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This is a recent video by CNA that just came out yesterday. It showcases the anti-asian hate crimes around the UK particularly. The senior correspondent by the name of Wei Du (who is of Asian descent) went to the UK to investigate this issue and even talked to a person who appears to be prejudiced against people of colour ("POC"). By the interview, she does not regard herself as a racist, instead she sees herself as a nationalist. She has this prejudiced view that the UK should remain a country that consists only of whites and that people from other countries should not immigrate to the UK. She also thinks that marriage should only be of people from the same race. This is the kind of wrong views that people can have that really stirs up all this anti-asian hate prevailing in the western countries. Even though she acknowledges that it is wrong to incite hate on the basis of one's race, still, because of her incorrect concepts, she and her kind are perpetuating hate in this world.
This is terrible and I want to use my platform to highlight this issue. By highlighting this issue, I hope some sense of responsibility to protect others in this situation and if you are one of those people with similar views as this particular woman, then you should do something to correct it. Interestingly, the video also highlighted a group to train people what to do if they come across any cases of racial hate going on. For example, if you are in a public train and you overheard someone saying abusive words on an Asian lady sitting next to you, then what do you do? What can the Asian lady do? Well, there is this "active bystander training" workshop where people facing this issue can gather and discuss and help one another. I would also say that similar movements to the "Black Lives Matter" in the US is also a good movement to raise awareness of this issue.
Actually this issue is not confined to race alone. It can also happen in any community that is predominantly of one particular religion. If there is a sudden rise in persons of another religion coming in to stay within the same community or society, naturally, the first group will have feelings of insecurity and suspicion. Very soon thereafter, there will surely be cases of fighting, crime or violence, etc. Even in normally peaceful Buddhist country, such as Myanmar, there were reported cases in the past of Buddhist monks turning violent and angry against the Muslim people that slowly grows in their community. If it is the other way around, it will be the same. That is why in some countries, which is predominantly of another religion, Buddhists cannot just simply built their places of worship there. It is meant to control. In a way this is good to avoid long term issues such as the anti-Asian hate that arises due to growing Asian community in those countries.
While there is not much concrete solutions suggested by this video, I think it is a good effort to document what is going on in the UK. But it is also a problem in the US and some other countries. The last part of the video highlighted that around the time after the Second World War, many Chinese people were rounded and deported by the UK government at that time. The Chinese came to the UK before the war and they had helped the UK fight during the war. But after the war, they were rudely rounded up and deported. Most of them originally came from various parts of China but when they were deported, they were instead sent to Hong Kong and Singapore. So, some of the Singaporeans today, are perhaps descendants of these deported Chinese immigrants. But some of their family members were not deported and remained in the UK (such as Peter's mother in the video and Peter who is a descendant). His father was apparently deported back to either HK or Singapore when he was very young. He does not remember his father at all.
Lastly, I would like to point out that the Buddha was certainly tolerant of people of all races. You can see from the Buddhist scriptures, often his Dharma assemblies were not just humans from all other the places in India who came to listen to his teachings but also non-human beings (such as dragons, gods, goddesses, ghosts, gandarvas, kinnaras, goblins, etc). You don't expect all of these beings are from the same "race", do you? Certainly not! That being the case, we can conclude that in Buddhism, we are supposed to look beyond the skin colour as that is only the body (or outer appearance). What's more important is to recognise the colourless MIND inside of each and every being - humans and non-humans!
So, we all should strive to live together in peace and respect one another's culture and religion.
#antiasiancrime #antiasians #RaceMeToo
You may want check other posts too, such as this https://buddha-and-me.blogspot.com/2012/11/urging-rakhinees-to-live-peacefully.html
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