Extremist Buddhists

Most people would consider Buddhism a peaceful religion. But in the recent time the image of Buddhism as a peaceful religion is being shattered by none other than their own followers through numerous acts of violence.

This week saw

Hard-line Buddhists hurled gasoline bombs and looted homes and businesses in attacks in several Muslim towns in southwestern Sri Lanka, killing three Muslims and seriously wounding more than 50 people, authorities said Monday.

Sectarian violence is not unusual in Sri Lanka. Some of the Sinhalese ethnic of Sri Lanka (which is the majority of the population) wage a genocidal war against some of the minority Tamil ethnic of the population. Both sides in this conflict became blameworthy eventually in the extreme lengthy civil war.

As for the most recent conflict between the Buddhist and Muslim, I think you can guess how it started/was manufactured.

A bunch of stupid, hardcore angry folks (the Buddhist Group by the name of Bodu Bala Sena ) reached a boiling point in their hateful ideology. After receiving much support from like-minded individuals and politicians they were further emboldened to publicly provoke violence against others. Next is what you see happening on Monday.

Anyway, this is not a lone event of a group of Buddhists displaying extreme hatred and intolerant towards people of other religions especially Muslim. The other incident is the Buddhist violence against the Burmese Muslim population (of ethnic Rohingya) that has been ongoing on more than half a century now in Burma/Myanmar and current event.

So, it’s not all good with Buddhist/Buddhism.

References
[1] http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/sri-lanka-muslims-killed-attack-buddhists-24152664
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Civil_War
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_people#Burmese_juntas
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Rakhine_State_riots