In Sri Lanka last September, a Sinhalese mob led by some 100 Buddhist monks demolished a Muslim shrine in the ancient city of Anuradhapura. As the crowd waved Buddhist colors, gold and red, a monk set a green Muslim flag on fire. The monks claimed that the shrine was on land that had been given to the Sinhalese 2,000 years ago - an allusion to their proprietary right over the entire island nation, as inscribed in ancient religious texts.

The Anuradhapura attack was not the only recent incident of Buddhists behaving badly in Sri Lanka. In April, monks led nearly 2,000 Sinhalese Buddhists in a march against a mosque in Dambulla, a holy city where Sinhalese kings are believed to have taken refuge from southern Indian invaders in a vast network of caves almost two millennia ago. The highly charged � but largely symbolic - attack marked a "historic day," a monk who led the assault told the crowd, "a victory for those who love the [Sinhala] race, have Sinhala blood, and are Buddhists."

Such chauvinism is at odds with Western preconceptions of Buddhism - a religion that emphasizes nonviolence and nonattachment - but is in keeping with Sri Lanka's religious history. Militant Buddhism there has its roots in an ancient narrative called the Mahavamsa (Great Chronicle), which was composed by monks in the sixth century. According to the Mahavamsa, the Buddha foresaw the demise of Buddhism in India but saw a bright future for it in Sri Lanka. "In Lanka, O Lord of Gods, shall my religion be established and flourish," he said. The Sinhalese take this as a sign that they are the Buddha�s chosen people, commanded to "preserve and protect" Buddhism in its most pristine form. According to myth, a young Sinhalese prince in the second century BC armed himself with a spear tipped with a relic of the Buddha and led a column of 500 monks to vanquish Tamil invaders. In addition to defending his kingdom from mortal peril, the prince�s victory legitimized religious violence as a means for national survival.

Militant Buddhism was a driving force behind the 25-year war between the majority Sinhalese (74 percent of the population) and the minority Tamils (18 percent), who were fighting for an independent state in the island's north and east. (Muslims, who make up six percent of Sri Lanka's population, were often caught in the middle.) During the war, monks repeatedly undercut efforts to work out a peace agreement.

The sangha, as the clergy is collectively referred to in Theravada Buddhism, has historically exercised political power from behind the scenes, embodying a broad form of religious nationalism. But in the later years of the war, it became more overtly politicized. In 2004, the hard-line National Heritage Party (known as the JHU) elected seven of its members to Parliament; all were monks, and the party ran on a platform calling for a return to Buddhist morality in public life. Soon after being seated, the JHU staged an intramural brawl on the floor of Parliament.

The JHU also worked to scuttle a March 2002 Norwegian-brokered peace settlement that called for limited Tamil autonomy. Monks declared that Sri Lanka had always been a Sinhalese kingdom, that autonomy violated the near-mystical idea of a unitary state, and that there was no option other than a military one. Peace negotiations simply made the Tamil Tigers stronger, as one of the party's more outspoken clerics, Athuraliye Rathana, whom the Sri Lankan media dubbed the War Monk, argued. "If they give up their weapons, then we can talk," he said. "If not, then we will control them by whatever means necessary. We should fight now and talk later." In the spring of 2006, monks attacked an ecumenical group of peace marchers and led a long sit-in against a cease-fire agreement that soon came apart, leading to another round of fighting.

As the bloodshed wore on, much of the Buddhist clergy gave its blessing to a final offensive on the separatist Tamil Tigers. In May of 2009, the Sri Lankan military emerged from that battle triumphant. But its brutal offensive against the Tigers has made President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government the target of broad international condemnation. Reliable estimates of civilian deaths range as high as 40,000, and Britain's Channel Four has documented summary executions of Tamil Tiger prisoners in its program "Sri Lanka's Killing Fields." Although human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and the UN Human Rights Council, have called for an investigation into humanitarian abuses and possible war crimes, the Rajapaksa government has resisted. The monks have backed this obstinacy, saying that such demands attack what Sinhalese refer to as the Buddhist "motherland."

Since the war ended, Buddhist clerics have been at the forefront of promoting punitive triumphalism. The Sinhalese majority widely views its victory over the Tamils as a ratification of its scripturally ordained dominion, with other groups occupying a subordinate position. Accordingly, steps toward reconciliation have been faltering. Government efforts to resettle the nearly 300,000 Tamils displaced by the fighting, now mostly accomplished, were slow and chaotic, leaving resentment. The military has established large cantonments in Tamil areas, treating civilians with a heavy hand. According to the International Crisis Group, "When challenged by public protest, the military has shown itself willing to physically attack demonstrators and is credibly accused of involvement in enforced disappearances and other extrajudicial punishments." Although the rehabilitation of former Tiger cadres - as many as 11,000 individuals - has largely proceeded according to schedule, there have been accusations of mistreatment of prisoners while in custody and harassment of them after their release.

Defense Minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the President's brother, recently said that the north and east were not exclusively Tamil areas, hinting that the government might resume Sinhalese land colonization programs, which were a major point of friction in the run-up to the war. Meanwhile, Tamils have complained that the military has allowed Buddhist temples to be erected where Hindu temples had been destroyed in the fighting, or near traditional Hindu shrines. There are also accusations that monks have taken advantage of the postwar confusion to seize Tamil land, especially in areas adjacent to new military bases. Last year, the ICG warned of a "recipe for renewed conflict" and said that reconciliation "seems harder than ever."

Another sign of militant Buddhism's enduring power is the government�s refusal to confront the human rights abuses committed in the war's final push. President Rajapaksa, who went to Kandy, the cultural capital, immediately after the 2009 victory to genuflect to the country's top Buddhist clerics, has rejected a UN Human Rights Council resolution, passed in March, that called for an inquiry into humanitarian abuses and possible war crimes. Only recently did the Rajapaksa government concede that there were any civilian casualties at all. In fact, as the UNHRC voted on the March resolution, hundreds of Buddhist monks led a prayer vigil in Colombo against it. Hundreds more led protests when it passed. The Los Angeles Times quoted one demonstrator as saying, "Evil forces both local and international have joined hands to deprive Sri Lanka of the present environment of peace and take this blessed island back to an era of darkness."

Some see an irony in Buddhist monks aligning themselves so closely with a government that resists accountability for humanitarian abuses. But the greater irony is that, in protecting and preserving their particular form of Buddhism, the Sinhalese seem to have injured it gravely. The sangha's preoccupation with politics has come at the cost of spiritual focus. Most monks in Sri Lanka no longer meditate, which is supposed to be Buddhism's core. Some Western Buddhists have gone on missionary trips to Sri Lanka to revive meditational practice. But success has been fleeting.

There has also been a breakdown in monastic discipline. Last February, a monk was sentenced to death for murder - the first monk so sentenced since Talduwe Somarama killed Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike in 1959 after he reneged on the full implementation of a Buddhist nationalist agenda. Over the last decade, there have been nearly 100 cases in which Buddhist monks have been charged with sexual abuse of minors, and many instances of monks, particularly young ones, being cited for public intoxication and hooliganism. The fundamentalist idea that Buddhism is a unique national possession has encouraged a sense of moral superiority, which makes it hard for many Sinhalese to accept how bruised their Buddhism has become. As one prominent lay Buddhist painfully (and discreetly) explained to me more than twenty years ago, "Buddhism is hollow now in Sri Lanka. We are only going through the motions." Today, those motions are growing ever more disturbing.

Sri Lanka's toxic identity politics are not altogether unique, especially in other Theravada Buddhist nations. Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar, for example, provided a similar rallying point against British colonialism. But the conflation of "the land, the race, and the faith" among the majority there, along with a view that this majority is the steward of its own uniquely pure form of Buddhism, has been a great source of political and cultural disharmony with the country's many non-Buddhist minority groups, most recently the Rohingya Muslims. Although Buddhism might eschew violence on a doctrinal level, it is not immune from nationalist myths that see a place for it.

By William McGowan

Courtesy-
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137812/william-mcgowan/buddhists-behaving-badly

The Sri Lankan government has commenced a campaign to promote the country ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo this November. Secretary of the External Affairs Ministry Karunatilaka Amunugama said the government will also attend a meeting to be held at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London this week. He has explained that Media Ministry Secretary Charitha Herath would be heading the publicity team in Sri Lanka while Sri Lankan High Commission missions overseas are also carrying out separate campaigns ahead of the summit. External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris had also briefed his Ministry staff last week on the preparations for the summit in November.

China Development Bank Corporation will lend $580 million to Sri Lanka to help implement key infrastructure projects, a government document released on Wednesday showed. The loan will bring CDB's total lending to Sri Lanka to more than US$1.4 billion. China's increasing influence in the island nation has stoked concerns in neighboring India. According to the document, $300 million of the loan will be spent on developing roads and $200 million on water supply projects, with the rest going to the national business school. It said CDB had already extended $652 million for road development projects and $214 million for an irrigation project. The loan announcement comes ahead of a four-day official visit to China by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa has requested all MPs to be present in Parliament when Thailand's Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra addresses the House on May 31. The request from the Speaker was read to the House by Deputy Speaker Chandima Weerakkody yesterday. He said that PM Shinawatra would address the House at 2. 45 pm on May 31, on a special request by Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa. Security in and around Parliament had been increased and the MPs' rooms and lockers would be inspected by the members of the security forces on May 30 and 31 as a part of those security arrangements. On that day the public gallery would be open only for invitees.

Leader of the National Freedom Front - Minister Wimal Weerawansa, who was recently hospitalized, has been discharged last night (22). He was admitted to the Colombo Nawaloka Hospital four days ago. Doctors had said that the flu that the minister was suffering from had led to pneumonia. Doctors have advised him to rest for a few days, reports say.

A further 31 Sri Lankan irregular maritime arrivals are being returned to Colombo after failing to meet Australia's international obligations, Australia's Immigration and Citizenship Minister Brendan O'Connor said. The group departed Christmas Island on Wednesday to be flown back to the Sri Lankan capital. Their return takes the number of Sri Lankans sent home to 1161 - 950 of them involuntarily - since August last year. Mr O'Connor said returning the group to Sri Lankans sends a powerful message. 'The Gillard Government is making it crystal clear that those who pay smugglers are throwing their money away and risking their lives in the process,' Mr O'Connor said.

The Sri Lankan government on Wednesday said that it will use a key Commonwealth summit in November to showcase the post-war developments in the country. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) will be held in Sri Lanka in November this year, and heads of state from almost all the Commonwealth countries, including Britain's Prince Charles, will attend the summit. The Sri Lankan Ministry of External Affairs said that Sri Lanka will be able to show the developments following a three-decade separatist terrorist conflict and the vast economic opportunities available in the country.

High Commissioner of India Ashok K. Kantha (left) and Minister of Industry & Commerce of Sri Lanka Rishad Bathiudeen at the launch of the Handbook on Indo-Lanka FTA in Colombo. Outgoing Indian High Commissioner Ashok K. Kantha says Sri Lanka needed to enter into a comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA) between the two countries, more so than India did, because economic growth prospects are linked with that of Asia and the ASEAN grouping. "The rest of the world does not wait for us. India has signed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements (CEPAs) with many other countries. I myself was involved in launching CEPA talks with Japan, Korea and Malaysia and all three came to fruition. Therefore I feel little uncomfortable that there are so many completely baseless apprehensions about a more comprehensive framework in forming business relations with other countries.

The Indian Housing Project was launched on the ground in the Eastern Province today jointly by Hon. Basil Rajapaksa, Minister of Economic Development and H.E. Ashok K. Kantha, High Commissioner of India. In events organized at three different locations in Batticaloa district, certificates were handed over to some of the selected beneficiaries. Hon. Basheer Segudawood, Minister of Productivity Promotion, Hon. M.L.A.M. Hizbullah, Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Hon. V. Muralitharan, Deputy Minister of Resettlement, Hon. Rear Admiral (Retd.) Mohan Wijewickrama, Governor of Eastern Province, Hon. Najeeb Abdul Majeed, Chief Minister of Eastern Province and Hon.

UNP and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe said, in Parliament yesterday, that the government was getting ready to arrest a number of UNP politicians who participated in a workshop coordinated by the Friedrich Neumann Foundation. The Opposition Leader said that the issue would be taken to international fora and the MPs who attended the workshop had been accused of trying to overthrow the government. "Yes, we are trying to topple this government but that is through democratic means, through electoral process, by the ballot. That is our sole right as the Opposition. Now, the government has got the CID to harass our MPs accusing them of trying to topple the government through undemocratic means."

A controversial Buddhist organization in Sri Lanka, the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), says that the government had not made sufficient effort to reconnect with the Tamil people following the end of the war. BBS General Secretary Ven. Galagodaaththe Gnanasara Thero said although the government built roads and developed the infrastructure in the North, it would not win the hearts of the people. Explaining that the war had prevented the Sinhala people from connecting with the Tamil people, the Thero said the BBS wants to build a rapport with the people in the North. According to the Thero, there are over 400 Christian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the country, which did "nothing for these people".

A part of the 50,000 housing aid promised by New Delhi for the war-affected people in the North and East is planned to be used for demographic genocide in the East at the village of Kachchat-kodi in the Paddip-pazhai division of Batticaloa district, according to Eastern Provincial council member R. Thurairatnam. The village, which was predominantly Tamil a few years ago and was affected by displacement during the war, now has 2 new Sinhala Buddhist Viharas constructed and a number of Sinhala families brought from outside settled with the assistance of Buddhist priests.

Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe charged in Parliament today that there was an attempt by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to take in a few UNP MPs for questioning over their participation in a workshop organised by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, a German organisation promoting liberal politics in the world. Mr. Wickremesinghe said the UNP as a party, engaged in electoral politics and undertook training on election campaign management under a workshop conducted by this organisation. He said this Foundation had brought down a resource person to conduct the workshop, ahead of the Northern Provincial Council Election planned to be held in the near future.

External Affairs Minister of Sri Lanka Prof. G.L. Peiris has questioned why Canada is relentlessly trying to stop the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) from being held in Colombo this year. The Minister has told parliament that Canada's stance was due to the influence of LTTE sympathizers in that country. "Why is Sri Lanka pursued relentlessly and castigated by some representatives of the government of Canada. Even though the LTTE is not presented physically their influence is still there," Prof. Peiris has asked. Minister Peiris noted that since October 2011, Canada has attempted to stop the CHOGM from being held in Sri Lanka but all such attempts by Canada had failed as most countries had supported Sri Lanka.

'Misconceptions regarding Buddhists in Sri Lanka are spread worldwide through websites. Now is the time to change those misconceptions which were being spread for the last 30 years, Defence Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa states. The Defence Secretary made these comments addressing a function after opening a student hostel and a Dana Sala, as well as laying the foundation stone for a new hostel and library at the Pravachamodaya Maha Pirivena in Molligoda. The ceremony was held under the auspices of Ven. Ittapane Dhammalankara Anunayake Thera .

Sri Lanka Army has said that it would reduce the number of military camps in former rebel stronghold of northern Jaffna and hand over lands back to their original owners. "We will reduce the existing 17 military camps in Jaffna to just three," Army chief Lt Gen Jagath Jayasuriya said. The fourteen camps pulled out from different parts in Jaffna would be relocated in the main Palaly cantonment, he said yesterday. Lands which located the camps would be handed back to their original owners and lands that would be difficult to be handed back due to national security considerations would be subject to compensation, he said.

Tamara Kunanayakam, Sri Lanka's former Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, was re-elected as Chairperson-Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council's Intergovernmental Working Group on the Right to Development, which held its 14th session from 13 to 17 May, in Geneva. This is the third time that Ms. Kunanayakam has been nominated by the Non-Aligned Movement for the post, which is an honorary non-remunerated position, and has received the unanimous support of all members of the United Nations for her expertise on the right to development and her remarkable leadership. This, despite attempts last year by Sri Lankan government to prevent her from presenting the report of the Working Group to the Human Rights Council in Geneva and to the UN General Assembly in New York, through a letter addressed to Navi Pillay and in violation of UN rules and procedures, well informed sources told The Island.

The Prime Minister of Thailand Yingluck Shinawatra is set to address parliament on May 31, Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Chandima Weerakkody stated today (May 22). Addressing the parliament today, Weerakkody said that the Prime Minister of Thailand will address the Sri Lankan parliament on May 31 at 2.45pm.

Vanni District Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian, Siva Shakthi Anandan, was interrogated by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) sleuths at the fourth floor, over his alleged mobile phone conversations with Tamil detainees at the Vavuniya Prison. Anandan was grilled for more than two hours from 10 a.m. to 12.15 p.m. yesterday. Informed sources said, the CID sleuths had questioned the parliamentarian as to how he developed mobile phone contacts with the Tamil prisoners, who staged a hunger strike, which finally ended in a prison riot at the Vavuniya Prison last year.

The main opposition United National Party (UNP) said yesterday it was considering a change in its stance on power devolution and instead opt for a new system of devolution depending on the will of the people. However, it said as of now it would stick to its policy on power devolution based on the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. UNP General Secretary Tissa Attanayake told a news conference that his party would listen to the views expressed by the people and propose a system of devolution accordingly. "We will leave this matter to the people," he said.

The TNA yesterday requested the government to take action to "genuinely implement" the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) resolution on "Promoting reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka and to reverse the latter's current actions pertaining to the land issues in the North and East. TNA Leader R. Sampanthan, moving an adjournment motion in Parliament, said that the government's actions had resulted in deterioration of the human rights situation in the North and East. "Two statements were made on the floor of the House on April 09, 2013 by the Leader of the Opposition and the Minister of External Affairs, pertaining to the resolution No: A/HRC/22/L.1 on 'Promoting Reconciliation and Accountability in Sri Lanka' adopted by the Human Rights Council.