I believe in letting an invader in and then setting a good example. That is the reply Benjamin Britten gave to a tribunal for the registration of conscientious objectors in 1942 when asked "What would you do if Britain was invaded?" I was reminded of it when researching my recent article on Marco Pallis , who was an authority on both Tibetan Buddhism and early music, and, together with Britten, a champion of Purcell . In his best-selling book Peaks and Lamas , which was written in 1939, Pallis tells this story about the Sakyas , the ethnic group of which Gautama Buddha was a member which inhabited the foothills of the Himalayas. News was brought to them of an impending attack by a hostile tribe and it was debated anxiously whether resistance should be offered or not. Eventually they decided that, as followers of [Buddhist] Doctrine, they were debarred from offering armed resistance, but must welcome the invaders as friends, so they threw down their arms... The Tibetans, how...
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(from Peter Brown's wonderful 'World of Late Antiquity')
For 'crude Christian monotheism' read fundamentalist Islam in our own times.
b.
'A Coptic priest was shot dead Saturday on al-Sentral Street in the North Sinai neighbourhood of al-Masaeed.
Gunmen shot dead a Coptic Christian priest in Egypt's lawless region in the third recorded instance of sectarian violence against Christians since President Mohamed Morsy was ousted.
The shooting in the coastal city of Arish was one of several attacks believed to be by Islamist insurgents that included firing at four military checkpoints in the region, the sources said.
A security source said Saturday that gunmen riding a motorcycle shot dead the priest, named as 39-year-old Mena Aboud Sharoben, who lived in Arish.
The source added the motivations behind the murder were not known.
Maspero Youth Union meanwhile denounced what they identified as Muslim Brotherhood attacks on churches, claiming sectarian attacks aimed at hurting the revolution and undermining people's demands for freedom.
"The president's supporters attacked [the] churches in Luxor, Qena, Minya, Towa, Sharm el-Sheikh and Marsa Matrouh," the statement said.
"We say to them, tear down all the churches, it is not going to stop us from building Egypt...We will use the stones of our churches to build our homeland."
The attack comes one day after unidentified gunmen launched simultaneous attacks with heavy weapons on security checkpoints in North Sinai, killing five police officers and a soldier, Reuters reported.
Morsy's Muslim Brotherhood has fiercely criticized Coptic Pope Tawadros II, the spiritual leader of Egypt's eight million Christians, for giving his blessing to the removal of the president and attending the announcement by armed forces commander General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi suspending the constitution'.
'http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/update-coptic-priest-killed-activists-blame-mb-sectarianism