The new Pharoah: Egypt's Morsi

Pfc. Sandoval, Ashley Wells, Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

Africa's Great Pyramid and Sphinx pre-MSG destruction (trekearth.com)

 

White House congratulates Morsi (politico.com)

I never liked Morrissey, except that one song in which he says, "Sweetness, I was only joking when I said by rights you should be bludgeoned in your bed" (The Smiths' "Bigmouth Strikes Again"). Mohamed Morsi is sort of the same.

What is the best way to a stable democracy? Set up a police state. For "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance," a slogan beloved by American and Israeli militants of all stripes, particularly underground moles in nuclear mountain vaults and secret subterranean military installations ready to push The Button(s). Marines, grunts, death-from-above squadrons, and the cavalry in league with paramilitary city squad cars, they love this slogan. This is constant vigilantism, and they are paid vigilantes opposing all who question and agitate.

Outrage over police troopers beating Blue Bra Egyptian protester unconscious during Arab Spring that deposed Mubarak (and Zahi Hawass) and saw the rise of Morsi (myweku.com)

 

Girls of Egypt Rally (NP)

A new hope, a new Mohamed for Egypt, Morsi came in with the potential of making a real change. But real change simply cannot be tolerated. The current set up is too profitable and too strategically advantageous to alter. The Israeli government is laughing to have the spotlight taken off it.
  
Oh, Mo, you bigmouth. Do you know how Joan of Arc felt? The Arab Spring was supposed to be different, but we maintain that it could never have actually happened without MIC (military-industrial complex) approval and complicity.

Freedom post Arab Spring? Not yet.

Protesters do not run Facebook and Twitter, the alleged new social media "little guys" that enabled this revolution; the CIA and NSA do.

G-Ogle it. (A G-Man, according to John B. Wells, is a Government Man, code for a clandestine federal agent, and ogle is to look or watch intently, as in leer, and it is well known that Google is a CIA spying platform, likely from the start, possibly by infiltration as it started to dominate and control Web searching).

  

But it's just "temporary"?
Reuters via Huffington Post (Nov. 25, 2012)

Rioting in Cairo over Morsi's decrees (AP)

The Egyptian presidency said on Sunday [today] it was committed to engaging "all political forces" to reach common ground on the constitution and stressed the "temporary nature" of a decree expanding President Mohamed Mursi's powers [something Morsi himself decreed by fiat].  "This declaration is deemed necessary in order to hold accountable those responsible for the corruption as well as other crimes during the previous regime and the transitional period," the presidency said in a statement. [In other words, using our handy cereal box Decoder Ring, "Morsi may have to burn the village to save the village," War on Vietnam style.]

The Blue Bra Incident Contest (allpoetry.com)

• PHOTOS: Rioting in response to yet another dictator
• The Fall of Pharoah Zahi "Indiana Jones" Hawass
• VeteransForPeace.org
• WarIsALie.org

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Beauty and Atrocity in Burma

Wisdom Quarterly; The Irrawaddy Magazine (irrawaddy.org)

Burma's beautiful Shwedagon Pagoda: 360° aerial panorama (airpano.com)

Burma has unspoiled beaches (protected by war) and reefs beyond our widlest dreams like southern Thailand's Phuket and India's secretive Andaman Island (azamaraclubcruises.com)

  

Who is this lady?

Buddhists are right (monks rally to stand against the totalitarian government in a rebellion known as the Saffron Revolution), Buddhists are wrong (mobs of villagers attack Muslim Rohingya minority along border with Bangladesh). 

  

The Lady Aung San Suu Kyi (shown left) is released from house arrest and wins a seat in Parliament, and along with her new best friend Hillary Clinton she remains silent on the military massacre of the Rohingya by a military-government that considers them "illegal aliens" or, more correctly, native non-citizens like an indigenous group running afoul of the majority culture.
 

Shwedagon by night, built to house the Buddha's hair relics (beauty-places.com)

  
Tragically there is also silence about other ethnic minorities, such as the Karen and Rakhine, particularly along the border with Thailand. If only there were a website showing the Buddhist beauty and military horror of Burma. Wait. There's The Irrawaddy Magazine. There's USCampaignforBurma.org. There's the BurmaCampaign.org.uk. There's BurmaDigest.org. And the BBC does a decent job of covering the region. News on the Rohingya can be found in the Bangladeshi press.

Great arhat Sivali, symbol of luck and abundance

• Buddhists go on murderous rampage?
• Burma's amazing ethnic Karen people
• Riots in Burma: Buddhists vs. Muslims
• Burma's secret Muslim genocide 
• Burmese refugees' grim future in Bangladesh
• Travel to Burma, Andaman Isle, Thailand, Singapore

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Peaceful Buddhists on murderous rampage?

Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Abbot Ven. Karunananda, Ph.D., Bodhi Vihara

In this anti-Buddhist propaganda photo suggesting Buddhists monks (Tibetan lamas) are up to no good standing among corpses, what is really happening is quite the opposite. Lamas were brought in to bless and comfort victims after a massive Himalayan landslide in Tibet -- in this inflammatory, undated photo tagged with a url link to a video reporting atrocities committed against Burma's minority Muslim Rohingyas, which the world seems to be ignoring: tinyurl.com/93hqzme.

    

UPDATE: The editors of Wisdom Quarterly are not apologists (defenders the faith ready to explain any and every negative thing away). If monastics or  nominal lay "Buddhists" harm others, we report it. Reports have reached us that Buddhists did NOT go on murderous rampages. They might have, but there is a more plausible explanation. Rohingyas are in a tense stand off with their coompatriot neighbors, Burmese Buddhist villagers and co-religionist Muslims in nearby Bangladesh. Buddhists are angry about a sensational rape of a Buddhist female by Rohingya boys, ongoing drug dealing, and general anti-social behavior. But it is alleged that Rohingyas set fire to their own villages using gun powder provided to them from some outside source agitating for change. Rohingyas want to have their plight recognized, so they had to do something to get sympathy and vital humanitarian relief from either the world in general or Bangladeshi officials in particular.

  

Burma has a history of massacring minorities.

The worldwide MIC (transnational military-industrial complex) has succeeded in sucking in some Buddhists, tragically pitting some poor Burmese villagers against their fellow countrymen, an ethnic minority known as the Rohingya. Neighboring Muslim Bangladesh has refused to help save lives and prevent this nascent genocide by admitting Rohingyas attempting to flee the violence, which goes both ways with Rohingyas attacking minority Bangladeshi Buddhist temples and villagers and majority Burmese Buddhists retaliating.

But this is not a simple case of neighbor-on-neighbor violence. Pres. Thien Sein of Burma has admitted that the monstrous Myanmar military -- which in 2007 attacked, imprisoned, and slaughtered uncounted Buddhist monks and pro-democracy protesters in the ongoing Saffron Revolution -- has been systematically executing Rohingya. The military junta headed by Burmese dictator Gen. Than Shwe have ruthlessly attacked and waged war against many of Burma's ethnic minorities, including Buddhists along the its mountainous borders with Thailand and China.

• Why are the Buddhists killing Muslims in Burma?
• The plight of the Rohingya
• Why is the world ignoring Myanmar's Rohingya?

What is going on?

Stop! Consider the consequences of shortsighted action (karma)! Hatred will never cease by hatred. Every gain will mean even more loss (Ahsanul Bari).

  
We go to Bangladeshi Buddhist abbot and scholar Ven. Karunananda, Ph.D. for comment. 

WQ: "Venerable sir, Buddhists are killing Muslims?"

VK: "Villagers are fighting, but this has absolutely nothing to do with religion. This is not a religious crusade or anything Buddhist monastics sponsor. Rohingya attacked Buddhists in Bangladesh; Buddhists in Burma are attacking Rohingya."

WQ: "Where is Hillary Clinton in all this?"

VK: "That is a good question."

WQ: "Worse yet, where is our heroine Nobel Peace Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi?"

VK: "This is a very delicate matter, very tragic."

There is a dictum in Buddhism that any person who attacks another is wrong to do so, but a person who retaliates is worse. Revenge is NOT justified in Buddhism, contrary to Western conceptions of God and Jewish-Christian ideals of vengeance, following a tribal God(s) into war against neighbors.

  

Fortunately, New Testament Christians speak of a new ideal (forgiveness) and a new God (Issa/Jesus) replacing the warring eye-for-any-eye mentality attributed to YHWH.

But many Christians in the West (US, UK, EU, and the Holy See) do not distinguish Old and New Testament Gods when it comes to such things as revenge, war, imperial-crusades, and ethnic-genocides. Conducting war in the name of One God (peruse the Christian Bible's Book of Judges if there's any doubt) and world domination is a mainstay in the Far West and, sadly, the Middle East as well.

  

The CIA can't make all this war without some help from a minority of Muslims bent on upholding the eye-for-an-eye mentality of monotheistic tradition. But to whom are we to attribute most of the violence in the world today?

Who does what?

(americanbedu.com)

Photographer Kombizz Kashani rhetorically asks: "Who started the first world war? Muslims?? Who started the second world war? Muslims?? Who killed ten million aborigines in Australia? Muslims?? Who dropped nuclear bombs on civilian [non-combatants] in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Muslims?? Who killed more than 100 million Native American-Indians in North America? Muslims?? Who killed more than 50 million indigenous-Indians in South America? Muslims?? Who trafficked ~180 million Africans as slaves with 88% of them dying or being thrown into the Atlantic?? Muslims??"

No, they weren't Muslims! They were mostly [nominal] Christians.

Let's define "terrorism." If a non-Muslim does something untoward, it's a "crime." But if a Muslim commits the exact same misdeed, it's "terrorism." We first have to disabuse ourselves of this biased double-standard.

• RohingyaSocietyInMalaysia.org

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What do Hip Hop and Islam have in common?

Michael Rass (TheWorld.org); Seven, Boo, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

"When I can finally drive and have my own car, I'm going to trick it out!" FEMEN protest advocates for women's rights for drivers in Islamic countries (cryptome.org)

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia - We have already seen that one can be a Buddhist and a gangsta rap fan, even going to extremes enjoying heavy (death) metal. But what do Hip Hop and Islam have in common? The World's Marco Werman speaks with passionate radio host Big Hass (Hassan Denawi), who has made it his mission to bring “true” Hip Hop to his country.

  

First of all, What does "Hip Hop" mean? Hip means "to know," to be hip, to be in on it. Hop means "to move," to dance, to get involved. So Hip Hop is quite literally about "conscious movement," at least it was originally. These modern rappers, who are more about the money and conspicuous consumption, are almost the antithesis of Hip Hop.

  

"Get hopping if you're hip to this jive, my b@#$%)(s!" (ABCNews/AP)

  

Jesus was Black says Bible (Rev 1:12-18)

Rooted in the poverty created by the USA's unspoken class-warfare, class-consciousness arose. American Islam in the Black community had more than a little something to do with that. Hip Hop's astounding popularity worldwide owes something to artists who are now more about bling-bling than the original thing. (We're looking at you, Kanye). So it goes both ways. 

  

There is still room for elevating consciousness, remembering Tupac and senseless Black-on-Black violence that supports the status quo, reading Michelle Alexander, modern slavery in America, and not caving in to the caricatured mass media representation of Black and urban culture in America.  

Asian Buddha statues with African features?

Buddhism, with its emphasis on freedom, wisdom, and compassion for our fellow beings -- and Islam, originally a religion of peace, have much in common. Of course, one would never know that watching TV or FOX News. Fortunately we still have the street, each other, and public radio like Pacifica and Public Radio International and its offshoots.

"Can you believe this brother, sister?"

(TED Talks in English) Big Hass on Hip Hop culture and Islam

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McDonald's goes vegetarian for India (video)

Tiffany Hsu (LATimes.com, Sept. 4, 2012) UPDATED
(NextVictim09) The evil Ronald McDimmu HamBorgir does something good for a change. (Norwegian black metal by Dimmu Borgir).

 

McDonald’s, that carnivore’s haven of beefy Big Macs and chicken McNuggets, is going vegetarian.

The fast food giant will open its first non-meat restaurant next year in India, in the Sikh holy city of Amritsar. The branch, to be located by the much-visited Golden Temple, will serve herbivore options tailored to the country’s cultural tastes, according to AFP.

 

Much of the Indian population avoids certain types of meat. Hindus consider cows sacred and don’t eat beef, while Muslims avoid pork. Indian McDonald’s restaurants already feature much less meat than the chain’s locations in other countries.
 

The company’s bestseller in India is the McAloo Tikki burger, which features a fried potato patty and is responsible for a quarter of sales. The chain has fewer than 300 branches in India -- a growing market for fast food that has already attracted competitors such as Subway, KFC and more.

  

Research in recent years suggest that Indians spend a quarter of their income on food, compared to the 1.5% they shell out for health issues.

  

Next up: Another vegetarian McDonald’s planned for Katra, a town near the Hindu pilgrimage site of Vaishno Devi.

The company has long customized menus to its host country. There are kosher McDonald’s in Israel and Buenos Aires, McBaguettes in France, McArabia pita-style sandwiches in the Middle East and more. More

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Real "fasting" for Ramadan

Sabadabadooo (The Brown Girl Chronicles) 

Moderate fasting help many paths to meditation

In light of Ramadan, now that Boudicaspeaks [almost as if the Bouddha, rather than Boudica, were speaking] has given you an overview of fasting beyond just no food or drink, I feel the need to discuss something that I strive to do any time of the year: 

  

Remembering GOD or zikr. However, for me the intensification of Remembering God is a different one this year. Many will say that fasting helps do this, but I have found it is all about first silencing the mind, and then intensifying that silence with the hunger. I mean, being hungry and tired surely brings about silence, but I still have yet to reach that truly meditative silence.
 

“Silence is the Language of God,

All Else is Poor Translation” 

-Rumi

   

Persian mystic poet Rumi (Hossein Behzad)

No matter what state of spirituality I am in (and I do not believe in stages, but rather highs and lows), zikr reminds me of the source of spiritual refuge in this universe, regardless of what religion people classify themselves under.

Rather than trying to push forward our own views about right and wrong and the way people ought to live, it may just help to simply be silent, both physically and even mentally (and I can relate to mentally with my constantly wandering mind). More

“Out beyond ideas of right and wrong,
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.  

When the soul lies down in that grass,

The world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other

Does not make any sense.”

-Rumi (A Shot of Zen)

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Children tortured in underground Islamic cult

Muslim "catacomb sect" faces cruelty charges

Four members of a breakaway Russian Muslim sect in Russia's Tatarstan region have been charged with cruelty against children for allegedly keeping them underground.

  
Police discovered 27 children and 38 adults living in catacomb-like cells in  an eight-level underground bunker.
  

The sect's elderly leader, Faizrakhman Sattarov, had reportedly wanted to  build his own Islamic caliphate beneath the ground.

   

Prosecutors said some of the children had lived there for more than a  decade. The sect was uncovered last week in a suburb of the city of Kazan during an  investigation into recent attacks on Muslim clerics in Tatarstan, a mainly Muslim region on the River Volga. 

  

Mr. Sattarov, who had declared himself a Muslim prophet, has been charged with  the crime of "arbitrariness," a broad crime that covers "actions contrary to the  order presented by a law." No immediate reaction to the charges was reported.

   

"Divine light"

Nineteen underage children were removed by the Russian authorities, some of  them placed in care, others in [the] hospital, Russian government-owned newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta reports. More

US nuns won't "compromise" mission 

Russian Church defiant over Pussy Riot trial 

Funeral for Sikh shooting victims 

First Palestinian male ballet dancer battles prejudices
VIDEO: Massive snake (naga) caught in Florida

Robot pack mule unveiled in US Watch
Passenger film captures plane crash Watch
One-minute World News Watch
India’s battle with malnutrition
Ghana's President Atta Mills dies
Thousands mourn Ghana's president
Rocketman remembers Olympic flight

• Sweet Islam feeds the needy with food drive
• A Meeting to End World Hunger 
• PHOTOS: LA-area Muslims help Skid Row homeless
• Tatarstan sees Islamist threat
• Arrests in Russian Muslim inquiry

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Another MC attacks Sikh temple in US

UPDATED 8/8; Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS)

Guru Nanak and nine other famous Sikh teachers. (Dev and ji are simply Indian honorifics).

   

OAK CREEK, Wisconsin - Well that didn't take long. Two weeks ago horrified Americans were shouting "Never again," and we were adding, "until the next time." Another Manchurian Candidate (MC) has been loosed upon civil society to create random mayhem and sow the seeds of fear.

• NEVER AGAIN (until the next time)
• 7 shot dead at Sikh temple
• Sikh temple massacre by white supremacist
• Holmes: "How does 'Dark Knight' end?"

Successful PsyOps candidate Page

Islamophobia figures into it, just as it did in Norway, because the first person shooter (whom police claim to have executed or "put down" when it seems, in fact, he followed his programming and committed suicide) was a white supremacist. He, Wade Michael Page, was also a military man with a checkered past that makes ordinary who would not be expected to have moved up the ranks if he were simply an enlisted man. And what did he do for the military-industrial complex (MIC)? PsyOps!

Now PsyOps (the propaganda arm of the MIC that runs black projects under the general heading of "psychological operations") must be getting pretty sloppy. Two weeks ago their MC was triggered to attack, that is, to methodically launch a finely tuned plan with no emotion, no thought, and very little if anything to remember.

  

Holmes medicated into silence

Once in custody the MC is chemically lobotomized to prevent any uncomfortable memories from creeping in and leaking to the public. It happened to wild-eyed Jared Loughner (who is "pleading guilty" while medicated out of his mind), the Gabby Gifford shooter, and James "the Joker" Holmes, the Aurora gunman.

Why do these things happen?

Why would anyone attack Sikhs (pronounced sEEks, not sICks), a small religion popular in India with many financially successful adherents, which seems to blend cultural elements of Hinduism and Sufism (mystic Islam). Kundalini Yoga as brought to America by the charismatic "Yogi Tea" magnate Yogi Bhajan is not "yoga" in the traditional Brahminical sense. Rather, it is a Sikh creation that has become very popular in the US thanks to female American converts like Gurmukh). Sikhism has, however, nothing to do with actual Islam. But appearances matter as much as assumptions: Turbans, uncut beards, white linen clothing -- it's all enough to earn them the pejorative "towel h*ads" and more disturbing militaristic ethnic slurs like Hajji, a term roughly equivalent to "gooks," employed by US soldiers committing war crimes during the US war on Vietnam. So was the hateful vocalist Page really out to avenge 9/11 or continue his military training as a civilian? Working in PsyOps it is more likely that he was hoisted by his own petard. He went from researcher to research subject without signing an informed consent release. The process of converting certain personality types, tested for by military psychiatrists, has been perfected since the idea of creating one or two man sleeper cells (along with their above top secret handlers) was born. The Russians apparently did it; the military-industrial complex does it. It is all part of "winning hearts and minds" (WHAM) by scaring up and inciting civilian support for US military atrocities. If draconian police state tactics are now suggested "for our security," who will oppose it? One must suppose that the NRA (National Rifle Association) will as well as both corporate wings of the Republican party (i.e., Obamas and Romneys). Gun control? Take guns out of the hands of scared citizens and put them in the hands of abusive police. This country does not grow richer every year manufacturing arms for the world by allowing greater regulations without a fight. In fact, any peace talk is actually thwarted rather than aided by US intervention, which coincidentally profits Democratic and Republican candidates' corporate supporters.

Gurmukh, owner of Golden Bridge Yoga in Hollywood, discusses friendship

  
Such events, then, pay off in many ways: the imposition of Orwellian regulations, loss of civil liberties, further encroachment of federal Big Brother style government into our lives, acceptance of endless war doctrine (fighting against tactics such as "terrorism" rather than finite countries), widespread panic, irrational fear-based behavior by citizenry (like increased gun sales to prevent more killings when guns can only attempt to do that by killing), xenophobia goes unremedied as "in" and "out" groups are further delineated, increased pharmaceutical sales (by citizens, shooters, police, military, and future candidates)... There is a great deal of money to be made because of fear, arms manufacturing being the most obvious. With that being the case, how can "peace" be tolerated?

• Man crushes cop cars after pot bust
• Doomsday Alert: the New Noah's Ark
• Global warming and FBI secrets 
• "The perfect storm is unfolding," economist warns
• [Bi] Obamas’ marriage produces WH drama, dysfunction
• Economist: “This is going to be a lot worse than 2008”

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Asian-Americans and Religion (Pew Forum)

Leslie Berestein Rojas (MultiAmerican.SCPR.org); Pew Forum

One-in-seven Americans are now Buddhists. Most in the US are fluid and searching.

  

A month after a Pew Research Center report on Asians becoming the nation’s fastest-growing immigrant group faced criticism for downplaying Asian Americans’ diversity, Pew has come back with a new report that focuses on the diversity of their religious beliefs.

   

While it does not address the socioeconomic and educational diversity and disparities that critics pointed out in the last month, the report from the Pew Forum on Religious & Public Life does adjust some misperceptions, while revealing several facts that are not particularly well known beyond Asian American diasporas. Here’s [some]: 

• Asian Americans are neither predominantly Buddhist nor Hindu.
• In the United States, there are more Asian Americans who are Christian (42 percent) than any other religion.
• Many of these Christians are Filipinos, who are traditionally Catholic, and Koreans, many of whom are Protestant.
• The percentage of Buddhists (14 percent), Hindus (10 percent), and Muslims (4 percent) is small by comparison. 

Labels do not really tell us what people believe.

Still, as migration from Asia has increased, so has the the nation’s share of Buddhists and Hindus. 

   

Buddhists now account for one in seven Americans, according to the report, and counted together, the share of Americans who practice Buddhism and Hinduism is about the same as that of those practicing Judaism (about 2 percent).

  

At the same time, in contrast, a large share (26 percent) of Asian Americans consider themselves “unaffiliated,” that is, not practicing any particular religion. More

   

We have a choice, even if our choice is "none."

  

Asian Americans: A Mosaic of Faiths 

Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (pewforum.org)

When it comes to religion, the Asian-American community is a study in contrasts, encompassing groups that run the gamut from highly religious to highly secular. A new survey report examines the Asian-American population from the angle of religious affiliation, highlighting the beliefs, practices and views of diverse faith groups. More

• The Dalai Lama's generosity in San Diego 
• Pew study says politics now divides Americans more than race
• Pew Poll: Trust In Government Hits Near-Historic Low
  New Pew report says one in five adults doesn't use the Internet

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Mob in Maldives destroys Buddhist history

Hawwa Lubna (Minivannews.com,  Feb. 9, 2012)

The Maldives is a formerly Buddhist nation of many islands (travel.nationalgeographic.com)

   

Several historical artifacts exhibited at the Maldives National Museum, including Buddhist statues were destroyed in a mob attack on Wednesday morning, an act of vandalism that is said to have caused “unimaginable damage” to the treasured Maldivian heritage.

  

Underwater restaurant (sweetydesign.com)

Speaking to Minivan News, a museum official said that a group of five to six men stormed into the building twice, “deliberately targeted the Buddhist relics and ruins of monasteries exhibited in the pre-Islamic collection, destroying most items “beyond repair.”

   

The official said that the details of the damage cannot be released as the police have asked the museum to withhold the information until the investigation into the attack is pending. “But I can say that attackers have done unimaginable damage,” he added.

  

Museum pieces showing pre-Islamic history

“This is not like a glass we use at home that can be replaced by buying a new one from a shop. These are originals from our ancestors’ time. These cannot be replaced ever again,” the official exclaimed.

   

According to a source, a coral stone head of [the] Buddha, an 11th century piece recovered from Thoddoo in Alifu Atoll, was smashed by the attackers, one of the most significant pieces at the museum inside Sultan’s Park.

   

The museum was built with Chinese government aid and opened on July 26, 2010.

   

Other pieces vandalized include the Bohomala sculptures, monkey statues, and a broken statue piece of the Hindu water god, Makara, while the two five faced statues discovered from [the capital island] Male’ were also damaged -- the only remaining archaeological evidence proving the existence of a Buddhist era in the Maldives.

   

...The attack on the museum coincided with the political unrest that escalated in Male’ during the late hours of Tuesday night, after a group of police and military men allegedly joined the opposition protesters, forcing Former President Mohamed Nasheed to resign the following day.

    

AFP reported Nasheed as saying that the vandals included Islamist hardliners who had attacked the museum because they believed some of the statues inside were “idolatrous.” More
   

Are we being led to hate and war?

Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

Peace Buddha (BuddhaIsland.net)

Imagine a world that makes dictators acceptable by talking about their advances in sanitation, monetary policy, education, and the treatment of women -- only to turn around when they are no longer useful to the Powers That Be, and have them condemned in the media to foment the urge for war. It happened with Saddam Hussein (Iraq), Moammar Qaddafi (Libya), Hosni Mubarak (Egypt), Bashir al Assad (Syria), Mahmoud Ahmedinejad (Iran)... The military-industrial complex, apparently a multinational group run by various clandestine agencies in the West (primarily in the US and UK), is responsible for a great deal of psychological operations (propaganda) preceding war. We were encouraged to hate the "Taliban" as a rationale to accept the slaughter of hundreds of thousands in Afghanistan. We are still played for fools by being made afraid of another CIA-creation, "Al Qaeda." Is Syria's Assad a monster? No more so than he or any Western-installed, funded, and manipulated dictator ever was. So why is it they are suddenly vilified? Why are we encouraged to root for their assassination, deposition, and replacement (with another equally vile puppet of the Powers that Be)? Now even the minor paradise being inundated by climate chaos is dragged into our strategic global initiative to rule with full spectrum dominance. We say no. Hate only begets hate. Is does not justify war, intervention, or installing dictators anywhere on the planet. The powers will do what they do, but let us be mindful instead of playing into the trap of endless war. Why? There is no sense in saving Buddha statues if we do not save the Buddha's message of peace, clarity, and compassion.

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