Militant Buddhism: The Rise of Religious Violence in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand

305 Pages·2019·2.82 MB·English

by  Peter Lehr

M I L I TA N T
B U D D H I S M
The Rise of Religious
Violence in Sri Lanka,
Myanmar and
Thailand

peter lehr
Militant Buddhism
Peter Lehr
Militant Buddhism
The Rise of Religious Violence in Sri Lanka,
Myanmar and Thailand
Peter Lehr
School of International Relations
University of St Andrews
St Andrews, Fife, UK
ISBN 978-3-030-03516-7 ISBN 978-3-030-03517-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03517-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018964562
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C
ontents
1 Introduction: Between Dhamma-Ghosa and Bheri-Ghosa 1
2 The Sound of War Drums: Political Theology and the
Return of Religion 13
3 The Age of Suffering: Buddhist Discourses on
Non-violence in Theory and Practice 45
4 Monks in the Age of Suffering: World Renouncers and
World Conquerors 81
5 Sri Lanka: “This Is the Country of Us Sinhala People” 115
6 Burma: “You Cannot Sleep Next to a Mad Dog” 157
7 Thailand: “It Is Time to Arm Thai Buddhists” 193
8 Comparative Analysis: “Buddhism Is Not a Suicidal
Utopianism” 231
v
vi CONTENTS
9 Outlook: How to Deal with War Monks? 261
Bibliography 271
Index 297
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Between Dhamma-Ghosa
and Bheri-Ghosa
In one of his famous edicts, Maurya Emperor Ashoka (c. 268–c. 232 BCE)
declared that under his enlightened Buddhist rule, the sound of war drums
(bheri-ghosa) had been replaced by the rule of Buddhist law (dhamma-
ghosa). Since then, a profound pacifism or rejection of violence (ahimsa;
lit.: ‘do not injure’) has been the hallmark of Buddhism and its various
traditions—at least from a somewhat naïve and romantic outside perspec-
tive. In the West, we are well aware of Christian fundamentalism, Islamist
Salafism-Jihadism, militant Judaism, and maybe even of the ultra-
nationalist Hindutva movement and militant Sikhism in India. Militant
and violent Buddhism, however, features only rarely in Western debates,
the current plight of the Rohingya in Myanmar (Burma)1 notwithstand-
ing. Somehow, the idea of organized Buddhist mob violence targeting
non-Buddhists seems to be outright ludicrous. A comment on Facebook
which I came across when working on this book brought this scepticism
to a point: ‘A Buddhist mob: is this really a thing?’ Unfortunately, it is
indeed ‘a thing,’ and recent events in Sri Lanka, Burma, and, to a lesser
1 Since June 1989, the official name of the country is Republic of the Union of Myanmar.
However, I prefer the traditional name Burma—not out of political considerations, but to
better differentiate between Burmans as the majority ethnic group and Burmese as the citi-
zens of the state, irrespective of their ethnic origin.
© The Author(s) 2019 1
P. Lehr, Militant Buddhism,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03517-4_1
2 P. LEHR
extent, Thailand indicate that in Theravāda Buddhism,2 a militant, ultra-
nationalist strand is on the rise, with prominent Buddhist monks such as
Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero in Sri Lanka and Ashin Wirathu or
Ashin Parmaukkha in Burma acting as preachers of hate—an expression
that so far seemed to have been reserved for Islamists calling for a global
Jihad. So, how can the rise of this militant strand of Theravāda Buddhism
visible in Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand be explained?3
We could start the debate with the doctrine of ahimsa, which, on the
surface at least, should act as a powerful barrier against acts of violence
committed by Buddhists. However, as in any belief system and doctrine,
there are exceptions. For example, while expansionist and offensive warfare
is prohibited, armed defence is seen as permissible under certain condi-
tions, and even as unavoidable in this current age of suffering (dukkha).
One such condition would be the impression that Buddhism is under siege
by a hostile non-Buddhist enemy. Militant Buddhist violence defined in
this way is actually nothing new. In Sri Lanka, Buddhist monks were actively
involved in anti-Tamil political violence in 1915 (Sinhalese-Tamil race
riots), and then again from the early 1950s onwards. In Burma, monks
were actively involved in armed resistance against the British colonial sys-
tem as early as the 1880s, in the Indo-Burmese riots of 1938, and again in
armed resistance  against various insurgencies of non-Buddhist ethnic
groups after independence. And in Thailand, ‘cold war’ monks were actively
involved in the fight against the communist insurgency of the 1970s. As of
today, the most formidable and dangerous ‘other’ in the eyes of both
Buddhist monks and laity in Burma, Sri Lanka, and Thailand are Muslims.
These few examples should suffice to demonstrate that militant,
extremist, and ultra-nationalist Buddhist violence with millenarian over-
tones is not a new phenomenon, but rather an overlooked and under-
reported one that was kept hidden for quite a while. In the era of modern
media such as global television, Twitter, or YouTube, this is no longer
2 Since trends and trajectories in Mahāyāna Buddhism and in Vajrayāna (Tibetan) Buddhism
are quite different, and since these variants of Buddhism are virtually non-existent in the
three countries Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand, this study only examines militancy and
ultra-nationalism within Theravāda Buddhism.
3 Cambodia and Laos are also Theravāda Buddhist countries, but due to the communist
takeover in 1975, their Sanghas followed a rather different trajectory. Hence, these two
countries are not covered here.
INTRODUCTION: BETWEEN DHAMMA-GHOSA AND BHERI-GHOSA 3
possible: militant Buddhist violence and its current Islamophobia are out
there for everybody to see. In the case of anti-Muslim violence in Burma,
it already led to a backlash: the Taliban in Pakistan, the Indonesian
Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), and, more recently, the Islamic State (better
known as ISIS) issued statements threatening to attack Burmese Buddhists
in retaliation for what they see as the ‘state-sponsored murder’ of Muslims,
while Al Qaeda called upon its followers to support their Muslim breth-
ren in Burma, “financially, militarily, and physically” (SITE 2017).
Although at the moment, these threats have not yet been translated into
action, terrorist attacks against Buddhist temples have actually occurred
over the years—for example, in Bangladesh during October 2012, and on
7 July 2013 in India, targeting the famous Bodh Gaya temple as one of
the holiest sites of Buddhism. Hence, the emergence of a tit-for-tat cycle
of violence and counter-violence cannot be ruled out (Lehr 2016, 130;
2017).
ApproAches: Theories And MeThods
In order to map and compare the trajectories of militant, ultra-nationalist
Buddhism in the three main Theravāda countries, namely Sri Lanka,
Burma, and Thailand, I explore the commonalities as well as the differ-
ences of these movements, also putting them in the proper context: firstly,
into the domestic context since, as we shall see, these militant movements
usually do not remain unopposed; secondly, in the regional context in the
shape of interactions between various strands of Theravāda Buddhism
with those of other religions, namely Islam and Evangelical Christianity;
and thirdly, in the global context, here defined as the return of religion as
a major factor in politics and as a major challenge for secularism. With
regard to the underlying theoretical and methodological approach, it is
obvious that, as usual in social sciences, mono-causal explanations cannot
sufficiently explain these complex interactions. Rather, as Charles Selengut
suggests, a holistic approach needs to be adopted, with the assumption
that indeed “each particular case will present a unique set of religious,
historical, and sociological conditions that set off and, possibly, continue
the violence” (Selengut 2003, 228). Hence, it will be assumed as well that
“other factors like widespread poverty, grievances, and resentment against
governmental authority or strong charismatic leaders” (ibid.) are required
to trigger religious violence even if a doctrine justifying religious violence
is present. On the other hand, this should not, and does not, allow us to
4 P. LEHR
simply ignore the messages and actions of those charismatic preachers
such as Ashin Wirathu in Myanmar or Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero
in Sri Lanka by reducing them to nothing but politicking. Rather, I agree
with Gilles Kepel who, in the context of fundamentalist movements within
the three Abrahamic or ‘revealed’ religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam)
argued that “if we are going to look at these movements, however strange,
aberrant or fanatical some of them may seem to us, we have to take seri-
ously both what they are saying and the alternative societies they are trying
to build […]” (Kepel 1994, 11). But I also agree with his follow-on argu-
ment: “Taking them seriously does not, however, make us into either their
advocates or their fellow-travellers, any more than a person whose eyes
had been opened to the condition of the proletariat by reading communist
literature had to become a member of the Party” (ibid.).
There are several different methodologies that would have been suit-
able for this task. I chose a socio-theological approach as defined and
explained by Mark Juergensmeyer and Mona Kanwal Sheikh (Juergensmeyer
and Sheikh 2013, 620–643) since this allows me to first take a look at the
actors’ perspectives, and then contrast them with the bigger picture of the
socio-political and socio-economic background in the countries under
investigation. The first part of this twofold research agenda implies arriv-
ing at an understanding or verstehen in a Weberian sense of that concept,
which, as Juergensmeyer and Sheikh point out, also requires an empa-
thetic immersion as well as relational knowledge, the latter defined as
“knowledge that is acquired not through inductive or deductive reasoning
but through an interaction of ideas and worldviews with someone whose
perspective on the world is quite different than one’s own. It is this knowl-
edge that is possible only though [sic] an engagement of worldviews that
comes about through informative conversations” (Juergensmeyer and
Sheikh 2013, 632). In this context, it is important to note that the various
monkhoods (Sanghas) should not be regarded as monolithic blocs: in all
three countries, there are hardliners or extremists as well as progressives
(for example, environmentalist monks) and moderates, while the majority
of monks in all three Sanghas refrain from getting actively involved in
politics.
For the case of Hinduism, Marc Gopin (2000, 14) describes the result-
ing research process in a way that can be easily adapted for my own
research, just by switching religion, actors, and locations:
“What, for example, is the inner life of a [Buddhist monk] today in [Sri
Lanka, Burma, Thailand] who is dedicated to peace, as opposed to another