QUESTIONS FOR REVD. UDUWE DHAMMALOKA

Shyamon Jayasinghe, Melbourne

Revd Uduwe Dhammaloka addressed Australian- Sri Lankans over the radio last Sunday (14/3/04) and said: “lay politicians of all hues in Lanka have been messing up. There are drug dealers even in the prison. There is corruption all over. Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe has said that he is going to form a government with the LTTE. Chandrika is no good and so is the JVP. We want to get into parliament to clear the stables and set up a Dharma Rajyaya and put forward some good people who can work for the benefit of the nation. [Then we will get off]”

With no intention to cause disrespect to the Revd monk, I like to make a few comments with the use my critical faculties:

The statement about Ranil is not true.. Ranil has never said that. Even if Ranil wanted to form a govt with the LTTE, he would be a fool to say that at election time.
The drug problem is a universal problem for which one can’t blame politicians alone. The causes-social, psychological, global, and economic- are so complicated and tackling it is so difficult, that world leaders at all levels can only try to ameliorate the problem at this moment in time. Actually, the problem in Sri Lanka, even relative to the region, is not that serious as portrayed by the monk..
If one can’t find good lay leaders to field for parliament how is the Revd monk going to find them after they take the reins of power?
4. Has a Dharma Rajyaya worked anywhere in the world, ever?. History tells us that even during Emperor Ashoka’s regime the practice of dharma rajyaya extended little beyond his edicts despite the Emperor’s noble intentions.

5. What guarantee can the Revd monk give us that, once in power, the monks won’t

fall into temptation? And not give up? Is the condition of being a monk alone sufficient for us to trust them as rulers? Were’t Somarama and Buddharakhitha also monks at the time they committed ghastly acts of moral depravity, treason, corruption, and murder? They, too, were good monks at some stage in their lives. Like for all humans, character can transform for monks, too. Human beings do not possess characters that are set for all time.

6. Aren’t monks, by the very nature of their training, limited in their capacity to take complex decisions regarding social and economic policy? Plato argued that philosophers should rule the world. However, there too, he designed a specific course of training for philosophers that would endow them with the capacity to rule.

I am a Buddhist by self-conversion and not by an accident of birth. I am not happy at the prospect of questioning a Buddhist monk. Nevertheless, when such dignitaries enter the battlefield of politics they loose immunity.

Shyamon Jayasinghe