Religion Does Not Exist in Isolation II

Last Updated (Thursday, 29 April 2021 19:35)

Religion Does Not Exist In Isolation II:

Uncovering Patriarchy, Androcentrism, and Misogyny in the Sacred Texts

ICF’s online thematic workshop on Patriarchy, Androcentrism, and Misogyny in the Sacred Texts concluded its fourth and final session on March 25, and its follow-up discussion on March 30, 2021. There were 4 sessions with the resource persons and 4 follow-up discussions. 21 regular participants completed the four sessions, 15 of whom are males and 16 are females. They represented four major religions namely, Buddhism (2), Christianity (22), Hinduism (3), and Islam (3). The first three sessions focused on Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism.

The last session had Venerable Dhammananda was the resource person. The Venerable Dhammananda Bhikkhuni received full monastic ordination as a bhikkhuni on the 28th of February 2003 in Sri Lanka because the Buddhist order in Thailand does ordain women. She is the abbess of Songdhammakalyani Monastery in Thailand. She addressed the topic in the form of a question: If the Dhamma has No gender bias, how do Buddhist women make sense of the Garudhammas? The Venerable Dhammananda gave a cursory input on the history of bhikkhunis and their role today to situate her answer to the question. She asserted that the bhikkhus and the bhikkhunis are equal. In the Theravada version, the Garudhamma has 331 rules of discipline for the bhikkhuni (female monks), while the rules for the bhikkhus (male monks). The resource person pointed out that the Buddha had trusted the bhikkhunis can follow more disciplinary rules. She does not regard this as discrimination. A lively discussion on the many questions that the participants raised followed. The participants were also keen to learn more about the Buddhist teachings on female and male equality and the acknowledgment of LGBTQA+.

↑ Venerable Dhammananda Bhikkhuni

Almayne Joyce R. Mayor from the Philippines summed up her gained insights from the session as follows: “The session with Ven. Bhikkhuni Dhammanan da was an eye-opening for me. We learned that ordination of a female monk has been a practice since ancient times, the eight Garudhammas are fair in some respect and that gender equality is a core positive characteristic of Buddhism.”

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Religion Does Not Exist In Isolation

Last Updated (Wednesday, 31 March 2021 15:07)

Uncovering Patriarchy, Androcentrism, and Misogyny in the Sacred Texts

ICF is currently observing women’s month with a series of virtual sessions once a week on Patriarchy, Androcentrism, and Misogyny in the Sacred Texts. Each session focuses and examines the sacred texts of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, respectively. So far, the first three sessions took place with a respective follow-up discussion the week after.

The first of the four sessions took place on March 4th with a follow-up discussion on Monday 8th on International Women’s Day. During the first session, ICFs very own Dr. Muriel Orevillo-Montenegro took the participants on a journey to explore the texts of terror in the Bible. After introducing the participants to the words Patriarchy, Androcentrism, and Misogyny, Dr. Muriel Orevillo-Montenegro gave insights on the circumstance of the bible arguing that it is crucial to understand the broader context to understand the sacred text. Or as she puts it: “We must interrogate the text, ask the text. Men wrote the text. It did not suddenly appear out of nowhere. It comes to us from the perspective of the writer. Writing is a political act, whether we like it or not. In any story, you will take the angle, depending on what your interest is. To make sense of the text: interrogate it! Why was it written? When and by whom?” Taking these questions into account the participants had the opportunity to listen to some texts of terror in the bible and discuss with their peers the implications those have on our current societies. What shall we take away from these texts of terror? According to Dr. Orevillo-Montenegro, it is up to each one to take a deeper look into their sacred texts, acknowledge the texts of terror with their enslaving and marginalizing dimensions and not take them as authoritative. Moreover, she asked the participants to identify those aspects that are liberating and lift them. The bible can be read and interpreted differently by different people and there is not one single truth.

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NCYB and local YMCA leaders explore peacebuilding and ecumenical coexistence with the newly appointed Archbishop

Last Updated (Wednesday, 24 March 2021 15:41)

Lay leader and Professional of NCYB congratulating new Archbishop

The Vatican appointed new Archbishop Bejoy N D'Cruze for the Catholic Church of Bangladesh on September 27, 2020. The Archbishop is based in Dhaka and will be responsible for leading Catholic Churches' spiritual development and leading the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bangladesh. On behalf of NCYB, lay leaders and professionals congratulated the new Archbishop with a flower bouquet and cake on 1st March 2021. The team was led by Mr. Babu Markus Gomes, President NCYB, and Mr. Nipun Sangma, National General Secretary of NCYB.

During the conversation, the Archbishop expressed his interest in working more on peacebuilding and community strengthening by facilitating interfaith dialogue and ecumenical coexistence. The Archbishop has highly appreciated the contribution of NCYB to the community and Bangladesh's Christian society since its establishment.

Archbishop Bishop Bejoy N D'Cruze was born on February 9, 1956, at Tuital in Nawabganj, Bandura, Dhaka and was ordained as a priest on February 20, 1987.

Prepared by- Biplob Rangsa, Executive Secretary, NCYB

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I want to tell you …

Last Updated (Friday, 26 February 2021 13:15)

I want to tell you…

 

Myanmar has been on the news all around the world. Now I want to tell you "What is really happening in Myanmar".

 

The military detained most of the democratically elected leaders on 1st February, 2021. The coup d'état occurred the day before the Parliament of Myanmar was due to swear in the members elected at the 2020 election. They released a statement defending the military coup because of potential fraud in the November 8th election 2020. The election commission has denied there was widespread voter fraud.

 

Starting from that day all the civilians feel worried, insecure, fear, loss of freedom, hope for the future. I am telling you this because I was born in 1991 and have experienced the military government ruling system. On the very first day of the military coup, they cut off internet access and phone communication all around the country. However, as soon as internet access was restored, all the civilians started sharing messages of resistance through the social media, and raising awareness to the international community. The military waited for 72 hours because they want civilians to make agitations and that will be their reason to take control and seize power. If civilians are agitated and had demonstrations, the military will tell the world that they had to stage the coup due to the riots. This is what happened in 1988. But we won't let this thing happened again.

 

After 72 hours (3 days), civilians started their peaceful demonstration in the street, participated mostly by youth. They encouraged each other and actively participated in the peaceful street demonstrations. Most of the youth had no experience of living under military dictatorship, but they felt it and knew that their rights, hopes, and future will surely be doom and gloom under the military dictatorship. So they came out to the streets and started peaceful demonstrations. Day by day, we encouraged ourselves and each other to fight back military dictatorship. Even when we feel tired, we won't stop and we can't stop. During the demonstrations many civilians got hurt from the beatings and some were shot with the guns using real and rubber bullets. But we can't stop. This is our future and we must fight till the end. Day by day, more and more civilians were getting hurt while protesting against the military dictatorship. We lost some heroes during demonstrations. We feel sorry and scared but we can't stop. We need to be free from fear. We can't let this military dictatorship win. They oppressed all the ethnic groups and made civil wars. So every civilian wants true democracy, justice and human rights.

 

Under Military dictatorship we don't have our own choices and can't even speak our own opinions. They always want civilians to live in fear, hopeless and uneducated. We are fighting military dictatorship through the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM). We connect with each other through social media like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We beat pots and pans to drive away the evils from us. We join peaceful street demonstrations and raise awareness to the international community. We participate in the CDM to show that we don't accept this military government. We will stop all the working machinery and we won't come to office because we can't work for an illegal government. We will be back in the office when our selected leaders are back.

 

Currently the military is telling lies to the world through national TV channels -- MWD and MRTV. The military killed civilians but the state media does not report it, only that protesters are making riots, so the military had to disperse the groups of people using water cannons and guns with rubber bullets. The state media report that schools are open and children are learning lessons happily and peacefully, but actually, no schools are open and nobody is attending school. They report that the whole country is really peaceful and citizens are peacefully doing exercises and walking in the park. National TV : MWD and MRTV broadcast biased on the military dictatorship and misinform the news of nationwide protests. They try to cover up the dictators' crime against citizens. A young woman shot with a real bullet in the head during an anti-coup protest in NayPyiTaw last week died shortly after.

 

Junta has robbed our freedom and stolen our rights! They have arrested protest leaders and other protesters. The Myanmar Military & Police have been conducting illegal arrests late at night without warrant every day. Some of our civil doctors who are participating in the CDM were arrested by the military without valid reasons. Many doctors have gone into hiding in order to avoid being captured and most of them are worried who comes next. The civil doctors have sacrificed so much for the public during this COVID 19 pandemic era. Now they have to live in fear and insecurity while trying to save the country. Increasing number of people participating in the CDM is being arrested without warrants every night, including major public service staff, UEC Officers and Heads.

The civilians of Myanmar are not safe under military coup.

 

Lastly, I want to say that we won't stop even we when feel so tired. We will fight till the end to get our democracy. And please don't believe the propaganda spread by the military to cover their illegal activities. Also please help us not only with petitions but also with actions. They have never listened to petitions from other countries. They never be shy for what they did.

 

We want our true freedom, justice, democracy and human rights back. And we want our leaders back. Our ethnic people want a Federation promised by General Aung Sann. But we can't hope for a Federation if we are under Military dictatorship. So help us to remove military dictatorship forever. We hate military dictatorship. We want justice and we want them to respect our votes.

 

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