Buddhist Sangha Bashing – Cartoon in the Sunday Leader ( April 29, 2012)
Posted on May 2nd, 2012
An Observation of the Press Commission (1964)
The Final Report of theƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Press Commission ( 1964) headed byƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Mr. Justice K.D. de Silva made the following comment in respect toƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Communalism in the Press:
The Report quotes Dr. K.N. Jayatillake, Professor of Philosophy, University of Ceylon, as follows:
” With regard to the English reading public, the impression has been created that the communal and religious minorities must get together and oppose the Sinhalese Buddhist majority if they are to get any rights at all. The point of view is put forward that the Sinhalese Buddhist majority is intolerant and is trying to deprive the minorities of their rights. As a matter of fact it is not so.'” (PCR para 46, pages 25 -26)
More quotations:
From the evidence placed before us we are satisfied that the existing newspapers did not hesitate to fabricate, suppress, slant or distort news and views whenever it suited them. They have been further guilty of anti ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬‚ national and anti – Buddhist activities, which are more serious than the earlier mentioned lapses on their part. Indeed, the most vehement critics of the present activities of the Press were the Buddhists and some of their organisations, and we are satisfied that their grievances are genuine and should be removed.
Buddhist leaders have been falsely accused of being intolerant. Their hopes and ambitions receive scant consideration, and the rightful place due to their religion has being denied to it by the newspapers. This has been deliberately done in order to help the minorities, in particular, the Christian minorities, to perpetuate the unjust privileges acquired by them during the last four centuries at the expense of the Buddhist Majority. ”
Paragraph 212, Page 90 Final Report of the Press Commission (1964)
May 2nd, 2012 at 5:27 pm
AS much as the cartoon neads to be condemned for disrespecting the Sangha one neads to asses whether the Sangha has earned the respect of the people. Unfortunately the people including the Buddhists have lost faith in the sangha. They have not had any input into society which is going from bad to worse. Society is gradualy becoming lawless,corrupt , uncaring about the poor etc. The sangha is politicised, living a life of luxary at the behest of the ruling class and neglecting their duty towards society. It is time they wake up if not buddhism will not have any place in society in Sri Lanka.
May 2nd, 2012 at 6:15 pm
Nandimitra,
Its quite obvious from your view points that you have no respect nor any understanding of the Buddha Dhamma. I’m not sure your usage of the word “asses” was meant as a “pun” or a further insult to the sangha!
Fortunately, Most Buddhist are not as foolish as you and we know that there will always be renegade and rebellious monks as we had during the time of the Buddha.
This is a human problem not a religious problem and sadly all religions have these types of issues in one form or another and is not confined to just Buddhism.
Name me one religion which is free from any disgraceful characters!
May 2nd, 2012 at 6:37 pm
Amidst deteriorating circumstances relating to corruption, lawlessness, calous disregard for one another, there is a more dangerous development – extremism. Unfortunately it is spreading among the educated and can be seen from some articles and comments here.
Apart from obvious problems of extremism, another problem is it is not based on facts. So the actions taken or to be taken on extreme views tend to create more problems than solutions.
Take the Dambulla incident. One group bashes Muslims and Islam as a whole while another bashes Buddhists and Musddhism as a whole. Or the university incidents where one group bashes the entire university system while another bashes the government. Few can look at problems objectively.
The point is not to deleberately avoid aparent facts and stick to the arithmatic average. But to take in all facts and look at the problem in the local, international and historic context.
There is nothing extraordinarily wrong with the Buddhist clergy that is not found among Christian, Hindu or Islam clergy. The church was found to hide the biggest pedophile ring in the world. Not a year passes without exposing top Hindu priests’ disgusting conduct in addition to massive corruption, sexual abuse, extortion, etc. that happens daily. Many countries expelled Islamic Imams for violent or uncivilised conduct. A large number of Islamic councils have issues death threats to authors. It is in this context one should look at Buddhist clergy.
Buddha Sasana certainly need cleansing. We should appreciate the good sections of the Sasana and spread in to bad sections. If we bash the entire Sasana and the clergy over the visible conduct of a few, we are making any improvement difficult.
There are those who waiting to bash Buddhism over anything. Their intention is to convert this nation into another East Timor, Pakistan or Hindustan. What they don’t realize is, even that is not going to happen. Another Hindustan in the region will not be tolerated by Pakistan, China, etc. as it is an extention of India. Another Pakistan will not be tolerated by India, China, USA, etc. because it is a threat to world peace. Similarly another East Timor will not be tolerated by all regional countries. In short, Sri Lanka can only survive as a Buddhist nation. It is imperative the Sasana is protected and uplifted so that the society can be saved; at least 69% of it.
May 2nd, 2012 at 8:44 pm
Dilrook,
There is no such thing as “Buddhist Extremist”. That term infact belong to Arahants.
This term is invented by BBC and used by many writers here. Hopefully you you have sufficient wisdom not to use it.
May 2nd, 2012 at 9:30 pm
Dham
Read what I wrote.
I didn’t use the term “Buddhist Extremist”.
Extremism is a human condition regarldess of religion or pholosophy.
May 3rd, 2012 at 6:18 am
Dilrook,
I was commenting the term “extremism” you have used. I did not say you said “Buddhist Extremism”.
But this term “extremism” should not be used cheaply.
May 3rd, 2012 at 8:44 am
We know that some Buddhist monks are not behaving in the way monks should. They are in fact a disgrace to the Sangha. They have to be dealt at a different level.
The issue here is the mainstream English press continuing to engage in Buddhism bashing as they did 48 years ago. We have never seen any English newspaper lampooning Catholic or Christian priests – except very seldom. One such was a cartoon in the Island newspaper by W.R. Wijesoma nearly 30 years ago showing a tiger’s tail coming out of LTTE supporter Fr. Singrayer’s cassock. But I’ve seen no cartoons of Fr. Emmanuel or other pro-Tiger Catholic clergy who are still very much active in separatist propaganda. Then there was the Anglican Bishop Kenneth Fernando who called Prabhakaran a ‘humane person.’
Unlike the Sinhala press the English press never or seldom publishes reports of covert proselytising by foreign-funded aggressive Christian evangelists in poverty-stricken Buddhist and Hindu villages. But if a prayer house of an evangelist group is attacked by any mob which has been provoked into such action it receives wide publicity in the English press. This in turn is picked up by the Western media which as usual use the opportunity to express their anti-Sinhala bias. Since the 1980s Sinhala-Buddhists have been a favourite punching bag of the BBC and other Western media outfits.
Among the prominent figures who gave evidence at the Press Commission sittings were were L.H. Mettananda of the Bauddha Jaathika Balavegaya (BJB) who carried vigorous campaign against Catholic Action manipulating the press and sections of the administration in the country
The Press Commission Report devotes around 24 pages to the examination of the evidence on the anti – Buddhist activities of the country’s mainstream newspapers. This is the topic that has been allocated the largest space in the Report.
But our Buddhist leaders and organizations still seem to be deaf and blind on this issue although more than four decades have passed since the Commission brought these facts to public attention.
May 4th, 2012 at 6:37 am
Cartoons speak a million words. A clever cartoonist can sway public opinion on an incident. In this case, it appears that the President is asleep, when in reality he is not. It’s just that almost all the problems end up on his ‘plate’ to solve. Why can’t the authorities concerned solve the problem ? Why didn’t the Dambulla Buddhist priests take the matter to courts avoiding rough incidents ? This Nation has yet to learn how to use the LAW to solve problems instead causing riots at every turn, encouraged and perhaps even paid by of course, the hired hands in Lanka.
An article by Janaka Perera gives an updated analysis of the Dambulla incident. This is the best factually accurate analysis I have read so far.
http://sinhale.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/dambulla-crisis-who-are-the-culprits/#more-42716
May 4th, 2012 at 1:01 pm
In the case of the Dambulla incident, it seems to us now that the Buddhist priests acted as they did out of sheer frustration at what had been happening to the temple land that had been rented out to a Muslim trader. However, it would have been so much better if they had taken the matter to courts.