News Forum - 4,000 Muslims protest against construction of Kuan Yin statue in southern Thailand

[TheDirtyDurian]

13 minutes ago, astro said:

How anybody could deem it a good idea to erect a gigantic Kuan Yin monument in the middle of a pre dominantly Muslim area, is a mystery to me.

It is hardly comparable to building a mosque for worship in CM, is it.

Apparently it is though ...

[Marc26]

16 minutes ago, astro said:

How anybody could deem it a good idea to erect a gigantic Kuan Yin monument in the middle of a pre dominantly Muslim area, is a mystery to me.

It is hardly comparable to building a mosque for worship in CM, is it.

How is it any different? I don't see how

 

As has been pointed out, correctly, Muslims erect mosques all over areas that are dominantly other religions

 

There is no difference, IMO

[astro]

A Buddhist temple is the equivalent to a mosque, not a gigantic monument depicting Kuan Yin.

Many temples in the South, as are mosques in other areas of Thailand - freedom of religion, as per the constitution.

 

 

[astro]

6 hours ago, Giltee said:

This is a Buddhist country, it’s not their land and they’re perfectly entitled to build statues of whatever on their own land. 

Not quite.

Thailand is predominantly Buddhist, Songkla is predominantly Muslim.

No, one can not build whatever on one's own land - subject to building regulations and various restrictions. Permission from the municipality is required.

Have you never heard of guidelines about permitted structures, which include location, height, colour schemes, fitting in with surroundings etc?

[ronnie666]

10 hours ago, Manu said:

24% of the entire population of the world is muslim and your comment refers to a tiny minority of extremists, the ones we hear in the news. And that is enough for a lot of people like you to classify their entire comminity of 1.8 billion people. It is like saying that all catholic priests are pedophils. "it just comes from what they do" for people who are ignorant and prejudiced (to stay polite).

Was reading or someone thought the same as me, thanks for pointing it out.

[ronnie666]

10 hours ago, brian60221 said:

I mean, I don't blame you for abandoning the debate and switching to personal attacks. I wouldn't want to be in the position of trying to defend thousands of suicide bombings and all that. Like, let's just consider a Thaiger search for "insurgents", which is of course just a euphemism for Muslims: https://thethaiger.com/?s=insurgents

How many pages do you need to scroll through before you start to think I might have a tiny bit of a point?

That's just the Thaiger. Anyone who searches could find a basically infinite number of newspaper clippings from 50+ years ago about attacks and suicide bombings by Muslims. Sorry! I just know some facts about the world that aren't very nice.

As far as I know Muslims of other countries, not thailand I never hear that in my decade here. But I can be wrong. Still do not compare every Muslim with that, is like people said we all have covid... not one foreigner appreciated that

Edited August 5, 2022 by ronnie666

[Thaidup]

13 hours ago, TheDirtyDurian said:

Muslim bashers, what are you waiting for??

I just feel they should have some more tolerance towards other religions, that would be nice.

Thailand in general is accepting of all religions, hey I see Christmas decorations at bigC , It appears that some are less tolerant than others about people being free to express their beliefs, so sad, but cults are like that.

[Skip]

14 hours ago, TheDirtyDurian said:

Muslim bashers, what are you waiting for??

Your intolerance seems on a par to the muslims... hardly community building

[Skip]

13 hours ago, TheDirtyDurian said:

Completely unrelated to the topic but thanks for sharing your opinions there. 

Not unrelated... just beyond your capacity to understand... the muslims ask, and I quote..." how to co-exist with a Muslim community.”... but to them coexist means only doing things their way... hardly the definition of "coexist"

[Bluesofa]

I'd never heard of Kuan Yin before. I searched and came up with this:

"In her first life in India she was born as a male named Avalokitesvara, who sought to help poor lost souls be reborn to a better life on their journey to enlightenment"

Is this protest intolerance about katoeys, or have I misunderstood it?

source: https://www.goddessgift.com/goddess-info/meet-the-goddesses/kuan-yin/ 

[brian60221]

50 minutes ago, Bluesofa said:

Is this protest intolerance about katoeys, or have I misunderstood it?

It just seems to be a Muslim thing to hate statues of deities. That's why the Taliban destroyed some Buddhist statues a while back. https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/world/taliban-destroys-bamiyan-buddha-statues-in-2001/2015/07/29/8e0c35ca-362f-11e5-ab7b-6416d97c73c2_video.html

[brian60221]

12 hours ago, Marc26 said:

All religions suck.............

This just isn't useful to say that all whatevers are infinitely far from some imaginary ideal, so they're all the same. They're not the same. Try to find a news report about a Methodist or a Jew or a Sikh or a Hindu or a Buddhist shouting "God is great!" and then exploding themselves in a pizza parlor or attacking random passers-by with a machete or whatever. You'll be hard-pressed to find any. But the results for Muslims would fill a multi-volume encyclopedia.

That's not to say that most Muslims have anything to do with that. Most Muslims probably just try to use religion to make themselves better people, which is the actual purpose of religion. But it's wrong to act as if all religions are the same. It's not some accident or coincidence that 99.999% of the religiously-motivated attacks come from one group.

[HolyCowCm]

11 hours ago, astro said:

How anybody could deem it a good idea to erect a gigantic Kuan Yin monument in the middle of a pre dominantly Muslim area, is a mystery to me.

It is hardly comparable to building a mosque for worship in CM, is it.

One of the mosques here in CM is in a place on Chang Phueak rd and it is a complete eye sore as they have just rebuilt it to be higher and then again modified the top of it with these ugly huge white pillars with the islam symbol dab on the top. No one really cares for the most part except unless they let the noise on the loud speaker rip out. See the difference is normal non muslim Buddhist Thai seem more accepting for the most part. This area is not a muslim area at all, but this mosque has been here for quite a long time as I can remember as even over 20 years ago I live in that area for a bit. 2021 before modifying it, it was low scale and sort of oblivious to the neighborhood, but now nope. Yes its seriously ugly and totally out of place, but it is their property. 

[TheDirtyDurian]

5 hours ago, Skip said:

Your intolerance seems on a par to the muslims... hardly community building

What intolerance are you referring to?

There are a large number of posters on here who appear very anti all things Muslim. 

Quite odd considering they've probably never spent much time, if any in any Muslim countries. Probably don't have any Muslim friends etc etc. 

A layover in Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi does not count by the way. 

If you misconstrued my comment,  apologies. It was only meant as a joke invitation for the aforementioned bigots to start coming in with the, "Muslims do this, Muslims do that and so on and so forth" 

And sure enough, it didn't take long!

Seems to be a lot of experts on "how Muslims be like" on this forum, but you have to ask what that experience that is based upon. A lot of hate and bigotry. 

 

[AdvocatusDiaboli]

Well, it is only one statue of 35,000 other imaginary beings of Gods, Deities and the like. Still comes down to my imaginary friend is better than yours.

[astro]

5 hours ago, HolyCowCm said:

Yes its seriously ugly and totally out of place

In your opinion... the municipality thought otherwise when it granted planning permission.

Oh, I had to look twice in the first pic to spot the "eyesore" - hardly a 200 m high monument. lol

[astro]

7 hours ago, Skip said:

Not unrelated... just beyond your capacity to understand... the muslims ask, and I quote..." how to co-exist with a Muslim community.”... but to them coexist means only doing things their way... hardly the definition of "coexist"

How would you know? How many Muslims in the South have you conversed with? Do you know any Muslims personally?

[Bluesofa]

7 hours ago, brian60221 said:

That's not to say that most Muslims have anything to do with that. Most Muslims probably just try to use religion to make themselves better people, which is the actual purpose of religion. But it's wrong to act as if all religions are the same. It's not some accident or coincidence that 99.999% of the religiously-motivated attacks come from one group.

I'm just pointing out the following, not taking sides in this:

As a 'minority religion' within Thailand, the majority of the deep south are Muslim, so will stand out for that reason.

From what I've read, the deep south never wanted to be part of (what is now) Thailand. It was forced on them when what was the Sultanate of Patani was taken over by Siam, a grudge their descendants have harboured ever since, causing the violence over the decades:

"In 1902, in a bid to assert full control of Patani, Siam arrested and deposed the last raja of Patani after he refused Siam's demand for administrative reform, thus ending Patani as an independent state."

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patani_Kingdom#Patani_in_the_Bangkok_Period

 

[HolyCowCm]

1 hour ago, astro said:

In your opinion... the municipality thought otherwise when it granted planning permission.

Oh, I had to look twice in the first pic to spot the "eyesore" - hardly a 200 m high monument. lol

So your saying size does matter?

[brian60221]

4 hours ago, TheDirtyDurian said:

"Humanity is but a single Brotherhood"

"Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and spread mischief in the land is death, crucifixion, cutting off their hands and feet on opposite sides, or exile from the land."

https://quran.com/5?startingVerse=33

Please note, "spreading mischief in the land" just means opposing Islam in any way.

 

[TheDirtyDurian]

25 minutes ago, HolyCowCm said:

So your saying size does matter?

Some are more bothered about it than others. 

[Smiler]

Lots of comments on here some supporting some condemning but let’s face facts which religion in the world causes the most deaths simply because of its intolerance I’ll give you a clue it’s not Buddhism 

[astro]

17 minutes ago, Smiler said:

Lots of comments on here some supporting some condemning but let’s face facts which religion in the world causes the most deaths simply because of its intolerance I’ll give you a clue it’s not Buddhism 

And that assertion relates to the proposed 200m monument in Songkla how exactly?

[brian60221]

4 minutes ago, astro said:

And that assertion relates to the proposed 200m monument in Songkla how exactly?

We're only here talking about this issue because Muslims protested other people doing stuff on their own property. The Buddhists, Sikhs, Hindus, etc., aren't borderline-threatening people over religious differences. And they don't have a habit of exploding themselves when they're upset about something. That's how it relates to the monument. There's the potential for violence because there are Muslims involved.

More context: 

 

[astro]

4 minutes ago, brian60221 said:

borderline-threatening

lol

Keep digging... you're exposing your prejudices more & more.