[Buddha-l] Was Buddhists Taking a Stand Against Isllamophobia

[Gerald McLoughlin]

I checked the map. It does make  the bizarre assertion that borders seemed fairly fixed (not a Buddhist idea) until recently, but does bring useful, if necessarily selective attention to international affairs. Nothing can be established by the article's choice of one spot over another.

What, by the way, is the Muslim world?  How does it intersect with the world of Buddhist discussions?





On Sep 24, 2012, at 1:48 AM, "Dan Lusthaus" <vasubandhu at earthlink.net> wrote:

>>> Joanne and Curt had it right.
>> 
>> Both of them say many things. What in particular are you referring to?
> 
> Check the archives for their most recent comments on the topic.
> 
>>> The rest of you are trying to visualize a muslim-pure-land that has never existed and doesn't exist now.
>> 
>> I would not characterize anything I have seen on Buddha-l in that way. What I have seen is a simple appeal to mindfulness that nothing is served by focusing on the fanaticism and destructiveness of one particular group of human beings when there are destructive thoughts and actions manifesting everywhere in the world.
> 
> This a common but ineffective tactic for neutralizing (aka denying) the facts, relativizing them to insignificance. The Sunday NYTimes had an interactive section called "The New World"
> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/23/opinion/sunday/the-new-world.html?HP
> 
> which attempted, with a map and some discussion, to show how in the post-coldwar period, liquid borders (nations presently united becoming separate, or forming new subdivisions, etc.) are the new political dynamic. Of the eleven hotspots, eight are in the muslim world (the exceptions are Congo, Belgium, and Siberia). Pretending it's the same everywhere ("it" being the human condition) is a form of self-blindness.
> 
>> For those of us who do not live in the Muslim world, [...] might our time not be better spent dealing with the forms of greed, hatred and delusion that are making people suffer in our own neighborhoods?
> 
> This is not an either/or question. Do both. (those greedy corps. are probably already making deals -- or hoping to -- in that part of the world.) You can deal with the realities of the Muslim world now, or wait for them to complicate your local situation. E.g., to take what today might seem an unlikely situation, but in 10 years will be a major concern: the current university economic model is not working -- students incur too much debt, schools need too much money, which does not go to teachers' salaries, but to ever increasing bureaucratic bulge, which they will soon only be able to raise from donors, such as China, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi -- who have been chomping at the bit to bequeath endless $$ on many schools, the ones with some modicum of integrity left still resisting, but not for long; needless to say, the money comes with strings; many of the mosques in the US are funded by Wahhabi associations in Arabia, and many of the imams are trained in wahhabi theology. If that's not the case in your neighborhood (yet), consider yourself fortunate.
> 
> Or this sort of thing:
> http://tinyurl.com/9vqqfh9
> 
> But one doesn't have to become alarmist, or wait to see how close it comes. The injustices already being inflicted elsewhere deserve attention and action.
> 
> Of course, if one has one's hands full dealing with local corporate shenanigans, fine. But then don't lecture others about what to think or do about international situations.
> 
> Dan 
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