Is it just me, folks, or does it seem to you, too, that mere anarchy has been loosed upon our world of late? I see wars and hear rumours of wars. Plagues, pestilences, plates under the ocean shifting as our late great planet groans in consternation at creation struggling to be reborn. People are the least of our problems: having sufficient religion to hate the other; but not enough faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, brotherly affection or the agape spirit to love. Peace, be still!
It is not just nature that is red in tooth and claw. At home, some days ago, we saw what transpires when the deadly Molotov cocktail of constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom coupled with a historically cockeyed sense of self-identity is tossed into the maelstrom of faiths that passes for pluralism in this country.
Disregard for the due process of the law. Clergy clutching at the straws of their outraged dignity, at blasphemous buildings on their sacred ground, while un-dignifiedly exposing themselves to counter the alleged sacrilege. Riotous assembly in the name of religion. Vandalism disguised as the donation of labour (‘shramadana’). Acolytes of a peaceful philosophy brandishing weapons of destruction and mouthing anathema on their brothers.
Some respondents to the Dambulla imbroglio have suggested that the events of late April don’t represent religious extremism. They have invoked legal wrangles, bureaucratic labyrinths, and that usual suspect – a plot by those with vested interests in destabilising the polity – to explain the excesses witnessed by the world (a video of the monk-led mob violence apparently went viral). Many have downplayed the fiasco, fearing a backlash à la Ayodhya and the worst exigencies of Hindutva.
Most Sri Lankans, still sensitive enough despite three decades or more of brutalisation to recognise that a flashpoint such as this could trigger off another war of a different ilk, have crimsoned in shame, reddened with barely suppressed anger, purpled in enforced and frustrated silence.
Only a few moderates – a handful of thousands at last count (see https://notinournamesl.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/put-your-name-down-and-resist-violence/) – have gone the extra mile to make it clear that this type of violence is undesirable, unconscionable, not in their name.
But something is still missing in the melting pot. A key ingredient that will season the goulash of bigotry and bias until the whole brew savours of a more palatable essence. That je ne sais quoi from the centre which has charms to soothe the savage breasts aroused at the periphery.
Those honeyed words salted with attic wit which work wonders at times like this when sacred ground is the omphalos, the eye of the storm threatening to break, a religious conflagration with the potential to set the country aflame from Dambulla to Devinuwara. However to date the powers that be have managed to essay but a feeble je ne sais pas, opting for the path of least resistance between chauvinistic statements by high officials that pass for the de facto government position and doing and saying nothing of substance, endorsing acts undertaken by others with their own silence. It will not suffice, unless the necessity is that communal tensions be provoked again to the nation’s detriment, but in the limit benefiting hidden hands with vested interests.
We need, therefore, the wisdom of the serpent and the gentleness of the dove to avert another national crisis stemming from this issue. Silence in the hope that it will go away will not cut it – certainly not from the establishment. Political, social, and religious leaders need to think it through, talk this out, and take a stance on the issue behind the issue. Whether pluralism in our just and righteous society (‘dharmishta samaajaya’) has a future depends on the courage of the incumbent administration in this singularity that could trigger off a big bang. To speak truth with power, justice with peace, healing with equanimity, happiness for all, security sans fear and shame and guilt is the choice of our leaders of today. It is the need of the hour.
As people of the nation as a whole – not only Sinhala-Buddhists; but also Muslims, Christians, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, and people from other religious positions or philosophical persuasions – experience and enjoy Vesak, let us ask ourselves these key questions. Will the state be able to tolerate such violent religious vigilantism and still be able to credibly enforce the rule of law in other spheres of national life? Does the value of one’s faith lie in the letter of the law vis-à-vis its scriptural texts, or must these principles be not only espoused but practised in real life as a convincing witness and testimony?
Can constitutional protection be taken too far in the future, too, if and when protégés of the state impose their hegemonic worldview on constituents of an essentially pluralistic society? It is the least that he who entered into and exited from this plane of existence, then enlightened and today exalted beyond even his expectations, would expect of us. |
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