How the Rohingya Escaped

Unfortunately, most Americans don't understand that people may perceive them and our government this way.

To be honest with you, at least in my memory of news coverage from the 90s until the war ended, there was very little if any notice of your civil war or the plight of the people. The most attention Sri Lankans might have gotten from average Americans were either post-tsunami (even then, more focused on Thailand and Indonesia) or when MIA broke onto the music scene (a very small demographic).

I've been to parts of the world where 'USA' was used as graffiti and people loved us because of what we had done for them but the average American would be hard-pressed to identify what we saved them from, if even the where the country is.

There are massive arguments for isolationism once more in the country, and ceding both soft and hard power to other countries. Many people don't understand the good we have done in the world, as well as the bad.

You are definitely barking up the wrong tree if you think the current administration would have any interest but their own at heart.

What makes you think monks have no authority? I haven't been to Burma but I've been to Thailand which also practices theravada and monks are given an extreme amount of deference. You aren't supposed to talk back to them, when giving food in the morning to the monks you are supposed to bow and not make eye contact, monks are even included with pregnant women and the disabled as people with reserved seating on public transportation. The airports had many seats showing that they were for the elderly, pregnant, or monks only regardless of the monks age.

The locals did seem to treat it as more deference to the station than the person, I met someone who had been a monk and quit three times and his family treated him as a monk when he was a monk and as a regular guy when he wasn't. Beyond all that there are still obvious cults of personality where different monks gain a following that can be quite fervent.

It's simply because they have zero realization, that's not what the title means. Also evident in the article, they're clearly clueless.

What you're seeing in Thailand is respect for Buddhism itself, and a way to keep people interested in Buddhism. In Buddhism there are levels of realization, and a monk is a zero on that scale. Not sure how else to clarify. There are other titles, normally translated as Venerable, which should indicate at least some modest level of accomplishment. But to cite a monk as having any idea at all is fantasy, you just put on a robe, and anyone is suddenly a monk, no education or knowledge required, let alone realization.

The problem is that this reaction is at least somewhat understandable.

It may have something to do with how muslims treat buddhists (or any non-muslims), near Myanmar ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Banglad...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Pakista... (note: relevant because Pakistan used to be a neighbouring country to Myanmar/Burma)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_India

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India (you can argue which side instigated this ... except not really ... the issue started with the basic idea, pushed by muslims that muslims cannot live in a state they do not control (which is of course a rule in Sharia) ... and ended with somewhere between 2 and 10 million deaths, and that number is ignoring the fact that about 8 million Hindus that were in Pakistan in 1951 have "somehow" dropped to less than 2 million today despite very strong population growth)

But back to Myanmar, given the above backdrop, then this happens:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_insurgency_in_Western...

So whilst this is a very serious insurgency, can please establish in this discussion that:

1) the Rohingya are not looking for peace. They're trying to conquer (the land where they are a majority, but still they're trying to conquer it). That is the big source of tensions. This is a failed conquest, not an unprovoked ethnic/racist conflict.

2) the Rohingya islamist separatists have attempted to massacre Burmese cities. They have (thankfully) only failed attempts at a large scale massacre to show for it, but there is no doubting their intent, and there were plenty of victims (dozens to hundreds, depending on what numbers you believe).

3) the immediate cause of this conflict (the match that lit the fire) was a synchronized attack on 24 police stations in the state, resulting in the deaths of 24 police officers. This attack was perpetrated weeks after a Rohingya group of youngsters decided to murder a young woman (for reasons that probably had nothing to do with religion or ethnicity, but the event incited sectarian clashes).

Here's a wild thoery. This whole situation was an attempt by islamist separatist forces in Myanmar to create an ethnic conflict, because they believed it could result in their own state, or in an annexation of their region into Bangladesh. So they incite the riots, execute terror attacks, and attack the authorities in Myanmar, in very quick succession.

One slight issue: the conflict did not go their way.

And yes, this totally sucks for everyone. Most of all for the Rohingya themselves, but it really, really sucks for everyone. Every side in this conflict has hundreds of dead, and incredible damage inflicted that will take decades to rebuild.