{"id":92740,"date":"2019-09-01T08:48:19","date_gmt":"2019-09-01T15:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=92740"},"modified":"2019-09-01T08:48:19","modified_gmt":"2019-09-01T15:48:19","slug":"nagananda-as-a-presidential-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/09\/01\/nagananda-as-a-presidential-candidate\/","title":{"rendered":"Nagananda as a Presidential candidate."},"content":{"rendered":"

Bodhi Dhanapala<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nI was frankly surprised to find Dr. Daya \nHewapathirana (DH)  coming forward to support Nagananda  of all people. But \nanything can happen in politics. Who expected that Ven. Ratana will end up in \nthe UNP national list, importing and selling duty-free cars? Who expected the \n“Rathu Sahodarayas” to become Rathu-Ali hobnobbing with Sampanthan and other \nKoti? Didn’t they kill innocent people against the Indian Intervention and \nthe13th amendment?
  DH  has often written articles explaining \nthe danger faced by Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Now he has gone off and turned 180 \ndegrees to become a full secularist.  I too believe that religion is a matter \nof personal belief.<\/strong>But there is a community of people who are Buddhists \nand their culture is what we need to create a society where Buddhists can \npractice their beliefs, and live their life  in peace<\/strong>. \n\n\n\n\n
\nThe Wahabist threat, the Evangelist threat etc., and the threat posed by \nMarxist idiots and the excesses of Capatalism which reduces everything to money, \ncannot be ignored. Even the usually ultra-conservative Catholic church has now \nrealized that Buddhists are not a threat to Catholics as long as Catholics do \nnot try to undermine Buddhism, as was the case in the 1950s when Catholic Action \nwas a political force. Mr. L. H. Mettananada and the Buddhist commission of the \nday led the battle against Catholic Acton and helped SWDR to come to power in \n1956.

In  fact, in modern times, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith has spoken in  \nsupport of  the idea of Buddhism having a special place in Sri Lanka. \n\n
\nThe role of Buddhism in forming the cultural heritage of the country cannot \nbe subsumed under a constitution which does not recognize the special role of \nBuddhist culture<\/strong>, even if we recognize that Buddhist Belief or any other \nreligious belief<\/strong> to be  a personal matter for personal \nstriving<\/em>.
\nIf the aspirations and the will of 75% of the people are not reflected in \nthe constitution,  what is the use of such a constitution?   \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\nDr. Hewapathirana was a “presidential advisor ” \nto Rajapaksa. May be Dr. DH  has now switched sides and decided that Buddhism is \nirrelevant to our daily life and culture.\n\n
\nBodhi Dhanapala\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bodhi Dhanapala I was frankly surprised to find Dr. Daya Hewapathirana (DH)  coming forward to support Nagananda  of all people. But anything can happen in politics. Who expected that Ven. Ratana will end up in the UNP national list, importing and selling duty-free cars? Who expected the “Rathu Sahodarayas” to become Rathu-Ali hobnobbing with Sampanthan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bodhi-dhanapala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92740","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=92740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}