Buddhist racism is wrong.

I want to express my sorrow and frustration at the ongoing oppression of the Rohingya. I was reporting on the plight of the Rohingya in Burma and the Chakma in Bangladesh way back in 1990, when Jonathan Goldman and I ran the Emma Goldman Memorial Tea Hour radio show in Chicago.

This is post-colonial politics at its worst. It should not surprise any historian that in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, both former British colonies where traditional Buddhist polities were overthrown by administrators and undercut by state-sponsored missionaries, ethnic nationalist movements should adopt Buddhism as an ideological justification. That does not in any way excuse the use of Buddhist language to justify killing. The first precept is non-harm: intentional harming, or the promotion of intentional harm, is a an offence that is ontologically incompatible with taking the vows transmitted by the Buddhas or wearing the robes of a nun or monk. Ashin Wirathu’s revolting use of Buddhism as a veil for xenophobia is a stain on all other institutionalised forms of Buddhism.

Many people who saw the Dharma as a refuge against confusion and the Sangha as a refuge against bitterness will now turn away from the Three Jewels, and they are right to do so, especially if turning away from an institutional form of Buddhism allows them to continue to practice according to its highest aspirations. I will not abjure Buddhism because some monks or nuns happen to be murderous thugs; for me the long and complex history of the Three Jewels in this suffering world has always been tangled up with their appropriation and misuse by angry, greedy, stupid beings. As a student and teacher who has been fortunate enough to have wonderful teachers and inspiring students, this is not the moment to abandon my duties to both.

It does, however, sadden me no end to see that Daw Suu has not yet found the strength to step back from the horrors that she is condoning. Yes, the serious challenges of Rakhine state and of the Rohingyas are a colonial legacy gifted to Myanmar, but that is not somehow an excuse. She has struggled for many decades to become the moral compass of a post-colonial state that has the obligation to accept all its population as its citizens. By remaining silent she is corrupting everything she achieved on behalf of post-colonial (and Buddhist) statecraft within and outwith Myanmar. She must speak out now against the oppression of the Rohingya, even if it costs her all her hard-won political influence with the generals and electorate. Anything less condones the killing, legitimates Ma Ba Tha, and will encourage other comparable Buddhist ethnic nationalist movements (such as the Bodhu Bala Sena) to promote ethnic violence.