[Buddha-l] A Maitreya theme park projected for Kushinagar--good grief!

[jkirk]

X-posted from H-Asia.

In my original comment on H-Asia about a theme park planned for the Tulu
area of south India, I mentioned the horror some of us on this list had when
a theme park was being proposed for Lumbini. 
The example Ms Falcone posted about a proposal of the Maitreya Project "(an
international organization of mostly non-Indian "Western" Buddhists), while
"the many hundreds of farming families currently on the land have been
protesting the forcible acquisition for years," yet the "project argues that
the karmic benefits trump everything else" (!!). This case seems to indicate
the big flaw in the Buddhist merit system, where merit is exclusive, it
accrues to donors while everybody else abstractly benefits, or not at all
where--in the case of the displaced farming people of Kushinagar-- it serves
as a negative or non-benefit.

I realize that this critical view will upset some on the list, sorry;
however, another example of merit exclusiveness is found in Kim Gutschow,
_Being a Buddhist Nun : The Struggle for Enlightenment in the
Himalayas_.Harvard University Press, 2004. Gutschow notes that while some
people will quote adages to the effect that a donation of the self and its
attachments alone is worthy of great merit, “…yet numerous practices index
social or economic capital to the symbolic capital of merit…While the
rich...can earn merit by donating...the nuns, laywomen, and the poor lack
the...wealth to earn merit in such prestigious ways.” 

And I would add that the gigantic gold-painted concrete statues of Buddhas
that I saw in Thailand and Burma, erected to earn scads of merit by the
donors, are ugly because they demean the natural landscapes where they are
sited: these phenomena for me are the opposite of spiritually inspiring.  If
these demonstrations of merit are supposed to constitute Buddha fields, they
don't work for this westerner. Nor do skyscrapers, meant to be admired as
benefits of capitalism, work for me in my own culture. 
 

Joanna
==============================================================


H-ASIA
February 22, 2008

More on "Theme Parks" for cultural heritage:
************************************************************************
From: Jessica Marie Falcone <jmf55 at cornell.edu>

Greetings all,

I agree with Prof. Kirkpatrick and others who suggest that "theme parks"
can be problematic enterprises.  I hope that the Tulu heritage park will be
undertaken with the utmost creativity and respect for past and present
cultural iterations of Tulu identities.  I do think that many of these
projects are organized from the top-down and benefit the very few, but I
hope this is an exception.

The case of Lumbini inspired me to mention the case study that I've been
working on for my dissertation: a glorified Buddhist theme park in
Kushinagar that will sport a 500 ft statue of the Maitreya Buddha, a
hospitality center, gardens, as well as a school and hospital. The hitch is
that the state gov of Uttar Pradesh will soon be acquiring 660 acres of
mostly arable land for the Maitreya Project (an international organization
of mostly non-Indian "Western" Buddhists), while the many hundreds of
farming families currently on the land have been protesting the forcible
acquisition for years.  Whatever one thinks of the initial vision behind the
project, it is impossible not to be disappointed that it is just another
development whose profits will ultimately line only a few already bulging
pockets, all the while causing disenfranchisement amongst the poorest and
most powerless of the area.  Of course, the project argues that the karmic
benefits trump everything else...

I've written about it in a non-scholarly context:
http://www.wildriverreview.com/airmail_india-maitreya.php

The rebuttal:
http://www.wildriverreview.com/airmail_india-response.php

My rebuttal to their rebuttal:
http://www.wildriverreview.com/airmail_india.php

Sincerely,
Jessica Falcone

ABD, Anthropology Dept.
Cornell University

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