Looks like I overestimated your wisdom.
This "karmic merit" thing, which is obviously intrinsic (yer born wi' it, like) must go some way to explaining the racist and phobic attitudes a lot of Burmese Buddhists...
Nope. The above only shows you have grasped another opportunity to parade your ignorance of Buddhism and now, karma. This is your best bit of Flat-earthism to date. I had thought that your... what's the word...
telling silence on anything to do with the fact of colonial racism was a tacit acknowledgement of its existence; I was wrong because now we are subject to the sight of a White, British fella
shamelessly trying to claim - without evidence - that racism as inherent to Buddhism.
Let's try again, shall we?
Racism is a European construct. It is a product of both the scientific revolution and the European Enlightenment that reached its nadir with
Eugenics.
Defining raceModern scholarship views racial categories as socially constructed, that is, race is not intrinsic to human beings but rather an identity created to establish meaning in a social context.
Such racial identities reflect the cultural attitudes of imperial powers dominant during the age of European colonial expansion. This view rejects the notion that race is biologically defined.
Race and colonialismAccording to Smedley and Marks the European concept of "race", along with many of the ideas now associated with the term,
arose at the time of the scientific revolution, which introduced and privileged the study of natural kinds, and t
he age of European imperialism and colonization which established political relations between Europeans and peoples with distinct cultural and political traditions.
All the above pre-dates Gautama Buddha by well over a thousand years, so it's impossible to say with certainty what he would have to say about Race. However, Race, wasn;t the only highly dubious social construct in history that served to divide up humanity that endures to today. The Buddha was born into another - Caste.
Brahmanism, the predominant religion in India during the Buddha's time, divided all humans into four castes (attu vanna), priests, warriors, traders and labourers. Social contact between each caste was minimal and the lower one's position in the system the less opportunities, the less freedom and the less rights one had. Outside the caste system were the outcasts (sudra) people considered so impure that they hardly counted as humans. The caste system was later absorbed into Hinduism, given religious sanction and legitimacy and has continued to function right up till the present. The Buddha, himself born into the warrior caste, was a severe critic of the caste system. He ridiculed the priests claims to be superior, he criticised the theological basis of the system and he welcomed into the Sangha people of all castes, including outcasts. His most famous saying on the subject is: " Birth does not make one a priest or an outcaste. Behaviour makes one either a priest or an outcaste".
http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/dharmadata/fdd53.htmSo, not a big fan of hierarchical social constructs. This attitude to Casteism is the reason that the Dalits, the so-called "untouchables", covert en masse (by their volition) to Buddhism. There is also a clue there to the Buddhist attitude to the Sanga (the clergy). They live on our charity and we are not obliged to a single word they say.
...clearly have with their Muslim neighbours - who I assume are born with neither karma, not merit.
Yes, well, this is another example of the dangers of making claims when you're ignorant on a subject. Buddhism would say all Muslims, Christians, Atheists, even tribes still untouched by civilisation in the Amazon are in the highest echelon of living beings by virtue of being born human.
So ends today's instalment of:
People who are so Narrow-minded they Refuse to See an Ethnic Conflict that's Starring Them in the Face.