2. As Buddhists it is clear to us that the results and effects of every action of a person comes back to the same person whether it is a good action or a bad action..That person carries all this with him until his death and to his next life. Therefore, what Akon has done and said is his problem and not ours as Buddhists.

3. Akon has said that he didn’t know that Buddha statue was in the back ground and he is now a spiritual man( don’t know what he has done in the past), he should be allowed in to Sri Lanka next time. While he is in Sri Labnka, he should visit our Buddhist philosophy and learn about it so that he won’t insult th Buddhism or Buddhists in the future.

RE: Your comments on April 3, 2010 @ 3:44 am and April 3, 2010 @ 4:14 am

Don’t worry, it is the way things are happening. Most of the writers (Journalists), one of my friends say that “Not more than bothal paththarakarayas”. According to him when a “bottle” is given they write any thing to “paththaraya or to “cyber paththaraya”. According to him their motto is ” kanna denavanam- bonna denava nam,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,”

It is fortunate that writers like Martin Wickramasingha, Piyasena Nissanka etc… are not alive today. Otherwise, my friend says “I am sure they will commit Suicide not to see the “Nari natakas ” of their colleagues”.

Do you think this fellow is telling truth?

Thanks!

“What do the readers of GV have to say about this”

I have to say that the greatest threat to Buddhism in SL today probably comes from other Buddhists.

I agree with your comments. At least President Rajapakse is trying to reach out to the Tamil people by speaking in Tamil to the Tamil population when he visits the North and East. I think we need to give him credit for that.

Do we need the JHU to defend Buddhism? I think not. We have a Constitution and a majority Buddhist population to do that. From the first Republican Constitution onwards Buddhism has been given a special/foremost place. No other religion in this country enjoys a foremost place in the 1978 Constitution.
Therefore, both the SLFP and the UNP have given the foremost place to Buddhism in their Constitutions well before the JHU arrived on the scene.

“None of these people raise their voice if there were similar issues with Christianity or Islam. For example I still can’t understand how people can identify JHU as the Buddhist extreme party because these same people seems to have accepted Tamil extreme parties such as TNA, which clearly states that they are for Tamil interests only, and Muslim parties who openly declared they are for Muslim interests only. What do these people think of them? Are you prepared to declare them as fundamentalist extreme political paties and condemn them openly as you do to JHU?”

You have written passionately and argued the rational for the JHU as a political party for the Sinhala Buddhists. That is all very well, but the fact remains that the people of Sri Lanka have been fragmented along their religious and communal identities; this is why Sri Lanka has miserably failed to build a nation. The majority community with 70% Buddhists is still not at ease; it is petrified that, the Buddhism in Sri Lanka is under siege and it is vulnerable to decline even to disappear all together. This fear is real and well alive among the Sinhala Buddhists; learned and the rest are alike.

I, as a Tamil, am not sure whether the fear is about Buddhism disappearing from Sri Lanka or the Sinhalese as an ethnic group is fearful of their very survival. This leads me to say that there is a dangerous cocktail in Sri Lanka: the insecure Sinhalse are the Buddhists in Sri Lankan exclusively (I know that there are exceptions); this has a disastrous effects on the Sinhala Buddhists in Sri Lanka. With this scenario, the people of Sri Lanka do not identify themselves as Sri Lankans first and foremost but by their ethnicity; hence, cannot pull together as a nation.

I pointed this out before, in the very first and second general elections, the many Tamil speaking people (Tamils and Muslims) did ally with the mainstream parties; UNP and LSSP enjoyed much following. This trend would have continued and the Tamil ethnic platform would have struggled to hold steady but for the SWRD factor and the prominence of the Sinhala Buddhist identity. I am not saying that, there weren’t any Tamil or Muslim nationalists at that time; there were nationalistic politicians and there will be always such people. However, a nation must not allow such elements to have a platform. The British National Party (BNP) still cannot enter parliament is a good example; if there is ever a possibility of that happening, all the main parties work together eschewing such a situation.

With Buddhism in the Constitution enshrined to be protected and fostered by the state; the country cannot move away from the ethnic politics. It is not the fault of the atheists, agnostics, and non-Buddhists that the minority of the Sinhala Buddhists feel insecure and whole country is held as hostage by these people. The Buddhism in Sri Lanka has survived three consecutive imperialistic rule and the Missionaries methodically converting the peoples with imperial support; yet, Buddhism is today thriving in Sri Lanka. Some may say that, it is because of Buddhist fundamentalists; I do not agree. Because, Hinduism was also faced the same threats; The Portuguese Missionaries had almost converted the entire population of the Mannar district. Yet, Hinduism survived and thrived because of its inner strength and the same goes for Buddhism in Sri Lanka.

The Sri Lankan politics is at a watershed at the moment; if the MR regime were to pursue a Sinhala Buddhist hegemonic rule; on the basis of a Sinhala Buddhist identity, Sri Lanka will erupt in turmoil once again in the future. On the other hand, if they manage to galvanise all citizens as one and promote a Sri Lankan identity with a suitable political structure, Sri Lanka will emerge as a progressing nation. Only time will tell.

I posted the following comment on an earlier piece by this same author…it might be of interest….

I wrote a couple of articles on this subject, one in the Daily MIrror and one in the Sunday Lakbima News. Both papers omitted a quote from the bible which dictates ‘appropriate’ action relevant to a hypothetical situation I described.

If Buddhists are supposed to act like Buddhists, it follows that Christians should act like Christians. Right? The problem is that Christians can pick and choose from the Bible.

Here are the links to the two articles: http://www.dailymirror.lk/print/index.php/opinion1/7442.html

http://www.lakbimanews.lk/columns/col5.htm

And this is what was omitted:

” What part of the Bible would ‘Real’ Christians refer if such ‘works of art’ contained some kind of culturally offensive statement on the Christian faith or some element of Christian iconography and sought to entice Christians to serve some other faith?

“‘Forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass upon us’? That would be ‘ok’ in that it will not result in any altercation or disruption of normality. What if some Christian chance upon or remember Deuteronomy 13: 6-10?

“This is what it says: ‘If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die.'”