In defense of Sinhalese Buddhist identity from Sri Lankan pseudo academia
Posted on April 5th, 2018
Punsara Amarasinghe PhD Candidate Faculty of Law National Research University Moscow.
In the 37th session of UN human rights council, Sri Lankan Sinhalese delegates Dr. Nalaka Godahewa, Sarath Weerasekere and others were confronted by the members of Global Tamil forum and this act demonstrates the fervent interest of Tamil diaspora to defend their mythical concept on Illam in international platform and furthermore this proves the strength of Tamil separatism albeit we have militarily defeated them in 2009. In fact the contribution made by global Tamil intelligentsia has played a pivotal role in carving the Sinhalese as the oppressor and Tamils as the oppressed from the outset of the Tamil separatist movement. Tamil academics migrated to Western states after 83 riots began to depict the whole Sinhalese nation and Buddhist monks as generators of the communal violence on Tamils even though 83 riots was an offshoot of JR Jayawardane’s despicable political chicanery. Sri Lankan born anthropologist Stanly Tambiah published a book named Buddhism Betrayed?” in 1992 which has given a set of questions that how a peaceful religion turned into a violent form in Sri Lanka and he reiterates the Sinhalese Buddhist monks as the agitators of the Sinhalese extremism. Unfortunately the so called Sinhalese intelligentsia in the country did not have a backbone to counter the false arguments brought by Tambiah in his book and instead of his writing Buddhism Betrayed ?” was added to the reading lists of Sociology departments in Sri Lankan universities. It is a deplorable fact that many Sri Lankan born Sinhalese academics have become distorted in their ideology to criticize Sinhalese nationalism and its unique Buddhist heritage in international forums and in their publications. In truth attacking own religion and national heritage has become a common tendency for South Asian born academics to obtain well off academic posts and fellowships in Oxbridge or Ivey League universities in the USA and in order to make their lives better they seem to have opted for the dirty way of defaming their own identity.
Ironically most of the them have emerged from the free education of Sri Lanka and some of them have taught in Sri Lankan university system for years too. The crucial thing that we should understand is that Sinhalese Buddhism or the historical legacy of Sinhalese nations have become the most targets to strike among this academics and more or less they get number of opportunities internationally to raise their opinions. As an example the article written by Gananth Obeyaskere under the title of Dutugamunu’s conscience made him a pious man as who unveils the truth being a Sinhalese. But in reading the article written by Obeyaskere it becomes a salient factor that how poorly he had grounded his arguments against Sinhalese Buddhist monks. In an article written by him to an international journal named Journal of Buddhist Ethics”, Obeyasekere comments Though a so-called Buddhist nation Sri Lanka has over the last twenty years produced an extremely high murder rate and perhaps one of the largest rates of suicide for the whole world. Sri Lankan Buddhists are all familiar with the five precepts; yet Buddhists in Sri Lanka, over the same period of time, have become massive consumers of alcohol and my guess is that per capita Sri Lankan Buddhists are one of the largest consumers of alcohol in the world” It is a pity that this learned anthropologist puts a shameless attempt to portray that Buddhism has failed in its mission as non-violent philosophy to prevent people from murders, alcoholism and suicide, but he has forgotten that even Christians do commit suicide and they too have killed people even though their ten commandment in Bible has proscribed such acts. Secondly the name of Anagarika Dharmapala has become the mantra of those Sri Lankan bogus anthropologists and social scientists to develop their imaginative theories on Sinhalese nationalism and Dharmapala as the culprit who planted the seeds of antagonism toward Tamils among Sinhalese. The book written by Sri Lankan born American academic H.L Senevirathne named Buddhism of Sri Lanka: Work of Kings” is purely a hypocritical project intended to attack the Sinhalese Buddhist renaissance of early 20th century led by Dharmapala and it has further critiqued the involvement of erudite Buddhist monks like Walpola Rahula in the nationalist movement in post independent Sri Lanka.
9th article in the Sri Lankan constitution is another notable factor which has been the moot point for many academics and frequently they despise providing prominence to Buddhism as something detrimentally hindering the interests of the minorities. For an example in legal academia many Sri Lankan academics have dealt with changing the constitution as a prime task to create the national harmony and to appease Tamils globally. The sheer truth is none of these pundits who eagerly condemn the Sri Lankan Buddhist identity in our constitution try to ascertain how secularism has worked out in the West. Christianity still plays a crucial role in carving the political trajectory in Western world despite they pretend to be secular in political governance. As an example though the constitution of the USA does not explicitly mention anything in specific about the religion the preamble of the constitution has stated In the name of most holy and undivided Trinity” and each Dollar currency carries the phase In God We Trust . Most of the Western states that have become ideal safe havens for this set of pseudo academics refer to God and Christianity in the preamble to the constitution.
The need for patriotic scholars in defense of nationalism has become indispensible in the present context of Sri Lanka with the existing bunch debilitated the University academics who keep their heads off before national interests. I can recall an incident happened at South Asian University in New Delhi when I was studying there for my Masters in 2016. A Sri Lankan academic , painter called Jagath Goonwardane came for an invited lecture organized by Sociology Department and started to scorn Sri Lankan Buddhist monks as villains who spread the violence in the country and in point this learned professor used the vulgar term in English language F…ING to call Buddhist monks. The event was moderated by Dr. Sasasnka Perera another Sri Lankan academic worked at South Asian University, but for my biggest surprise he allowed Goonawardane to continue his insult or rather abusive comments on Sri Lankan Buddhist monks in front of foreign students. This is the pathetic reflection of the Sri Lankan academia, especially in humanities and social sciences and the lack of English education has become another obstacle for the existing nationalist scholars to face and counter the false propagandas of Tamil global intelligentsia.
April 4th, 2018 at 4:54 pm
sadly the academia have failed to come out to demolish the plethora of lies that has been built up by LTTE linked Tamil academia that have used the Jaffna University to forward a totally false & fictitious history that has been promoted globally. In failing to use their academic knowledge to put the correct history into the international community, these academia have not only failed their race, religion but also their country… can they realise the damage they have done and at least now come out and reverse it
April 4th, 2018 at 5:07 pm
An organization called Roar has started a campaign to distort the history of our country. According to them the Awkana budu pilima is called by that name because it is in the hot sun and is exposed to ‘awwa’. Any Buddhist knows it is a replica of the Afgan statue at Bamiyan. But our Sinhalese have got caught in the trap and is promoting it country wide. What a shame.
April 4th, 2018 at 6:35 pm
ඉල්ලෙයි, ඉල්ලෙයි. ඉල්ලෙයි!
සින්හලයට ඉන්දියානු පරපෝසිතයන්ගෙන් ලැබෙන්නේ ඉල්ලෙයි විතරයි.
සින්හලයන් මෙය වටහා ගෙන එකමුතුවනතුරු යන කලක් නැත.
April 4th, 2018 at 6:53 pm
It is now well known that the Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica case has come out as a result of a sting operation carried out by Channel4’s Sri Lanka agents. Some other Sri Lankan name from Silicon valley ia also being mentioned. They may have even influenced the elections held in 2015 in SL using the Facebook profiles and these are coming out now due to some disagreement. Perhaps their operatives may have infiltrated to monitoring teams recruited recently after riots in Kandy. Our TRC should find out who are the people in these monitoring teams from SL as they could influence future elections.
April 4th, 2018 at 7:40 pm
There are 2 dangers facing the nation. One is separatism (including terrorism to advance it). The other (often forgotten and compromised danger) is losing Sri Lanka’s identity (while keeping it in one piece). We must avoid both these dangers.
Those who demonize Buddhism and Sinhalese with separatism in mind are obvious enemies of the nation and everyone sees them. How about those who want to keep Sri Lanka in one piece but want it turned into a pickle?
We must be very clear of the ranking of desirables and dangers correctly. From best to worst. Number 5 is the worst, not 4.
1. A true unitary Sri Lanka that preserves its identity and equal individual rights. Like the UK, France or Japan.
2. A federal Sri Lanka that preserves its identity in 7 out of 9 provinces and equal individual rights. Like Russia or India.
3. A federal Sri Lanka that has 2 South Indian and Arabic tribal rule provinces and expanding influence in the rest of the 7 provinces. Like Ukraine, Iraq or Sri Lanka.
4. A divided island with two or more nations. Like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh divided since 1947.
5. Sri Lanka island nation in one piece that is a South Indian and Arabic pickle with economically and socially deprived Sinhalese like South Africa.
April 5th, 2018 at 2:29 am
The majority of Sri Lankans are averse to the idea of ethnic territories, especially since the cities and urban areas have truly mixed populations albeit still with the Sinhala Buddhist majority, and there is hardly any communal disturbance in their daily lives. It is the tendencies for ethnic concentrations of minorities that have bred hostility and led to isolated incidents escalating into communal riots when intervention by the law is delayed.
Clearly, ethnic concentrations through the Federal idea will not lead to peaceful co-existence. It will only lead to more and more competitiveness and more and more encroachments and land grabs that will inevitably lead to confronatations.
If only the MINORITY LEADERS WOULD REALIZE THIS….
April 5th, 2018 at 3:24 am
Dilrook
A federal Sri Lanka that preserves its identity in 7 out of 9 provinces and equal individual rights. Like Russia or India.- This is only solution for Chignkala Theevu to keep Akka / Orumith Sinhela island for ever
just follow Indian union system, fully implement together 13A with 16A !!!!
no short cut !!!
April 5th, 2018 at 9:02 am
*fully implement together 13A with 16A ( do not implement 13A fully(land&Police) with out implement 16A fully ( Eg :No more party name with Tamil/Muslim/Sinhala – These all party has to rename with in 28 days otherwise these party will be delisted from election office ).
Velu where are Thaliva ????
April 5th, 2018 at 1:15 pm
S A Kumar, our resident EELAMIST,
DREAM ON …. You will get an EELAM in Sri Lanka ONLY WHEN HELL BOILS OVER!
Don’t CROW over the DEFEAT of the NCM. It has SERVED it’s PURPOSE: To identify and LABEL the TRAITORS in Govt, particular the SLFP MPS who given the opportunity did not OUST the PARA-FATHI AGA- MATHI and CLEARLY DEMONSTRATED to the Sinhalation Buddhists that the UNPATRIOTIC Party SURVIVES only because of the support of the TNA, the SLMC etc.
The UNP will wish that Ranil Wikunanasinghe had resigned before the ALLIANCE between the UNP and the TNA was so well demonstrated when the NEXT ELECTIONS ROLL AROUND!
Meanwhile, our BLOOD will flow in the streets in the next 18 months as we FIGHT to PREVENT the NEW FEDERAL CONSTITUTION from being enacted, and the Law Courts bastardized to serve the Tamil Diaspora through the Legal Adjudicature Bills.
We Sinhala Buddhists are ready to make ANY SACRIFICE to preserve the yerritorial integrity and unity of our Motherland, and the Separatists, Communal it’s and their RUNNING DOGS will RUE THE DAY they attempted to win by SUBTERFUGE IN PEACE what they FAILED TO WIN IN WAR.
Second LESSON is COMING: WATCH & LEARN … don’t say I have not REPEATEDLY WARNED YOU about the CONSEQUENCES of CONTINUED SEPARATISM in Sri Lanka!
April 5th, 2018 at 3:07 pm
Ananda-USA,
The subterfuge tactics the TNA adopts is to divide Sinhalas similar to what they did in 2015 using platforms like facebook which the Channel4 celebrated in Sirikotha immediately after the election. It had a huge impact on the minds of young Sinhalese voters. After the success in SL they did it in USA too. This is a scandal right now in the world news media. Our people should be warned not to get carried away by propaganda in social media ever again. They seem to be doing it again using well orchestrated JVP adverts in facebook by attacking MR et al, relentlessly.
April 6th, 2018 at 3:38 am
Punsara It is fortunate we have people like you, Nalaka and Sarath et al taking up the cause of the Buddhist Sri Lanka.
But this Sirisena Ranil-Chandrika-Mangala who have no patriotic sense wants to continue with reconciliation with these Tamils the likes of whom we saw arguing with Nalaka in Geneva.
Are these the people with who we can expect reconciliation to result in uniting the communities ? These Tamils of the diaspora are blinded by one object of a separate Eelam and do not understand any thing else. Their mental setup has blinded them from intelligent reasoning. They are the modern wild Savages……..like the primitive savages at the beginning of life in the wilderness.
April 6th, 2018 at 9:13 am
My sinhela sakodaraya Ananda-USA !
DREAM ON …. You will get an EELAM in Sri Lanka ONLY WHEN HELL BOILS OVER!- We only ask one TE but you gave Two ( only one concern is Indian flag is flying in Jalpanam not our pulli kodi )
don’t say I have not REPEATEDLY WARNED YOU about the CONSEQUENCES of CONTINUED SEPARATISM in Sri Lanka!- You Chignkala Sakotharm warned last 2,000 years ( Elra to VP time) or more ….. but We-Tamil still fighting for our Thani TE ( we have got a hair (mayir) out from you – that is different story)
NEW FEDERAL CONSTITUTION- is Akka / Orumith (i)Lanka(i) !
against day light CB Hora RW , you only got 76 out of 200 (only Sinhala MP from UNP & SLFP ) but you thing you will get more against new constitution ???
April 7th, 2018 at 1:54 pm
Kumar,
What has INDIA to say about the proposed new Constitution ?