HYPOCRITICAL BUDDHISM AND THE BUDDHIST RABBLE IN ANURADHAPURA

It is universally considered a hallmark of civilisation to treat the dead with dignity and honour. The burial mounds of antiquity in ancient Egypt, Greece, China and India reflect the respect and honour that the dead were accorded even in those distant times. The Buddhists of Sri Lanka brag of a religion and civilisation that they claim matches other civilisations in its sophistication of thought and ideas, cultural style and technical achievements. It probably was true some two thousand years ago when Asia was a fountain of spirituality and culture. But in modern times, the Buddhist Sinhalese of Sri Lanka have tended to wallow in their past 'glories', and their adherence to Buddhism is now just a political expedient and 'man's inhumanity to man' is practised as a new art form in their society. The savage blood lust and corrosive cruelty that they harbour in their Buddhist hearts belie their veneer of pseudo spirituality and superficial geniality. The highly politicised and rabid members of the Buddhist clergy, absent from the poverty preached by the Buddha, largely pursue wealth, power and position for themselves and whip up the baser instincts of the superstitious masses to engage in mass xenophobia against the minority Tamils.

Any decent human being will have been left with utter revulsion by the spectacle of the Sri Lankan military parading the nude bodies of the Tamil Black Tiger soldiers through the streets of Anuradhapura to satisfy the necrophilia of the assembled Sinhala Buddhist rabble and to seek to dishonour the Tamil soldiers who had fallen in the battlefield. By this appalling act of inhumanity to the dead, the Sinhalese have exposed the very tenuous connection they have to decency and civilisation. Their political leaders and their monks actively encouraged and participated in this gruesome version of a spectacle sport for them. There is an excellent article on the web written by an Italian member of the Centre for Journalism with Ethics and Truth (CJET) on the ghoulish behaviour of the Sinhala Buddhists in stripping the bodies of the fallen Black Tiger soldiers and parading them through the streets of their supposedly sacred city of Anuradhapura. From the photographs published, it is evident that even their women in the crowd, showing a total absence of revulsion or demureness normally associated with their sex, gawped at the naked bodies of these fallen warriors. Giuseppe C. Luciani (the author) is right in calling them sub-human.

Against all the military odds, the Black Tigers had sacrificed their lives in attacking a heavily fortified air force base which was being used to bomb and strafe the civilian population in the Tamil areas in order to spread fear and cause devastation. The Tamils can only hope that this major setback for the Government will result in some respite in the bombing that they suffer on a daily basis. But they must be absolutely shattered that India and other countries have rushed to offer Sri Lanka the killing flying machines in replacement. The government of Sri Lanka continues to lie about its losses and has even threatened the national newspapers to prevent them from revealing the actual losses.

The sacrilege to their own religion by this parade of the nude dead can only be salved by President Mahinda Rajapakse and his brothers Gota and Basil denuding themselves of their clothes just like they did to the Black Tigers and rolling down the streets of Anuradhapura to the vulgar gaze of the very same rabid public in expiation of this grave desecration. The Mahanayake Theros might also join in this form of public atonement for this deplorable sin in the eyes of all decent human beings. After all they have only their redundant manhood to be risked. Even if they do not know the Geneva convention, they should at least understand about honouring the dead.

Source: Tamil Writers Guild
Date: 01 November 2007