Written by one of the two or three most revered figures in Theravada Buddhism in the UK, all of whom have been Abbots here (Amaro, Sucitto, and Sumedho). Luang Por Sucitto is a genuinely inspiring and wise man who chooses his words with great care.
…an acorn taking root in the Polish-Lithuanian Empire might have become a sapling in Poland, blossomed as a mature oak in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, aged in the Soviet Union and died in Ukraine. And during that time, armies might have marched past it to defend the ‘borders’. Borders? What do these lines on a map represent, and what lies behind drawing them?
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“…Russia crippled and left to a dictator to play…”
Crippled? Left to a dictator? Really?
Spiritual teachers need to be ultra careful to get their facts right when venturing into the realm of realpolitik. Especially as so many of them seem to be just as susceptible to the Permanent Bullshit Blizzard as the rest of us. Holiness doesn’t necessary equate to crafty worldly savvy…
Yes I knew you wouldn’t be able to see past that sentence. Sucitto makes no pretence of holiness.
An non-holy Theravada abbot? Interesting concept. Maybe I’ll look a bit further, since you think well of him, K. But that was a bad start. 
There simply isn’t a notion of holiness in Theravada, it is atheistic. I am quite certain Sucitto would openly admit to his own hypocrisies and not least of these would be the no-go areas of Thai politics, since the tradition he speaks from is the Thai Forest tradition of A. Chah. So deeply respectful rhetoric, or Noble Silence more likely, on the subject of the Thailand royals comes with the territory. Vows of poverty come unstuck if one angers ones sponsors, this keeps the monks relatively uncorrupt, but only relatively.
Phrases like ‘no-go areas’, ‘territory’, and ‘borders’ are not innocent. They shape our notion of reality, and vice versa. That is what the piece is about: the artificiality (and impermanence) of boundaries and how much trouble they can cause.
The sentence quoted by @RhisiartGwilym made me wince too. It implies that the writer is as swayed by propaganda as are the rest of us. And that is no doubt true, but he, Sucitto, would be the first to concede this. As is clear from the typos it was written fairly quickly as teachers of his stature are much in demand and have relatively little time. True of internet Forum posts of course, too, and sometimes things are best left unsaid.
“And what is right speech? Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, & from idle chatter: This is called right speech.”— SN 45.8
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