What is driving Buddhists to hate Muslims in Asia?

Sri Lanka was a state of emergency for almost two weeks in response to several clashes surrounding the entire country, as a Buddhist was attacked by four Muslims near a tourist town in Candy.

Radical Buddhists, including nationalist organisation of monks known as Bodu Bala Sena (Forca Buddhist), received support in social media.

Their messages included plots that Muslims were wearing food and clothing with poisons to eliminate Buddhists.

A number of Muslim mosques, houses and businesses were destroyed during the clashes, in which two people were killed. As a result, the government has imposed a curfew and banned social media for 12 days, reports “DW” Transmission Periscope.

Myanmar, on the other hand, has been practicing violence against Muslims since 2012. A group of Muslims has been the target of Buddhist attacks recently. Hundreds of thousands of Ringya Muslims have been forced to abandon their homes during 2017. Buddhist monks have had an important role in this event.

Since 2011, Thailand has also been a scene of violence, especially in the southern province. Thai newspaper “Bangok Post” reported that at least 6, 500 people were killed in predominantly Muslim provinces between 2004 and 2015.

Unlike Sri Lanka and Myanmar, a number of militant Islamic groups' organisations are building the Islamic state potassium in southern Thailand. The Thai government has responded in the worst way. Nine out of ten victims as a result of violence in this region are civilians.

As in Sri Lanka and Myanmar, Buddhist monks are part of the conflict in Thailand.

In 2015, the popular Thai monk Phra Maha Appicht had declared that each mosque should burn for a murdered Buddhist.

Professor and religion researcher Michael Jerryson of Youngstown State University said Buddhists in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Thailand are concerned. “I have heard from monks in all three countries that they, Buddhists see as threatened” and afraid of “Islami and Muslims trying to take their seats,” he told “DW”.

Part of that fear may be the historical traces the country has left, as the Theravades Buddhism dominates this region.

Myanmar and Sri Lanka together were under British control and colony of European states. When British colonised the country, these countries broke off the support given by the state-Sangha (the Buddhist community),” said Jerryson. Although Thailand was not colonised, it was surrounded by British and French colonies, who feared losing their independence. “People asked, who's protecting Buddhism?”

This fear is guided by a link with nationalist ideas imported from Europe at the beginning of the 20th century for Buddhists to fight for independence and protect their ethnicity. Although fundamental reasons and political factors for such movements are different in every country, according to Jerryson, the result is the same “a more powerful form of religious nationalism and religious identity in the form of Buddhism.” Currently, it is impossible for national identity divided by religious beliefs to dominate in any country “to be a true citizen of Myanmar is to be a Buddhist. ”

So the threatened Buddhist belief is deeply rooted and is an integral part of Buddhist identity. Jayson says anti-Muslim sentiments are part of a <x0retorial of trans-nationalist Islamophobia coming from the West” and lying in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand. Many people in the West view religion as Buddhism that sees peace, while a religion like Islam is violent that, unfortunately, this is incorrect,”.

Each global religion has its own guidelines, it has doctrines to encourage people to walk towards peace in inter-communicative and intra-communicational actions,” said Jerryson. “But many of the religious systems including Buddhism have history of violence. ”

Those who measure the threat from what is happening in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Thailand should eventually conclude that the concept is flawed, Jerryson said: “It just doesn't fit, doesn't fit at all”.

Only about 10 percent of Sri Lanka's 20 million citizens are Muslims; in Myanmar this number is approximately 4 percent (from 51 million people), and Thailand is about 5 percent (of 67 million people). “These population sizes have not changed dramatically for more than four decades,” said Jerryson. /Periscopi/