Shenali D Waduge

When colonial invaders landed in Sinhale with the intent to trade and spread Christianity they had just one obstacle and one enemy – the Sinhalese Buddhists. The nation of Sinhale to which these colonials arrived saw the culture, the heritage, the civilization that existed as a threat to them. That threat continues to prevail. With annihilation by mass killing not a norm to be followed the alternate options have been to erase the Sinhala Buddhist identity while demonizing Buddhists through every medium and mode possible.

Eliminating Sinhala language:

Every area that the Sinhale Buddhists show exclusivity, it is being targeted for systematic elimination. The Sinhala language becomes a target for it is binding of the Sinhala identity and is a unique language found nowhere else in the world. Sinhala is the identity that provides evidence of the civilization that was built and holds reign to determine ownership to Sri Lanka or rather the Sinhale Nation the real name of the country. Thus Sinhala is one of the oldest living languages with a history of 2300 years derived from Indo-Aryan dialects with its own literary tradition. The Sinhala language is the ONLY language to have evolved and developed in Sri Lanka while all other languages spoken in Sri Lanka have origins in other countries. The only language that can claim to be distinct to Sri Lanka is Sinhalese.

The best way to remove true Sinhala from the people is to subtly dilute the language and mix it with words from other languages. The ‘Singlish’ being introduced mixing English and Sinhalese is one subtle form to remove the Sinhala language from its hold over the Sinhale race. Neither the Education nor the Government has understood the need to preserve the Sinhale language and drawn up plans to ensure that it is not diluted or destroyed but nurtured through the education system. Lethargy of academics are questioned as well as the Buddhist organizations that should insist on preservation of Sinhala, the only homogenous native language.

Eliminating Buddhism:

The other area targeted to be demonized is Buddhsm – the chosen religion of the Sinhale nation brought by royal invitation from India because the Sinhale Kings wished its people to follow the compassionate teachings of Buddhism towards both man and animal. All other religions and ethnic groups that prevail in Sri Lanka have come via immigrants or forced by colonial invaders after forcible conversions.

Historical accounts will reveal the brutal manner in which colonial invaders Portuguese, Dutch and even the British destroyed Buddhist temples, ancient artifacts, historical heritage sites even killing Buddhist monks in a sinister bid to Christianize Ceylon and wipe out traces of Buddhism. The same took place and continues to take place in Buddhist Maldives where the official history of Buddhist roots of Maldives have been expunged from records and whatever traces of Buddhism is being systematically removed. When international entities tasked to preserve history/artifacts are in the control of the very nations trying to Christianize/Islamize countries what justice can nations with rich heritage and history expect? The manner that Christian/Islam owned media has managed to control content of what gets published has helped to create a Nalanda syndrome among Buddhists themselves who have been brainwashed to feel guilty because media drills into them a feeling of guilt because the actions of others are subtly camouflaged by diverting the news to the reaction of Buddhists only.

A sample of how Buddhism has been subject to media denigration without authorities taking action is shown below. Reactions instead have led to hate speech legislation without taking cognizance of the origins or reasons for people’s grievances.

If anyone writes anything defending one’s religion / nation the immediate response is to flood the web comments with names ‘fascist writer’ ‘Buddhist extremist’ and thereafter once branded into the minds of readers the goal is to stop new readers from reading the contents of their articles. Time tested strategy that has worked but unlikely to work always!

There is also need to go back to 2002 period under Ranil Wickremasinghe wherein the state newspaper published an article by a team of non-Buddhists with the sinister objective to ridicule the Buddhists by challenging the authenticity of the sacred tooth relic at Dalada Maligawa which had to be recalled and the then Prime Minister and Media Minister Imtiaz Markar having to make a public apology to the Buddhists. Yet the efforts to marginalize, denigrate and slowly omit the status of Buddhism have not stopped and will not stop.

Its also impossible for Buddhists to get their opinion across. This comment on a private website reveals how disgruntled a lot of Buddhists really are because their views are never entertained by the media publications majority of editors who are non-Buddhists and told to ensure the Buddhist opinion is not publicized. In order to negate or refute this it is time we have a content analysis of all articles published. With 70% Sinhala Buddhists the papers must give a ratio to that percentage which however is not happening.

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2015/06/25/daily-mirror-buddhism/comment-page-1/

This has been perfectly analyzed in the Press Commission Report of 1964 which clearly indicates that the media is part of the plot to demonize both the Sinhale race and Buddhism in a bid to remove the nationalism from those that defend the nation.

112, page 56 of the 1964 report of the Commission that was chaired by Justice K D de Silva, Press Commissioner:

If these English language newspapers were sufficiently patriotic they could have made a very useful contribution to bringing about unity among the various communities after the country achieved its independence. They should have advised the minority groups to adapt themselves to the changing circumstances and exhorted the majority to be generous towards the former. They failed to do that. What they consistently did was to poison the minds of the minority groups and encourage them to fight to retain the unjust privileges they had received during the era of foreign domination. ”

The politicians keen only on power, money and political survival have no time to strategize on how it should protect the Sinhale Buddhists not only because of its cultural/historical/heritage roots but because it is beholden to do so constitutionally.

The open economy, capitalism and emergence of elite classes have created a barrier and resulted in drawbacks to preserving the rich cultural heritage.

The Vatican or the Pope cannot be offended or Catholics and Christians cannot complain when these past atrocities are brought to light for these acts were not confined to Sri Lanka alone, they were part of a policy by the Church to eliminate and annihilate races, religions and only spread the faith of Catholicism/Christianity.

Similarly, Muslims too cannot complain when verses from the Koran are brought forward to argue why Islam demands Muslims to kill and punish non-Muslims for there is not a single line in Buddhism that tells Buddhists to do so whereas the religious texts of Abrahamic religions are full of hate speech proven in the quotes themselves. There’s a world of a difference in name calling and arguing texts in a religion!

Unfortunately, Sri Lanka’s leaders have not been able to understand who their friends from enemies are in their quest to remain in power they have embraced every enemy out to destroy the Sinhala language, the Sinhale race and Buddhism. When these are slowly removed the people will find they have nothing to fight or defend and that would be an automatic self-sacrifice of the Sinhale nation. We can see that now happening before our very eyes.
It is this reason why there are opposition to turning Buddhist schools into multicultural outfits just to satisfy voter bases. The background that students of Ananda, Visakha have gained is nothing that is restricted to paper. We next question why education authorities have not ‘multiculturalized’ Muslim schools where these schools function to the dictates of what Islam upholds. If so, why should only the Buddhists be one’s to compromise?

The multicultural ploy is out to systematically eliminate our ties to our heritage. It is subtly attempting to remove our links to our past. It is attempting to take away our identity.

What needs to be said is that the country must certainly have a Sri Lankan identity. That identity can only happen if people integrate into the culture of the majority race that built the nation. A sovereign country cannot function to different laws that are not cohesive.

Sri Lankan identity cannot come at the expense of the Sinhala Buddhist identity. It is only the Sinhalese Buddhists who are always been asked to compromise and give up what they traditionally held.

The minorities must be aware and be told that it was the Sinhala Buddhist civilization that built Sri Lanka.

Politicians may wish to follow the policy of appeasement not for the love of the country but simply to gain power and enter politics. But such appeasement is a challenge to the common identity of Sri Lanka with long term plans that aim to remove the Buddhist identity of the country and replace Sinhala Buddhists. This is why citadels of Buddhists are now being occupied by non-Buddhists claiming it their heritage site. If Sri Lanka has a 2300 Buddhist heritage if any other religion is claiming stake of heritage sites should they not prove with proper evidence (not propaganda or shouting) that they existed before 2300 years? Politicians must now stop marketing Buddhism and use Buddhism as a commercial commodity and cosmetic tool. The ancient Kings in their hearts were determined to preserve and follow the tenets of Buddhism through the dasa raja dharma, sadly we do not see such now but ideally that should be the order of the day.

Today all Buddhist countries are at risk. People say there is nothing to fear and preach peaceful co-existence but only Buddhists know how from Persia to Indonesia the entire Buddhist space was lost because of their non-violence and today there are just 5 Buddhist majority nations fighting for survival. Fighting to keep the Buddhist ethos which no one can remove simply because of a newly entered slogan called ‘secularism’

The competition is between Christians & Islam to either Christianize or Islamize Sri Lanka.

Shenali D Waduge

Additional reading:

• http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2012/04/24/re-visiting-the-press-commission-report-1964/
• http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2014/05/04/the-press-commission-report-1964-some-extracts-and-a-brief-commentary/
• http://www.onlanka.com/news/sri-lanka-needs-a-national-media-commission-to-steer-journalistic-ethics.html

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2013/06/17/buddhists-are-victims-of-hate-speech-and-media-manipulation-in-sri-lanka/