from Photographers Blog:
Collecting karma
By Damir Sagolj
An angel-like girl, dressed all in white carries a pack of toothbrushes on a Sunday morning. She walks slowly, smiles all around and seems not to be bothered by music so loud that one can’t hear his own thoughts. She is on her way to the Mang Teung Sua Jung Cemetery in Chonburi province – where members of a local Thai Chinese community will exhume unclaimed bodies. Toothbrushes will be used to clean the dirt from bones.
One of the first books I read after arriving in Thailand more than two years ago was Bizarre Thailand - a collection of strange tales from the “land of smiles”. It was a nice introduction to what I could expect here in Thailand but I thought to myself – I’ve seen enough elsewhere; bizarre things in other countries so nothing can surprise me.
Well, this is Thailand and things go well beyond expectations. On this day, unclaimed dead bodies are taken out of graves in the corner of a massive cemetery in Choburi province. It is a Thai Chinese ritual that has been going on for decades since diseases like malaria killed many people 90 years ago in the province. The legend goes that officials began haphazardly digging up corpses so the city could build an airport and stopped only when they were haunted by ghosts. Since then, residents have felt it necessary to leave the land untouched and to honor those who have died without loved ones.
Preaching good sex, Muslim-inspired Obedient Wives Club spreads in Asia
Indonesian Gina Puspita traded a career in aircraft engineering for a mission to preach Islam and help young women build happy marriages through good sex. The French-educated mother of three hosts religious programmes through the Obedient Wives Club which is based on the belief that a fulfilling sex life is the cure for “Western-style” social problems such as divorce and abuse.
“Wives must obey the husbands in all aspect of life, such as serving food and drinks, giving calm and support for the husband, as well as in sex relations,” Pusipita, who shares her spouse with three other women, told Reuters.
A Muslim group which espouses good sex as a foundation for healthy marriages and a strong society, the Obedient Wives Club is gaining converts in the world’s most populous Muslim country after setting up in Jordan, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore.
Founded by Global Ikhwan, a Malaysian firm involved in businesses ranging from laundromats to pharmacies, the club was initially intended to help the company’s female staff to be good wives as well as productive employees. Global Ikhwan’s officials have been linked to the now-defunct Malaysia-based Al-Arqam religious sect which was banned by the government in 1994. Before the Obedient Wives Club, Global Ikhwan had earlier established the Polygamy Club which encourages polygamy among Muslims.
The Obedient Wives Club is open to women of all faiths but says its teachings are based on the edicts of Islam which require wives to submit to their husbands and meet their needs. “When men cannot get satisfaction at home, they will seek it elsewhere,” said Nurul, an Obedient Wives Club spokesperson. “When your wife is cool towards you because your wife is busy and has no time to attend to you whereas you need it that day, what are you going to do?”
Read the full story by Olivia Rondonuwu and Razak Ahmad here.
.
It is not the teaching of Quran or Prophet Muhammad. This group is misleading people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Arqam ~I have wrote a report to JAKIM.
Malaysia’s Young Imam reality TV show widens reach to Southeast Asia
A hit Malaysian Islamic reality TV show kicked off its second season this week after drawing more than 1,000 hopefuls from the region in a sign of the religion’s growing reach in Southeast Asia. Combining a reality TV format with Islamic teachings, the “Imam Muda” or “Young Imam” show is a talent contest for male Muslims aged between 18 and 27 who can speak Malay, with the winner crowned an Imam or religious leader.
The prime-time show features contestants in sharp-looking black suits who are judged on a variety of tasks including reciting Koranic verses, washing corpses, slaughtering sheep according to Muslim rules and counseling promiscuous young Muslim couples.
“Young Imam” first aired last year but was then only open to Malaysians. Its popularity led the producers to invite participants from other countries. More than 1,000 hopefuls from Malaysia as well as neighboring Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei and Thailand auditioned for the show’s second season, and 10 were shortlisted, said Izelan.
.
A week after riots, Thai capital prays for peace
Thousands of Thais prayed for peace and unity in Bangkok on Wednesday, a week after a deadly military crackdown on protesters sparked a terrifying night of arson and riots that levelled buildings and killed 54 people.
But analysts say without major reforms to a political system that protesters claim favours an “establishment elite” over the rural masses, such prayers and forgiveness will not end a polarising crisis costing the economy billions of dollars.
Hundreds of saffron-robed Buddhist monks received food from well wishers along a shopping mall occupied by anti-government protesters for six weeks until they were dispersed by troops and armoured vehicles last week.
Next to them were Christian, Muslim and Sikh leaders, who also conducted prayers to bless the riot-torn city of 15 million people as predominantly Buddhist Thailand grapples with widening social and political rifts that have spiralled dangerously into the open in the past five years.
“It is very important for all of us in Bangkok to forgive and move ahead,” said Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra, who hosted the “Restore the City With Religious Ceremony” event.
Religion-themed films take top prizes at Cannes Film Festival
A Buddhist-inspired Thai film has won the coveted Palme d’Or for best picture at the Cannes film festival. “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives,” a mystical exploration of reincarnation as a well-to-do farmer confronts his imminent death, was directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
Xavier Beauvois’ “Of Gods and Men,” based on the real-life story of seven Catholic monks murdered during unrest in Algeria in the 1990s, took the runner-up Grand Prix award at the closing session on Sunday.
“I would like to thank all the spirits and all the ghosts in Thailand who made it possible for me to be here,” Apichatpong, who has won other prizes in Cannes before, said after receiving the award. He said during the festival that his thoughts were mainly on violence back home between government forces and protesters in the “red shirt” movement.
Here’s our full story Thai film surprise winner in Cannes by Mike Collett-White and James Mackenzie and Cannes: le festival honore des filmographies oubliées by our French service film buff Wilfrid Exbrayat. The Thai film divided the critics. The French daily Le Figaro slammed it as “Uncle Boonmee, Palm of Boredom” (hmmm, was this sour grapes because the “miraculous film” by Frenchman Beauvois only came in second?), but Britain’s Guardian praised it as “lyrically beautiful.”
We also ran a profile of Apichatpong, Thai Cannes winner steeped in spiritualism, and Factbox: Winners at the Cannes film festival 2010. FaithWorld highlighted “Of Gods and Men” last week when it was screened in our post Cannes film follows French monks killed in Algeria.
Apichatpong’s triumph was a change in front-page news for Bangkok newspapers after weeks of unrest and violence there. Here are the reports from the Bangkok Post and The Nation.
Can saffron be red in Thailand?
At the sprawling red shirt encampment in central bank, Buddhist monks clad in their distinctive saffron robes mingle with men wearing helmets walking around with sharpened bamboo sticks.
Just about every night, rumours sweep the the sprawling encampment of tents, sounds trucks and makeshift stalls that a long anticipated crackdown is imminent. The men stare at the three-metre barricades made of tyres, bamboo poles and rubble that surround much of the encampment, about the size of a large city park, waiting to pelt soldiers armed with assault rifles with pellets from their sling shots and thrusts of their bamboo spears.
The monks are there for moral support, and to receive “merit” from the red shirts, who have occupied some of the most expensive real estate in Thailand for the past seven weeks in their campaign for early elections. “Making merit” involves giving an offering — food, some spare change to a monk — perhaps in the hope of a more accommodating afterlife, should death suddenly intervene. As it well could on the barricades when you’re fending off automatic weapons fire with a bamboo stick.
But the presence of Buddhist monks at the rallies — including some carrying sharpened sticks – is unsettling to many in Thailand, where monks are supposed to be politically neutral. They are not even supposed to vote. Amnart Buasiri, director of the Secretariat of the Sangha Supreme Council, the clergy’s governing body called on police to arrest monks for taking part in the red shirt rallies, which are illegal under emergency decrees imposed after the protests turned violent three weeks ago.
It should come as no surprise that monks are joining the red shirt movement (though it’s difficult to check their authenticity). They often come from the same social strata as the protesters — the rural poor and urban working class.
Their hero, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted in a 2006 coup and now living abroad to avoid jail on a corruption conviction, is a devout Buddhist aligned with the powerful Dhammakaya movement. During the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, this monastic community famously collected gold jewelry to enable Thailand to pay off its debts to the IMF. Dhammakaya was also major force in the formation of the Thaksin’s populist Thai Rak Thai party, which has banned.
The Thai political divide that broadly pits this underclass against what they call an establishment elite is beginning to be reflected in religion. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s government relies for support on the Muslim-dominated provinces of southern Thailand along with an establishment that includes Buddhist leaders appointed by the crown.
Q+A-What’s fuelling insurgency in Thailand’s Malay Muslim south?
Bombs killed one security officer and wounded another in Thailand’s restive deep South on Thursday during a visit by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, underlying the failure of successive governments to tackle a separatist insurgency in the Malay Muslim-dominated region which entered its sixth year on Monday with a death toll of nearly 4,000.
The current leaders of the insurgency are unknown. The authorities have long suspected prominent local politicians, religious leaders and Islamic teachers of involvement.
Despite reports of links to radical Islamists or a global jihadi movement, there is no evidence to suggest the conflict is anything more than a localised, ethno-nationalist struggle. However, aggressive crackdowns, any extrajudicial killings by security forces and the perceived oppression of Muslims could attract involvement by militant Islamic networks such as al Qaeda, leading to an escalation in and beyond the region.
Read the full analysis by Martin Petty here.
from Global News Journal:
Southeast Asia’s Islamists try the domino theory
Photo: Jihad book collection in Jakarta Sept.21, 2009. REUTERS/Supr
A half-century ago, Washington worried about Southeast Asian nations falling like dominoes to an international communist movement backed by Maoist China, and became bogged down in the Vietnam War.
Noordin Top, believed to be the mastermind behind most of the suicide bombings in Indonesia -- including the July 17 attacks on two luxury Jakarta hotels -- pronounced himself to be al Qaeda's franchise in Southeast Asia.
Top and his allies in Jemaah Islamiah (JI) aimed to create an Islamic caliphate across Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, southern Thailand and Southern Philippines. Even before the 9/11 suicide airliner attacks, they were trying to spark an Islamic revolution with ambitious plots and attacks.
Their young foot soldiers dreamed these pro-Western nations (which had banded together to form ASEAN under the U.S. military umbrella at the height of the Vietnam War in 1967) might fall like dominoes to the righteousness of an Islamic jihad. Their martyrdom to the cause would given them a blissful reward in Heaven.
But just as Communism was not the monolith it was feared to be in the 1960s -- China and the Soviet Union had split for one thing -- so too has the Southeast Asian jihadist movement failed to cohere into a singular movement.
africa needs to stop being so violence toward other
african it prove how silly they are
How to win hearts and minds in Thailand’s Muslim south?
More than five years after a Muslim insurgency erupted in southern Thailand, the conflict remains shrouded in mystery, with no credible claims of responsibility for the bloodshed in a once independent Malay Muslim land with a history of rebellion to Buddhist Thai rule.
On June 8, gunmen burst into a mosque and killed 10 people as they prayed. Thailand blamed separatist insurgents for the bloodiest attack this year in the mainly Muslim region bordering Malaysia where nearly 3,500 people have died in violence since 2004. But the head of the world’s biggest Islamic body urged Thailand to protest its Muslim minority after local residents put the blame on military-backed elements.
Reuters correspondent Martin Petty toured the area last week in the wake of the attacks. He talked to a woman who narrowly escaped an assassin’s bullet in Yala. She said she doesn’t know who wanted her dead or why. Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra blamed mafia-style smuggling gangs for the violence, but security analysts believe homegrown separatist groups — with little or no ties to al Qaeda or other regional militant networks — are behind the violence.
The Thai government hopes to stem the violence by pouring $1.58 billion in development funds into the region. But many residents told Petty it won’t make a difference, because the people are stuggling to keep their Malay-Muslim identity – not to boost local fisheries, rubber and palm oil industries.
A better idea would be to withdraw the 30,000 soldiers deployed in ther region and scrap an emergency decreee that grants the military broad powers of arrest with immunity from prosecution, they say.
The three provinces were part of an independent Malay Muslim sultante annexed by Buddhist Thailand a century ago and its people have long resisted Bangkok’s attempts to assimilate them.
The International Crisis Group (ICG) has just issued a report on the insurgency and says in its summary: “This struggle, nominally between a Thai Buddhist state and a Malay Muslim insurgency, targets civilians of all religions. More than 3,400 people have been killed since the violence surged in 2004. There are more dead Muslim victims than Buddhists, and many of the slain Muslims were marked as ‘traitors’ to Islam.”
Jason might be interpreting the feelings in the true aspect of the country.But by mingling with the Southern Muslim Thais, I believe that they are not taking the opportunity to get the best of the both world.I would like them to be Thais first before being Malay or Muslim.My views are my personal ones and they are based on true mixing of the people who ply between Kelantan and Terengganu.It may be not statistically right.
Policy adrift over Rohingya, Myanmar’s Muslim boat people
The Rohingyas, a Muslim minority fleeing oppression and hardship in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar, have been called one of the most persecuted people on earth. But they have seldom hit the headlines — until recently, that is. More than 500 Rohingyas are feared to have drowned since early December after being towed out to sea by the Thai military and abandoned in rickety boats. The army has admitted cutting them loose, but said they had food and water and denied sabotaging the engines of the boats.
The Rohingyas are becoming a headache for Thailand and other countries in Southeast Asia where they have washed up. Indonesian authorities this week rescued 198 Rohingya boat people off the coast of Aceh, after three weeks at sea. Buddhist Thailand and mostly Muslim Indonesia call them economic migrants looking for work at a time when countries in the region, like everywhere else, are in an economic downturn. But human rights groups such as Amnesty International are calling on governments in the region to provide assistance to the Rohingyas and let the UNHCR have access to them.
Myanmar’s generals have a shabby enough record with their Buddhist majority. The brutal suppression of monk-led protests that killed at least 31 people in September 2007 and the continued detention of opposition icon and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi bear witness to that. But their treatment of ethnic minorities, including the Muslim Rohingyas and the Christian Chin people in the mountainous Northwest — where insurgents have been fighting for autonomy — have been especially brutal. They are not oppressed because of their faith alone, but their faith and ethnicity make them targets. The military government does not recognise them as one of the country’s 130-odd ethnic minorities. They are forbidden from marrying or traveling without permission and have no legal right to own land.
Most Rohingyas come from Rakhine State, also known as Arakan State, in northwest Myanmar, abutting the border with Bangladesh. Their roots go back at least to 1821, when Britain annexed the region as a province of British India and brought in large numbers of Bengali-speaking Muslim labourers. When Burma won independence from Britain in 1948, the Bengali-speaking Muslim population near the border exceeded that of the Buddhists, leading to secessionist tensions. This translated into harassment following the 1962 coup that has led to nearly five decades of military rule by the ethnic Burman majority. Thousands fled to Bangladesh to escape a 1978 military census of the Rohingyas called “Operation Dragon.”
Refugees typically leave Rakhaine state for Bangladesh first before taking off in their flimsy fishing boats to find a new life elsewhere in Southeast Asia. On a recent Reuters visit to a Bangladeshi refugee camp, our correspondent Nizam Ahmed heard harrowing tales of being rape, torture and slave labour. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says 200,000 Rohingyas now live a perilous, stateless existence in Bangladesh. As a result, thousands have fled to try to start new lives, chancing their luck in rickety wooden boats they hope will get them to Malaysia, home to 14,300 official Rohingya refugees and maybe half as many again unregistered ones.
To Myanmar’s generals, the Rohingyas are a suspect lot who support local insurgencies that threaten the unity of the country. To Myanmar’s neighbours, they are fresh wave of boat people in Asia’s endless migrations impelled by destitution. To human rights and religious groups, they are persecuted minorities. As for the desperate and stateless Rohingyas who sail off in flimsy boats hoping to wash up on a friendly shore, they just need somewhere to call home.
In my experience, polical leaders in South East Asia, including Thailand act like barbarians. I have lived in Thailand for several years and there is a racist, biggoted culture. Myanmar and Thailand are one and the same – it’s just that Thailand puts on a ‘face’ for tourists and the developed world.
I believe this racist culture originates from the State and that it sets an example for people to copy it. One cannot help but notice the racist culture, “farang, farang”, uttered from people’s lips. It’s exactly the same with a minority people like the Rohingyas who need protection, but the backward racist culture of this region of the world, care more about money in the hands of the few, than human rights.
-
Resident FaithWorld Expert
-
