Wednesday 30 March 2022

BUDDHISTS USED AS CANNON FODDER IN UKRAINE


By Pjotr Sauer in The Guardian

"Holding smoking incense sticks and singing hymns, a group of Buddhist monks sat in front of the open coffins of four Russian soldiers killed fighting in Ukraine as hundreds of mourners gathered on Monday at a local sports centre in Ulan-Ude, the capital of the remote Buryatia region in Russia’s far east.

“We are distraught. This bloodshed needs to stop. Our boys are dying,” said Olga Odoeva, the sister-in-law of Bulat Odoev, one of the four soldiers being buried..."

"...Ludi Baikala, a small independent media outlet that covers the region, has so far identified and named 45 soldiers from Buryatia who have died in Ukraine, but it believes the real number is much higher.

“...The 45 are just the ones we managed to identify. There will be many more that are not talked about,” said Olga Mutovina, a journalist for Ludi Baikala..."

"...and a senator from Tuva on the Mongolian border has publicly said that 96 soldiers from her small republic were killed in Ukraine..."

"...“Unfortunately, the average Russian will care less about the death of a Buryat or Dagestani than about the death of blue-eyed soldiers from Moscow and St Petersburg,” Luzin said.

“That also goes into the minds of those planning military operations. Buryat soldiers get sent on missions on which commanders wouldn’t send other troops...”


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Buddhism in Buryatia 

Buddhism in Tuva


Wednesday 9 February 2022

How Buddhism has changed the west for the better

 
by Rebecca Solnit in The Guardian
 

"We are not who we were very long ago. A lot of new ideas have emerged from Buddhism and other traditions emphasizing compassion, equality, nonviolence and critical perspectives on materialism and capitalism..."

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