End of The Gods Talks

Hey folks so I'm pretty much ending operations here on The Gods Talks having moved my main blogging stuff to my older blog Enlightenment is Green which can be found here:http://enlightenmentisgreen.tumblr.com/ Hope to see you there! If not it's been wild.

A Great Game...

Well not really, as you've probably picked up I've become rather obsessed with a period stretching from 1813 to 1945 and has (arguable) begun once again known as the Great Game. Well that's great but what is it? Glad you asked! The Great Game classically refers to strategic armed rivalry between the Russian and British Empires over the region of Central Asia.

I don't get it either 

 It was a rivalry over territory, particularly spark by the Russian Empire's continued march into Central Asia towards Afghanistan. England viewed this movement as a direct threat to the power in the area, and more importantly, India. So, in response, England launched the First Anglo-Afghan war (which was a glorious catastrophe) and kicked off one of the world's first cold wars. 

What are we doing today Victoria?
The same thing we do ever day Disraeli my dear:
Ruining everything

The Games went on in such a fashion with England and Russia trying to out compete the other (Old Vicki was crowned Empress of India so she'd have the same political footing as the Tsars) and actually caused England to invade Afghanistan not once more, but twice. In fact it went on for so long that it had several books written about it, or used it as a background setting, or as some other sort of plot device, Kim by Rudyard Kipling perhaps being the most definitive and critical of them all.

Its as awesome as it sounds

So what does this have to do with Islam? Well a lot actually. Remember how last week I brought up that Sufism (and Islam in general) has been branded as fundamentalist, extremist, or overly violent by Europeans as a way of defaming and delegitimizating resistance to their rule? And how much of that behavior that Europeans defamed existed because of Colonialism in the first place? Well this is part of that Colonialism which gave rise to much of that resistance.

As I often point out it is important that too the victor goes history, and here is no exception. In many ways Russia lost the great game long before England did (as they had a revolution and everything) and while there was a brief rematch with the USSR, England got to write the history of the game down. Therefore, much of the rhetoric of the game has been critiqued as being a smoke screen for England subduing the native people's of India and Central Asia. Because of this the game provides an overarching context for what I described in my previous post. 

Which raises the question of who was playing the Great Game? Was it just England and Russia, or are there more players to be accounted for? I would personally say yes, and it is rather important to include this 3rd side of sorts in an a more accepting way. After all it is a 3rd side made up of those who paid the true cost of the great game, so can you really blame some of those taking up arms, or protesting the game through other means? its an important aspect to consider, especially since the great game has resumed once more between the US, China, Russia, and a few others. 

Because as Rudyard Kipling said "When everyone is dead, the Great Game is finished. Not before."

  

Till next time, 

Jacob 

sources

Karsh, Efraim. Islamic Imperialism: A History. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 2007.

Meyer, Karl E., and Shareen Blair Brysac. Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1999

Rashid, Ahmed. Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.

Muslim, Democrats, and Prime Ministers..OH MY

So earlier this week David Cameron (British Prime Minister) took a trip to Indonesia and stated (among many other things) that: “What Indonesia shows is that in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, it is possible to reject this extremist threat and prove that democracy and Islam can flourish alongside each other.” Which in someways makes sense.

This guy

not this guy

 But the Guardian was quick to counter point and critique Cameron, claiming that he left out a few convient facts. Like that confessing monotheistic belief is required, or that the president is a military general, or that in many ways Indonesia is an oligarchy. Which all may very well be true, however what raised my ire was when Indonesia's problems were compared along side and claimed as the most likely potential of the Arab Spring: "In fact, Indonesia's trajectory might suggest a rather different message – and likely outcome"

sigh...okay lets unpack this

It may very well be true that both Egypt and Indonesia are both Islamic, and it may very well be true these democracies were born out of the violent overthrow of a (EUROPEAN IMPOSED) military dictatorship. But that does not, DOES NOT, mean that they are the same Guardian.  I'm mean for fuck's sake this is exactly what I was talking about last post. The west has a catastrophic assumption that Islam contains within it a dangerous bias (or even extremist intolerance) against everything that isn't Islam. The Guardian is taking these structural problems of a post colonialist system and blaming them solely as the responsibility and consequence of Islam. They are forgetting to take into account that many of these problems were caused by European Colonialism in the region, in the first place. Corruption, oligarchy, and other issues in Indonesia may be in someways supported by certain interpretations of Islam but that doesn't inherently mean that what has occurred in Indonesia will happen in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, or anywhere else in the Arab spring because they allow Islam to participate in their democratic process.

GAHHHHhhhhhHHHHhhhHHh

And people wonder why I'm angry all the time....Gods. 

Till next time

Jacob 

Articles mentioned

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17686174

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/12/indonesian-democracy-scrutiny-david-cameron?newsfeed=true

http://dawn.com/2012/04/12/cameron-praises-indonesia-as-model-of-democracy-and-islam/

Branding of the State: Labeling certain sectors of Islam as Extremists is so passe

Seriously though it is. No really it is, I'm just as surprised as you are really. So for this week's little project I decided to look into modern day issues surrounding Sufism and I managed to dig up some rather interesting tid bits. Most primarily the interplay between Sufism, Colonialism, and the State. How exactly, well a you hopefully well know at one point in time Europe ruled a majority of the world

notice how everything is in the process of being ruined 

and if it wasn't outright controlled it was in someway being used as a playground for a few great powers. Such as Britain and Russia in the form of the Great Game, which depending on who you talk to may or may not have existed. The game was a form of geostrategy and politics revolving around increasing tensions between the two powers in the middle east. Notice on the map how the only thing between Russia and India (which was the crown jewel of the British Empire) was Afghanistan and Persia (and they still barely touch).

Lions and Afghans and Bears...wait that isn't right

So as the two major powers played their games real people on the ground dealt with the fallout as always. One of the responses to the game and to Colonialism throughout the middle east was resistance by the Sufism surprising right? Well actually if you think about it, not all that much. The Sufism were made up of large spread esoteric networks of Teacher and Students which in many ways the making of an underground network for resistance. However, because these groups were made up of a single teacher with many followers adhering to their principles the European Empires (which was rife with Orientalism and had (and to a good degree still does) very little understanding of how non-Christian religions worked) very quickly essentially Sufism to one thing: fanaticism.

Sound familiar? Cause it really should. In fact this trend of essentializing Islam to fantaicism, extremism, or blind faith lead by ideological or personal charisma is pretty old (Marco Polo accused the Hashashin of such).  

Hashashin = Win

And it is interesting that it is almost an essential part of the Western Christian World's discussion of Islam. Never discussed are issues such as Islam contributions to medicine, science, or mathematics. Never discussed are issues such as Islam's overwhelming message of non-violence and peace. And, of course, never discussed is the fact that more often then not violence by Muslims towards the West has been a direct response to the Crusades, Colonialism, or Neo-Liberalism. All of which are parasitic systems of exploitation and domination. 

So next time when you hear the media talk of Islamic Extremists, remember the Sufis (who many Westerners speak of as not being truly Islamic and therefore acceptable in modern worship) were once considered to be that too.

Till next time 

Jacob 

Sources: 

Ernst, Carl W. The Shambhala Guide to Sufism. Boston, Mass: Shambhala, 1997.

Renard, John. Knowledge of God in Classical Sufism: Foundations of Islamic Mystical Theology. New York: Paulist Press, 2004.

Hijabs, Hoodies, and Swing Votes: Continuing Racism and Islamophobia in the US

            It would be an understatement to say that Treyvon Martin’s death is nothing short of an outrage and is evidence of the continued presence of systemic racism in the United States. However, Ms. Sarsour points out so eloquently it is also evidence of the fact that in the current discourse of ‘post-racial’ America discrimination against many groups is being rendered invisible due to of a lack of discussion.

*sigh*

            In this particular case we turn to Islamophobia and racism towards those appear to be Arabic and Muslim. In the case of Ms. Sarsour’s article this discussion focuses primarily on last week’s brutal murder of Ms. Shaima Alawadi in El Cajon, California. This hostility is in many ways caused by the tension created by the events 9/11 and the equally violent response by the US government and its armed forces. But it could also be spurred on by the fact that “the next largest numbers of Muslim voters are found in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Virginia, all of which could be key battlegrounds between President Barack Obama and his Republican opponent” (Greene). It is an interesting connection to note considering the return of increase Islamophobia and general racism by the conservative elements of this country in many ways coincides with this recent statistic. As this provides Muslim Americans with a direct line to the presidency it gives them a greater a degree of political power meaning that there is a distinct possibility will begin to see an appeal to the interests of Muslim Americans having strong political currency causing those with anti-Muslim planks in their platform to lose vital electoral votes in key battleground states.

This new power may, in many ways, be perceived as those already anti-Muslim as a direct threat to the political stability of this country, meaning that this coming election could be a very interesting (and potentially terrifying) one to watch in terms of the political representation and perception of Islam in this country.

hopefully not like this

Till Next Time,
Jacob 

Articles discussed:

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/05/my-take-my-hijab-is-my-hoodie/

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/03/muslim-voters-could-swing-election-report-finds/

"A bit boring, isn't it?"

Ten years ago now the Indian province of Gujarat exploded. Violence broke out between the Hindu and Muslim communities and a series of refugee camps sprang up in the aftermath. Additionally the wives of Muslim Womyn throughout the region were changed forever.

Womyn, Hindu and Muslim alike, through the region began to provide to aid to the camps. At first this cause controversy through out their communities, but progressively many have gained a voice in their communities. Ten years later this initial response has turned into a movement that has caused a lot of social change within their communities. Many Womyn have begun to take a more liberal stance on their Islamic faith, one even quit wearing her burqa, in order to take on a greater degree of participation within their communities. 

However, despite their best efforts these are still communities trapped in the ever growing poverty that has characterized Gujarat and much of India. And, to make matters worse, the communities that were hit the hardest by the 2002 violence have become completely divided, meaning that the Islamic and Hindu communities have little or no contact with one another. In the words of one of the womyn interviewed, "Earlier many of us would live in joint neighbourhoods. We had so much joy living with Hindu neighbours, participating in each other's festivals. Now we have only Muslims for company. Which is a bit boring, isn't it?" 

Which begs the question what particular division between Muslims and Hindus has caused the continued violence within India? While I am aware of the long history of contention between the two, I'm very interested in learning if there is more to it than a dispute between the leaders of the country, because even if two leaders, no matter how respected, have a disagreement based on religion that none of their respective followers can see, riots like this wouldn't have happened.

Till next time, 

Jacob 

Article 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-17508814

Unity

So I know its been a while, but we're back and this time we're gonna talk about Sufism. And its pretty awesome.

In short Sufism is the primary mystic branch of Islam based on obtaining a deep unity with the Divine Presence here and now in this life by obtaining the Fitra, or the point where nothing that one does is wrong in the eyes of the divine, because all of your actions are undertaken from a deep love of God.

yeah, its pretty cool like that

Interestingly, like many mystic traditions once this point the divides, dualism, and multiplicities that normally define are lives begin to fade away into a single sense of unity, many within the tradition report that even their individual sense of self, can at times, begin to disappear well. This approach is seen as a very spirituality rigorous one that is not taken lightly, and is often viewed with a distant sort of respect by other Muslims as obtaining a deep oneness with God could be seen as overwhelming if not destructive and dangerous.  

This method is approached through a variety of fashions, but most of them revolving around the Sufi purifying there lesser traits and refining their higher ones. How that is done varies on the teacher that one has, but methods included meditating on the 99 names of God, singing, chanting, and of course the famous whirling dervishes.  

So that's pretty cool, but how does one even begin to do such a thing?  Glad you asked. 

Sufism is an esoteric religion, and like many mystic traditions, it is passed from teacher student. The teacher is approved by other Master of the Way forming a network of lineage leading back to the beginnings of the movement. 

Which is interesting considering the fact that Islam has a long history within the Iranian region, where many other religions, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Gnosticism, Greek and Roman Paganism/Philosophy, have had a presence throughout history. Meaning that the potential for overlap between   these various traditions mystic branches is high, so I think it could be really cool to check out what dialogue, if any, exists between these traditions. 

Until next time, 

Jacob 

references: 

Ernst, Carl W. The Shambhala Guide to Sufism. Boston, Mass: Shambhala, 1997.

Renard, John. Knowledge of God in Classical Sufism: Foundations of Islamic Mystical Theology. New York: Paulist Press, 2004.

Shah, Idries. The Way of the Sufi. London: Penguin, 1990. 

A Brief History of Qigong

So last week while looking into Falun Gong I kept running up against two rather strange walls. The First was why the CCP would allow something like Falun Gong to exist in the first place, let alone grow as large as it did. And second was the concept of Qigong. While I have had a general understanding of what Qigong is for a while now and I was aware that Falun Gong is an off branch of Qigong which combined elements of Buddhism and Taoism with the practice of Qigong, I wasn't entirely sure how it fit into Chinese history as a whole.

So what did I do? Well I went to the library of course!

I which my life was as cool as this show

So what is Qigong? Well that's a pretty complicated answer, but in short Qigong is based on Chinese folk traditions based on breath, movement, posture, and control (kind like yoga but different). The tradition as a whole collection of various practices stretches back about 4000 years. However, in the 1940s and 50s the CCP began to combine various elements of the tradition based on the health, wellness, and scientific benefits of the traditions. Why?

Well the things was Mao (and many other communist leaders) acknowledged that although Chinese history was filled with feudalism and imperialist oppression it was also filled with beneficial practices, ideas, and medicinal techniques which should be researched, understood, and utilized by the new republic.

One of the ideas which was examined and valued was the traditions that would become Qigong due to traditional claims of health benefits surrounding the practices. Qigong progressively had it the philosophical and religious aspects of it were removed and over the course of the next decades Qigong was modified, streamlined, and changed even further by the huge social changes that tore through China.

While this could seem like this wasn't as interesting project as my previous research topics, I was really excited to go into this particularly because I felt lost in my work with Falun Gong. So this topic rose out of my need to answer the question where on earth did Falun Gong come from/gain that support to become as widespread as it did. Which, considering the fact that Qigong is practiced by millions of people to this day, now makes a lot more sense to me. Additionally it makes sense that the CCP would crackdown on Falun Gong because, unlike Qigong, it was in no way regulated or controlled by the party meaning that it subverted much of the party's main stream views of religion.

In terms of lingering questions I'd be curious to learn more about the traditions that Qigong is based in addition to Qigong itself. Especially the religious aspects although modern Qigong used to based on Qi, the party is currently criticizing it for that and the practice is beginning to refocus on the health and medicine aspects of it, I'm curious in seeing what the non-party version of the story is.

Well that's all from me today!
Peace and Love
Jacob

Sources:

Chang, Maria Hsia. 2004. Falun gong : The end of days. New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press.

Howell, Jude. 2004. Governance in china. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Ownby, David,. 2008. Falun gong and the future of china. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

Palmer, David A. Qigong Fever: Body, Science, and Utopia in China. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

The Ides of March

Welcome to March! The most beautiful and terrible of all months for a whole host of reasons which can sometimes (as our tyrannical friend Caesar found) be political. To be more direct on Tuesday twenty people were killed in a riot in north-western city of Kashgar in Xinjiang province in China.

Courtesy of the BBC

Wait what? Well for those of you who don't know Tibet is not the only region which China has colonized. The Xinjiang autonomous region of China was reconquered in 1949 and half of its population are Uighurs. China has always been a large ethnically diverse country (there are over nine different versions of spoken Chinese after all) and its various governments have used various policies to deal with this issue. The current policy under the PRC has been to create a large overwhelming ethnic majority of Han Chinese (which has recently absorbed groups like the Cantonese) and spread that group throughout China (and while I support the building of China's high speed rail network on environmental grounds, this policy is one of the reasons its being built in the first place) in order to create a false (or perhaps real) sense of cultural, ethnic, and national hegemony allowing for easier governance. 

However, in many cases the exact opposite is happening. Groups like the Uighurs, Tibetans, and Cantonese are beginning to question these policies claiming that they are active forms of discrimination that decrease likelihood of employment as well as a form of destructive cultural erosion. However, The CCP doesn't really take all that well to criticism so the complaints, through normal channels, go unheeded. Resulting in: 

2008 Lhasa unrest

2009 Xinjiang unrest 

Which forces the CCP to do the only thing it knows how to do:

Since the 2008/2009 urrest in both Tibet and Xinjiang China has increasingly tightened security. And with China's parliament meeting frighteningly close to the anniversary of the Lhasa riots this coming week, certain members of the government are calling for even tighter control. With officials like the party's secretary to Tibet, Chen Quanguo, calling for tight monitoring of  "Mobile phones, the internet and other measures for the management of new media need to be fully implemented to maintain the public's interests and national security."

Which raises a rather interesting issue that I'll let Princess Leia voice:

Preach Friend, Preach!

It'll be interesting (and probably horrifying considering the PRC track record on these things) to see what unfolds in the next few weeks. Are the fears of the CCP unfounded? Or are things going to exploded and if so what will that explosion mean. 

I guess will just have to wait and see (but I'm beginning to think there more to that geomancer's story then ever before)

Till next time 

Jacob 

Articles: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-17195886 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17211909

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-17216650

Warfare is Deception: Falun Gong and the Art of War

In what seems to becoming a constant theme I feel like I never get to talk about nice things, ever. But then again when studying social justice issues through the lens of religion I'm beginning to feel like that's a given. Anyway on to our topic of doom for today Falun Gong (which I'm sure you've heard of in general), its violent repression (which I'd be shocked if you hadn't heard of), The Art of War (which I'd be weirded out if you hadn't heard of but would understand) and how they're all interconnected (or might be anyway).

So what's this all about? Well sometime in the early history of China, 206 BCE is the age of the oldest known copy, the Art of War was either written or finalized to the current book that it is today. Whether or not it was written by Sun Tzu is unclear (some modern scholars claim he didn't exist), regardless of all of this the modern version of the Art of War was finished by the 6th century BCE at the latest.

A looker ain't he

The book is an in-depth treaties on the best possible way to engage one's enemies in war and how that engagement is a distinct art form unto itself. The book has been an influential part of East Asian Military and Business strategies and was even used in the Invasion of Japan by allied forces. It advocates a strategy of deception, cunning, and strategic outmaneuvering to defeat ones opponents often without having to fight them in a head on confrontation. The book maintains that the greatest victory is one that is won without any bloodshed and posits in the first chapter (remember this now) that all warfare is based on deception and the manipulation of information. So what? What does any of this have to do with Falun Gong...well a lot actually.

In 1992 Li Hongzhi combined elements of Daoism, Buddhism, and Qigong (a pratice that has grown up in China since 1950 based on breath and controlled bodies movements to obtain spitual clarity, physical fitness, and overall wellness) to create Falun Gong. The religion advocates slow moving, meditation, breath control, a tripartite mindset of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, as well as non-violence to obtain enlightenment. At its height in China the religion claimed a membership over 10 million people that was built up of a huge range of Chinese society. Party members and farmers practiced the religion and sights like this weren't all too uncommon:

notice how non-violent they are

So of course this began to deeply deeply disturb the leadership of the CCP and in 1999 the government declared the religion an illegal organization and began to crackdown. However, as the group was non-violent and peaceful there wasn't a lot the government could do without fear of some sort of reprisal (remember Falun Gong rivals the CCP in size right now), unless, of course, public opinion was swayed in their favor. So while thousands were arrested and detained and a massive propaganda campaign was launched, most of the mainland Chinese thought that the government was acting to harshly against the organization.

"Uphold science, eradicate superstition"

Firmly support the decision of the Central Committee 
to deal with the illegal organization of 'Falun Gong

But then on January 23rd 2001 everything changed. That evening five people set themselves on fire outside of   Tiananmen square in protest of the crackdown. 

And just like that suddenly everything the CCP had said about Falun Gong appeared to be true. Only an evil cult that was spreading ideas of superstition and social instability could have pushed five of its practitioners to do such a thing. However, Falun Gong was quick to counter that this behavior was out of character for practitioners of Falun Gong while pointing out a huge number of contradictions in the reporting of the events by the state sponsored news (which can be seen below) 

 

While I am skeptical to jump on the band wagon of a conspiracy theory the video and other materials put forward by the group do seem convincing. However, to be fair, their is convincing evidence on both sides.But for a moment let's entertain the idea that the accusations were true and the protests were staged. With that in mind I began to entertain the idea bringing the Art of War into this conversation. Remember that line I told you to remember about all warfare being based on deception? Well that's exactly what happened here. After this event Chinese, both followers and observers,  throughout the country began to doubt Falun Gong. And many of the faithful who were determined to hold on to their beliefs began to be plagued with doubt and drop away and those that did hold on were subjugated to unspeakable forms of torture, abuse, reeducation, and other human rights violations. 

Which is just like the Art of War capture who you can and use them against your enemy or in the terms of a battle for public opinion you cause deep seeded doubt and suspicion in the moderates and unconvinced isolating the remaining resistance. By doing so you slowly make the remaining group seem more and more radical to the now opposed public causing the remainder to be further isolated and stigmatized allowing the government to crush resistance effectively without causing public outcry. By using this strategy the Chinese government did have to resort to violence, however, by cutting off Falun Gong from its more moderate supporters and manipulating the flow of information they were able to effectively surround the group and crush its center. While pockets of resistance did spring up (Liu Chengjun an activist hacked a satalite news feed for the city of Changchun and managed to broadcast the False Fire video on loop for fifty minutes, he was arrested and died in prison 21 years later) the group has been effectively silence in China due to the CCP's actions. Even if the protests were real the way the CCP handled the situation was, from the stand point of The Art, in a brilliant manner. Regardless of its validity the information surrounding the protests was disseminated and controlled in such a way that it caused confusion and allow the government to have a greater control over public opinion through its use of deceptive tactics. 

While I'm still working on this it is an interesting line to peruse and I'm probably gonna work on it in greater detail in the weeks to come. But in the mean time I'd like to explore more of the details of exactly what happened during 1999 in China and read closer into whatever sources of public opinion at the time exist (although how reliable they will be is completely up in the air). It could also be interesting to investigate how the international community reacted to what happened in China as well as the state of affairs of Falun Gong today, more than ten years after the crack down. 

Peace and Love

Jacob 

Sources 

Chang, Maria Hsia. 2004. Falun gong : The end of days. New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press.

Forney, Matthew. 2001. How china beat down falun gong. Time 157, no. 26: 32.

Howell, Jude. 2004. Governance in china. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Sunzi, , Ralph D. Sawyer, Mei-chün Sawyer, and Bin Sun . 1996. The complete art of war. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. 

Catching Fire: Political Unrest and Oppression in Tibet

I think those two photos sum it up best. Tibet is burning and tensions are beginning to mount. According to the BBC currently 21 monks have set themselves on fire in the past few months in protest of myriad of issues concerning Tibetian Chinese relations, but, in this situation at least, there are two of cardinal importance. As I mentioned last time the recent restrictions in the area around Tibet 'proper' has sparked this second wave of protest, but what are the restrictions? Well that's the second point many of the monks, nuns, and Tibetans in general feel that China is deeply restricting their freedom of expression, religion, speech, and movement.  China's response to these claims? 

Notice the fire extiquisher 

There are dozens of photos and this post could could become a photo journal from here on out, but that would miss the point. China is cracking down hard against the Tibetians labeling them separatists and terrorists and they will continue to do so until their goal of security is reached. Regardless of who you think is right in this situation people are being beaten, restricted, watched, and (perhaps most importantly) dying by their own hand or otherwise. And China's actions aren't helping. But then again China has dealt with religious protests similar to this before and in a similar manner I might add. 

Each time China has successfully put down the protests and, for the most part, managed to eradicate the memory of what happened from the public's mind. So, in many ways, this crackdown makes a lot of sense it worked before so it will work again, at least that's what the Chinese government is banking on. And while a large part of me if fearful that this will be a replay of what's gone before part of me is hopeful for some change.After all if you'll remember Chinese geomancers did predict that several Party officials would wind up behind bars by years end.

Take away questions? Well this time I guess I'm very interested to see how this situation develops and I'll be watching it as closely as I can in the days and weeks to come.

In loving memory of the dead, may you find what you seek:

Jacob 

Further Reading:

A good profile of Lama Sobha (one of the first to light themselves on fire) warning the article contains graphic images of his body: http://www.savetibet.org/media-center/ict-news-reports/photos-lama-sobha

Articles mentioned

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-17153328

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17134560

Video courtesy of the Guardian 

Here we go

Well it seems that my first post on China is going to be a depressing one. For those of you haven't heard things are getting heated in Tibet once again. Early last year Tibetian monks set themselves on fire in protest against China's increasing grip over religious and political freedom. Since then 20 more Tibetans have followed suit, five last week alone, and now its getting a bit more intense.

In response to the increase in protests the Chinese government has effectively locked off access to Tibet and western Sichuan through an extensive series of roadblocks and check points. Areas within the lock down have been getting more tense by the day, at one point the police opened fire on a crowd of protesters. Many locations within this region have been closed to non-Chinese and reporting teams in the region are followed closely and are arrested if they attempt to make contact with any Tibetans.

As you all know I am always interested in issues of political injustice, protest, and resistance so I immediately jumped at the chance to blog this story. But at the same time I must say that I am deeply disturbed and concerned for the people of Tibet in that modern China does not have a history of handling dissent all to well (after all most people my age in China do not know what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989). So it will be interesting, albeit most likely frightening, to watch this develop from a far. 

In terms of what I'd like to learn next I guess I need to brush up on my history of Tibet and China and their relationship as well as the current policies China has in relationship to the autonomous region.

Till next time
Jacob

Article
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-16908985

Never Forgetting: Tonghak, Cheondogyo, and independence

It seems fitting that my last post on Korea would bring us back to my first one. During the end of the 19th century conditions in Joseon controlled Korea were rapidly deteriorating for both the working class and the nation itself. Many farmers were living in abject poverty under harsh landlords and much of the ruling class was dealing with the beginnings of a cultural invasion being mounted on multiple fronts by the Catholic Church, Europe, and Japan collectively known as Sohak (Western Learning). In many ways this assault being mounted by Sohak meant that traditions endemic to Korea, such as Musim and Korean Buddhism, were being dramatically changed or under the threat of potential elimination. In other words it was a culture in deep crisis.

In the midst of this was Ch'oe Che'u, a man who had a great deal of trouble getting started in life. Around 1860 he was struck down with a strange incurable illness, that was, of course, until he was gripped with a vision of a spirit known as Sangje. The spirit commanded him to take up the path of spiritual teaching and save Korea and the world with it. Ch'oe asked the spirit if he was to teach Sohak to which the spirit laughed and said no, he would spread Tonghak (Eastern Learning) instead. Snagje then handed him a piece of paper inscribed with 21 characters that could cure people's sicknesses as well as the sickness of the world around them. Ch'oe then took this new way, and new god, into himself by eating the paper and suddenly his sickness was gone

So much swaggger = Ch'oe

Ch'oe then went about and spread his teaching throughout the south of Korea. It quickly gained a following which quickly lead Ch'oe to be arrested and killed for spreading a superstitious tradition (thereby preventing Korea from modernizing). However, his nephew carried on the teaching and the group grew in popularity. Over the next thirty years the group was quiet but then in 1894 the corruption and incompetency of the government pushed the movement into a full fledged rebellion.

sadly it was nothing like this

The rebellion was initially successful and managed to rout many of the government's forces. However, in March the government launched a counter-scorched-earth-campaign causing the rebellion to become a civil war, or the Peasant War of 1894. The war ended but only after the horrific Battle of Ugeumchi, lasting from late October to Early November, wherein the Japanese Army intervened and used their superior technology to slaughter the Tonghak Army.

However, that was not the end of the movement as the leaders pushed the group back underground and gradually changed it into Cheondoism, the modern version of Tonghak that we know today. The groups value of Korean teachings would continue to inform and aid Korean bids for independence to the point that 15 of the 23 signers of the March 1st Movement's Deceleration of Independence were followers of Cheondoism.

Which leads us back to where we began. To be honest this was not something I was expecting to happen. After i finished investigating the March 1st Movement I didn't think it would figure back into Korean religious history, but of course (as is becoming the trend on this blog) I was wrong. Upon reading that Tonghak/Cheondoism was the background to the March 1st Movement I'm pretty sure I looked like this:

This is what most of my revelations look like 

Why you ask? Well two very important reasons. Reason number 1 is that I always get chills when shit I'm working on spontaneously interconnects (like how my theory of religion came together last semester). Reason number 2 is that Tonghak/Cheondoism is a syncretist religion. For those of you who don't know, syncretism is "the attempt to reconcile contrary beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought.” Which is exactly what Cheondoism is.

Don't believe me? Lets take a closer look then. Ch'oe had an illness which would not abate until he accepted God into his life and carried out its plan, meaning Cheondoism began from an instance of Muism's divine illness. Secondly the word Cheondogyo (the full name of the religion)  means religion of the heavenly way with Do being the Korean version of the Chinese word for the Dao or way. And while Daoism's influence on Cheondogyo is slight the group does posit that we must bring the world into a paradise modeled on heaven similar to the Daoist view of being in accordance with the way. Thirdly the group takes the idea of a God from Christianity and combines them with more Shamanistic and Buddhist attitudes to create their own version of Haneullim (an ancient Korean god) who they maintain is the one and only god who resides in every human and governs the universe while at the same time is the entirety of the universe.

By combining all of these beliefs into Cheondoism, Ch'oe created a religion which empowered the Korean people by teaching them that God resided inside of all of them therefore everyone had the right to be treated equally and furthermore it is our duty to the god that resides in all of us to fight back against oppression until we achieve a perfect world here and now. Meaning that in addition to Protestantism there was another religious force active in the Korean independence movement. This excited me because I have long maintained that syncretist religions, and popular religions in general, have, when combined with a Place (in this case Korea), often acted as a dynamic force for active resistance against oppression.  And while that is an academic thesis in itself, reading about this piece of history greatly excited me.

So much so that I did this for hours

So this is where we leave Korea (although I don't doubt it will return in passing during our discussions of China) I have to say that these three research projects have been very interesting and I've learned a lot, but throughout this process I keep running into the same key problem. A lack of research. For all of these pieces it was often sheer dumb luck I was able to find anything at all. And I guess this links back to my question of why? Why is there so little information? It's a question I have no way of answering but its an important one.

Additionally this particular project left me wanting to pursue my hypothesis on the connection between syncretism and action against oppression by social movements. I have often found it interesting that the master narrative of many religions have such a distaste for the syncretists tendacies that lie in us all. And how often those who express this distaste the most are those who have to most of lose if a syncretist religion manages to gain enough sway. 

So that's all for today! I hope these wandering of Korea have been as exciting for you as for me

till next time when we'll talk about something to do with current events!

Jacob 

The Flag of Cheondoism

P.S.

God-Head being present now, 

I desire his great descent. 

Serving the Heavenly Lord, I am. 

Never forgetting, I know all things 

--traditional Cheondogyo prayer 

P.P.S.

Interested in syncretism? I used to do a blog on in it, back in the day (the day being 2011) 

http://enlightenmentisgreen.tumblr.com/post/3743616998/what-the-fuck-is-syncretism

P.P.P.S

Once you see something you can't unsee it

Sources 

Grayson, James Huntley. Korea: A Religious History. New York: Routledge, 2002.

History summary of the revolution. JeongeupCity. http://donghak.jeongeup.go.kr/eng/sub2/sub1.html (accessed 2/2, 2012).

Hong, Suhn-kyoung. 1968. Tonghak in the context of korean modernization. Review of Religious Research 10, no. 1: 43.

2004. The tonghak peasant revolution. Association for Asia Research. 2 Jan. 2004. http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/1797.html (accessed 2/2, 2012).

2003. Tonghak revolution and chundoism. Association for Asia Research. http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/1796.html (accessed 2/2, 2012).

Stories are the spoils of war: the after-effects of Comfort Women

On January 8th a Chinese man was arrested for throwing 2 Molotov cocktails at the Japanese Embassy in South Korea, he was charged with attempted arson last week. Why you ask? Well to be frank the answer to that is quite complicated. During WWII the Japanese Army instituted had a policy known as the Comfort Women which was a form of sexual slavery imposed upon Chinese and Korean women.

it is as upsetting as it sounds

Along with Unit 731 (which I will not discuss here, it is too horrific), Comfort Women are among a large group of WWII topics that are generally speaking not discussed outside of Asia. But within that region of the world, the memory of it still runs raw to the point that the film Memoirs of a Geisha was not allowed into mainland China because of the incorrect association between Geisha and Comfort Women. The Comfort Women were placed in Japanese military bases throughout the Empire in an attempt, according to the High Command at least, to reduce disease and prevent rape, it failed.

After the war the Japanese stopped talking about it and didn't apologize until 1992 and in 1998 the government paid each of the women affected 2,300 USD. Which brings us to now and the attack. 

The man identified only by Liu, his family's name, decided to take action because his grandmother had been forced into the Comfort Women Program. He also targeted the Yasukuni shrine (an extremely controversial Shrine dedicated to the Empire of Japan's 2 million plus military dead 1,000 of were executed for War Crimes) in December.

The US has a similar response about Truman and George W. Bush

Which is what made this article peak my interest. I have been aware that Chinese and Korean citizens still feel that Japan has not fully paid its debt from the damaged wrought during the war and that there was much ire raised by Yasukuni, but this is the first protest I've heard of in the news recently. As mentioned above the shrine is Shinto but it, along with all other Shinto institutions, is no longer under the sway of the government since their separation at the end of WWII. So the head priests of the temple were fully aware of what they were doing when they enshrined the names of those who committed the crimes which begs the question of why, which is something I may explore later. And while it could be considered troubling, I'm sure that there veterans memorialized in the US who may committed similar crimes that go unrecorded because we won WWI and II and to the victor goes the power of story.

Which is why the lack of reporting and education on issues such as the Comfort Women and other Japanese War Crimes in the US is so interesting. Because you learn all about the Holocaust but, at least when it came to my education about the War in the Pacific, you learn very little when it comes to what happened in Japan, Korea, and China during the War. 

So in terms what I'd like to learn next I guess my question would be why this is. In the back of my mind its because the States became allied with Japan to such an intense degree after the War but the same is true of Germany and US history text books aren't shy when it comes to the Holocaust, so that couldn't be it. But then again the US has never had many friends in the Pacific so perhaps that is part of it. So because perhaps it could be the lingering effects of colonialism, after all Japan defeating the Great Powers of Europe, and out pacing them economically after the War, sent shock waves throughout Europe (as was China going Communist) so perhaps the silence comes from resentment and embarrassment. But then again knowning how my research has been the past few times I'm probably completely wrong. 

Till next time 

Jacob 

Further Reading:

Article 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16754073 

Background on Comfort Women (yes I use Wikipedia to refresh my memory of facts) 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women

and if you're interested Unit 731 (prepare to cry)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

P.S.