Imagine There is Love

A few nights ago, I was having a drink with my besties. Inevitably, our conversation led us to the upcoming 916 Red Shirt Rally. He remarked something that I have heard from my dad several years ago: only Buddhism is the only religion that is never in dispute or conflict with any other religion.

But is that true? So I set out to find out if that is true. With the help of Google, two incidents was enough to break this myth. Here's what I found:

2012 Rakhine State Riot between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslim in Burma

Source:  

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Rakhine_State_riots
• http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/2/myanmars-buddhist-terrorism-problem.html
• http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22356306

2013 Burma Anti-Muslim Riot led by majority Buddhists

Source:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Myanmar_anti-Muslim_riots

Buddhist-Muslim conflict in Sri Lanka

Source:

• http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=14812&
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_anti-Muslim_riots_in_Sri_Lanka
• http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/19/world/asia/sri-lanka-muslim-aluthgama/

~~~

Well, I spent three hours of searching and reading and this was all I found. There could probably be more. But the point is that, even the life-loving, no-killing Buddhism is not spared from bloodshed. But of course, to be fair, I also briefly looked up conflicts involving other faiths:

Hindu-Buddhist Conflict

• http://www.ehow.com/about_5480700_there-conflict-between-hindus-buddhists.html

European Wars of Religion

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion 

And we know of so many others such as the Crusades, Modern Day Jihad, Islamic States Terrorism and etc. Look up the internet we have no short of conflict between or within religions.

Here my conclusions from all my readings:

1. Almost all conflicts are politically and economically motivated rather than religious disputes. Looking at the Rohingya Muslim persecution in Burma, it was a political one. Religion gave a certain group of people something in common to band together. By creating a common enemy that is different from themselves helps them to feel united. However, regardless of the justification, it is a mean for certain group of people to meet their selfish ends.
   Quoting Iselin Frydenlund, "These conflicts between Buddhists and Muslims may serve political as well as economic interests. From a political point of view, the violence benefits authoritarian regimes because it may give them an excuse for military intervention, while economically the conflicts may weaken competitors, for example Muslim-run businesses. In addition, religious nationalism and hate speech against religious minorities are used deliberately by political parties to gain votes among members of religious majorities. (Source: http://blogs.prio.org/2015/06/endangered-co-existence-buddhist-muslim-friction-in-asia/ )
2. All conflicts stem from pride. When a group of people believes themselves far superior than another, conflict begins. We see this in Nazism during Adolf Hitler, we now see this in the 916 Red Shirt Rally. 
3. All violence and division is a failure to love. Clashes begin when we fail to love and to accept others. It begins when we put our own interests before the interest and well-being of others. The Church is a good example of failure to love. Fowl wrote "All church division is fundamentally a failure of love." It is a failure to meet Paul's description of love in 1 Corinthians 13
4. The problem is not fundamentally religious teachings, but the fallen nature of human hearts. Summarizing the above conclusion, it is not really conflicts between religion, but rather between humans that are sinful and fallen. It all started since Abel and Cain, the human race has never stopped trying to kill each other.

My point is not to prove my friend or my father wrong, but rather to point out that we ourselves are to blame for the mess of the world. We have no intention to look into ourselves but constantly seeking to blame others for the state the world is in now. John Lennon sang "Imagine there is no religion." I beg to differ, I say "Imagine there is perfect love."

God's Character, My Encounter.