Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Burma Rakhine clashes
sova
delocalized fractyllic harmonizing Veteran
0
Comments
In Thailand, most Muslims (the total Muslim population is about 5% or less) of Thailand's population), live in the deep southern peninsula, and there are scattered neighborhoods of Muslims in other places throughout the country, especially Bangkok. There has been unrest for decades, and the reason -- as they explain it -- is rather vague...about the Thai Buddhist government not caring about them, and their religion being unappreciated when 95% of the population is Buddhist, etc. Some of their complaints, in my view, are exaggerated -- for example, in my travels I found them no poorer than many Buddhists in the Issan Plateau region. But, nevertheless they feel they are treated very poorly. And certainly the government has done their share of things to exacerbate the situation. For example, during one period of minor unrest a few years back, dozens of Muslim men were herded into tractor trailer trucks, the doors locked, as sort of temporary prisons. Guess what happened in 100 degree plus heat. Yup, many, many, many died of suffocation.
I can only guess that there has been similar friction with the minority Muslims in Burma.
I have read and seen a few hints of this violence in Burma through the media, one of my friends linked me to an Al-Jazeera article [interestingly, in Arabic "Al-Jazeera" means "The Island"] that talked about monks holding a protest march. It's all rather strangeworld to me. But I guess it is a difficult grind, I'm sure there is much more to the struggle than the surface floam [not a real word, but along the lines of flotsam] in the media..
@vinlyn, do you reside in Thailand now? I've always been interested in visiting there. A friend of mine sent a postcard from his one trip that paused in Thailand, and from just the image on the postcard I could tell it was a very beautiful place.
It is a charming country, but the "old Thailand" sorta died when the Red Shirts took over in 2010.
Maybe the religion (combined with factors like language or race) is part of how groups of people distinguish themselves. Religion can even legitimize some sense of superiority and intolerance. But the way I see it is not the real cause of the violence.
It must be something in our genes. The history of mankind is a history of bloodshed. People always found some sort of justification for it.
Buddhism is a peaceful and tolerant religion though and we should keep it that way.
We can express our concern and point out that Buddhism rejects the killing of innocent people and the burning of houses of other groups of people; under all circumstances.