Editorial

Today is Christmas, a special day for Christians all around the world as they celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. As church bells ring out and Christmas masses are held – this year without Covid restrictions, families will gather to enjoy a festive meal amidst the sobering reality that a large percentage of the population faces an uncertain future as did Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus that first Christmas.

The birth of the promised Messiah foretold in the Bible took place in the little town of Bethlehem some ten km from Jerusalem more than 2000 years ago. This year the tourists who had stayed away during the pandemic have flocked to Bethlehem.

If Bethlehem has reason to welcome the crowds, the commercialised excess that seems to inevitably surface during the season is tellingly evident this year on the streets of Colombo bedecked with lights, despite citizens groaning under interminable power cuts and the impact of the country’s worst economic crisis in recent times.

In Sri Lanka, religion has long been an emotive issue, akin to a volcano, inactive for periods and once in a while bursting open spouting hot larvae.

In recent times, religious leaders have been at the forefront of national politics not holding back from making extremely controversial statements or parading themselves on the streets. Repeated pronouncements such as that they know for a certainty who was behind the Easter Sunday bombings of 2019 have even been taken abroad, but why the investigators of those serial bombings have been unable to come to the same findings begs an answer.

More recently, there have been public statements critical of a state minister’s call for the opening of a ‘night economy’. It was said that a ‘Buddhist country’ must not have a ‘night economy’ as proposed by a ‘parangi’ (foreigner), a direct reference to the MP whose citizenship is in question. While the merits and demerits of such a proposal can be endlessly debated, and religious leaders have every right to comment on such a proposal as a ‘night economy’ that is usually associated with vice unless properly regulated, the weightage given to the argument that it cannot be countenanced as Sri Lanka is a Buddhist country loses meaning when a Buddhist country like Thailand has such a thriving night economy. So does a staunchly Catholic country like the Philippines. The people of those countries are no less devoutly religious than those elsewhere.

This week, the Government was forced to temporarily shut down the Buddhist and Pali University due to the reprehensible conduct of some of its students. The Mahaayake Theras seem to have lost control of them and the number of bogus student-monks in universities has become a total embarrassment to their calling and the majority of followers of the sublime teachings of the Buddha. They have become the pawns of radical political fronts which have infiltrated these institutions and care little for Buddhist and Pali studies.

All political parties – without exception, have exploited religion and brought clergymen onto their platforms for their own selfish advancement. Instances of bearded-student-monks standing atop police barricades, fist thumping, shouting anti-government slogans, with their robes in disarray make for ideal photographs on news pages and television abroad. Many of them discard the robes and don a pair of jeans after graduation and those who remain are heavily indoctrinated with mundane material issues. To find suitable monks from these halls of supposed learning, well versed in the Dhamma and foreign languages, even English, to go forth for Dhammadutha service is like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Then there was a national security focus on religious fundamentalism that was prone to violence against ‘infidels’, the Easter Sunday bombings being a textbook case. While most of the blood-letting was influenced by the internet, extremist sentiments coming out of places of worship fuelling these evil actions cannot be discounted. Again, the vast majority of a particular community got painted as a whole in a poor light due to the actions of a few.

The ‘new churches’ that have mushroomed in recent years threatening the traditional churches and poaching their flock have also been attracting controversy. One of the ‘prophets’ recently addressed his faithful saying his religion was not a minority in Sri Lanka and he would lay down his life to ensure it wasn’t.

It might do him good to ply his trade in England instead. The 2021 Census shows Christianity in England and Wales as a minority religion. Only 46.2 percent of people identified themselves as Christians compared to 59.3 percent ten years ago (2011) – a 13 percent (or 5.5 million people) drop in a decade. Many identified themselves as of no particular faith at all. All other major religions recorded increased numbers. One-third of the population, i.e. 22.2 million in England and Wales said “no religion”.

Traditional religion seems to be taking a knock around the world as younger people are questioning traditional beliefs (often with a little knowledge of it) partly due to the way religious leaders and ‘men of the cloth’ conduct themselves. It was time they turned the searchlight inward.

In the midst of all the turmoil, the true meaning of Christmas – of the Saviour born in a humble stable in the poorest of circumstances sans earthly fanfare, is worth reflecting on. The spirituality that was the focus of that first Christmas, the significance of the angels announcing his birth to the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks – a little-regarded community – calls people to be mindful and caring of the suffering of those around them: A message that cannot be more relevant than this year in this country.

Pope Francis in his annual Christmas address to the Roman Curia – the cardinals who work in Vatican offices – made reference to war-torn Ukraine and the many ongoing conflicts in different parts of our world. “War and violence” was “always a catastrophe”, he said, stressing that “religion must not lend itself to fuelling conflicts. The Gospel is always a Gospel of peace, and in the name of no God can one declare a war to be ‘holy’.”

As one of America’s Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin said “How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few, His precepts!”