People in the USA are currently fascinated and enchanted by 19 Buddhist monks. On October 26 last year, the red-robed sandal wearers set off from Fort Worth, Texas, on a nearly 4,000-kilometer peace march through the American South. Their destination: the US capital, Washington, D.C.

The brave monks do not want their marathon march to be seen as a political demonstration, but rather as a pious pilgrimage with the goal of enlightenment. Nevertheless, this march has a political dimension. On their way through the southern states, they are greeted by ever-growing crowds of people who welcome them joyfully[1]. The people on the side of the road are so happy to finally be able to be peaceful and nonviolent again in a completely brutalized world[2]. And when observing these scenes of peacefulness, most viewers cannot help but feel a certain emotion. Once again, it is clear that the vast majority of people in the US want peace. While the president deliberately escalates the spiral of violence, many ordinary Americans refuse to participate in this madness.

The brave monks from the Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center in Texas have proven to be extremely skilled at self-promotion. They are active on social media. Aloka, a former Indian street dog, serves as a visual representation of this peaceful pilgrimage, so to speak. Members of the order brought him to the US from a pilgrimage through India. Aloka bravely ran the routes at the beginning. Then the dog had a traffic accident and was treated by veterinarians. Aloka has his own Facebook page[3]. There, veterinarians reported on his operation, which was met with great sympathy from the American population. The recovering dog now runs a few kilometers every day. He travels the rest of the way by car. Perhaps he will be able to cover the entire route again by the time he reaches Washington.

Two monks were also injured. A truck accidentally drove into the accompanying vehicle of the monks’ demonstration. One monk was so badly injured that his leg had to be amputated[4]. He is now continuing the long journey in a wheelchair.

The pious order from Texas is a branch of Theravada Buddhism, which is predominant in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Vietnam. And so the Texan Theravada monks not only want to make a pilgrimage for peace, but also to raise money for a huge temple complex in Texas. Anyone who, like the author of these lines, has visited all these Theravada states knows that the poverty of the population corresponds to the gigantic Buddhist temples, which are covered with gold plates instead of shingles. The simple believer can improve his karma by buying the gold plates that adorn the roofs of the pagodas with his meager money. Compared to the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar, St. Peter’s Basilica looks like a poorhouse[5].

Our devout brothers in Texas know how to combine peace with a passion for lavish architecture. Nevertheless, the devout pilgrimage is wonderful. And sometimes this pilgrimage does take on an explicitly political character. For example, when the monks reach the city of Selma in Alabama and cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge there.

This is where the so-called Bloody Sunday took place in March 1965[6]. Civil rights demonstrators, black and white, crossed this very bridge. Some of them died as a result of brutal police violence. Even back then, people were marching. For the civil rights of Black people and Jews. The massacre in Selma, Alabama, caused great outrage in the US, fueled the civil rights movement, and mobilized white students and pupils for the protests of the late 1960s. The pilgrim monks and the citizens of Selma and Huntsville who marched with them paused to pay their respects to the civil rights activists[7].

The parallels to that time are evident everywhere. However, thanks to the Trump presidency, a much harsher wind is now blowing from Washington.

The companions of the devout peace pilgrims are also aware of this. Perhaps such a supposedly apolitical meditation tour through the southern states is a kind of paradoxical intervention. After all, US citizens are being provoked to white heat by Trump’s terror troops, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE for short. This shock troop has been around since the days of George Bush the Dumb. Its job is to track down illegal immigrants and remove them from the country. Under Trump, the terror is increasingly directed against the normal population in the US. Like locusts, up to two thousand ICE thugs invade peaceful towns and commit all kinds of violent crimes without any legal authority. Just recently, a 37-year-old mother of three was shot at close range in her car by an ICE killer[8]. Citizens are also forming observation watches. The governors and mayors of the affected cities and states are announcing their vigorous resistance to the illegal attacks by ICE paramilitary gangs. It is no longer unreasonable for authorities and communities to distance themselves more than before from the US federal government.

Part of the strategy, cynically calculated by shock strategist Trump, is to ensure that the people in the communities under attack are unable to find peace and remain under constant stress. These are, so to speak, regime change methods on the home front. In doing so, an oligarch like Trump, who has always been rich, seems to forget that it is ordinary people who create the wealth on which Trump and his neo-feudal parasite caste rest so comfortably. Are workers, employees, and farmers no longer needed? Is the plan to replace these people with robots and artificial intelligence? Trump visited a Ford car manufacturing plant. A worker called Trump a “pedophile.” Trump gave him the middle finger and shouted, “Fuck you!”[9] This is how direct contact between the rich and the people who create wealth looks today.

It’s disgusting. There’s war everywhere. Not just on the Eastern Front. But also at home. A war that people out in the country don’t want. We all want to be left in peace by these disturbed violence fetishists.

Maybe we should organize a peace pilgrimage march in Germany too?

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Hermann Ploppa is a freelance journalist and author. He has just published his latest book, ‘Der Neue Feudalismus – Privatisierung, Blackrock, Plattformkapitalismus’ (The New Feudalism – Privatisation, Blackrock, Platform Capitalism), which is now available. Visit the author’s blog.

Notes

[1]https://youtu.be/T3QNw0wJQMQ

[2]https://youtu.be/QsQ3sHbrWFA

[3]https://www.facebook.com/Alokathepeacedog/

[4]https://youtu.be/QPQ3ojIKrpo

[5]https://youtu.be/SJwO7V_Y6LQ

[6]https://youtu.be/Vd6D64Ai49I

[7]https://youtu.be/5UnZmoLnmP4

[8]https://youtu.be/7EEqLmAxAQE

[9]https://youtu.be/pKmKDxHuZdY

Featured image is from the author

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