The Urban Myth: "There are no Buddhist Terrorists"…all religions have terrorists

Ashoka (real or imagined figure) waged wars and tried to conquer the world to spread Buddhism. The Bharati state in fact uses he symbols of Ashoka.

The Khmer Rouge wanted a Buddhist state, with Niradoum Sihanouk as the vicegerent of God and Buddha.

So-ko-ga-ki represented a radical part of Buddhism. Emperor Hirohito of Japan represented the Sun God and head of all Buddhists and Taoist. Of course the Buddhist Japanese Army was not having bake sales in Korea (when they abducted 300,000 Korean women to serve the Buddhist Japanese Army) and they were not distributing Hail Mary candies during the rape of Nanking. And the Korean Buddhists were sending bouquets of flowers to the US Marines at the DMZ. The Tibetan Terrorists who harassed the Chinese Army were not doing it for the great glory of the Stars and Stripes.

Periodically Buddist monks have encouraged violence or initiated it. The primary example in the 20th and 21st century is in Sri Lanka, where Sinhala Buddhist groups have committed and encouraged violence against local Christians and Tamils. The leader of Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese cult that committed a lethal sarin gas attack in the mid-1990s, drew on Buddhist as well as Hindu ideas to justify his beliefs.

Sri Lanka is embroiled in conflict at this present time.
“The primary example in the 20th and 21st century is in Sri Lanka, where Sinhala Buddhist groups have committed and encouraged violence against local Christians and Tamils.”

With regard to:
Kamikaze. The divine wind is a Shinto belief.

Soka gakkai. Nichiren buddhism. They are evangelical buddhists.

Aum Shinrikyo. It is a composite belief system that incorporates Asahara’s idiosyncratic interpretations of Yoga with facets of Buddhism and Christianity, and even the writings of Nostradamus.

Athuraliye Rathana is an example of a Buddhist extremist.

There was the Aum sect, which poured poisonous gas into a subway station in Japan, during the mid 1990s.

Cambodia

Vietnam

Sinhalese Buddhist and Hindu Tamil conflict in Sri Lanka

“Islam and the absence of Chinese terrorists” By Chan Akya. Asia Times refused to print this response to Akya even though regular diatribes on Islam are regularly printed in the on-line paper.

The incomprehensible “gabble-gook” written by Chan Akya in his article “Islam and the absence of Chinese terrorists” was totally devoid of any semblance to reality. His selective use of historical facts showed dishonesty and blatant Islamphobic bigotry.

FACT: Hinayana Buddhism lost its classical fight against Brahmanism in Hindu Kush, Taxila, Kushan, Kashmir, and other areas of the Subcontinent and was banished from India

FACT: To survive in China Hiniyana transformed itself into Mahayana (Hiniyana light with a more acceptable light skinned oriental Buddha, instead of a dark-skinned Indian Siddharta/Buddha).

Sitting on a sanctimonious horse acting “holier than though”, and passing judgment on another religion shows pure unadulterated racism. Living in a Buddhist glass house, Ankya should know better than to throw stones at Islam!.

Neither Hiniyana, nor Mahayana Buddhist is immune to violence or terrorism. Ankya says that “the history of Buddhism has much to do with this divergence.”. He may be partially right, Muslim terrorists originally trained by the CIA (Bin Laden who turned on the their maker) kill one or two, or dozens or hundreds. For every Bin Laden there is a Kim Jung II.

Buddhists also kill by the dozens, but there is a qualitative and quantitative difference in Buddhist atrocities. The Buddhist terrorists kill millions. Let me remind Akya of some historical anomalies in his ridiculous article.

1) The Sinhalese-Tamil (Buddhist-Hindu) civil war in Sri Lanka is of course taken toll of thousands of lives, and as of last week was on the cover story of all major news organizations. The Sri Lankan government and the Tamils are both accused of terror tactics and committing atrocities.

2) The Cambodian killing fields were red in blood, not because the Khemers were docile Buddhists.

3) The violent perpetuated in Buddhist Vietnam between rivals (US as well as Vietnamese) was more violent than any we have seen in recent times.

4) Where was Mahayana Buddhism during the Sun Yet Sun and Maoist civil war?

5) Where was Buddhist “ahimsa” (non-violence) during the Cultural Revolution?

6) Why was Buddhist-Taoist philosophy unable to “to fill the poor with greater optimism about their lot” during the Japanese invasion of Korea?

7) Why was Buddhist philosophy in hiding during the rape of Nanking by Buddhist (Japanese) soldiers?

8) Why was the “enlightenment” absent during the abduction of 300,000 Korean women by Buddhist (Japanese) soldiers in Korea?

9) Why doesn’t Mahayana Buddhist-Taoist philosophy stop the genocide of Ughurs?

10) The human rights records of Laos, and Burma are not written in gold in the history books of tolerance and enlightenment.

11) ) The Thai massacres of Muslims in Thailand should not be a reason to criticize all Buddhists!

All Buddhist countries have seen unprecedented violence in the past 70 years. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous! Ankya knows well, that neither Islam, nor Hinduism, nor Sikhism, nor Judaism, nor Buddhist nor Christianity has a monopoly on terror or violence or genocide.

It is not the religion, but politics, injustice, colonialism, and occupation that create violence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYdnkUbzgRU

Non-violent Buddhist monks rioting in the streets and looting banks

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYdnkUbzgRU]

THE PURPOSE OF THIS ARTICLE IS NOT TO DENIGRATE ANY RELIGION–THE PURPOSE OF THE ARTICLE IS TO REFUTE THE CHAN AKYA TYPE OF PROPOGANDA AGAINST ISLAM AND OTHER RELIGIONS

Aug 7, 2007
by RUNGRAWEE C. PINYORAT
Guardian Unlimited
KOLOMUDO VILLAGE, Thailand (AP) – The black-uniformed raiders roared into this Thai Muslim village, firing assault rifles and hurling grenades from a pickup truck at a group of teenagers relaxing near the mosque. When the attack was over, five of the youths lay dead.

As they have done in the past, authorities initially said the killers were Muslim insurgents terrorizing their own people in their separatist war against the Buddhist-dominated central government.

But then the official line on the village raid changed, with senior military commanders shifting suspicion to Buddhist vigilantes and heightening fears that the four-year-old conflict in Thailand’s southern Muslim provinces is entering an ominous new phase.

Mohammed Kadir, a local government leader in Kolomudo, told The Associated Press he believed the raiders were not Muslim insurgents disguised in military garb – as has been claimed by authorities in other cases. He instead thought they could have been Buddhist vigilantes in official-looking uniforms or possibly security forces, which have long been accused of torturing and secretly killing suspected insurgents.

If you liked this post, say thanks by sharing it