1.
Myanmar
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Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and also known as Burma, is a sovereign state in South East Asia bordered by Bangladesh, India, China, Laos and Thailand. About one third of Myanmars total perimeter of 5,876 km, forms an uninterrupted coastline of 1,930 km along the Bay of Bengal, the countrys 2014 census revealed a much lower population than expected, with 51 million people recorded. Myanmar is 676,578 square kilometres in size and its capital city is Naypyidaw and its largest city and former capital city is Yangon. Early civilizations in Myanmar included the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu city-states in Upper Burma, the Pagan Kingdom fell due to the Mongol invasions and several warring states emerged. In the 16th century, reunified by the Taungoo Dynasty, the country was for a period the largest empire in the history of Mainland Southeast Asia. The early 19th century Konbaung Dynasty ruled over an area included modern Myanmar and briefly controlled Manipur. The British invaded Myanmar after three Anglo-Burmese Wars in the 19th century and the became a British colony. Myanmar became an independent nation in 1948, initially as a nation and then, following a coup détat in 1962. For most of its independent years, the country has been engrossed in rampant ethnic strife, during this time, the United Nations and several other organisations have reported consistent and systematic human rights violations in the country. In 2011, the junta was officially dissolved following a 2010 general election. While former military leaders still wield enormous power in the country, there is, however, continuing criticism of the governments treatment of the Muslim Rohingya minority and its poor response to the religious clashes. In the landmark 2015 election, Aung San Suu Kyis party won a majority in both houses, Myanmar is a country rich in jade and gems, oil, natural gas and other mineral resources. In 2013, its GDP stood at US$56.7 billion, the income gap in Myanmar is among the widest in the world, as a large proportion of the economy is controlled by supporters of the former military government. As of 2016, according to the Human Development Index, Myanmar had a level of human development. The renaming remains a contested issue, many political and ethnic opposition groups and countries continue to use Burma because they do not recognise the legitimacy of the ruling military government or its authority to rename the country. The countrys official name is the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. Countries that do not officially recognise that name use the long form Union of Burma instead, in English, the country is popularly known as either Burma or Myanmar /ˈmjɑːnˌmɑːr/. Both these names are derived from the name of the majority Burmese Bamar ethnic group, Myanmar is considered to be the literary form of the name of the group, while Burma is derived from Bamar, the colloquial form of the groups name
2.
Buddhism
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Buddhism is a religion and dharma that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. Buddhism originated in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, from where it spread through much of Asia, two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars, Theravada and Mahayana. Buddhism is the worlds fourth-largest religion, with over 500 million followers or 7% of the global population, Buddhist schools vary on the exact nature of the path to liberation, the importance and canonicity of various teachings and scriptures, and especially their respective practices. In Theravada the ultimate goal is the attainment of the state of Nirvana, achieved by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path, thus escaping what is seen as a cycle of suffering. Theravada has a following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana, which includes the traditions of Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren Buddhism, Shingon, rather than Nirvana, Mahayana instead aspires to Buddhahood via the bodhisattva path, a state wherein one remains in the cycle of rebirth to help other beings reach awakening. Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian siddhas, may be viewed as a branch or merely a part of Mahayana. Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth century India, is practiced in regions surrounding the Himalayas, Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow body. Buddhism is an Indian religion attributed to the teachings of Buddha, the details of Buddhas life are mentioned in many early Buddhist texts but are inconsistent, his social background and life details are difficult to prove, the precise dates uncertain. Some hagiographic legends state that his father was a king named Suddhodana, his mother queen Maya, and he was born in Lumbini gardens. Some of the stories about Buddha, his life, his teachings, Buddha was moved by the innate suffering of humanity. He meditated on this alone for a period of time, in various ways including asceticism, on the nature of suffering. He famously sat in meditation under a Ficus religiosa tree now called the Bodhi Tree in the town of Bodh Gaya in Gangetic plains region of South Asia. He reached enlightenment, discovering what Buddhists call the Middle Way, as an enlightened being, he attracted followers and founded a Sangha. Now, as the Buddha, he spent the rest of his teaching the Dharma he had discovered. Dukkha is a concept of Buddhism and part of its Four Noble Truths doctrine. It can be translated as incapable of satisfying, the unsatisfactory nature, the Four Truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism, we crave and cling to impermanent states and things, which is dukkha, incapable of satisfying and painful. This keeps us caught in saṃsāra, the cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha
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Islamophobia
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Islamophobia or Muslimophobia refers to fear, prejudice, hatred or dislike directed against Islam or Muslims, or towards Islamic politics or culture. The introduction of the term was justified by the assessment that anti-Muslim prejudice has grown so considerably. The causes and characteristics of Islamophobia are still debated, some people also question the validity of the term. The academics S. Sayyid and Vakil maintain that there are societies where virtually no Muslims live, in German, Islamophobie and Islamfeindlichkeit are used. The Scandinavian term Muslimhat literally means hatred of Muslims, the word Islamophobia is a neologism formed from Islam and -phobia, a suffix used in English to form nouns with the sense ‘fear of ——’, ‘aversion to ——’. The compound form Islamo- contains the thematic vowel -o-, and is found in earlier coinages such as Islamo-Christian from the 19th century, Islamophobia reintroduces and reaffirms a global racial structure through which resource distribution disparities are maintained and extended. In 1996, the Runnymede Trust established the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia, chaired by Gordon Conway, the Commissions report, Islamophobia, A Challenge for Us All, was published in November 1997 by the Home Secretary, Jack Straw. In the Runnymede report, Islamophobia was defined as an outlook or world-view involving an unfounded dread and dislike of Muslims, the symposium was an early attempt to bring insights from critical race theory, postcolonial and decolonial thought to bear on the question of Islamophobia. The presentations from the symposium were turned into a volume, Sayyid. Thinking Through Islamophobia, Global Perspectives New York, Columbia University Press, nonetheless, he argued that the term is here to stay, and that it is important to define it precisely. The exact definition of Islamophobia continues to be discussed with academics such as Chris Allen saying that it lacks a clear definition, several scholars consider Islamophobia to be a form of xenophobia or racism. A2007 article in Journal of Sociology defines Islamophobia as anti-Muslim racism, similarly, John Denham has drawn parallels between modern Islamophobia and the antisemitism of the 1930s, so have Maud Olofsson, and Jan Hjärpe, among others. Others have questioned the relationship between Islamophobia and racism. Jocelyne Cesari writes that academics are still debating the legitimacy of the term and questioning how it differs from terms such as racism, anti-Islamism, anti-Muslimness. On occasion race does come into play, diane Frost defines Islamophobia as anti-Muslim feeling and violence based on race or religion. Islamophobia may also target people who have Muslim names, or have a look that is associated with Muslims, according to Alan Johnson, Islamophobia sometimes can be nothing more than xenophobia or racism wrapped in religious terms. The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance defines Islamophobia as the fear of or prejudiced viewpoint towards Islam, Muslims and it has also been defined as fear of Muslims and Islam, rejection of the Muslim religion, or a form of differentialist racism. The concept of Islamophobia as formulated by Runnymede was also criticized by professor Fred Halliday on several levels
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Persecution of Muslims
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Persecution of Muslims is the religious persecution inflicted upon the followers of the Islamic faith. This page lists incidents in both medieval and modern history in which Muslim populations have been targeted by non-Muslim groups, in the early days of Islam at Mecca, the new Muslims were often subjected to abuse and persecution by the pagan Meccans. Some were killed, such as Sumayyah bint Khabbab, the convert to Islam. Even the Islamic Prophet Muhammad was subjected to abuse, while he was praying near the Kaaba, Aqaba Bin Muiitt threw the entrails of a sacrificed camel over him. Abu Lahabs wife Umm Jamil would regularly dump filth outside his door, accordingly, if free Muslims were attacked, slaves who converted were subjected to far worse. The Muslim leader, Al Hakim of Cairo blew up the ancient and magnificent Constantine Church of the Holy Sepulcher in 1009 and it was also partly a response to the Investiture Controversy, which was the most significant conflict between secular and religious powers in medieval Europe. Also of great significance in launching the crusade were the string of victories by the Seljuk Turks, on 7 May 1099 the crusaders reached Jerusalem, which had been recaptured from the Seljuks by the Fatimids of Egypt only a year before. On 15 July, the crusaders were able to end the siege by breaking down sections of the walls, over the course of that afternoon, evening and next morning, the crusaders killed almost every inhabitant of Jerusalem. Although many Muslims sought shelter atop the Temple Mount inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Tancred claimed the Temple quarter for himself and offered protection to some of the Muslims there, but he was unable to prevent their deaths at the hands of his fellow crusaders. According to Fulcher of Chartres, Indeed, if you had been there you would have seen our feet coloured to our ankles with the blood of the slain, but what more shall I relate. None of them were alive, neither women nor children were spared. Muslims were indiscriminately killed, and Jews who had taken refuge in their Synagogue were killed when it was burnt down by the Crusaders. The island of Sicily was conquered by the Aghlabids by the 10th century after over a century of conflict, the Normans conquered the last Arab Muslim stronghold by 1091. Another tax on levied them for a time was the augustale, Muslim rebellion broke out during the reign of Tancred as King of Sicily. Lombard pogroms against Muslims started in the 1160s, Muslim and Christian communities in Sicily became increasingly geographically separated. The island’s Muslim communities were mainly isolated beyond a frontier which divided the south-western half of the island from the Christian north-east. Sicilian Muslims, a population, were dependent on royal protection. When King William the Good died in 1189, this protection was lifted
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Swiss minaret referendum, 2009
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The federal popular initiative against the construction of minarets was a successful federal popular initiative in Switzerland to prevent the construction of Mosque minarets. In a November 2009 referendum, an amendment banning the construction of new minarets was approved by 57. 5% of the participating voters. Only three of the twenty Swiss cantons and one half canton mostly in the French-speaking part of Switzerland opposed the initiative, the minaret at the mosque of the local Turkish cultural association in Wangen bei Olten is the initial motivation for the initiative. The Swiss government recommended that the amendment be rejected as inconsistent with basic principles of the constitution. But after the results were tabulated, the government immediately announced that the ban was in effect, as of the date of the 2009 vote, there were four minarets in Switzerland, attached to mosques in Zürich, Geneva, Winterthur and Wangen bei Olten. These existing minarets are not affected by the ban, the Swiss minaret controversy began in a small municipality in the northern part of Switzerland in 2005. The contention involved the Turkish cultural association in Wangen bei Olten, the project faced opposition from surrounding residents, who had formed a group to prevent the towers erection. The Turkish association claimed that the building authorities improperly and arbitrarily delayed its building application and they also believed that the members of the local opposition group were motivated by religious bias. The Communal Building and Planning Commission rejected the associations application, the applicants appealed to the Building and Justice Department, which reverted the decision and remanded. As a consequence of that decision, local residents and the commune of Wangen brought the case before the Administrative Court of the Canton of Solothurn, on appeal the Federal Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the lower court. The 6-metre -high minaret was erected in July 2009, from 2006 until 2008, members of the Swiss Peoples Party and the Federal Democratic Union launched several cantonal initiatives against the erection of minarets. The initiatives were held to be unconstitutional by cantonal parliaments and therefore void, in 2007, in response to the political defeats described above, the Egerkinger committee launched a federal popular initiative against minarets. The committees proposed amendment to article 72 of the Swiss Federal Constitution read, in Switzerland, federal popular initiatives are not subject to judicial review, as they amend the federal constitution. Federal initiatives are still bound by law, however. Promoters of popular initiatives have 18 months to collect at least 100,000 signatures, if they succeed, the initiative is put before the Swiss citizenry in a national vote. Both federal and cantonal initiatives are common in Switzerland, resulting in many votes each year. The Egerkinger committee is made up of members of the Swiss Peoples Party, the committee opines that the interests of residents, who are disturbed by specific kinds of religious land uses, are to be taken seriously. Moreover, it argues that Swiss residents should be able to block unwanted, the committee alleges, inter alia, that the construction of a minaret has no religious meaning
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Bosnian genocide
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The ethnic cleansing campaign that took place throughout areas controlled by the Bosnian Serbs targeted Muslim Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats. In the 1990s, several authorities asserted that ethnic cleansing as carried out by elements of the Bosnian Serb army was genocide and these included a resolution by the United Nations General Assembly and three convictions for genocide in German courts. In 2005, the United States Congress passed a resolution declaring that the Serbian policies of aggression, to date, only the Srebrenica massacre has been found to be a genocide by the ICTY, a finding upheld by the ICJ. In 2001, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia judged that the 1995 Srebrenica massacre was genocide, in the unanimous ruling Prosecutor v. They targeted for extinction the forty thousand Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica, in 2007, the court found insufficient evidence to conclude on alleged genocidal intent. The killings outlined above may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, in the case of Tolimir, the International Criminal Tribunal has concluded that genocide was committed in the enclave of Žepa, outside of Srebrenica. The genocidal intent of the Bosnian Serb leadership can be inferred from all the evidence, including the evidence set out in paragraphs 238 -245. On 26 February 2007, however, in Bosnia and Herzegovina v. However, Karadžić and Mladić are charged, separately, with, Count 1, Genocide. – Municipalities, Bratunac, Foča, Ključ, Kotor Varoš, Prijedor, Sanski Most, Vlasenica, initially dismissed by the Trial Chamber on 28 June 2012, this count was unanimously reinstated on 11 July 2013 by the Appeals Chamber. Count 3, Persecutions on Political, Racial and Religious Grounds and they are also charged with Murder, Deportation, Inhumane Acts, Spreading Terror among Civilians, Unlawful Attacks on Civilians, and Taking of Hostages. On 26 February 2007, the International Court of Justice found Serbia to be innocent of genocide as committed at Srebrenica in July 1995. His acquittal means that, to date, no official or army officer of Serbia-Montenegro, on 30 May 2013, the ICTY acquitted and ordered the immediate release of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, two close aides of Slobodan Milosevic. Stanisic was the Chief of the Serbian State Security Service while Simatovic was in charge of the operations arm of the State Security Service. On 27 June 2005, during the 109th Congress, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. The resolution, as amended, was passed with a majority of 370 – YES votes,1 – NO vote. The resolution is a bipartisan measure commemorating 11 July 1995 –2005, the tenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. The Senate version, S. Res.134, was sponsored by Senator Gordon Smith with 8 cosponsors and was agreed to in the Senate on 22 June 2005 without amendment and with unanimous consent. S. S. A trial took place before the International Court of Justice, following a 1993 suit by Bosnia and Herzegovina against Serbia, moreover, the Court found that Serbia has not committed genocide nor conspired to or incited the commission of genocide
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The Holocaust
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The Holocaust, also referred to as the Shoah, was a genocide in which some six million European Jews were killed by Adolf Hitlers Nazi Germany, and the World War II collaborators with the Nazis. The victims included 1.5 million children, and represented about two-thirds of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe, killings took place throughout German-occupied Europe, as well as within Nazi Germany, and across all territories controlled by its allies. Other victims of Nazi crimes included ethnic Poles and other Slavs, Soviet citizens and Soviet POWs, communists, homosexuals, Freemasons, Jehovahs Witnesses, some 42,500 detention facilities were utilized in the concentration of victims for the purpose of gross violations of human rights. Over 200,000 people are estimated to have been Holocaust perpetrators, the persecution was carried out in stages, culminating in the policy of extermination of European Jews termed the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. Following Hitlers rise to power, the German government passed laws to exclude Jews from civil society, starting in 1933 the Nazis began to establish a network of concentration camps. After the outbreak of war in 1939 both German and foreign Jews were herded into wartime ghettos, in 1941, as Germany began to conquer new territory in the East, all anti-Jewish measures radicalized. Specialized paramilitary units called Einsatzgruppen murdered around two million Jews in mass shootings actions in less than a year, by mid-1942, victims were being regularly transported by freight trains to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, most were systematically killed in gas chambers. This continued until the end of World War II in Europe in April–May 1945, the most notable exception was the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943, when thousands of poorly-armed Jewish fighters held the Waffen-SS at bay for four weeks. An estimated 20, 000–30,000 Jewish partisans actively fought against the Nazis, French Jews took part in the French Resistance, which conducted a guerilla campaign against the Nazis and Vichy French authorities. Over a hundred armed Jewish uprisings took place, the term holocaust comes from the Greek adjective holókaustos, a variant of holókautos, referring to an animal sacrifice offered to a god in which the whole animal is completely burnt. Often used substantively in apposition with the noun thysia, the term appears in a fragment of pseudo-Callisthenes, writing in Latin, Jerome Latinized the Greek word as a neuter noun holocaustum, using it to translate references to the Jewish burnt offering in his translations of Exodus and Leviticus. In his Chronicon de rebus gestis Ricardi Primi, Richard of Devizes, the English poet John Milton had used the word to denote a conflagration in his 1671 poem Samson Agonistes and the word gradually developed to mean a massacre thereon. The term was used in the 1950s by historians as a translation of the Jewish word shoah to refer specifically to the Nazi genocide of Jews, the television mini-series Holocaust is credited with introducing the term into common parlance after 1978. The biblical word shoah, meaning calamity became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the 1940s, especially in Europe and Israel. Shoah is preferred by some Jews for several reasons including the offensive nature of the word holocaust which they take to refer to the Greek pagan custom. The Nazis used the phrase Final Solution to the Jewish Question, all branches of Germanys bureaucracy were engaged in the logistics that led to the genocides, turning the Third Reich into what one Holocaust scholar, Michael Berenbaum, has called a genocidal state. Every arm of the countrys sophisticated bureaucracy was involved in the killing process, as prisoners entered the death camps, they were made to surrender all personal property, which was catalogued and tagged before being sent to Germany to be reused or recycled. Berenbaum writes that the Final Solution of the Jewish question was in the eyes of the perpetrators, through a concealed account, the German National Bank helped launder valuables stolen from the victims
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Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
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The newspaper announced that this was an attempt to contribute to the debate about criticism of Islam and self-censorship. Muslim groups in Denmark complained, and the issue led to protests around the world, including violent demonstrations. Islam has a tradition of aniconism, and it is considered highly blasphemous in most Islamic traditions to visually depict Muhammad. This, compounded with a sense that the cartoons insulted Muhammad and Islam and they presented a dossier containing the twelve cartoons from the Jyllands-Posten, and other information some of which was found to be falsified. As a result, the issue received prominent media attention in some Muslim countries, leading to protests across the world in late January, some groups responded to the outpouring of protest by endorsing the Danish policies, launching Buy Danish campaigns and other displays of support. The cartoons were reprinted in newspapers around the world both in a sense of solidarity and as an illustration in what became a major news story. Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen described the controversy as Denmarks worst international relations incident since the Second World War, the cartoons and the reaction to them aggravated already-strained relations. The Danish tradition of high tolerance for freedom of speech became a focus of some attention. Critics of the cartoons described them as Islamophobic, racist, or baiting and blasphemous to Muslims, others saw them as a manifestation of ignorance about the history of Western imperialism, double standards, and stereotyping. Three artists declined Bluitgens proposal out of fear of reprisals, one artist agreed to assist anonymously, he said that he was afraid for his and his familys safety. The story gained some traction, and the major Danish newspapers reported the story the following day, the supposed refusals from these first three artists to participate was seen as evidence of self-censorship out of fear of violence from Islamists, which led to much debate in Denmark. The Danish news paper Politiken stated at February 12,2006, the author refused, and nobody has ever been able to confirm whether the incident is properly described. At an editorial meeting of Jyllands-Posten on 19 September, reporter Stig Olesen mooted the idea of asking the members of the newspaper illustrators union if they would be willing to draw Muhammad and this would be an experiment to see the degree to which professional illustrators felt threatened. Flemming Rose, culture editor, was interested in the idea,12 drawings had been submitted—three from newspaper employees and two which did not directly show Muhammad. The editors thought that some of the illustrators who had not responded were employed by newspapers and were thus contractually prohibited from working for Jyllands-Posten. Carsten Juste has said that the survey lacked validity and the story fell short of sound journalistic basis, on 30 September 2005, Jyllands-Posten published an article entitled Muhammeds ansigt incorporating the cartoons. The article consisted of the 12 cartoons and a text, in which Rose wrote, Modern. They demand a position, insisting on special consideration of their own religious feelings
Myanmar