C. Wijeyawickrema, LL.B., Ph.D.
(දැනට අවුරුදු 18 කට පෙර (2/13/2006) ලියන ලද මෙම ලිපිය මගේ පරණ පරිගණකයක තිබී අහම්බෙන් මට දැක ගන්නට ලැබුණි. එහි සඳහන් වන සමහර පංචස්කන්ධ දැන් ජීවත්වන්නේද නැත. ඒ වෙනුවට කරලියට බැස යූටියුබ්, ෆෙස්බුක් හරහා සංවිධානත්මව ලංකාවේ බුද්ධ ශාසනයට වටකරගෙන පහරදෙන ඩොලර් නඩ අතර අන්දමන්ද වූ සිවුරුදරාගත් අය පවා සිටී.
මෙම මතෘකාව යටතේ සළකා බලන ලද කාරණා දැන් 2024 දීත් කෙතරම් කාලෝචිතද කියා සිතුණ නිසා එය ලංකාවෙබ් වෙබ් අඩවියේ මඟින් වාර්තා කලයුතු නොවේද කියා මට සිතුණි.)
Introduction
In 1979-80 Prabakakaran’s close relative (also named Prabakaran) and I shared the same rice pot in Canada, and in our numerous political discussions he told me We do not want monks in yellow robes roaming in Jaffna and we do not want Vesak as a public holiday.” He was an honest, sincere and a humble young man. As a person who often visited the KKS cement factory during 1970-72 I did not get upset by his comments. No Buddhist monks tried to convert even a single Jaffna harijanaya to Buddhism. From the stories he told me about his family, his sisters, their dowry problems, and how the Federal (separate state) Party Central Committee abused his older brother, it is my view the older Prabakaran was a victim of the Colombo paradigm. He started as a Saradiel (Robinson Crusoe) in Velvetithurai and ended as a Pol Pot in Jaffna. The Federal Party elders could have prevented this ‘boy’ ever entering the killing path.
When the Legislative Council debated the motion presented by a Hindu Tamil (P. Ramanathan) to make Vesak a public holiday in the colonial Ceylon (1885), with the backing of an American Olcott, the Sinhala representative A. L. de Alwis, a Christian, opposed it. Governor Gordon, who was for the motion, said he was embarrassed by de Alwis’ behavior. When the World Vesak Day was declared by the UN, the Sri Lankan representative de Saram, (a descendent of de Alwis?) gave a speech with wrong estimates of the number of Buddhists in the world.
More recently, a biochemist (Carlo Fonseka) counted the number of kings in the Mahavamsa who killed either his father or a sibling to come to power. In fact, this person once asked two others by the name of Dharmadasa and Buddhadasa to explain who is a ‘black-White.’ Previously we had a situation where at least one prominent LSSP activist in the 1940s branded king Dutugemunu as a ‘fool of bricks,’ for building the Ruvan Veli Mahasaaya. They, however, eagerly tour to admire the pyramids in Egypt! As a historical document Mahavamsa is unique: just to give one example, it helped in the identification archaeological ruins of king Ashoka in the Buddhist India.
The opposition to the Mahavamsaya is the other side of the coin, the myth of the existence of a Sinhala Buddhist Chauvinist (SBC). Both are methods used by the black- whites of the Colombo paradigm to stay in power begging for foreign donations. For the network of NGOs in Colombo, the SBC idea is a cash cow. In a world of clash of civilizations theory of a Harvard professor, International-NGOs love to pump funds to Colombo-NGOs who oppose SBC. Unfortunately, some Buddhist writers from time to time flog the ‘Christian West’ deer skin on the armchair blindly, thus providing the shrewd Colombo NGO agents much needed documentary evidence (bait) of SB-Chauvinism to continue catching foreign dollars and euros to fight for minority human rights.
History of blame the Sinhala Buddhist paradigm: Boston-Colombo Axis
In a landmark book, the electrical engineer turned sociologist Susantha Goonatilake opened our eyes to the nature and the level of anti-Mahavamsa activities taking place in the world scene operated by a group of professors scratching each others’ backs in the process (Anthropologizing Sri Lanka: A Eurocentric Misadventure, 2001). These professors developed a paradigm that could be called the Blame the Sinhala Buddhist” paradigm.
1940s- King Dutugemunu a fool of bricks (some Marxists)
1960s- Tambiah, a Tamil Christian went to Thailand to
study Theravada Buddhism
1970- Obeyesekere’s Protestant Buddhism” idea (step 1)
Marga Inst of Godfrey G formed.
1979- Fooling Massachusetts Legislature (Boston Cell)
1980- AJ Wilson – The Gaulist system in Asia
1985- Vishaka Kumari J – Ethnic and Class Conflicts in SL
1986- Tambiah – Sri Lanka Ethnic Fracticide
1988- Hellman-Rasanayagam..
Obeyesekere & Gombrich – Buddhism Transformed
(Buddhist Fundamentalism) (step 2)
1992- Tambiah – Buddhism Betrayed (step 3)
1997- D. Nesiah – (Tambiah’s student) – Discrimination
1998- Tessa B and CRde Silva – Buddhist Fundamentalism (step 4)
Marga Booklet
1999- HL Seneviratna – the Work of Kings (step 5)
2001- Steven Kemper –Book review of the work of kings
2002- G Obeysekera –Sri Lankan history belongs primarily
to Vadda
- HLS Seminar on the topic Nationalist thought and
identity politics: the Jatika Chintanaya movement of
Sri Lanka and its antecedents,” given at The University
of Texas, Austin (September 26)
2004- Sasanka Perera – Buddhist Theocracy (step 6)
2004- Wikremabahu and Idi Amin
2004- J Uyangoda, an elitist group of monks (step 6B)
(Daily Mirror, Feb 26)
Sasanka takes this paradigm to its zenith. He becomes an agent of the Boston-Colombo axis. This group living in and around Boston once tricked the Massachusetts Legislature to pass a resolution: Massachusetts House Journal for 1979, page 977 reads: … Resolution memorializing the President and the Congress to protest and utilize the powers of their offices to rectify the gross injustices which have been inhumanely inflicted on the Tamils of Sri Lanka.” This was when Amirthalingam was the Leader of the Opposition. The son-in-law of SJV Chelvanayagam, A. J. Wilson (Christian) was a leader of this group and S. J Tambiah (Christian) of the Buddhism Betrayed fame must be still active. Heraliyawala Liyanage Seneviratne (HLS), dedicated his masterpiece, the Work of Kings, to Tambiah and Gananath Obeysekera (son of an ayurvedic physician from Galle).
I consider this group as naked professors” because they follow a strategy of not responding to the e-mails sent to them. For example, I asked Tambiah why he did not mention the 1958 JRJ march against concessions to Tamils or the 1962 Coup in his book while he mentioned the 1966 false coup attributed to a Buddhist monk. Similarly, I did not hear from Steven Kemper of Bates University (near Boston) who gave a certificate of exoneration to Tambiah’s Buddhism Betrayed because HLS, a Sinhala Buddhist, in his book the Work of Kings” had endorsed Tambiah’s thesis. Silence has become golden for them after the emperors heard that they have no clothes!
In the work of kings” (1999), HLS alleges that problems of Sri Lanka today, especially Tamil terrorism, was a result of the bad work” done by two monks, Ven. Yakkaduwe and Ven. Rahula. I asked HLS by e-mail whether he gave an opportunity to Ven. Rahula to explain or answer his allegation because in his book HLS thanked Ven. Rahula for helping him with documents and ideas! I never heard from him. I asked this question especially because I heard a story that Ven. Rahula told both Mrs. B and JRJ at a public meeting that the UNP and the SLFP ruined the country.
The history of this paradigm shows a cruel pattern of evolution based on back scratching and the kissing … For example, in step 4, step 1 is given side-support. In my view this book could be called the work of queens, because its aim is worse than the aim of the work of kings. In step 5, all the previous steps culminated with Ven. Walpola Rahula and Ven. Yakkaduwe Pragnarama as the fall guys:
In Sri Lanka very few people escape from being accused as CIA agents. Sarvodaya and Marga Inst had this label. A Boston professor was once accused of being on the CIA payroll. For suggesting a change of SU’s name I was accused, of all the people, working as a RanilW agent. Fortunately for me the accuser later sent me glowing praise. The evolving stages of the above paradigm were in line with the description of Sri Lanka’s ethnic issue by the western press as a Hindu-Buddhist religious war. Westerners who suffered from religious wars hate religious wars. While western reporters could be excused as biased or ignorant, that is not the case with farmers’ and ayurvedic physicians’ sons who are now anthropology professors. One-third of a Buddhist temple space is devoted to Hindi gods and goddesses. Anthropology professors and their white students who come to defend them (example: Caitrin Lynch (Bates University) who came to defend Tambiah’s Lie in June 22, 2002) should do field work on this interface.
The Black white paradigm (Mano-Malik discussions)
The alternative to this anthropology-history paradigm developed by the Boston-Colombo axis is the Black White paradigm—about 200 political families mismanaged and ruined Sri Lanka. This English-educated, western-trained-mostly Christian, Colombo-living Sinhala, Tamil, and Muslim class of the rich and the powerful has lived within a radius of 2 miles of Colombo 7. The evidence for this paradigm comes from 3 books by Kumari Jayawardena [The Rise of the labour Movement in Ceylon, 1972; Ethnic and Class Conflicts in Sri Lanka, 1985; Nobodies to Somebodies: The rise of the colonial bourgeoisie in Sri Lanka, 2000] and the marathon book on JRJ (1988) co-authored by K. M. de Silva, the head of ICES. In short, the British-worshiping political families first acted against Buddhist interests as they were all Christians. But after 1924, the former Christians began to get Buddhists” labels and concocted a new rift between Sinhalese and Tamils masses. For example, in 1958 UNP leader opposed giving reasonable use to the Tamil language; in 1968 SLFP-LSSP-CP leaders opposed it. I cannot understand how some remnants of LSSP now cite Colvin’s formula one language two countries, two languages one country” as gospel truth when Colvin himself opposed it as a mature politician in 1968? Ronnie de Mel is the best example of this black-white paradigm, how the dowry rich and the powerful use the political system to thrive by deceiving people pretending that they are saviors of democracy.
Tambiah in Buddhsim Betrayed (or others including K. M. de Silva) never mentions JR Jayawardena’s 1958 march against the Reasonable Use of Tamil Law, when even JRJ later admitted his selfish/destructive act. T also failed to mention the 1966 march by NM-Colvin-Leslie, when JRJ tried to implement what he marched against in 1958. Colvin who said two languages one country-one language two countries was not a Marxist but one from the 100 or so ruling families. In 1958, UNP of JRJ had 40% of the vote and he, not the Sinhala extremists who spoilt the cake. T mentioned the 1966 bogus coup where Dodampe Mudalali was killed by JRJ, but he never mentioned the real coup of 1962 by the Christian police and navy officers. Several high-ranking Christian Tamils took part in this and it was averted because of a Sinhala Buddhist police officer, Stanley Senanayake, who refused to remove a government by illegal means. Why anthropology or history professors did not see this basic fact is beyond my comprehension.
Starting with G. C. Mendis, the history department of the University of Ceylon was Christian-dominated, and these historians, including K. M. de Silva (Michael Roberts, Leslie Gunawardena, Ronnie de Mel are all first-class history honors graduates), never wrote even a paragraph stating that Sri Lanka’s problems are problems created by the black white class. Ironically, the first historian to research on this topic was a former American Peace Corp student from America who was stationed at Matale. In 1973 he submitted a doctoral dissertation titled, The transformation of a colonial elite: the mudaliyars of nineteenth century Ceylon” (Professor Patrick Peebles). In his co-authored marathon biography on JRJ, K. M. de Silva reveals everything, including Dudley’s lying about the Christian Tamil Military Police officer coup in 1962, but never presents the fact that those coming from the Attygalle inheritance were the real culprits of Sri Lanka’s present agony. Philip Gunawardena once said this to John Kotalawala in the State Council and John hit Philip on the head in a cowardly manner.
The black white black hole
The creation process of black whites is like a black hole. The system sucks in people and some are victims with no choice. A government officer who came from Hambantota to Colombo, some how buy even a postage stamp-size plot of land near Colombo to send his children to a Colombo school. If he does not get into the system, he will suffer. Nobodies must become Somebodies,” by taking bribes, leaking information or copying files to NGOs. An inferiority complex set in and the new village boys in Colombo become worse than the boys born in Colombo 7. Thus, RanilW may not be as bad as a Banda from Mahiyangana after all. Children from a person from the Poramadulla Central or a minister who was in the JVP could act with a mind set to outsmart the children of say a justice minister came from the Royal College. When the old guard dies new people come with NGO money, cuts from privatization deals, arms trade etc. Thus, when old solid things melt, new solid things are created. Just imagine what happened to R Prema. As a young man, as told by AnruaB in the parliament, he sold lavaria on the street. But he used to give talks at Sunday schools that my close relative in Kotte told me that young listeners went home and removed their trousers and came back wearing the jatika anduma, which the last American Ambassador Ashley Wills wore when he was given a farewell dinner by the President (Island, June 16, 2003). But what happened to this RPrema as a ruler and ultimately as the President? What a marvelous achievement to come from the street and become the president of the country. But the black hole sucked him in, madness set in, and he vanished in to thin air.
While new families are added the children of the old are engaged in a character certificate business. Thus, Wickrema Weerasooriya writes about the services of his father to the Kandyan Peasantry Commission. But the peasants are starving! T. D. S. A. Dissanayaka writes about the Buddhist” coup of 1962 of his father. No coup participant was allowed to take weapons with them! Arjuna Hulugalla wants to serve with a grassroots level political system. Charlie Mahendra’s son is busy blaming the change to mother tongues. Pinto Moragoda’s son writes books. I wonder what all these people have told their children about JHU?
The Black Whites and Buddhism
Some time ago a Carlo (for villagers Karolis) asked two Dasas (Dharmadasa and Buddhadasa) to define who is a black-white. Mexico provides an easy answer to this question. There some people are called coconuts, white inside and brown outside. When Macaulay described his idea of creating Brown Britains in India, in the 1830s, he was thinking exactly of Mexican coconuts. It was and is a frame of mind: A feeling of inferiority complex which made Bandaranayakes, Obeysekeras, Soysas, Jayawardenas, Muttu Kumaraswamys and Senenayakas to worship the white skin in 1848, 1915 or 1948 or Liam-Fox agreement, Norway worship or the myth of an international safety net of law book writer GLP in 2002. If colonialism was inevitable, I consider I was fortunate that my grand parents came under the British rather than the Portuguese, French or the Belgians. Gandhi once said that if not India he would live in London. Karl Marx’ tomb is safe in England without a single sentry to protect it. But if colonialism is continued right into 2004, it was not by actions of neither Lord Nelson nor the general Cecil Rhodes but because of the brain of Macaulay. He had such misunderstanding of Asian culture, because he asked, …who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole literature of India and Arabia.” (Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian, John Clive, 1973, page 372). But the Indian Penal Code that he developed (Ceylon Penal code was a copy of this) was evidence of his understanding with surgical precision the Indian and Sri Lankan mentality to convert them to a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. (page 376).” Is this not why we invite Prince Charles or Chris Patten? Macaulay planted the seed in 1834.
On the advice of Sir Ivor Jennings, DSS, the first prime minister, who had a Christian wife, once said that there was no Buddhist precept of I Take Refuge of the Government [Aanduwa Saranam Gachchami].” Jennings was a white-white, but to a black white like DSS, Gunapala Malalasekera’s statement above was nothing but Greek. The irony of this advice was that those political families who ran the governments from 1948-2004, took political mileage (Refuge) out of Buddhism projecting themselves as baby god Vishnu’s. In March1946 when DSS came forward as the protector (owner) of Buddhism, Ven. Yakkaduwe Pragnarama told him bluntly, …Sir, you protect your varige (clan), and the Mahanayakes will protect Buddhism and we will protect Vidyalankara” (The Work of Kings, H. L. Seneviratne, page 140). The most recent black-white trick is to start their vyaapare (campaign) either at the Dalada Maligawa or the Sri Maha Bodhi, and rush back to Colombo 7 in the night. Are they prepared to move the capital of Sri Lanka to the Raja Rata, so that a presidential palace could be built not in a swamp in Kotte but above the Kala Wewa?
Buddhists never discriminated against other religions. Buddhists never objected to other religions unless and until their goodness and tolerance was abused. The Panadura Waadaya was due to a demand made by the Sinhala Christian priests. Buddhist temples did in remote Ceylon in the past gone to the extent of giving food and lodging to Catholic priests who went on circuit looking for new recruits (just imagine the ehi passiko power of confidence in this act. In temples no dinner is served usually). The center of ancient Buddhist civilization, Anuradhapura, voted in 1931 for a white man (Freeman) as their first elected representative? And he came uncontested in 1936. The second general secretary of SLFP after Nimal Karunatileke, was a Catholic, W. J. C. Munasighe, nominated by a Buddhist priest? How many know that Kelaniya, a place Lord Buddha was said to have visited elected repeatedly a Catholic, R. S. Perera as its MP? In a by-election for the Rambukkana seat, people voted for a Tamil Christian Siva Obeysekera, instead of a professor of Buddhist Philosophy W. S. Karunaratne. Buddhist monks did not approach Dr. Ambedkar in India asking him to consider converting Dalits to Buddhism. He became a Buddhist following ehi passiko. When math professor Sunderalingam was playing havoc with the hari janas in Jaffna (some think these people were originally Sinhala), Buddhist monks did not try to go and convert them to Buddhism.
Except for Premadasa and an accidental one or two all of Sri Lanka’s PMs and Presidents either came from Christian families, had a Christian in the bedroom or in the house. Buddhist never worried about this until after the 2000, when it became so blatantly clear that the Christians have invaded the cabinet. Sinhala Buddhists were under minority control for 500 yrs, and during 1956-59, there was a three-year break. But it ended with death to its midwife, and we do not know who killed him. This is just like the death of the American President JFK. The 1962 Coup, however, gives an indication of what could have happened. One of the coup officers gave as a reason for his frustration SWRD’s order to him, Let them come in.” The officer was trying to prevent people rushing to the parliament chamber after the ape anduwa” victory in 1956. Another officer disliked the villagers telling the officer that the army jeeps were a people property and not of the army officers. Sir John did the best by kicking M. S. Themis on the butt on the steps of the parliament building.
The 1956 silent revolution and the American Civil War 1861-1865
The 1956-59 Wave was similar to what had happened in America after the Civil War. For about ten years former slaves enjoyed political power and human respect. But soon they came under white supremacy, lynching, KKK and separate public toilets that created a new kind of slavery until the civil rights movement of Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s (Lies My Teacher Told Me: everything your American history textbook got wrong, James W. Loewen, 1995). This was exactly what had happened to the Sinhala Buddhists. Some extremists sent SRI busses to Jaffna, JRJ became an Imbulgoda hero, English was neglected as a subject, state corporations became job avenues to party supporters, checks and balances in the constitution were removed, private constitutions came in to force and people like us who tried to serve the motherland left it for mental peace. A handful of families from Colombo 7, ruled and ruined the country, and today they are ready to divide the country so that they can rule the south portion and continue the same old game. The situation became a death trap with AJ Wilson-JRJ bahubootha vivastha and the electoral system controlled by criminals and millionaires. In 1924 there was a Tamil demand to not allow the majority to have more than 50% of the parliament seats and AJ Wilson was able to deliver this, almost in 1978.
In this game Buddhism was the bait. Buddhist universities, Poya-pre Poya holidays, Buddhism in the constitutions, Bens cars to the two Kandy Mahanayakes, a Buddhism minister, Premadasa erecting huge chetiyas, Buddha statutes at every junction, starting viyaparas with a traditional visit to the Dalada Maligawa or the Siri Maha Bodhi, these are the baits. But just like Ananda Guruge copied the Peradeniya university act to create Vidyodaya and Vidyalankara, the foremost place to Buddhism gave to the world an impression that Sri Lanka has a government helping Buddhists at the expense of Christians. So not only Buddhist did not get any special help but they were branded as favored by the government. Buddhism ministry was the biggest insult to Buddhism. Now monks in remote temples are compelled to beg for government funds from politicians. The temple problems are now documented and Christian NGOs by this information from ministry officers to target financially troubled temple priests. Monks who do not want to go after the politicians do not get funds. Villagers are not willing to give even the small donations that they used to give, because now they think the government dole is taking care of the temple buildings. While Buddhism minister is busy Bamian Buddha is destroyed, despite warnings given to him one year in advance. Then the day of the destruction, Buddhist PM Wickremanayake went to see an Afghan man in Pakistan.
I consider Sasanka as the latest manifestation of the now-you-see-now-you-don’t, anti-Mahavamsa movement which started with the Portuguese looting and burning the Buddhist temples and pirivenas in Sri Lanka. Because there was an institution called the Buddhist temple protected the religion and the nation, the Portuguese, Dutch or the English could not do to Sri Lanka what Columbus and Cortez did to the Incas of Central America. The famous Banagala monk smuggled” books under the belly of an elephant to protect them from king Rajasinghe, gone mad because the monks refused to kiss his ring. This was not possible in the Philippine Islands when Bibles and evangelists came by shiploads in the 1940s because there were no monks or temples. Even when Sri Lankan monks faced such decadence where they were called ganinnanse,” they kept the Buddhist texts preserved despite having concubines and children next to them. When authors write about the Irish or the Jews as preservers of civilization, Sri Lanka is a tiny island in the world where Theravada Buddhism is preserved in its pristine state. As Arthur C. Clark predicts Buddhism may be the only religion that would survive in an age of human cloning, and libraries will have Buddhist philosophy in bookshelves or on CD ROMs, but if Buddhism is wiped out from Sri Lanka like in India or Korea, then we will lose a 2500-year heritage.
In the 1960s a group of Marxist-bent Sri Lankan intellectuals removed history and geography (history is past geography) from the school curricula. A Marga (Mara) publication in 1998 suggested the removal of teaching about the king Dutugemunu from Buddhist pirivenas for young monks (Some Marxists called king Dutugemunu a fool of bricks” [for erecting the Ruwanweli Maha Saaya]). These English language publications are mainly read by foreign embassies in Colombo, finance ministers and aid agencies in the West, and they have become fodder for the Tamil terrorists in their propaganda war. Most former FP MPs and Prabakaran are Christians.
©IFAD/Ruvin de Silva
