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Buddhism and the cartoon controversy

Tricycle blog explores the Buddhist perspective on the Muslim/cartoon controversy, noting that Buddhists also lapse into violent breaks with peaceful tradition.

As it turns out, today saw the issuance of a death threat from not only a Muslim leader, but a respected Buddhist one too. Venerable Ellawala Medhananda, an elder Buddhist monk and Sri Lankan politician, today stated that it would be better off if someone (i.e. the Sri Lankan army) killed Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the Tamil Tiger rebels who are fighting for a separate state in northern Sri Lanka. His statement puts him in such fine company as Southern Baptist Pat Robertson, who last year called for the CIA to assassinate Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Will Ven. Medhananda suffer legal or political consequences for his incitement, or even widespread public condemnation? Not likely. Just as the anti-cartoon Muslim mobs are as much about terrifically complex political and social issues as about religious ideals, the politicization of the Sri Lankan Sangha and the battling Buddhist monk-politicians are an outgrowth of interlocked problems of ethnicity, power, and post-colonial situations in south Asia. Buddhism, like Islam, becomes another weapon in the struggle against "others;" it becomes a site of expression for rage as well as forgiveness, hatred as well as hope, righteous "self-defense" as well as peace. It both forms cherished self-identities and proclaims the absence of self; it creates nations and breaks individuals of their obsessions with external references. Did we expect otherwise?

jon posted this at 11:47 AM
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