Religion and Politics

“Our Duty to Fight”: The Rise of Militant Buddhism

Hannah Beech of The New York Times reports on radical religious-nationalist movements in Sri Lanka and Myanmar, two Buddhist-majority nations where militant strains of Buddhism are taking hold. Politically powerful monks warn that Buddhist populations are under siege, inspiring Buddhist mobs to attack Muslim minority populations. Beech writes, “As the tectonic plates of Buddhism and Islam collide, a portion of Buddhists are abandoning the peaceful tenets of their religion.”

Read at The New York Times

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