Malaysia is an autocratic dictatorship. Digital innovation for what ? To increase illegal wealth among UMNO leaders or spread Wahhabi Islam by PAS ? Malaysia is not mature enough to use digital innovation to improve Malaysian lives, but will certainly help Citicorp, Dell and Maxis.
It is important to notice that the previous candidate for Supreme Patriarch, usually spelled as Phra Maha Ratchamangalcharn, has in fact the largest community of nuns in his temple, larger than any other temple in Thailand. From the perspective of promoting female spirituality, choosing another person to be Supreme Patriarch was certainly a mistake.
Most importantly, however, the new amendment in the Monastic Law is another piece of evidence that the junta is only moving away from democracy, as the entanglement of state and religion becomes only stronger, state control of Buddhism is intensified, and the future of Thailand is jeopardized.
Today, the Department of Special Investigation is starting to cut off electricity inWat Phra Dhammakaya. I wonder how many people need to suffer before the conservative Thai elite realizes the value of a democratic government.
Tuck and Ganja – thanks for info re. Trump being one-termed, at best. Other possibility is : he’ll be assassinated. Not sure bookies are LEGALLY allowed to bet on that. If they are – that’s where I’d place most of my money.
Reform a political system to drive innovation? Innovation in digital economy has nothing to do with ones political system.
China embraces digital economy & ICT fully despite being managed by one party system and blocking all giants digital companies from operating in China.
Talkers are not doers: Where are the shelters for abused women? Local police rarely investigate domestic violence. Young Burmese men — acting like thugs — need to grow up. Rejection is not the end of their dumb-macho world.
I can live with all of that and I agree with most of it. Thanks for it Allan, I could easily have found myself a lone voice in the wilderness as a consequence of a personal policy of accepting what is already good but noting, emphasising and trying to change what is not good. Overall Thai Buddhism, Thai government indeed most things in Thailand fall into the latter category .
Where I differ from most people is that I never say something is already good enough, or, that it’s OK because the problems exist in other places too – these are two of the most common yuppie/PC cop-outs.. Clarity in acknowledging what is already the best it can be and striving to improve what is not, is all-important, and that applies to all people, irrespective of nationality. What one person feels, all people feel in one way or another, and to one extent or another. Those are both irrespective of nationality as well.
Yes, I shall definitely read the book as well, but I cannot see the romanticism and the greatness in Kipling’s poem (quite apart from the fact that, as mentioned in the article as well that Mandalay is at least nowadays a rather unglamourous place). It sounds to me both sentimental and silly. Do not get me wrong: I think a lot of Kipling’s poems and some of his prose, especially the ghastly ‘White Man’s Burden’ which shows so clearly the illusions and delusions of imperalist thinking that it gives me the creeps, or of Gunga Din. But sorry, Mandalay is just tripe (but maybe that comes from being German and not having the right frame of mind for this kind of poetry??)
Anyway, thanks for drawing my attention to the book. I always like Andrew Selth’s work.
Worth reading ! It is true that many women accept that they are inferior to men and they don’t know what to do when they get abused. Interventions like 24 hr hotline system is great idea. In addition, Awareness mong women and men / girls and boys at the grass root level and assessibility to help centers are cruitial as well.
Thanks
Great ATR you have done well. VAW is not uncommon here and there all over the country. You highlighted the magnitude of violence occurred in the community. Law enforcement is crucial in this context and how it can be taken further action is a big question by now. Congratulations again.
san shwe- Steering committee member GEN,co -researcher of Behind the silence
Professor Michael Wesley’s eloquence places a high promise for Andrew Selth’s new book, and I guess this makes it a must read over coming Thyingyan madness…
An 89 year old Thai monk supporting ordained women, unlikely. if it happened what other radical views might he hold, also unlikely, he was chosen for a reason.
Le-Fey has outlined the conservative nature of Buddhism, much of which could be attributed to the elderly and conservative nature of the Sangha Council over decades. Although the Buddhism being practiced in Thailand goes back way before then. I believe that there are monks with ‘huge spiritual power’, although like Le-Fey, I am yet to find one. I can say that there are genuine learned monks with the people’s interests at heart, before national interests. There are many positives to the temple being the social or cultural and/or spiritual centre of the rural village. I know of one that belongs to the lineage of Wat Pak Nam, but has no association with Dharmakaya, and hence has no interest in glorification of materialism and power. There are also forest temples, many of which encourage women to practice a more nibbanic Buddhism, rather than merit-based or karma-based Buddhism. Overall, while negatives may outweigh the positives, village Buddhism will continue despite what happens at the national level. Buddhist cultural forms have given meaning to village life for a long time, but change is the only consistent in a modern world. Villagers are not blind to change, and forms of alternative beliefs (for better or worse) live alongside the old and the new worlds.
“there is no existing data on how many women face violence in Myanmar.”
Indeed, this is very true. I wish police departments in Myanmar would keep statistics on this, and then have it aggregated at the national level. Obviously, not all incidents would make it into police reports…but without this it is a challenge to come to some baseline estimate of the problem beyond the important qualitative work of others.
I find the Sudetenland comparison most offensive, both to China (this being reductio ad Hitler at its crudest) and to Czechoslovakia, because it glosses over the real outrage of appeasement.
In 1938, Czechoslovakia was told by her allies to transfer to Germany a land that had previously been recognized as Czech sovereign territory by Germany and all other countries, comprising 38% of the Czech lands area (today’s Czech Republic) and about one fourth of Czech population.
In comparison, China only claims uninhabited territory she has consistently claimed, and her claim to it is probably rivalled only by Vietnam’s as to legitimacy. Also, in signing up to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, China has declared non-applicability of compulsory procedures, as the UNCLOS allows. Even the arbitral tribunal has made it clear it cannot make a decision on sovereignity; therefore it is irrelevant as to questions of sovereignity.
Bangladesh does not want to deal with the crisis they created, like all Islamic nations who whine proudly in one breath and then dump their overflow on others in the same breath. The “Rohingya” must be repatriated to Bangladesh immediately.
For centuries, religions (not just Buddhism, but ALL religions) have tried to get their shoes under the local monarch’s bed. Claiming spiritual advancement, they lend authenticity to monarchies, and in return, monarchies lend them power, influence, and money (plus of course a dispensation to peddle their wares to the general population. This is a game that is common to many countries, and Thailand is very far from being an exception, although there is an argument to say that the duplicity and cynicism which normally comprises organised religion, has reached its finest expression in Thailand. Places where people are deliberately kept uneducated and unintelligent are a natural breeding ground for religions, for perfectly understandable psychological reasons, but for the life of me I do not understand why any organisation which pretends to be spiritual in nature would not do more to combat hypocrisy and corruption in government, an overwhelming dishonesty, and a clamouring for wealth that exist among the Thai people generally, and what seems to me to be an unhealthy concern with money among themselves. For an organisation which, according to popular belief, contains criminals and prostitutes a-plenty among its number, to do so little for the welfare of Thai people, for me, constitutes deceit and exploitation on a breath-taking scale, though in doing so they have been set an excellent example of the technique of plunder by institution they have been so successful in clambering into bed with.
The reality is that Buddhism, as practised in Thailand is a synthetic product which is very far from being anything like Prince Gautama Buddha could possibly have imagined was the future of what he was trying to teach people.
Personally, I have immense respect for what I believe he was trying to do, but I have no respect at all for the marketing exercise that he chose for spreading the message. Among the greatest confidence tricks that have ever been perpetrated upon people anywhere, the idea of rebirth as peddled by popular Buddhism today must be among the greatest and worst. To suggest that a sequence of lifetimes is universal while offering not a shred of evidence in support of it, all the time making absolutely no demonstration whatever of any spiritual authority, seems to me as though it is almost criminal.
I very much doubt that the Buddhist priesthood in Thailand does anything at all for anybody except its own monk-hood and wealth. It is of course possible that among the hundreds of thousands of monks plying their trade in Thailand there are some with huge spiritual power. I personally have not met any of them, and I doubt that they exist for reasons of my own, which I do not propose to discuss.
To cap it all, the nonsensical Buddha Issara (or is it Issara Buddha, I forget) demonstrates a level of humbug which is astonishing. The fact that the powers-that-be in Thai Buddhism allow him to continue his clown-show unmolested speaks volumes about their own ethical standards. In my opinion (for what it’s worth) Thai Buddhism has not yet understood that we are no longer in the mediaeval period, during which Christianity took root, with much the same PR techniques and an equal lack of actual spirituality.
Easily the best article that New Mandala has published so far about the Jakarta elections. Let’s hope that Ahok/Djarot- supporters in – and outside the party machineries take Dr. Chong Wu Lings advice by heart.
Ahok is the victim of the Islamist hate against him, he has not caused this hate, so stop blaming the victim Endah. The vast majority of negative videos about Ahok on youtube are fake, as fake as the so called “blasphemy video”.
Mr. Kwik Kian Gie might have been more humble and polite, but he was certainly a much less competent politician than Ahok. More rational people might consider this the more important point. Also Kwik was minister from 1999 till 2004. This is more than 10 years ago, when Indonesia was not yet so far on the way to Islamisation as it is now. Importantly it was also before conservative and radical Islamism was strengthened so much under the presidency of SBY. Under the latter’s presidency also the number of blasphemy trials exploded by the way.
“Cultural analysis itself is somewhat new to this site, but why the effort to demean scholars who are working in these areas except to discourage open discussion and analysis?””
Agree with the post, but I didn’t see any demeaning going on. Scholarship encourages peer review, I reviewed what was said. If it wasn’t a pat on the back then real scholars should already be used to that – learn and move on. No point being precious.
Good read though not up to your standard, or that of AMM.
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A poem and the politics of high imperialism
Wesley’s eloquent review makes Selth’s book ” a must have”!
Malaysia’s digital economy: can entrepreneurship be unleashed?
Malaysia is an autocratic dictatorship. Digital innovation for what ? To increase illegal wealth among UMNO leaders or spread Wahhabi Islam by PAS ? Malaysia is not mature enough to use digital innovation to improve Malaysian lives, but will certainly help Citicorp, Dell and Maxis.
Restoring Thailand’s spiritual realm
It is important to notice that the previous candidate for Supreme Patriarch, usually spelled as Phra Maha Ratchamangalcharn, has in fact the largest community of nuns in his temple, larger than any other temple in Thailand. From the perspective of promoting female spirituality, choosing another person to be Supreme Patriarch was certainly a mistake.
Most importantly, however, the new amendment in the Monastic Law is another piece of evidence that the junta is only moving away from democracy, as the entanglement of state and religion becomes only stronger, state control of Buddhism is intensified, and the future of Thailand is jeopardized.
Today, the Department of Special Investigation is starting to cut off electricity inWat Phra Dhammakaya. I wonder how many people need to suffer before the conservative Thai elite realizes the value of a democratic government.
Risk and imagination in the Trump era
Tuck and Ganja – thanks for info re. Trump being one-termed, at best. Other possibility is : he’ll be assassinated. Not sure bookies are LEGALLY allowed to bet on that. If they are – that’s where I’d place most of my money.
Malaysia’s digital economy: can entrepreneurship be unleashed?
Reform a political system to drive innovation? Innovation in digital economy has nothing to do with ones political system.
China embraces digital economy & ICT fully despite being managed by one party system and blocking all giants digital companies from operating in China.
Malaysia always able to re-invent itself.
Ending abuse against women in Myanmar
Talkers are not doers: Where are the shelters for abused women? Local police rarely investigate domestic violence. Young Burmese men — acting like thugs — need to grow up. Rejection is not the end of their dumb-macho world.
Risk and imagination in the Trump era
Will Trump Be Impeached Or Resign? Oddsmakers Now Think It’s A 50/50 Bet
http://www.ibtimes.com/will-trump-be-impeached-or-resign-oddsmakers-now-think-its-5050-bet-2492539
Also – Who will get the honor of being impeached first: Duterte (Philippines) or Trump?
The missing middle
Sir, you are correct, as one can easily investigate the background of each leaders other professions
Restoring Thailand’s spiritual realm
I can live with all of that and I agree with most of it. Thanks for it Allan, I could easily have found myself a lone voice in the wilderness as a consequence of a personal policy of accepting what is already good but noting, emphasising and trying to change what is not good. Overall Thai Buddhism, Thai government indeed most things in Thailand fall into the latter category .
Where I differ from most people is that I never say something is already good enough, or, that it’s OK because the problems exist in other places too – these are two of the most common yuppie/PC cop-outs.. Clarity in acknowledging what is already the best it can be and striving to improve what is not, is all-important, and that applies to all people, irrespective of nationality. What one person feels, all people feel in one way or another, and to one extent or another. Those are both irrespective of nationality as well.
That’s my view anyway.
A poem and the politics of high imperialism
Yes, I shall definitely read the book as well, but I cannot see the romanticism and the greatness in Kipling’s poem (quite apart from the fact that, as mentioned in the article as well that Mandalay is at least nowadays a rather unglamourous place). It sounds to me both sentimental and silly. Do not get me wrong: I think a lot of Kipling’s poems and some of his prose, especially the ghastly ‘White Man’s Burden’ which shows so clearly the illusions and delusions of imperalist thinking that it gives me the creeps, or of Gunga Din. But sorry, Mandalay is just tripe (but maybe that comes from being German and not having the right frame of mind for this kind of poetry??)
Anyway, thanks for drawing my attention to the book. I always like Andrew Selth’s work.
Ending abuse against women in Myanmar
Worth reading ! It is true that many women accept that they are inferior to men and they don’t know what to do when they get abused. Interventions like 24 hr hotline system is great idea. In addition, Awareness mong women and men / girls and boys at the grass root level and assessibility to help centers are cruitial as well.
Thanks
Ending abuse against women in Myanmar
Great ATR you have done well. VAW is not uncommon here and there all over the country. You highlighted the magnitude of violence occurred in the community. Law enforcement is crucial in this context and how it can be taken further action is a big question by now. Congratulations again.
san shwe- Steering committee member GEN,co -researcher of Behind the silence
A poem and the politics of high imperialism
Professor Michael Wesley’s eloquence places a high promise for Andrew Selth’s new book, and I guess this makes it a must read over coming Thyingyan madness…
Restoring Thailand’s spiritual realm
An 89 year old Thai monk supporting ordained women, unlikely. if it happened what other radical views might he hold, also unlikely, he was chosen for a reason.
Le-Fey has outlined the conservative nature of Buddhism, much of which could be attributed to the elderly and conservative nature of the Sangha Council over decades. Although the Buddhism being practiced in Thailand goes back way before then. I believe that there are monks with ‘huge spiritual power’, although like Le-Fey, I am yet to find one. I can say that there are genuine learned monks with the people’s interests at heart, before national interests. There are many positives to the temple being the social or cultural and/or spiritual centre of the rural village. I know of one that belongs to the lineage of Wat Pak Nam, but has no association with Dharmakaya, and hence has no interest in glorification of materialism and power. There are also forest temples, many of which encourage women to practice a more nibbanic Buddhism, rather than merit-based or karma-based Buddhism. Overall, while negatives may outweigh the positives, village Buddhism will continue despite what happens at the national level. Buddhist cultural forms have given meaning to village life for a long time, but change is the only consistent in a modern world. Villagers are not blind to change, and forms of alternative beliefs (for better or worse) live alongside the old and the new worlds.
Ending abuse against women in Myanmar
An important read!
“there is no existing data on how many women face violence in Myanmar.”
Indeed, this is very true. I wish police departments in Myanmar would keep statistics on this, and then have it aggregated at the national level. Obviously, not all incidents would make it into police reports…but without this it is a challenge to come to some baseline estimate of the problem beyond the important qualitative work of others.
thanks for sharing! -Thomas
Risk and imagination in the Trump era
I find the Sudetenland comparison most offensive, both to China (this being reductio ad Hitler at its crudest) and to Czechoslovakia, because it glosses over the real outrage of appeasement.
In 1938, Czechoslovakia was told by her allies to transfer to Germany a land that had previously been recognized as Czech sovereign territory by Germany and all other countries, comprising 38% of the Czech lands area (today’s Czech Republic) and about one fourth of Czech population.
In comparison, China only claims uninhabited territory she has consistently claimed, and her claim to it is probably rivalled only by Vietnam’s as to legitimacy. Also, in signing up to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, China has declared non-applicability of compulsory procedures, as the UNCLOS allows. Even the arbitral tribunal has made it clear it cannot make a decision on sovereignity; therefore it is irrelevant as to questions of sovereignity.
Segregation and violence in Rakhine State
Bangladesh does not want to deal with the crisis they created, like all Islamic nations who whine proudly in one breath and then dump their overflow on others in the same breath. The “Rohingya” must be repatriated to Bangladesh immediately.
Restoring Thailand’s spiritual realm
For centuries, religions (not just Buddhism, but ALL religions) have tried to get their shoes under the local monarch’s bed. Claiming spiritual advancement, they lend authenticity to monarchies, and in return, monarchies lend them power, influence, and money (plus of course a dispensation to peddle their wares to the general population. This is a game that is common to many countries, and Thailand is very far from being an exception, although there is an argument to say that the duplicity and cynicism which normally comprises organised religion, has reached its finest expression in Thailand. Places where people are deliberately kept uneducated and unintelligent are a natural breeding ground for religions, for perfectly understandable psychological reasons, but for the life of me I do not understand why any organisation which pretends to be spiritual in nature would not do more to combat hypocrisy and corruption in government, an overwhelming dishonesty, and a clamouring for wealth that exist among the Thai people generally, and what seems to me to be an unhealthy concern with money among themselves. For an organisation which, according to popular belief, contains criminals and prostitutes a-plenty among its number, to do so little for the welfare of Thai people, for me, constitutes deceit and exploitation on a breath-taking scale, though in doing so they have been set an excellent example of the technique of plunder by institution they have been so successful in clambering into bed with.
The reality is that Buddhism, as practised in Thailand is a synthetic product which is very far from being anything like Prince Gautama Buddha could possibly have imagined was the future of what he was trying to teach people.
Personally, I have immense respect for what I believe he was trying to do, but I have no respect at all for the marketing exercise that he chose for spreading the message. Among the greatest confidence tricks that have ever been perpetrated upon people anywhere, the idea of rebirth as peddled by popular Buddhism today must be among the greatest and worst. To suggest that a sequence of lifetimes is universal while offering not a shred of evidence in support of it, all the time making absolutely no demonstration whatever of any spiritual authority, seems to me as though it is almost criminal.
I very much doubt that the Buddhist priesthood in Thailand does anything at all for anybody except its own monk-hood and wealth. It is of course possible that among the hundreds of thousands of monks plying their trade in Thailand there are some with huge spiritual power. I personally have not met any of them, and I doubt that they exist for reasons of my own, which I do not propose to discuss.
To cap it all, the nonsensical Buddha Issara (or is it Issara Buddha, I forget) demonstrates a level of humbug which is astonishing. The fact that the powers-that-be in Thai Buddhism allow him to continue his clown-show unmolested speaks volumes about their own ethical standards. In my opinion (for what it’s worth) Thai Buddhism has not yet understood that we are no longer in the mediaeval period, during which Christianity took root, with much the same PR techniques and an equal lack of actual spirituality.
Hanging on by a ‘sin’ and a prayer
Easily the best article that New Mandala has published so far about the Jakarta elections. Let’s hope that Ahok/Djarot- supporters in – and outside the party machineries take Dr. Chong Wu Lings advice by heart.
Ahok is the victim of the Islamist hate against him, he has not caused this hate, so stop blaming the victim Endah. The vast majority of negative videos about Ahok on youtube are fake, as fake as the so called “blasphemy video”.
Mr. Kwik Kian Gie might have been more humble and polite, but he was certainly a much less competent politician than Ahok. More rational people might consider this the more important point. Also Kwik was minister from 1999 till 2004. This is more than 10 years ago, when Indonesia was not yet so far on the way to Islamisation as it is now. Importantly it was also before conservative and radical Islamism was strengthened so much under the presidency of SBY. Under the latter’s presidency also the number of blasphemy trials exploded by the way.
Private: Grieving as Thainess in 2017
“Cultural analysis itself is somewhat new to this site, but why the effort to demean scholars who are working in these areas except to discourage open discussion and analysis?””
Agree with the post, but I didn’t see any demeaning going on. Scholarship encourages peer review, I reviewed what was said. If it wasn’t a pat on the back then real scholars should already be used to that – learn and move on. No point being precious.
Good read though not up to your standard, or that of AMM.