The Hazards of Belief

wrote:

"For such former mission territories, Ireland, as well as the rest of Europe, now represents a new mission frontier in the world Church," [...] "the irresistible tsunami of secularisation erodes the capacity of traditional Catholic culture hitherto considered as the primary transmitter of faith" [...] "The dwindling missionary capital of the Church in Ireland lies beyond doubt. The question is: Is Ireland ready to harvest the fruits of its missionary labours on its own soil or will the Church simply opt to bear the burden of diminishment with resentment and nostalgia?" [...] He said that mission does not terminate with the departure of the missionary to a "vaguely remembered homeland recently fallen prey to marauding secularising forces and a Church besmirched by sex abuse scandals". [...] "On the contrary, mission progresses to a new stage with the coming of age of mission territories and assumption of responsibility for the mission of the Church by local personnel." [...] "In practical terms, this new partnership for mission in the world Church places on the Church in the global south the duty of offering suitably qualified personnel and human resources to the Church in Ireland as well as the responsibility of learning to live in and adapt to an unfamiliar culture, just as Irish missionaries did in erstwhile foreign missions," Fr Orobator said. [...] "For several centuries successive generations of courageous women and men sailed from the shores of Ireland to various parts of the world as ambassadors of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As we speak, the Church in Ireland urgently needs the resuscitating breath of the Church in the south in order to survive and grow."

The Atlantic wrote:

[...]

One number has become indelibly associated with these attacks - 969, a "grassroots" Buddhist nationalist movement that many claim is supported by elements within the military. While 969's unofficial leaders claim that the movement is a non-violent response to a Buddhist society under strain from "foreign" influence, its rhetoric brings to mind the kind of language associated with the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century.

969 has its ideological roots in a book written in the late 1990s by U Kyaw Lwin, a functionary in the ministry of religious affairs, and its precepts are rooted in a traditional belief in numerology. Across South Asia, Muslims represent the phrase bismillah-ir-rahman-ir-rahim, or "In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate and Merciful," with the number 786, and businesses display the number to indicate that they are Muslim-owned. 969's proponents see this as evidence of a Muslim plot to conquer Burma in the 21st century, based on the implausible premise that 7 plus 8 plus 6 is equal to 21. The number 969 is intended be 786's cosmological opposite, and represents the "three jewels:" the nine attributes of the Buddha, the six attributes of his teachings, and the nine attributes of the Sangha, or monastic order.

U Kyaw Lwin's ideas came to prominence in November of last year, when a religious order in Mon State - the Gana Wasaka Sangha - began to invoke them in local anti-Muslim campaigns. Since January, taxis, buses, and businesses across Rangoon have begun to proudly display its brightly colored emblem.

Despite a lack of 969 regalia on U Tun Khin's car (not his real name), a few minutes of conversation showed his stripes as a believer to the core. "The Muslims are very smart. They use their smarts to [threaten] our Buddhist society. Some Muslims are good, but there are too many who are Ali Babas (thieves)," he said. "They get money from Muslim countries, and they want to conquer us and destroy Buddhism. They are foreigners, they should feel lucky we treat them well as guests."

The figure often identified as the de-facto leader of 969 is a monk named Ashin Wirathu, who was jailed in 2003 for inciting religious conflict and released as part of a general amnesty in January 2012. The content of his sermons, distributed via DVDs he produces at his monastery in Mandalay, would not be out of place at the Nuremberg rallies.

[...]