the International Criminal Court, singling out 22 military and police officials as responsible, including armed forces chief Min Aung Hlaing.

Rights groups have used the phrase crimes against humanity to describe the expulsion of the Rohingya but many have stopped short of the term genocide.

UN special rapporteur to Myanmar Yanghee Lee warned last month that chances of generals seeing the inside of a courtroom in the Hague are slim, with the nation shielded by powerful allies who she declined to name.

Permanent UN Security Council members Russia and China have previously supported Myanmar and defended it from further censure.

A Myanmar government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

The report also condemned Rohingya militants for the alleged killing of Rohingya civilians they claimed were government informants.

Myanmar’s government has also blamed ARSA for the slaughter of dozens of Hindus in Rakhine after they were found in mass graves.

The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army has denied committing any abuses against non-combatants.

Featured Photo: AFP/File / MUNIR UZ ZAMAN. A bloody military campaign that started last August forced some 700,000 of the effectively stateless minority over the border into Bangladesh, where they have recounted allegations of rape and extrajudicial killings.

Human rights groups that fear the Burmese government is destroying crime scenes before any credible investigation takes place.

Satellite imagery shows at least 28 Rohingya villages have been leveled between December and February. However, reports produced by some human rights groups place the figure at 55.

Myanmar’s military, aided by Buddhist mobs allegedly burned hundreds of Rohingya villages between last August and November when a military clearance operation forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims to flee from killings, rapes and other violence.

The bulldozing of villages have raised concerns by human rights groups that the Burmese government is destroying crime scenes before any credible investigation of the atrocities, some say have amounted to genocide and ethnic cleansing, takes place.

Rohingya people who were forced into exile also fear the operation is aimed at preventing them from returning to their villages and at destroying the remnants of their cultural heritage. Upward of 500,000 Rohingya have been reported as refugees since last August’s military crackdown in Rakhine state, preceded by a series of attacks by Rohingya insurgents.

Richard Weir of Human Rights Watch said “there’s no more landmarks, there’s no trees, there’s no vegetation… Everything is wiped away, and this is very concerning because these are crime scenes… what we’re talking about really is obstruction of justice.”

The organization has also asked that representatives of the United Nations be given access to Rakhine to study the allegations that the army committed murder, rape, and other crimes.

So far, Myanmar has refused to allow U.N. investigators from conducting an international probe into the mass graves reported by international press agencies and denounced by human rights organizations.

According to Myanmar officials, the clearing operation has been conducted to build new houses for the refugees returning, who were expected to go back to Rakhine after the Burmese government signed a repatriation agreement with Bangladesh.

However, many Rohingya refuse to return for fear the Buddhist majority will launch new attacks. Human rights organizations claim there are no conditions for a safe return. The Rohingya people continue to lack basic rights including citizenship.

Via TeleSur

Creative Commons License.

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Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

Myanmar Is Bulldozing Rohingya Villages In A Move Some Fear Is Erasing Evidence Of Atrocities | TIME

An estimate from Doctors Without Borders shows that at least 6,700 refugees have been killed during the first month of militarized persecution.

At least 730 Rohingya children under the age of five have been mercilessly slaughtered by Myanmar police forces in an almost six-month crusade against the Muslim community, Doctors Without Borders reports.

Following a series of surveys, the humanitarian agency concluded that of this figure, 59 percent of the children were shot, while 15 percent burned to death in their homes, 7 percent succumbed to beatings and 2 percent were killed by landmines.

A conservative estimate from Doctors Without Borders shows that at least 6,700 refugees have been killed throughout the course of the first month of militarized persecution. This figure far exceeds official statistics which present a death toll of 400.

“The numbers of deaths are likely to be an underestimation, as we have not surveyed all refugee settlements in Bangladesh and because the surveys don’t account for the families who never made it out of Myanmar,” said the French Division of Doctors Without Border’s medical director, Dr Sidney Wong, describing the hundreds of families trapped by soldiers as their homes were set ablaze.

The report says that between August 25 and September 24, the average mortality rate registers 8.0 deaths per 10,000 people, approximately 2.26 percent of the over 600,000 interviewed. Based on the organization’s six surveys distributed in the Bangladeshi refugee camps scattered throughout the Cox Bazar, it would imply that somewhere between 9,425 and 13,759 Rohingya died since the beginning of what UN officials refer to as an ethnic cleansing.

“What we uncovered was staggering, both in terms of the numbers of people who reported a family member died as a result of violence, and the horrific ways in which they said they were killed or severely injured,” Wong said.

The surveys show that a total of 71.7 percent of the 9,000 Myanmar refugees dying from violent causes. Of these, 69 percent of the Muslim group were killed by gun-related injuries, 9 percent burned and five percent were beaten to death.

Despite reports from journalists, reseahers and both social and human rights groups, Myanmar officials continue to deny allegations of a genocide.

International media report two Reuters journalists are being held by Myanmar officials in connection to their coverage of the Rohingya crisis.. Burmese officials have confirmed the Tuesday arrest, adding that police officers involved in the journalists’ investigations have also been detained for questioning. Dozens of journalists continue to report on the thousands of Rohingya who continue to be tortured, killed, raped and robbed.

“Currently people are still fleeing from Myanmar to Bangladesh and those who do manage to cross the border still report being subject to violence in recent weeks,” the doctor added. “With very few independent aid groups able to access Maungdaw district in Rakhine, we fear for the fate of Rohingya people who are still there.”

Since August, more than 647,000 Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar, Inter-Sector Coordination Group reported on December 12. Researchers say that 60 percent of the refugees are traumatized children.

Via TeleSur

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

EuroNews: “At least 6,700 Rohingya killed in first month of Myanmar violence: MSF”

Even ten years on, the first mental image that comes to mind with regard to Theravāda Buddhism is that of Myanmar’s Saffron Revolution of August-September 2007: thousands of Buddhist monks peacefully demonstrating in the streets of Yangon, Mandalay, Pakokku, Sittwe and other towns against the ruling military junta. These peaceful monks still exist, although many of them went into hiding, or fled abroad. But the Burmese monks in the headlines today are preaching violence instead of peace, and “firm action” instead of meditation.

It’s not just in Myanmar that this militant Buddhism is on the rise: it’s also surfacing in the other two leading Theravādin countries: Sri Lanka and Thailand. In all three countries, Buddhists make up the vast majority of the population: 70% in Sri Lanka, 88% in Myanmar, and 93% in Thailand. One could be excused for thinking that there is nothing to worry about: with such towering demographic majorities, Buddhists are surely to some extent safe and secure in their respective countries.

This is not how the militant monks see things. They are convinced that Buddhism is under siege, and in grave danger of being wiped out. To explain this, they point out that while Muslims or Hindu Tamils (in the case of Sri Lanka) are in the minority in these countries, they enjoy significant support from beyond their national borders.

In Sri Lanka and Myanmar, the notion that a non-Buddhist minority is the vanguard of an imminent invasion is very strong indeed. It is believed that firm action has to be taken to prevent “them” from taking over Buddhist lands and eradicating Buddhism. Basically, the militant monks see their communities as targets of a relentless “holy war”, and see it as their duty, to respond in kind with their own variant of “holy war”.

Justifying violence

The conviction that Buddhism is under threat also allows these leaders to justify the use of violence. Militant monks usually start their argumentation by pointing out that even the Buddha himself showed some understanding for the wars conducted by his benefactor King Pasenadi instead of condemning them. He did still warn him that “killing, you gain your killer, conquering, you gain the one who will conquer you” – the message being that violence begets violence. Even for the Buddha, then, nonviolence was not necessarily an absolute value – a point seized on by many of today’s militant monks. Although they readily concede that an offensive use of violence should never be allowed, they point out that peaceful and nonviolent Buddhist communities still have the right to defend themselves, especially if and when the survival of the religion as such is at stake.

This point of view is dated. As soon as Buddhist-majority states came into being, the monkhood had to find ways to justify violence, including war, especially that perpetrated by their virtuous sovereign against an opponent. Indeed it was by the monarch’s benevolence, and under the law and order he created, that the monastic order was able to survive.

An early example of such a justification comes from the Sinhalese Mahāvamsa (the Great Chronicle): After a battle against a Hindu-Tamil army, Buddhist King Dutugāmunu felt remorse for all the deaths he had caused, and asked senior monks for advice. They basically told him not to worry since he had caused the deaths of only one and a half persons – one who had just converted to Buddhism, and another who had been a Buddhist lay follower. All the rest had just been “unbelievers and men of evil life […], not more to be esteemed than beasts”.

This notable verdict implies that killing is excusable as long as the intention behind it is in the defence of the religion. Not surprisingly, this quote still is used to condone the use of violence – most recently by the Sitagu Sayadaw, an esteemed Burmese monastic leader, in order to justify the current persecution of perceived enemies of both state and religion – in this case, the Rohingya.

Sanctioning the violent actions of one’s ruler or one’s government is one thing; actively inciting lay-followers to commit such acts in defence of the religion is something completely different. Compared to “preachers of hate” from Abrahamic religions, today’s militant monks have a difficult tightrope to walk, since incitement to murder constitutes one of Buddhism’s four disrobing offences (pārājikas) – offences resulting in the automatic expulsion from the monkhood. In September for example, a Thai monk was forced to disrobe because he had publicly demanded that for each monk killed in Thailand’s deep south, a mosque should be torched.

Most militant monks are therefore very careful in avoiding open calls to violence – instead, they attend mass rallies and demonstrations to stoke anti-Muslim sentiments and to preach “passive resistance” or “pro-Buddhist affirmative action”: not buying from Muslims, not selling to Muslims, not fraternising with Muslims, not allowing one’s children to marry Muslims. They leave it to their followers, especially those organised in pro-state vigilante groups or Buddhist militias, to draw the right conclusions.

Although there is anecdotal evidence of armed monks actively taking part in violence, the majority of militant monks shy away from directly becoming involved: again, this would be a grave violation of the monastic code. Ashin Wirathu, a monk and leader of the Burmese anti-Muslim movement, describes this passive role very eloquently: “I am only warning people about Muslims. Consider it like if you had a dog, that would bark at strangers coming to your house – it is to warn you. I am like that dog. I bark.”

The rise of this strain of militant Theravāda Buddhism can be explained in ethnic, social and economic terms, but from the perspective of the militant monks themselves, it’s about religion. It’s not about the control of resources or worldly goods, but a defensive “holy war” or “Dhamma Yudhaya” in response to a perceived aggressive “jihad” against Buddhism that has been waged for centuries, from the destruction of the Buddhist library in Nalanda/Bihar at the end of the 12th century, to the destruction of the famous Bamiyan Buddhas in March 2001.

This somewhat simplistic reading of history, reminiscent of Samuel P. Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis, reinforces the militant monks’ belief that now is the time not for peaceful meditation, but for firm action. The Buddha’s warning that violence begets violence seems to have fallen on deaf ears for the time being.

Peter Lehr, Lecturer in Terrorism Studies, University of St Andrews

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

Sky News: “Special Report: The Rohingya refugee crisis”

There is a desperate humanitarian crisis underway in Myanmar, centring around the Rohingya Muslims.

There is what has been described as a “textbook case of ethnic cleansing” against the approximately one million Rohingya who live in the western Myanmar state of Rakhine. As well as retaliations from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army – a militant group of Rohingyas – which has been held by the Burmese military to have attacked a number of police and army posts.

And there is also what was seen as a newly emerging democracy with a prominent international figure, Aung San Suu Kyi – the state counsellor of Myanmar and the nation’s de facto leader – guiding the country against a backdrop of Islamophobic Buddhist nationalism.

Buddhists are often regarded in the West as a peaceful people, so to hear of this kind of public prejudice may come as a shock to many. But looking at it from a Buddhist cultural perspective, one can begin to see why this is happening.

Militant Buddhism

Suu Kyi has used her own Buddhist faith to explain her ideas in the past. But it was only in a televised speech to the Burmese nation, in mid-October 2017, that she used some standard Buddhist rhetoric for the first time in her comments on recent events. Suu Kyi evoked the Buddhist principles of “compassion”, “loving-kindness” and “sympathetic joy” to overcome hatred. A “close adviser” later briefed the media, explaining that Suu Kyi’s speech marked an attempt to wrestle Buddhism out of the “hands of extremists”.

One could say that the Buddhist sentiments expressed in Suu Kyi’s speech are in line with the modern Western understanding of Buddhism. But look deeper into modern Asia and you will see Western perceptions aren’t wholly accurate. There is now a form of militant Buddhism, which often promotes the supremacy of Buddhism, and can be Islamophobic, ethnocentric and chauvinistic in its preaching.

This is a Buddhism alien to the romantic, pacifistic, meditative and compassionate Buddhism of popular imagination, and – one would hope – much of Buddhist history. It is a Buddhism in which the Buddhist faith should be protected against the supposed threat of other religions (primarily Islam) overrunning Buddhist Myanmar.

Led by the Mandalay-based monk Ashin Wirathu, it is a religion which campaigns to punish those who offend Buddhism. In its organised form in Myanmar these nationalistic Buddhist ideas coalesce around a group popularly known as MaBaTha – the organisation for the protection of race and religion.

Religious core

The battle between the two emerging forms of Buddhism in modern Myanmar is linked back to two core principles of the religion.

The first is the familiar Buddhism of calm, non-attachment, and compassion. Until recently one could say this was dominant within Myanmar. Lay meditation movements were important in the revitalisation of modern Buddhism and aspects of popular mindfulness meditation originate from them. The Saffron Revolution of 2007 displayed little of the aggressive nationalism of the MaBaTha movement, with monks evoking the “discourse on loving-kindness” – The Metta-sutta – as a Buddhist path of compassion to overthrow military rule.

The other form of Buddhism has a more ritualised focus. At the risk of oversimplification, this practice is based upon the performance of personal and state rituals in order to protect society from danger. To be a practising Buddhist is to have recited certain texts, and to have paid homage at Buddhist shrines. To be a good Buddhist is to be a good Burmese, and, as it now appears, to “stand with Aung San Suu Kyi”.

It would be too simplistic to argue that Buddhist teachings are irreconcilably at odds with ideas of nationalism and patriotism. However, a sense of superiority and discrimination against minority groups does appear to be indefensible from a Buddhist perspective. Could Suu Kyi’s speech, and the idea that she wishes to use Buddhist teachings in a way at odds with Buddhist nationalism be an acknowledgement that Buddhism needs to become part of the solution in modern Myanmar, rather than an aggressive symbol used by Buddhist nationalists?

If Myanmar is to emerge from military rule and become a modern democratic state then it must save its Buddhism from descending into extremism. If Buddhist identity is focused upon a narrow and uncompromising view of what it means to be Burmese, then it seems likely that Buddhism will become a form of state-sponsored religion promoted by the military. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this type of Buddhism, but it is clearly engendering a form of nationalistic fervour, and atrocities are being committed and justified.

Can Suu Kyi see beyond the flags and slogans and use Buddhist narratives of compassion and loving kindness? Observers expected this of her, and of the Buddhist nation, many weeks ago, yet we are still waiting.

Paul Fuller, Lecturer in Buddhist Studies, Cardiff University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

Rohingya crisis: ‘Rape and murder’ in the Village of Tula Toli – BBC News

288 Villages, Tens of Thousands of Structures Torched

(New York) – Newly released satellite images reveal that at least 288 villages were partially or totally destroyed by fire in northern Rakhine State in Burma since August 25, 2017, Human Rights Watch said today. The destruction encompassed tens of thousands of structures, primarily homes inhabited by ethnic Rohingya Muslims.

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Analysis of the satellite imagery indicates both that the burnings focused on Rohingya villages and took place after Burmese officials claimed security force “clearance operations” had ceased, Human Rights Watch said. The imagery pinpoints multiple areas where destroyed Rohingya villages sat adjacent to intact ethnic Rakhine villages. It also shows that at least 66 villages were burned after September 5, when security force operations supposedly ended, according to a September 18 speech by State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi. The Burmese military responded to attacks on August 25 by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) with a campaign of ethnic cleansing, prompting more than 530,000 Rohingya to flee across the border to Bangladesh, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

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“These latest satellite images show why over half a million Rohingya fled to Bangladesh in just four weeks,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director. “The Burmese military destroyed hundreds of Rohingya villages while committing killings, rapes, and other crimes against humanity that forced Rohingya to flee for their lives.”

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A total of 866 villages in Maungdaw, Rathedaung, and Buthidaung townships in Rakhine State were monitored and analyzed by Human Rights Watch. The most damage occurred in Maungdaw Township, accounting for approximately 90 percent of the areas where destruction happened between August 25 and September 25. Approximately 62 percent of all villages in the township were either partially or completely destroyed, and southern areas of the township were particularly hard hit, with approximately 90 percent of the villages devastated. In many places, satellite imagery showed multiple areas on fire, burning simultaneously over wide areas for extended periods.

Human Rights Watch found that the damage patterns are consistent with fire. Comparing recent imagery with those taken prior to the date of the attacks, analysis showed that most of the damaged villages were 90 to 100 percent destroyed. Many villages which had both Rohingya and Rakhine residing in segregated communities, such as Inn Din and Ywet Hnyo Taung, suffered heavy arson damage from arson attacks, with known Rohingya areas burned to the ground while known Rakhine areas were left intact.

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The Burmese government has repeatedly said that ARSA insurgents and local Rohingya communities were responsible for setting the fires that wiped out their villages, but has offered no evidence to support such claims. Human Rights Watch interviews in Bangladesh with more than 100 refugees who had fled the three townships gave no indication that any Rohingya villagers or militants were responsible for burning down their own villages.

The Burmese government and military has not impartially investigated and prosecuted alleged serious abuses committed against the Rohingya population. UN member countries and international bodies should press the Burmese government to grant access to the UN-mandated fact-finding mission to investigate these abuses. The UN Security Council should also urgently impose a global arms embargo on Burma, and place travel bans and asset freezes on those Burmese commanders responsible for grave abuses. Governments should impose a comprehensive arms embargo against Burma, including prohibiting military cooperation and financial transactions with military-owned enterprises.

“The shocking images of destruction in Burma and burgeoning refugee camps in Bangladesh are two sides of the same coin of human misery being inflicted on the Rohingya,” Robertson said. “Concerned governments need to urgently press for an end to abuses against the Rohingya and ensure that humanitarian aid reaches everyone in need.”

Via Human Rights Watch

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

ODN: “580,000 Rohingya are now seeking refuge from Myanmar”

It was a bright autumn morning, and I had just dropped off my two children at nursery and was scrolling through Twitter, when I spotted a video of another mother’s two children.

The youngest was a one-year-old boy, the same age as my own youngest; the other, his nine-year-old sister, had been carrying him for miles. She was weeping, the tears from her terrified eyes indistinguishable from the rain pouring off her short black hair and drenched clothes. A Rohingya child, she had fled from the one of the many scenes of horror inflicted by the Myanmar military on Muslim areas across the country’s beleaguered Rakhine state, where hundreds of villages have been burned to the ground and where fleeing people have been killed by landmines and children beheaded. As I struggled to get my front door key into the lock, I found I was crying too.

The UN has called the Myanmar military’s campaign against the Rohingya, involving the burning of hundreds of Muslim villages in Rakhine State and targeting people with landmines as they ran, a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”. More than half a million people have fled into Bangladesh – many of them children who saw their parents murdered. The UN has warned of a further influx.

For those fairly unfamiliar with Myanmar, the situation is not just horrific, but bizarre. Myanmar was supposed to be firmly on the road to democracy, and yet now the military is out murdering again. Buddhism has an international reputation as a peaceful religion – and yet the vicious violence is being perpetrated by the military in the name of Buddhist nationalism.

And then there’s the sight of Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights icon Aung San Suu Kyi, the head of government in all but name, publicly whitewashing the situation. She has failed, not just to condemn, but even to recognise the atrocities. She has declined to acknowledge the existence of the Rohingya except as part of a terrorist movement or to call for UN investigators to be allowed in to observe the situation. While she has now proposed that anyone “verified as a refugee” would be accepted back, it is hard to see what reassurance this might offer to Rohingya people who are not considered citizens in Myanmar and when no guarantee has been offered for their future safety.

All this has been happening in a country I was living in just four years ago, when the world was full of hope for its peaceful, democratic future. I only wish I were surprised.

Decades of repression

Myanmar’s military has a five decade-long track record of inflicting violence upon civilians in the name of Buddhist nationalism, a principle written into the country’s constitution. In Rakhine state, the military has twice before attempted “ethnic cleansing” of Rohingya Muslims, first in 1992 and then in 2012. Many of the country’s other ethnic and linguistic minorities have been similarly targeted.

During the decades of repressive military rule, the government-run newspaper, The New Light of Myanmar, would regularly feature articles about one of the military leaders opening yet another bright, golden pagoda for the local population to worship in and be grateful for, even as terrible events were unfolding in other regions. I have seen some of the results first-hand: ten years ago, I was living and working in Thailand in a refugee camp where 40,000 Karenni people were trapped after fleeing from burning hill villages and mass killings in Myanmar.

Then, almost out of the blue, the regime announced in 2010 that Myanmar would begin a transition towards democracy. Suu Kyi was released from house arrest and other notable political prisoners freed. Onlookers were astounded but sceptical – they remembered the 1990 election, in which the National League for Democracy (NLD) party won 81% of seats, only to see the results disregarded. But remarkably, this time, the military appeared to follow through. In 2012, it permitted a by-election in which Suu Kyi was allowed not only to run for office, but to win it. A general election was promised within three years.

Keen to lend a hand in this exciting new phase, and to finally see inside this secretive country, I moved to Myanmar at the start of 2013 to work on a human rights legal project, training local lawyers in Yangon, the former capital. And almost as soon as I stepped off the plane, I was entranced.

Hope for democracy

On the one hand, arriving in Yangon was like stepping back in time. Life bubbled busily and fragrantly on the streets, men and women alike wore colourful longyi wrap-arounds rather than jeans and there was barely a mobile phone in sight. The air seemed to vibrate with happy anticipation of the future. The junta was still in control of parliament, but a full general election was promised before long. Most people I spoke to expressed adulation for “The Lady” and felt freer to express themselves than ever.

I was so captivated by those I met in Yangon that I ended up writing a book about them. Myanmar’s writers were particularly fascinating to me, initially because it was so difficult to get access to their work. In my first few days in the country, I searched bookshops for fiction in translation to help me get a better sense of the place, but found hardly any. When I finally met some writers in person, they uncovered a trove of true stories about creating and informing and surviving under one of the world’s most repressive regimes. Several I met had spent time in prison for daring to cross invisible lines. Almost all of them were passionate about literature and free expression, as well as about human rights, liberty and democracy more widely.

But one day, in the course of a friendly chat, I got a shock, a glimpse of the darkness behind the country’s bright, gold-flecked surface.

I had been having lunch with one of my new friends, a gregarious writer, in one of her favourite cafes on the edge of an urban lake. She had just been telling me vivid stories about her experiences under censorship, including her time in prison, and how she intended to use the life ahead of her to tell stories and speak up against oppression, particularly against women. I was impressed and inspired.

We were saying our goodbyes, and in maternally hospitable mode she insisted on flagging down a taxi for me. One duly pulled up, but she shook her head violently, frowning, and waved it on again. I looked at her, confused. “Never get in with a Muslim driver,” she told me. “Filthy.” I was momentarily lost for words. She promptly flagged down another one. A Buddhist driver, apparently. I got in obediently and waved to her with a mechanical smile.

From then on, I began to notice an uptick in news articles about Muslims, and the hate speech directed against them. A notorious nationalist Buddhist monk, Ashin Wirathu, had recently been released from jail for inciting violence against Muslims and had promptly resumed his activities as leader of a nationalist campaign called 969, which aimed to “defend” the Buddhist values of Myanmar against what was said to be an expanding Islamic presence. The campaign discouraged relationships between Buddhist women and Muslim men and sought to persuade businesses not to deal with Muslim customers; shopkeepers around town were busy putting signs up behind their counters. It all felt sinister to say the least.

Witness to violence

A few months later, my husband and I decided we’d do some travelling to see more of the country, and would head almost as far north as we could legitimately go. Some regions were still closed to visitors, including most of Rakhine State, where there had been clashes between Muslims and Buddhists the year before. Other states were off-limits too, among them Shan and Karen, where populations had their own languages and cultures and wanted to preserve them, contrary to the regime’s preference for uniformity.

Just before we left, news broke of more violence involving Muslims, this time starting in a little town called Meikhtila. It all started with a dispute between a shopkeeper and a Muslim customer over a gold hairpin, which attracted attention and escalated until a mob formed and destroyed the shop. Later that day, a Buddhist monk was doused in petrol and burned, sparking violence that killed 40 people and injured more than 60, most of them Muslims.

The BBC posted a video showing police apparently standing by as rioters, including Buddhist monks, torched houses and killed Muslim students in Meikhtila in central Myanmar. About 9,000 people were displaced before military troops were sent in to calm the situation. There were rumours flying around that the military had started burning down Muslims’ houses, even that troops had incited violence deliberately. One person told me that they had seen a horde of men dressed in black ride motorbikes around one night while the internet was suspiciously down.

Whatever the truth, the situation seemed to calm down, and we reckoned it was safe to proceed.

We took a snail-like but stunning train journey up to Pyin Oo Lwin, which had been a colonial hill station retreat, then headed to Mandalay, where we dined on delicious dhal in the street. Our final stop on this trip was going to be the picturesque Inle Lake in the Shan hills, which required us to change trains and stay overnight in a town called Thazi. We hadn’t quite clocked how close that was to the epicentre of the recent violence.

We arrived shortly after sunset and got off the train to darkness and eerie silence. A couple of people who looked like locals got off at the same station, but scuttled away. There were no taxis waiting, and nobody trying to sell anything at all to these tourists. It was clear that there were hardly any buildings near the station and that the centre of the town must be some way off down the only visible road. But weirdly, there were no lights to be seen in the distance. We had booked a room in the only guesthouse in town which was supposedly on the main street. There would be no more trains until the next day. We would just have to find it on foot.

As we set off, a man appeared out of the shadows, looking worried and pointing to his rickshaw. He whispered the price to take us to town. We nodded in eager relief, handed over the money and climbed aboard. He cycled silently down the deserted road, then pulled up at a junction, got off and took our bags from us, putting them down by the side of the road. “I have to leave you here,” he whispered hoarsely. Surprised, we got off and thanked him. “Do you know where the guesthouse is?” I asked. He shook his head and was gone.

We walked slowly along the main street. It was only 7.30pm, but nobody was around. No pedestrians, no bikes, no cars, no lights visible except through cracks around doors and shutters – we were utterly alone. We walked silently on down the street, hoping that a door would be thrown open and a welcoming, illuminated face would call out, saying he’d be waiting for us. Nothing.

Finally, we spotted an old sign nailed above a door saying “guesthouse”. Relief! We knocked, and knocked again: silence. There was definitely light around the window shutters. We called out, “Hello? Is anyone there?”: still silence. We began to panic. What was going on, and what on Earth were we going to do if we weren’t going to be let into the only legal place to stay in town?

But then we heard footsteps. The lock jiggled, and the front door opened. A man stared out at us, and then past us. His face was not welcoming; it was scared, and not of us. “You booked to stay?”, he whispered. We nodded, and he beckoned us in.

He led us upstairs into an ancient, peeling box room where he took down our passport details. We asked him what was going on and he stopped writing and looked at us. “There is a curfew,” he said. “Because of the violence. Just down the road. You didn’t hear about it?” It was only then that we realised quite how close to the violence we were. We hadn’t thought to check about curfews. “Nobody is allowed to have any lights on after sunset in this region, or be outside at all,” he said. “I am a Muslim myself. We Muslims are very scared. Bad, bad things are being done to us. We have nobody to help, nothing.”

We nodded, then crept up to sleep in our flimsy, filthy single beds in a room that couldn’t have been done up in any way for the past 50 years. So much for the transition, for the racing economy of the next “Asian Tiger”, for the hope of peace and freedom from fear.

Shortly after we returned to Yangon, an orphanage attached to a mosque was set on fire in the centre of the city, just around the corner from where we were living. Thirteen children were killed. When a police officer speaking at the scene said the fire was triggered by an electrical short “and not due to any criminal activity”, he was jeered by the crowd. Nobody was arrested, and after a few days the street opened again.

Constitutional failure

When I left Myanmar, I still held out hope that the general election in 2015 would improve things and that Suu Kyi would speed up the transition and usher in reforms to prevent violence and hate speech from escalating. But as the campaign got underway, it became clear there were major obstacles.

Chief among them was the constitution, which the military government made clear it would not amend in the foreseeable future. One of its clauses prohibits any candidate with a foreign spouse or foreign-born children from becoming president, a measure designed specifically to bar Suu Kyi from taking the helm. Another provision guarantees the military enough seats in parliament to give it a veto and to exert control over security and border affairs. Still others protect the primacy of Buddhism over other religions and deny rights to those deemed to be non-citizens – notably the Rohingya.

During the course of her election campaign, Suu Kyi lobbied in vain to change the presidential eligibility clause, but the constitution remains intact today. By taking power once elected, she effectively acquiesced to it (she settled for the new title of “state counsellor”.)

Suu Kyi’s silence

Given that military violence against Rohingya Muslims is worse that it has ever been – which is saying something – why has Suu Kyi offered no words either to condemn that violence or to support the protection of their rights? Of course, she is in a tight spot. Because of the control the military retains, there is little she can do practically to stem their violence – she has no authority to command troops. As for what she could say, she probably believes that to admit publicly that Rohingya civilians have been attacked by the military – not to mention that they are the targets of ethnic cleansing – would be enough to trigger a coup.

Suu Kyi almost certainly believes that to effect badly needed democratic change she needs to remain in government, at any cost. But there comes a point where democratic legitimacy is completely lost. Ethnic cleansing is undoubtedly past that point.

A further flaw with this notion of Suu Kyi’s role is the idea – held on to not only by her but by many in international governments – that the future of Myanmar’s democracy depends on her personally retaining office.

In truth, a democratic party is needed; not one person. And judging by her performance so far, she may in fact be more hindrance to her party than help. Rather than nurturing or empowering her colleagues, she has earned a reputation as a dictatorial micro-manager. No other policymakers have been allowed in her cabinet, and those working with her have said that, under her reign, the “government has become so centralised, there is complete fear of her”. It’s hard to miss irony of her own oft-quoted words:

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.

Then there’s the matter of her personal beliefs. It is by no means clear that even if she could, she would speak out in support of Rohingya Muslims as deserving equal rights in Myanmar. Her party’s spokesperson, Win Htein, has stated on the record that she has no sympathy for the Rohingya. She blocked Muslims from running for parliament in 2015 and was silent when a prominent Muslim adviser and friend of hers was assassinated ten months into office. She has voiced no concern over the explicit primacy of Buddhism in the constitution and, on her watch, Buddhist nationalism has increased, not diminished.

As she will be well aware, the majority of people in the country who elected her party to power are not coming out in support of the Rohingya. Fear clearly plays a part in this, but so does hatred.

When her supporters turned out in force to support her recent speech, they were not clamouring for her to speak up for the Rohingya – quite the opposite. Burmese Buddhists have assembled to block aid deliveries to fleeing Muslims.

Endemic racist attitudes underpinning the violence against the Rohingya must be tackled from the top if the situation in the country is to improve, and if Myanmar’s transition towards democracy is to get back on track.

Suu Kyi needs to be brave and speak out. As Desmond Tutu said in his open letter to her, “silence is too high a price”. If necessary, she must accept that her attempt to work alongside the military has failed, and resign. That would at least remind her electorate that a genuine democracy cannot tolerate this kind of violence and hatred. Whether their leader stays or goes, the younger generation of NLD politicians and activists must find a way to redeem their party’s reputation and make their democracy viable. This is a mountain to climb, but there are talented younger people capable of scaling it. I have met several of them.

In the meantime, the horror of the situation has made me think twice about going back to Myanmar. I have been invited to speak at the Irrawaddy Literary Festival in November, of which Suu Kyi is a patron. If I still go, I anticipate some tense conversations. I might even have to point certain people in the direction of that video.

Ellen Wiles, Writer and PhD Candidate, University of Stirling

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

AFP: “Some 12,000 more Rohingya arrive in Bangladesh in last 24 hours”