{"id":75650,"date":"2018-03-14T13:34:32","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T20:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=75650"},"modified":"2018-03-14T13:34:32","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T20:34:32","slug":"muslim-intolerance-and-militancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/03\/14\/muslim-intolerance-and-militancy\/","title":{"rendered":"MUSLIM INTOLERANCE AND MILITANCY\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Daya Hewapathirane<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Threat to Our National Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n

All ethnic and cultural groups within society are not equal and therefore need not be treated in the same way. All people do not hold the same values. No one can deny the fact that the foundation of our nation, its societal norms and values originates from the Sinhala Buddhist heritage. Whether we choose to live as Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim, Malay, or Burger, or as Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Christians or atheists, our right to do so is derived from this heritage and associated way of life. Despite attempts by European colonial powers for over four hundred years, to undermine the nation’s indigenous culture, and other challenges faced during the decades of Tamil terrorism in the country, the fundamental elements of our national culture prevailed. That gave our nation its distinct identity and character. In recent years, the Muslim community in our country has posed a threat to our national culture and way of life founded on Buddhist principles. This trend is clear from the attitude and actions of extremist Muslims and their leaders.<\/p>\n

Muslim Communalism and Extremism<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although an insignificant minority of about 9% of Sri Lanka’s population, Muslims insist on living an alienated and un-integrated life, agitating for concessions specified by their Islamic religion. Most evidently, misguided by their leaders, they think and work only to further their own narrow self-interests. The interest of the nation, is not their concern. They have shown no interest in joining the national “mainstream” and work towards national unity and well-being. No Muslim gives any other religion a status of equality with Islam. Such an assumption is against the tenets of their creed. The struggle between Muslim communalism and extremism are serious problems in Sri Lanka, much like in most other Southern Asian countries -Thailand, Myanmar, India, Bangladesh.<\/p>\n

History of Sri Lanka reveals vividly the fact that the spirit of tolerance and accommodation of others irrespective of their religious or other differences has been a common distinguishing characteristic of Sinhala Buddhists from very early times. Judging from the fanaticism and confrontational attitudes and actions of Muslims in recent decades, it appears that this spirit of tolerance and accommodation on the part of Buddhists, is not appreciated by the Muslims. It is being exploited as a weakness, to pursue their self-interests of promoting their religion and ways of life at the expense of Buddhism, Buddhist culture and Buddhist way of life.<\/p>\n

There are attempts by the extremist Muslims to destroy the socio-cultural cohesiveness of Buddhist communities by the introduction of their Arabian norms and lifestyles. This is having a highly divisive effect on our society leading to social disharmony and turmoil. Muslims are trying hard, using cunning and deceitful means to introduce their crude extremist Saudi Arabian Wahabi cultural norms to our country, thereby undermining our traditional Sinhala Buddhist cultural norms. Their disgusting highly violent halal methods of animal slaughter, their unsightly and repulsive ‘gonibilla’ outfits, their nauseating load speaker shouting at odd times of the day disturbing entire neighborhoods and using internet and other means to insult and discredit our Sangha community are some well-known Muslim (Arabian) cultural garbage they are introducing to Sri Lanka. They disregard the fact that they live in a predominantly Buddhist country and what they are doing is incompatible with the way of life and the social value system of this country. Also, in recent decades, Muslims have been encroaching on Buddhist temple lands and destroying Buddhist monuments and archeological remains in the Eastern Province. Their under-hand, deceitful, and illegal actions in Wilpattu National Reserve are well known.<\/p>\n

MOBILIZATION OF BUDDHISTS<\/strong><\/p>\n

In recent years, despite severe challenges and threats, Buddhists, especially concerned patriotic Buddhist youth, have started to mobilize in large numbers under the bold leadership of several organizations, rallying to the Buddha’s call to “go forth… for the good of many, for the benefit and well-being of many’. Given the rising communalism and extremism of Muslims in contemporary times, it is time that patriots, both lay and ordained, young, and old, rise to the occasion, come to the forefront, and express their solidarity with Buddhist organizations promoting appropriate strategies and measures, in a legitimate manner, to counter this rising anti-national, Muslim menace. It is time for action to subdue the ‘anti-Buddhist’ and “anti-national” attitudes and activities of Muslims. It is time that our Buddhist leaders both the ordained and lay, particularly our contemporary Buddhist political leaders, realize how Muslim leaders of today are deceitfully exploiting the conciliatory\u00a0andaccommodative nature of the Sinhala people, and pursuing their highly communal, separatist, and extremist hidden agendas which are anti-national and anti-Buddhist and affecting the welfare and good image of the country.<\/p>\n

Dr. Daya Hewapathirane<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Daya Hewapathirane Threat to Our National Culture All ethnic and cultural groups within society are not equal and therefore need not be treated in the same way. All people do not hold the same values. No one can deny the fact that the foundation of our nation, its societal norms and values originates from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-daya-hewapathirane"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}