Rajpal's Column

14th February 1999

Sick systems and culture of ‘Cults’

By Rajpal Abeynayake

Cardinal Jaime Sin, a pillar of the Catholic establishment-played a major role in the people power movement in the Philippines. Was it people power, on the other hand, when the Bauddha Rajaya movement launched a march, on January 31 for the cause of establishing a Buddhist state? Was it also people power when the Bishop of Chilaw Nicholas Marcus Fernando mooted the idea of a people power movement after the Wayamba poll fiasco?

Japan, for instance, where the social fabric is under tremendous pressure due to the economic downturn, is said to be breaking out in cults. A new poll indicated that there are over one hundred thousand cults in Japan some among them notorious, such as the Aung Shinkaryo,which launched a deadly sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subways two years back.

Our own manifestation of a social fabric under threat on the other hand seems to be an overgrowth of organizations and movements such as the Baudddha Rajya movement, or what may become the people’s movement fashioned after the Chilaw bishop’s idea. There is also an inclination to dump movements such as the National Movement against Terrorism and the National Peace Council in this same bunch. These movements too display elements of the "culture of the cult’’ even though there is a solid rationale for their existence in that they are movements poised against the continuity of the country’s conflict.

So we too have an outbreak of the "culture of the cult’’ although the cults here are not of the same voodoo variety of the cults that have sprung up in Japan, but apart from this qualitative difference, the trend of the formation of movements that are eccentric from the mainstream must be a sure sign of a social fabric that is under severe stress. But for the moment, let’s take just two of the new "movements’’.The first would be the Bauddha Rajaya campaign which ended up last week with a rally in Kirinda in which a Muslim gave the penultimate speech asking for a return to the Bauddha Rajya that he says "existed before 1815."

Nothing much is known about the movement except that it sets out to demolish the essentially secular Sri Lankan state. Following close on the heels of the Bauddha Rajaya movement was the call for another movement which some would unkindly label as the Catholic Action movement.

Now, a "People power’’ movement suggested by a key Catholic cleric may not smack of infamous Catholic Action merely because there was a Catholic head of the church making the call. But this wouldn’t prevent at least some quarters from thinking that if there is anything worse than a Bauddha Rajaya then it must be a revival of Catholic Action.

Certainly there is no suggestion here that Sri Lanka should inculcate a morbid paranoia for any of these movements.

But why this cultish tendency has suddenly reared its head is a question similar to pondering the genesis of the Japanese mystic cults.

The more stresses that are added to a system the greater chance of eccentric outbreaks. Eccentric used here of course in a wholly non- pejorative sense. The call for a People’s action movement from the Catholic establishment in Chilaw for example followed the Wayamba election which added another new contagion to a system already under strain due to war and terrorism.

Wayamba is not so easy to wish away as the government makes out. The columnist who has been called astute even by the journalists of the state controlled press, Rasin, who writes for the sister paper the Lankadipa, observes tht the government still behaves as if it was the opposition. The People’s Alliance, says Rasin blames everything on the UNP because it still labours under the illusion that the UNP is in power and the PA is in the opposition. Though that may be flattering to the UNP it is definitely the PA’s problem.

Within the PA ranks themselves there appears to be a clear difference about how to control the damage that ensued from Wayamba. To the Minister of Finance and Constitutional Affairs Professor G. L. Peiris we must raise a hat for acknowledging the consequences of Wayamba. In contrast to him is Minister of Telecommunications Mangala Samaraweera who is still in the "kill the messenger’’ mood blaming the media for the situation arising from Wayamba.

Mr. Samaraweera persists in foisting ulterior motives and "political agenda’s’’ on journalists whom he says have twisted the events in Wayamba which he says simultaneously was the "most peaceful elections since 1983.’’ (Only two murders to boot.)

Even though the less said about Mr. Samarawera;’s assertion the better, it is sad that he is on a pugnacious course blaming all around him when others such as Dr. Peiris are prepared to look inward in what is obviously a grave situation. (40000 ballots discounted by the Elections Commissioner and the President herself saying this must be the only country in the world in which polling booths were closed after voting was finished by 6.30 am)

Though this short piece began with cults and ends with Wayamba the connection will not be farfetched because all this talk of people power, has stemmed from the polls. Those who do not like the idea of cults and fringe movements do not necessarily remember that fissures in the system are responsible in some way for the emergence of eccentric movements. If the system doesn’t cure itself, then who is to say that there is no justification for these other organisations to flaunt a malady and say it is the cure itself?

Commentary

Editorial/Opinion Contents