{"id":91605,"date":"2019-07-20T16:42:16","date_gmt":"2019-07-20T23:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=91605"},"modified":"2019-07-20T16:42:16","modified_gmt":"2019-07-20T23:42:16","slug":"bbs-convention-in-kandy-july-7-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/07\/20\/bbs-convention-in-kandy-july-7-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"BBS CONVENTION IN KANDY, JULY 7, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

By <\/span>Rohana R. Wasala<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The Bodu Bala Sena organization held (seemingly the first edition\nof) its Siv Hele Maha Samuluwa or National Convention of Siv Hela  at the\nBogambara Grounds in Kandy on July 7, 2019. Its purpose was, presumably, to\npropose a democratic, non-violent way out of the present political morass that\nthe country is engulfed in. (Siv Hela is an ancient name for Sri Lanka. A\ncommonly accepted conjecture is: Siv Hela > Sihela> Sinhale > Ceilao\n> Ceylon. Literally, the phrase means the Country of the Four Helas. Hela Diva\nor the \u2018Island of the Hela\u2019 was another classical name for the country. The\npeople of the island were called Helaya3.s. The significance of the name \u2018Siv\nHela\u2019 is that it includes all the people who make the country their home, as it\ndid in ancient times. The idea of unity in diversity is implicit in that name.\nWhen the well known historical, geographical, political, social, cultural and\ngeopolitical factors are taken into consideration, there is no better way to\nrestore and reinforce Sri Lanka\u2019s national unity than to democratically\nre-establish, in the form of a modern secular democracy, the Sinhalese Buddhist\nState that came into being with the official introduction of Buddhism and the\nsimultaneous inception of the Buddha Sasanaya nearly 2300 years ago. It has\npersisted down the ages, though perhaps not more than a nuclear entity at\nadverse times caused by numerous foreign invasions and internal divisions. The\nproblem for the false guardians of democracy in the West is their failure or\nunwillingness to accept the fact that the principles of secular democratic good\ngovernance were anticipated by the long line of Sinhalese Buddhist kings from\nDewanampiya Tissa {307-267 BCE} down to Sri Wickrema Rajasinghe\n{1798-1815}).  The Buddhist state, of course, was subject to the pressures\nexerted by the inevitable internal and external challenges that it had to\ntackle in each specific period of its history like any other sovereign state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incidentally, a popular myth among most Sri Lankans that sometimes\nassumes significance in the context of Tamil Sinhala interactive politics\nconcerns the racial identity of the last mentioned king: It is falsely claimed\nthat he was a Tamil. He was not a Tamil. The ruling family (the Nayakkars or\nNayakas) in Tamil Nadu that he belonged to was from the northern area known as\nthe Telangana State today and they were Telugu speakers. So Sri Wikrama, though\na Dravidian, was not Tamil. However, having been born and bred in Sri Lanka, he\nwas fluent in Sinhala as much as Telugu, and he was fluent in Tamil as well. In\nSri Lanka, he and his people were called Vadugas or Northerners. The Kandian\nkings had a tradition of bringing their queens from Madurai. The last native\nSinhalese king, Narendrasinghe (but, biologically as much Nayaka as Sinhala, as\nGananath Obeysekere describes him in \u2018The Doomed King\u2019 pub. Sail Fish, Colombo,\n2017, the source for this information) known as Sellam Nirindu or Playboy king,\nwas issueless. So he made the brother of his wife juva-raja or sub-king.\nConsequently on his death in 1747, that Nayaka brother-in-law of his was\ncrowned king. This was the great Kirti Sri Rajasinghe the first Nayaka Buddhist\nking who ruled till 1782. All the Nayaka kings including the last were\nrecognized by the Kandyans as their sovereigns, not because they were Tamil,\nTelugu or some other variety of Dravidians, but because the Kandyan Sinhalese\naccepted them as Sinhala Buddhist kings. This is similar to the racial ancestry\nof the present British monarch queen Elizabeth II. The dynastic family to which\nshe belongs, the House of Windsors, is of German paternal descent. The original\nname of the dynasty was \u2018the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha\u2019. The name \u2018the\nHouse of Windsor\u2019 was adopted on July 17, 1917 due to anti-German sentiment in\nthe British empire; it was during World War I (1914-18). Who argues that\nElizabeth II is a German queen? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To resume the main topic, the writer watched the proceedings on\nthe Asian Mirror <\/em>TV broadcast live from Sri Lanka. Named \u2018Daeyama Eka\nRodata\u2019 \u2018The Whole Nation Gathered into One Mass\u2019 and blessed by the Venerable\nMahanayakes of the Three Nikayas, it was attended by a large number of\nyellow-robed bhikkhus and bhikkhunis, and lay Buddhists clad in white. (The\nsize of the assemblage could have been even larger but for the severity of\nobstructions  that the BBS had to contend with, and the fear psychosis\nthat gripped the nation after the April 21 Islamist terror attacks.) They were\na representative crowd that came from many parts of the country. In addition to\nerudite monks, the Vedda Chief Uruvarige Vannila Aeththo – hereditary leader of\nthe forest-dwelling Vedda minority – was among the main speakers. The\nconvention was attended by members of other racial and religious communities as\nwell, including Tamils and Catholics. At the end of his one and a half hour\nlong speech, Ven. Gnanasara Thera thanked all those who contributed in various\nways to the success of the meeting which had to be organized amidst numerous\ndifficulties and obstacles; he also thanked the media persons who were there to\ncover the event. This timely national reawakening rally in the form of a BBS\nConvention was meticulously well organized and it was completely devoid of party\npolitics, while embracing representatives from all communities and religions.\nThe only fly in the ointment was the presence of a single active politician, of\nwhom, on the top of it, Ven. Gnanasara made special mention. He must have\ngenuine reasons for this; Sumathipala may be a contributor of funds for BBS,\nand he may be involved in Buddhist resurgence activities. A national event of\nits nature on such a large scale was probably unprecedented in independent Sri\nLanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite that, looks like, even within Sri Lanka, the event did not\nreceive the massive media coverage it really deserved. Except for the social\nmedia, it would have passed globally unnoticed. This was not unexpected because\nthe money-controlled media have turned Ven Gnanasara into a terrorist worse\nthan Prabhakaran or Saharan, and the Buddhists into extremists, and Jihadists\ninto peace doves. This is regrettable. Native Sri Lankans, wherever they are at\npresent, can understand  the determination of the large concourse of the\n\u2018sivvanak pirisa\u2019 or the \u2018fourfold assembly,\u2019 (male and female monks and the\nmale and female lay followers), as the classic Buddhist congregation is\ntraditionally described. Outsiders who have no familiarity with the dominant\nBuddhist cultural tradition of the country or feel no empathy with people who\nshare moral values derived from that tradition might only see it as a brazen\nshow of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist extremism. There is no such extremism\ninvolved here. The show of heightened Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism was\nimmediately triggered by the mindless Wahhabi terrorism that caused such mayhem\nand destruction of property recently. It was probably a great disappointment\nfor critics of imagined Sinhalese Buddhist extremists that they got no\nopportunity to blame them for the gruesome violence on April 21; their chagrin\ngrew when they found that Buddhist monks immediately got involved in the\nvoluntary rescue work trying to bring every possible form of relief and\nconsolation to the victims. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This writer doesn\u2019t think that there is no media freedom in Sri\nLanka. But considering the pall of implicit censorship, apparently self-imposed\nby the mainstream media, that hangs over the legitimate activities of\ngrassroots nationalist organizations that claim to stand up for the threatened\nvital interests of the majority community,  it is as if over 75% of the\nSri Lankan population are being denied their democratic right to freedom of\nexpression; the rightness or the wrongness of their views is a different\nmatter. This virtual media asphyxiation of the rising public awareness of the\nexistential danger that all communities, especially the Sinhalese majority, are\nfacing must be recognized and countered.  This is especially menacing,\ngiven the present government\u2019s indefinite postponement of provincial council\nelections. This virtual throttling of democracy is done by the powers that be\nfor their own ends, which are clearly not in the interest of the Sri Lankan\npeople. A government cannot do this with impunity because the politically\nconscious Sri Lankans, particularly the most social media savvy millennials\n(25-40 year olds) and the younger new voters (18-24 year olds) do not now\nentirely depend on the mainstream media. They are the ones who are most aware\nof the cruel irony of victims of violent racial and religious extremism of some\nsections of the minorities being condemned, persecuted and silenced as racists\nand extremists merely for trying to reveal to the civilized world what they are\nactually experiencing. (The victims here are the majority Sinhalese.)Those who\nwant to stay in power only because they feel a need to keep promises made to\nforeign powers as quid pro quo for helping them to gain power must remember\nthat any governmental meddling with the social media is going to prove\ncounterproductive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018reconciliation\u2019 that  powers that be claim is being\nthreatened by the activities of the BBS is only a threadbare slogan that they\ninvented to destabilize Sri Lanka. There has been no need for any special\nreconciliation, because ordinary Sri Lankans of all communities were living in\nharmony even during periods of the most violent confrontations between the\nstate\u2019s security forces and the separatist terrorists at the time of the nearly\nthirty year long conflict. The majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils were not\nat war with each other; the government military was not targeting ordinary\nTamils, who were as much at the receiving end of terrorism as all others. But\nthe Tamil separatists, certain NGO mercenaries thriving on the suffering of\ninnocents, and geopolitical players and their local beneficiaries created the\nmyth of a communal conflict between the Sinhalese and Tamil communities. Now\nthey have succeeded in introducing a religious dimension to this in the form of\nthe Wahhabist incursion under the suspected secret patronage of the same\nobnoxious global  gamesters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any opportunity that offers itself for the BBS bashing media\nchannels to attack it by misinterpreting or distorting whatever it says or does\nin the pursuit of its genuine national goals is never given a miss by them\nsince they are in the thrall of those gamesome monsters of global power\npolitics. A news report about the BBS Convention in Kandy written by Buddhika\nSamaraweera and published in the July 9, 2019 edition of Ceylon Today<\/em>\u2019s\nweekly newsletter is an excellent piece of typical misreportage. It is a string\nof lies. It will do to mention a few illustrative distortions it contains:\nAccording Samaraweera, Gnanasara Thera said \u2018action will be taken to set up a\nSinhalese Parliament, reliable for the people, adding that everyone should to\nwork together to restore the traditional systems of governance, which were lost\nwith the subjugation of Sri Lanka by Great Britain in 1815\u2019. The monk said no\nsuch thing. It is a willfully garbled version of the Thera\u2019s words. What he\nsaid was that MPs representing the majority Sinhalese must be able to form a\ngovernment without depending on the help of communalist minority parties.This\nis to prevent the majority being unduly dominated by minorities as has been\nhappening for decades now. There is no fear of the minorities being neglected.\nA Sinhala nationalist dominated government will look after minority interests\nbetter than the racists that represent them now; nationalist minority politicians\nwill invariably participate in such a government<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, Buddhika Samaraweera mistranslates the monk thus: People\nwere forsaken in the democratic concept introduced to Sri Lanka by the United\nKingdom in 1948. People have been deceived by this method and the people have\nnot been able to choose who is suitable and who is not suitable for the\nParliament or governance, and people have as a result, been rendered helpless\ndue to the actions of the present rulers  \u2026\u2026\u201d. This is not what Ven. Gnanasara\nsaid. He actually upholds the democracy; what he was saying was that the\ndemocratic system is being abused to the detriment of the people, particularly,\nthe majority Sinhalese through mishandled party politics. The few racists among\nminority politicians exploit the divisions in the majority electorate that is\nnon-racist and have never voted as voting bloc. What the monk is saying is that\nwe have had enough of dividing ourselves on party lines and allowing ourselves\nto be unfairly dominated by opportunistic minority politicians; let us also\npersuade the Sinhalese to cast their vote as a voting block for once. This will\nmake minority voters to think in terms of national interest rather than\ncommunal interest.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A highlight at the well attended BBS Convention was the public\nannouncement of a set of proposals for the Sinhala Buddhist state to be\ndemocratically set up in the future. It included nine items, which can be very\nbriefly summarized thus (any misinterpretation that could occur is completely\nunintended):1. effective implementation of Article 9 – which concerns the\nstatus of Buddhism – of the existing constitution until a new constitution is\nenacted in due course; the term \u2018Buddhasasanaya\u2019 must be defined to facilitate\nthis; 2. restoration of the Sinhala state, and the restructure of all relevant\ninstitutions based on it, the Sinhalese should be defined as bhumiputras,\ndividing people according to religion should be stopped, so Muslims should be\ncalled Sinhala Muslims, Catholics as Sinhala Catholics, Christians as Sinhala\nChristians, etc., the Sinhala State should be recognized as the homeland of\nall  3. For national security a central operational command centre should\nbe established, all kinds of separatism (religious, racial, etc.) should be banned;\n4. preservation of national heritage sites, protection and promotion of the\nSinhala language and literature, traditional Sinhala medical knowledge, etc.;\n5. There will be one country-one nation-one law, and a new electoral system\nwill be introduced; 6. a sound economy with special attention to the agrarian\nsector, a \u2018web-baendi rajyaya\u2019 (based on the concept of ancient waev baedi\nrajyaya) i.e., an IT and knowledge based economy should be established; 7.\nintroduction of the English medium after the primary level for a patriotic\neducation system, proper population management, development of a national\npolicy for health and nutrition; 8. proper management of housing,\ninfrastructure facilities, human settlement, and population; irregular\nsterilization targeting Sinhalese mothers should be immediately stopped, a\npopulation control system that is common to all communities should be\nintroduced; and 9. Health and nutrition should be based on a broad national\npolicy that recognizes a favourable combination of Sinhala, Ayurveda, and\nWestern medical systems, halal certified food should be restricted to the\nrelevant community, it should not be imposed on non-Muslims by\nforce.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proposal for the restoration of the Sinhala state that was\nceded to the British empire in 1815 needs to be understood as an ultimate\nreaction to the continued machinations of forces that are opposed to the\nmajority Sinhalese reasserting themselves as an independent sovereign nation in\ntheir own homeland of countless millennia, sharing it, as equal citizens, with\na number of minorities of different racial, cultural, linguistic, and religious\nidentities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ending of separatist terrorism in 2009 reassured all these\ncommunities in their accustomed peaceful coexistence, promising a politically stable\nSri Lanka that started making strides in every sphere economic, social and\nhuman development. But soon this was cut short by the powers that be to whom\nthe survival of the Sinhalese people who have abundant written and epigraphical\nrecords of their over 2500 year unbroken history as a sovereign nation state is\nof no concern.The emergence of a strong sovereign state with control over Sri\nLanka\u2019s land, air, and maritime resources is probably thought to be not in the\nbest interest of the global powers competing in the region. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala The Bodu Bala Sena organization held (seemingly the first edition of) its Siv Hele Maha Samuluwa or National Convention of Siv Hela  at the Bogambara Grounds in Kandy on July 7, 2019. Its purpose was, presumably, to propose a democratic, non-violent way out of the present political morass that the country […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rohana-r-wasala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91605","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=91605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}