[Buddha-l] "The Origins of Religious Violence" (was: Dialectics in Eastern Thought)

[curt]

Katherine Masis wrote:
> I think it was Curt who had asked some time ago about
> dialectics in Eastern thought.  Quite by accident, I
> found the following article by Nick Gier, who taught
> for 30+ years at University of Idaho:
>
> "Revised version of an article published as
> "Dialectic: East and West," Indian Philosophical
> Quarterly 10 (January, 1983), pp. 207-218."
>
> http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/307/dialectic.htm
>
> It looks interesting, but I haven't read it yet.  Let
> me know what you think.
>
>
>   

It turns out the same fellow is working on a book on "The Origins of 
Religious Violence". I found his "prospectus" rather intriguing:

"This book will consist of an introduction and three parts. The 
Introduction will summarize religiously motivated violence in the 
Abrahamic religions. Part I will be a detailed response to incidents in 
Asian history where such violence has been alleged or is apparently 
evident. Except for the violence caused by the fusion of state and 
religion in Tibet and Japan, the analysis will show that most religious 
violence in Asia came after colonial incursions there. Anticipating that 
there has been far more of this violence in the Abrahamic religions, 
Part II will be a theoretical investigation of why this has been the 
case. Part III will consist of a Gandhian proposal to teach nonviolence 
as a civic virtue as well as personal virtue.

Some commentators have claimed that the violence of Hindu and Buddhist 
fundamentalists in India and Sri Lanka has proved that these religions 
are not as peaceful as they were once thought to be. I will show that 
religiously motivated violence in Asia was rare before the arrival of 
Muslim armies and European colonialists. I will further show that Hindu 
and Buddhist fundamentalism is the result of a “reverse” Orientalism by 
which some Hindu and Buddhist thinkers proposed theories of religious 
and cultural superiority by giving a racial interpretation to the Aryan 
hypothesis of European linguists." (see more at: 
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/orvproposal.htm )

Personally I would take issue with the use of the term "Abrahamic" - 
since, as the author tacitly accepts, the sins of Christianity and Islam 
in this regard are not visited upon Judaism. I also have to disagree 
with what I see as a superficial analysis of "Hindu and Buddhist 
fundamentalists" and his equally superficial pronouncements concerning 
"Ghandianism". However, his historical work on religious violence in 
India and China appears to be groundbreaking. Not because he says 
anything new - but because for the first time someone is clearly 
pointing out the 800 pound gorilla in the room.

Curt Steinmetz