[Buddha-l] Compassionate Violence?

[GM]

It may vaguely interest you that I asked the same question, mostly to extremist monks, in Sri Lanka during the 80s. 

Genocidal violence was seen by the monk extremists, not so much as directly sanctioned by scripture, but as a logical outgrowth of Buddhist scripture. Many held the position that ethnic Singha nationalism was a defense of Buddhism, the only true pure form of which existed  in Sri Lanka (Nobody made the Japanese-style argument that the whole country was an ordination platform, but the Singha were clearly seen as the defenders of the last defensible outpost of the truth in these degenerate times.). Defending Buddhism is necessary to preserve the only route out of suffering. Not defending it would lead to its disappearance in our times and thus it's non-defenders would be the cause of continued suffering. Being the cause of suffering is a clear violation of vows and the whole purpose of Buddhism. (Some of this fusion of ethnic nationalism and religion also stems from the Buddhist monks' earlier adoption of what they saw as a highly successful American Protestant approach.)

When I met the most prominent monk advocate of this view, he began by giving me a lecture on how Buddhism taught the protection of all life and thus he protected even the ants in the temple. I said that I understood how this was based in the teachings of Buddhism but I asked what teachings of Buddhism he was drawing on  when he gave a speech the day before advocating the  execution of every (Hindu)Tamil in Sri Lanka. He explained that when you're reborn as an ant your brain is very small so you have few options in life. (Hindu) Tamils are  born human and so have choices. They can immediately end their lives when they realize they are (Hindu) Tamils and try again in the cycle of rebirth. If they obstinately resigned alive, every (Hindu) Tamil man, woman, and child should be driven into the sea and their heads cut off. If they continue to live they would accumulate bad karma as enemies of Buddhism and suffer bad rebirths. Murder would really be a way of preventing their further suffering. 

Conversion, of course, could not be trusted, but they might get lucky enough to be reborn as a Buddhist. I'm pretty sure he did not consider Christian Tamils or Hindu Tamil tea plantation Tamils to be significant enough to warrant condemning. 

At that time, such arguments were  never applied to Muslim Tamils. They were seen by many Singha as at worse neutral in the war and no one wanted to push them to the other side.