Potential Buddhist bulwark

[Bob_Crowley]

I’m reading a fairly old novel called “The Ambassador” by Morris West, an Australian writer who died a few years ago. It’s taken from the point of view of the American ambassador in the early days of the Vietnam war, leading up to the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, the president of South Vietnam in a CIA backed coup.

In the novel, West refers to Diem as Cung, since it is allegedly fiction. But I suspect it’s got a lot of factual basis behind it. Diem was assassinated late in 1963; West wrote the novel by 1965, so it was based on very fresh history at the time. West incidentally was a Catholic - he once studied for the priesthood, but pulled out. However he always had a strong interest in religious affairs, and lived for some time in Italy, home of the Catholic Church.

He portrayed the American ambassador as dabbling in Zen Buddhism for example since he had been posted in Japan before being asked to go to Vietnam.

One of the more important reasons Diem was assassinated was that South Vietnam’s Buddhist majority had long been discontented with Diem’s strong favouritism towards Catholics. I won’t go into that now, but it set off a train of thought.

It’s obvious there’s a show down looming between Islam and the West, and by extension Christianity. So far the Moslems haven’t been particularly violent in Buddhist societies to the best of my knowledge, but it’s only a matter of time before they start trying to evangelise Buddhist nations and cultures, either by stealth or force.

This includes China and Japan with their variants of Buddhism, despite Communism in China and Japanese technological ability and Westernisation. The South East nations of Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam are heavily Buddhist in thinking, even if Vietnam and others have communist or socialist governments.

It seems to me that the West, and the Church, should be making strong moves towards cementing ties with Buddhists, both in religious and political ways. The way I see it, they could well be a major bulwark against Moslem aggression in the long term.

Anybody else have any thoughts on the matter?

 

[ChadS]

It’s an interesting thought that doesn’t really stand up well.

There’s no reason for the West to seek out Buddhist nations as some bulwark against Islam. The reason the U.S. was in Vietnam was that it was believed that preventing Vietnam from becoming communist was that it was critical to prevent as much of SE Asia from aligning itself with the USSR. Both sides during the Cold War fought these types of proxy wars in both the Middle East and Africa, trying to get these newly formed countries to choose sides and they usually went with who offered the most in aid. Right now the strategic orientation of this country is focused on the Middle East and the Buddhist countries don’t have the capital or the clout to effect much change in the region, and sometimes can’t always protect themselves from internal rebels or uprisings.

Also, we tend to forget that Islam, in its infancy, spread eastward as well. Besides the Christian communities in the Middle East and Europe it rubbed up against it butted heads with Buddhists to the east. Parts of Afghanistan, Persia and India had flourishing Buddhist civilizations along with areas in China, Turkey and many of the former Soviet republics. These areas quickly fell to Islam. So while there may be no current Islamic encroachments upon Buddhist societies there certainly were many in the earliest parts of Islamic history.

ChadS

 

[Sufjon]

I’m reading a fairly old novel called “The Ambassador” by Morris West, an Australian writer who died a few years ago. It’s taken from the point of view of the American ambassador in the early days of the Vietnam war, leading up to the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, the president of South Vietnam in a CIA backed coup.

In the novel, West refers to Diem as Cung, since it is allegedly fiction. But I suspect it’s got a lot of factual basis behind it. Diem was assassinated late in 1963; West wrote the novel by 1965, so it was based on very fresh history at the time. West incidentally was a Catholic - he once studied for the priesthood, but pulled out. However he always had a strong interest in religious affairs, and lived for some time in Italy, home of the Catholic Church.

He portrayed the American ambassador as dabbling in Zen Buddhism for example since he had been posted in Japan before being asked to go to Vietnam.

One of the more important reasons Diem was assassinated was that South Vietnam’s Buddhist majority had long been discontented with Diem’s strong favouritism towards Catholics. I won’t go into that now, but it set off a train of thought.

It’s obvious there’s a show down looming between Islam and the West, and by extension Christianity. So far the Moslems haven’t been particularly violent in Buddhist societies to the best of my knowledge, but it’s only a matter of time before they start trying to evangelise Buddhist nations and cultures, either by stealth or force.

This includes China and Japan with their variants of Buddhism, despite Communism in China and Japanese technological ability and Westernisation. The South East nations of Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam are heavily Buddhist in thinking, even if Vietnam and others have communist or socialist governments.

It seems to me that the West, and the Church, should be making strong moves towards cementing ties with Buddhists, both in religious and political ways. The way I see it, they could well be a major bulwark against Moslem aggression in the long term.

Anybody else have any thoughts on the matter?

That’s an interesting question Bib. I don’t know the answer, but I think the friction between Islam and Christianity has long and deep roots. The two have been, and are likely to continue to be busy enough with one another in the near and long term to the extent that there is likely to be little interest in non-Abrahamic religions among Christians and Muslims. Another important factor from a social perspective is that non-Christian nations don’t generally have a lot of military installations in Muslim countries, and have staged few if any invasions into Muslim nations of late. Additionally, countries with predominantly Buddhist populations are generally not staunch supporters of Israel, at least overtly. Such activities have probably helped excite the sensitivities of Muslim activists, and generally don’t represent the behavior of most non-Abrahamic nations. It does not give people excuses for committing terrorist acts or aggression in return. There is no excuse for that, however, it is easy to see cause and effect.

It doesn’t seem likely to me that many Buddhist nations will have much interest in becoming cannon fodder in the ages old struggle between Islam and Christianity. If Christianity had something to offer Buddhists or other non-Christian religions, maybe that could be a possibility, but I can’t think of what that would be. Anyway, that’s just my opinion.

Your friend
Sufjon

 

[Sufjon]

That’s an interesting question Bib. I don’t know the answer, but I think the friction between Islam and Christianity has long and deep roots. The two have been, and are likely to continue to be busy enough with one another in the near and long term to the extent that there is likely to be little interest in non-Abrahamic religions among Christians and Muslims. Another important factor from a social perspective is that non-Christian nations don’t generally have a lot of military installations in Muslim countries, and have staged few if any invasions into Muslim nations of late. Additionally, countries with predominantly Buddhist populations are generally not staunch supporters of Israel, at least overtly. Such activities have probably helped excite the sensitivities of Muslim activists, and generally don’t represent the behavior of most non-Abrahamic nations. It does not give people excuses for committing terrorist acts or aggression in return. There is no excuse for that, however, it is easy to see cause and effect.

It doesn’t seem likely to me that many Buddhist nations will have much interest in becoming cannon fodder in the ages old struggle between Islam and Christianity. If Christianity had something to offer Buddhists or other non-Christian religions, maybe that could be a possibility, but I can’t think of what that would be. Anyway, that’s just my opinion.

Your friend
Sufjon

I meant Bob, not Bib. Sorry. Fat fingered the keyboard. Bad Sufjon!!

 

[Nine_Two]

Its worthy of note that one of the reasons the West has trouble with local Muslims is that it has relatively easy immigration policies and most of the fanatics come from the middle or upper class. Outside of the West most countries are quite close, especially those which are traditionally Buddhist (this has nothing to do with Buddhism as far as I’m aware). Additionally these cultures don’t embrace individualism as Western nations do, even half-Christian Korea is not an individualist society. People are encouraged to live with the established society, rather than going on suicidal crusades to change it.

 

[Sufjon]

Its worthy of note that one of the reasons the West has trouble with local Muslims is that it has relatively easy immigration policies and most of the fanatics come from the middle or upper class. Outside of the West most countries are quite close, especially those which are traditionally Buddhist (this has nothing to do with Buddhism as far as I’m aware). Additionally these cultures don’t embrace individualism as Western nations do, even half-Christian Korea is not an individualist society. People are encouraged to live with the established society, rather than going on suicidal crusades to change it.

Good points.

Your friend
Sufjon