Table of Contents
- New Books> from Vienna: Erschbamer, 'Ba' ra ba & Forte et als (ed.), Tibet in dialogue with its neighbors
- Re: QUERY> Burma crisis, Buddhist crisis
- JOBS> H-Net Job Guide Weekly Report For H-Buddhism: 23 October - 30 October
- RESOURCE> October 2017 Update report for Digital Dictionary of Buddhism and CJKV-E Dictionary
New Books> from Vienna: Erschbamer, 'Ba' ra ba & Forte et als (ed.), Tibet in dialogue with its neighbors
by Birgit Kellner
Dear colleagues,
the following new publications are now available from the Vienna Series for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (WSTB):
Marlene Erschbamer, "The 'Ba'-ra-ba bKa'-brgyud-pa : Historical and Contemporary Studies". WSTB 92 (2017) 279p. ISBN 13: 978-3-902501-30-1. EUR 30.00.
Erika Forte, Liang Junyan & Deborah Klimburg-Salter (eds), "Tibet in Dialogue with its Neighbours : History, Culture and Art of Central and Western Tibet, 8th to 15th century" WSTB 88 (2015) 520p. ISBN 13: 978-3-902501-26-4. EUR 50.00. This volume, published jointly with the China Tibetology Publishing House, appeared a while back, but copies have become available only recently.
Further details on both publications are available at the WSTB website, (https://www.istb.univie.ac.at/cgi-bin/wstb/wstb.cgi). These and other publications from the series can also be ordered directly via the website. Please address questions regarding orders and sales to itb@univie.ac.at
With best regards,
Prof. Dr. Birgit Kellner
Director
Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia
Austrian Academy of Sciences
Hollandstrasse 11-13, 2. OG
A-1020 Vienna / Austria
Phone: (+43-1) 51581 / 6420
Fax: (+43-1) 51581 / 6410
http://ikga.oeaw.ac.at
Re: QUERY> Burma crisis, Buddhist crisis
by Magnus Fiskesjö
Hello and many thanks. Here on this list, what I was asking originally was about whether any Buddhists in Burma are opposing and debating the genocidal rhetoric of the ultranationalist fellow Buddhists who have been promoting the expulsion and killing of Muslim minority people in their country. But seems there is no such debate, at least not openly, and I was guessing in conclusion that this must be because most people in Burma now, including Buddhists and Buddhist clergy, if there are anyone opposed, they are afraid to speak against the prevailing atmosphere.
Some Buddhism experts I have spoken to off list are suggesting to me that the idea that Buddhism is for peace and against killing is just a naive Western misunderstanding, Buddhism historically has been closely involved in vicious violence and war, many times, so the current events in Burma are no surprise at all, in view of history.
About the general situation and public opinion, this is how I understand what happened:
There are obviously two governments in Burma, military and civilian. The civilian, Aung San Suu Kyi, was elected recently in elections that were given permission by the military only after they had imposed a constitution that deprives the civilian government of any say over the use of arms. The military is the more powerful of these two governments.
Aung San Suu Kyi after she was elected said she wants ethnic reconciliation, and she held some meetings and made some efforts to that effect, including appointing Kofi Annan, the former UN sec-gen, to a commission that has proposed reconciliation in Rakhine, the province where the Rohingya minority lives (lived).
Those efforts have now been overwhelmed by the military's massive ethnic cleansing campaign since August, which was enabled by the wave of ultranationalist propaganda led by Buddhist monks, inciting hatred and violence with often genocide-style rhetoric.
It was in this public opinion climate that the ethnic cleansing campaign, since August 25, was executed by the military. The wide public support brought about not least by Facebook spreading the propaganda of the repugnant propagandists. Many in the civilian government, including ministers, have also condoned racist, discriminatory views. The military commanders obviously share the opinions of the extremist nationalist monks.
Presented with the fait accompli of the brutal ethnic cleansing campaign that this time has expelled 600,000 of her countrymen, making the number of them expelled from her country rise to around a million total, Aung San Suu Kyi then, on 19 september gave that speech where she tried to defer judgment of responsibility, saying we have to find out "why" these people fled, as if the answer was not readily available from multiple publicly available lines of evidence, not least how the commander in chief of the armed forces had pre-empted her speech by justifying the campaign in terms of how these people he was busy expelling "do not belong"; but also detailed refugee accounts, journalist witnesses, and satellite imagery of the large number of villages burned to the ground. Thus in the eyes of much of the world, the speech makes Aung San Suu Kyi complicit in the crimes against humanity that have been committed, which takes away much, if not most, of her credibility internationally.
Why would she give such a speech then? I can only guess that it may have been because she too cannot oppose the military, or the prevailing general climate of hatred whipped up against the Muslim minorities. Or, she herself shares these opinions to some extent (there are some hints of this). Also, and perhaps most decisively, if she critizised the military it would have been to admit that her government is not in charge of her country, and the military may simply have cancelled her government and re-imposed military rule, the next day,
But, it is true that the speech was also the first time that she expressed any sympathy for the refugees, and it is also true that she said refugees can come back. (The military, which seems to have been working for a "final solution" by killing or expelling everyone in that area, must have been angry about that). And indeed, talks with Bangladesh have been taking place. They are, however, overshadowed by her own minister's pronouncement that only those with the right paperwork will be allowed back. Since the refugees fled burning houses, and since they won't be able to keep any papers in the mud and rain of the camps across the border, this suggests to many that the talk of refugee return is only a sham. And, the outgoing refugee flow has continued right up until now, because the refugees still fear for their life.
I too would be happy to see the refugees returned and have their villages reconstructed and peace returned. But it seems that it would require the Burmese army to turn around to change policy, to organize the return of the refugees that they just expelled. I am doubtful they will do this, since their hateful rhetoric, especially the tactic of conflating the hundreds of thousands civilian refugees with "terrorists," remains the same, and they control the arms and the border.
As for implementing the recommendations for reconciliation from Kofi Annan's Rakhine commission, it seems doubtful too, since the population to be reconciled has been largely expelled now. It seems the return of refugees would have to come first, as a first step, and Burma's government budget would have to be redirected in part to returning the refugees, to feeding them and rebuilding their homes.
It is a very sad chapter in world history, and ominous. At first when this was playing out in August-September I was still hoping that Aung San Suu Kyi would rise to the occasion and speak up for humanity and decency in some dramatic way. I was imagining she would commandeer a helicopter and go to the refugee camps in Bangladesh and tell the refugees I am with you, we are all the same, you will come back, this is not what my country is. Some dramatic action like that, in defense of human rights, would have been a powerful statement in this historical moment, against the current worldwide rising wave of discrimination and selfishness and ethnocentrism and nationalism. But she did not/could not rise to the occasion in such a way. Instead she seems to have felt she was forced to shrink herself into the reduced position she has now. That's ominous.
The most likely prospect now for the future seems to be a Palestinian-like situation of enormous semi-permanent refugee camps, a stain on Burma which may well deteriorate back into some sort of military regime, and for the world, further lowered prospects for a politics of humanity and decency. It certainly strengthens the sense that we're "back in the 1930s."
Yrs,
Magnus
JOBS> H-Net Job Guide Weekly Report For H-Buddhism: 23 October - 30 October
by Franz Metcalf
The
following jobs were posted to the H-Net Job Guide from 23 October 2017 to 30
October 2017. These job postings are included here based on the categories
selected by the list editors for H-Buddhism. See the H-Net Job Guide website at
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/
for more information. To contact the Job Guide, write to jobguide@mail.h-net.msu.edu,
or call +1-517-432-5134 between 9 am and 5 pm US Eastern time.ANTHROPOLOGY
Lahore University of Management Sciences - Full-time, Tenure-Track, Assistant Professor for History; Full-time, Tenure-Track, Assistant Professor for Social/Cultural Anthropology and Sociology; Potentially Tenure-Track, One Year, Faculty Position in the Political Science Department
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55897
National Chengchi University - Associate Professor / Professor with specialization in Ethnology, Anthropology and/or related Humanities and Social Sciences fields
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55931
University of Houston - Chair of the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55965
ASIAN HISTORY / STUDIES
City University of Hong Kong - Chair Professor/Professor/Associate Professor/Assistant Professor (Comparative Politics)
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55932
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science - "Writing Up" Predoctoral Fellowship
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55969
Nazarbayev University - Open-rank faculty position in pre-modern Asian studies
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55942
DIGITAL HUMANITIES
Grand Valley State University - Tenure-track Assistant Professor in African American Studies and Digital Studies
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55962
INTELLECTUAL HISTORY
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science - "Writing Up" Predoctoral Fellowship
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55969
University of Cambridge - Professorship of the History of Political Thought
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55952
RELIGIOUS STUDIES AND THEOLOGY
University of Chicago - History of Religions
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55958
NONE
Arizona State University - Tenure track Assistant Professor in Art/Science Nexus Job #12165
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55974
Brooklyn College - Full Time Positions
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55953
Brooklyn College - Instructor, Assistant, or Associate Professor - Critical Thinking
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55954
Brooklyn College - Carol Zicklin Chair in Honors Academy (Visiting Associate or Full Professor)
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55968
KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) - Tenure-Track Faculty Position at KAIST
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55966
Kenyon College - Visiting Assistant Professor
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55970
North Dakota State University - Dean
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55944
Quest University Canada - Seven full time continuing faculty positions
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55959
University of South Carolina - Columbia - Assistant Professor in Environment and Race
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55972
RESOURCE> October 2017 Update report for Digital Dictionary of Buddhism and CJKV-E Dictionary
by Charles Muller
Dear Colleagues,The October 2017 update report for the DDB and CJKV-E is here:
http://www.buddhism-dict.net/ddb/monthlies/ddbcjkveMonthly2017-10.html
Regards,
Chuck
