In this case, no vaccine or treatment.

Not sure – we can without any problem, across various browsers and operating systems. What’s the error message, if any, you get?

A friend of mine was admitted to an European hospital and the lady was operated on emergency. But, she was unconcious and in the course of the operation she had lost a lot of blood. But the hospital hadn’t given her blood, and upon coming to conciousness, the doctor on duty came and said that she needs to be given a blood transfusion, but they couldn’t administer it since they hadn’t registered her religion on admission. The upsetting part here, is that they took the risk of not giving her blood, even though she had lost 1/3 of the blood volume. This is the significance of religion even in secular western countries.

But, ofcourse, I see the point of Nalaka Gunawardene. Why the police needs to know the religion is really upsetting.

I think they are reacting because they don’t understand the word ”Secular Humanism”. Really if somebody asked me to write down ”Secular Humanism” as a religion, then I’ll be confused to.

Anyway what is the Sinhala word for ”Secular Humanism” ? Or did you tell a Sinhala villager who works in a hospital or the police, thoes hard to understand English words? I can only imagine their dismay and confusion if they had to write that down. 🙂

I think you are mising up, generalisations and ethnic identities. For example: There are many ethnic Italian people who are Hindus or Buddhists or Muslims, but we still consider Italian people to be Christians. So being Sinhala will always be associated with Buddhism, while being Tamil will always be associated with Hinduism.

As said, I do agree with some of your points, and I do see the main message in your post, namely that religion is a private affair, and the govt should respect that.

For some reason I am no longer able to post under the Sinhala Nationalist Burden thread. I hope you see this post.

“Personally I cannot see it workable unless the minorities have been completely subjugated.”

Would you characterize the minorities today as being completely subjugated?

“One has to ask, why there is constitutional protection for Buddhism? If, as you say that, Hindus, Christians, and Muslims and not forbidden to do anything; then what will Buddhism loose if there isn’t any constitutional protection exists? Is there a fundamental weakness in Buddhism that is not seen in other religions?”

Again, the fact that Buddhism virtually disappeared in the land of its origin (India) fuels the need for a special status for Buddhism, which is an “endangered species” in the region. Without that special status, Buddhists will not view the state as legitimate.

Buddhists believe that they are vulnerable because they see their belief system as more tolerant and open than others. Buddhism is probably the only religion that spread throughout Asia (and the world) nonviolently. As I mentioned before, Buddhist monks initially were open to Christian missionaries preaching in SL. It is only when these missionaries began to attack and attempt to supplant Buddhism that the monks became anti-Christian (and I would argue that this is where the xenophobic tendencies found today in the Sangha originated).

“I was living in Jaffna during the 1970s; there was no LTTE; the Tamils were as passive as one can be, but I witnessed atrocities committed by the police against the Tamils.”

Tamil militancy began in the 1970s (although I agree that the overwhelming bulk of Tamils were not involved in those years). Prabakaran murdered Alfred Duraiappah in 1975, blaming him wrongly for the accidental 9 deaths at the International Tamil Conference.

Were there police atrocities prior to 1970s?

“So, you do not deny that Buddha statues are being planted in North & East; whether they were adversely affecting the non-Buddhists is the question, right?”

I don’t know whether Buddha statues are being planted. I’m more interested in Tamilnet explaining how they are adversely affecting the non-Buddhists.

“But the Issue is that, all Buddhists are Sinhalese;”

But not all Sinhalese are Buddhists- for example First Lady Shiranthi Rajapakse or the current chief of the military Roshan Gunatillake. Both Mahinda and Gotabhaya Rajapakse have espoused non-Buddhist beliefs by declaring their belief in a God.

If you feel that the current system is oppressing non-Buddhists, then Sinhala Christians/Catholics should be natural allies for your cause.

“Whether, Japanese per capita income rose significantly as a result of working together as Japanese rather than a fragmented Japanese society based on religions!”

Ethnically/linguistically Japan is a homogenous country which is unfriendly to minorities. You correctly identified that the Japanese chose to unify around their common ethnicity rather than divisive religion. Implementing this in Sri Lanka would mean jettisoning Buddhism in favor of Sinhala (linguistic?) identity.

Personally I would rather have Buddhism as protected rather than Sinhala because it would be less harmful to the minorities.

“In my view, Buddhism in Sri Lanka is strong, and it will survive come what may,”

You are entirely correct that Buddhism in Sri Lanka is strong. But that is because it is a protected religion. Without state patronage *historically*, Buddhism would have disappeared centuries ago.

I disagree though that Buddhism will make Sri Lanka fail as a country. Could you explain this please?

Of course he is not going to publicly declare his assets. The money-laundering case against Sarath and Danuna would look like a grain of sand in comparison. But that is the whole point… that he won’t disclose what he owns. That there are laws and amendments in the Constitution which protect him from judicial prosecution, regardless of how much he embezzles or takes as bribes and commissions. Imagine if a bank did not keep track of its money. As long as more money was coming in than going out, it would still be possible to do business. A dishonest accountant would simply take 1% of everything that came in and it would be “business as usual.” That is exactly what the “King” and his family are doing.

“In Rupees, yeah lot of people are millionaires in Sri Lanka, thats got to do with the value of the Rupee.”

The value of the rupee and the value of the dollar are very different:

1,000,000.00 SLR = 8,710.860 USD

1,000,000.00 USD =114,799,232.36 SLR

Maybe now you see my point. If some guy in Colombo is having 500K USD stashed away in a locker, there is something very wrong… but if another guy and 30 of his family members in the government are having ten times that amount – in USD – stashed away in local banks and banks all over the world, there is something even more wrong!

The whole point is that such earnings are not possible within a Sri Lankan salary scale – not even for a politician – and therefore corruption is not a mere possibility, it is the only possibility.

By the way, what happened to KP’s assets?

The banks did not force anyone to take a loan. That is the beauty of capitalism. You take the loan by yourself, and you are responsible for all the risks that come with it. What is the socialist alternative? Waiting for the “King” at Temple Trees to beg enough money from the UN, to build a barbed wire tin shack on some mud?

New businesses are not going to pop up during a global recession. In fact, if the biggest businesses (corporations) crashed, the impact on the economy would be so great that it would only prolong such a recession.

“People would have learnt hard lessons and made sure they wont let financial institutions get that big in the wake of the last disaster.”

Yes, while living on the street and digging through dumpsters for food, no doubt that the millions of ex-corporate employees would have learned their lesson the hard way.

“Next time they would have thought twice about putting their life savings into a big bank controlled by a few extremely wealth intoxicated, reckless management.”

Next time they would have thought twice about taking out variable interest loans on houses which they couldn’t afford in the first place. Let’s put the blame where it is: had those people who bought their homes during the “boom” used a bit more financial sense, they would not have had to default on their loans. Had the banks been given their money, and the housing market not gone bust, there would have been no need for a corporate bail out.

“80% of the American population is against the bail out. ”

80% of the American population is not charge of government fiscal policy either, so their opinion does not matter.

These banks recklessly lent to people who can barely make the monthly payments so they can eran their fat commission based bonuses. Then tried to hedge the risk in convoluted derivatives and KaBoom! Rest is history… or is it yet?

And banks were the biggest bail out recipients! Bankers did not lose. The foreclosed home owner did. They lost the thousands of mortgage payments they’ve already made and nothing to show for it.