I had gotten pretty immune to the never ending stream of “patriotic” billboards and posters along Galle Road, Sri Lanka’s Main Street. Soldiers in jungle gear, faces smeared with war paint, huge assault guns held in ready position, with lots and lots of bullets draped on them – the jewelry of death.
Because I turn off the propaganda of war (in whatever country I’m in), I almost missed this poster: a little larger than usual, and with more implements of violence (jet fighters, helicopters…). But, the thing that got my attention was its position: right in front of a huge statue of the Buddha.
My first reaction was: “I didn’t see that.” Maybe my mind conjoined two very separate images — after all, most of Galle Road is a blur to me, after traveling this main traffic artery for over a dozen years.
A few days later, I drove back by. This time, I asked my driver to stop. And I took some photos. And a movie clip, in case someone accuses me of Photoshopping (a verb, akin to plagiarizing).
Buddha and War Poster
The war poster caption reads: "Now we have a country for our selves, There is now a tomorrow for you, son." "We salute you!"
I am not a Buddhist scholar. I haven’t formally studied the religion. But, from the little that I know, I believe the Buddha would unequivocally condemn the violence being done in his name in Sri Lanka. If that statue could move, it would get up and tear down the poster that glorifies and revels in violence. If that statue could cry, it would.
All around the world, I see people all too willing to hijack and subvert their most precious spiritual beliefs, to satisfy their lust for blood and their lust for power.
This isn’t about a minor deviation from a minor aspect of a hard to understand religious dogma. It is a major violation of one of the core tenets of one of the world’s most important faiths.
But that’s not the bad part: what turns my stomach is the near-silence met by this travesty.
The Life Of Buddhism
For most of us in the world, when we think about the term “Buddhism” we picture the smiling face of the Dalai Lama. Indeed, for many of us, his stance of nonviolence in the face of Chinese aggression is the epitome of what Buddhism looks like, as practiced. The Chinese aggression made the Dalai Lama a world-class figure, and Tibetan Buddhism known throughout the world.
The Dalai Lama: The Face of Buddhist Practice
The Dalai Lama ACTS like being “Buddhist” is more important than being “Tibetan”.
The Death of Buddhism
When I ask you to think about the term “Buddhism” you probably DON’T think about Sri Lankan Buddhism.
Recently, I was in the Midwest, doing a presentation on Sri Lanka before an audience of a few dozen people. To exemplify the Sri Lanka military, I downloaded a few photos of the proud Sri Lankan soldiers in their snappy uniforms, marching. One woman raised her hand and asked, “I thought Sri Lanka was a Buddhist country. Where are the Buddhists?”
To answer, I blew up the picture of the Sri Lanka soldiers, focusing on the hand of the soldier in the foreground. Around his wrist was a telltale white band. I told her, “These soldiers ARE the Buddhists. This band is the cord each one of them received when he went to the Buddhist temple to get the blessings from the monks, before marching off to kill human beings.”
Sri Lankan Soldiers
The Seal of Approval
The woman burst into tears. “I thought Buddhism was DIFFERENT!” she said between her tears. “I thought Buddhists actually PRACTICED what they talked about!”
A rude awakening.
Just like Christianity, Islam and everything else, Buddhists are just as likely to fall prey to powerful men who want to re-write the rules to suit their own agenda. Because the Buddha’s message: “Do no harm to any sentient being” is so clear, it makes the re-write so ludicrous and the attempts at manipulation so blatant and repellent.
But, if the re-write of “DO NO HARM” into “KILL OUR ENEMIES” is so obviously WRONG, what causes millions of otherwise sane and devout Sinhalese to buy into this, to revel in war and violence? More importantly, what causes them to go along with this attempt to conflate their ethnic identity with the OPPOSITE of their religion?
The Burning Buddha
One of the most durable terror symbols in the modern world is the “Burning Cross” of America’s Ku Klux Klan. In their heyday, the symbol of the Burning Cross struck fear among millions of America’s black citizens. It stood for the widespread practice of lynching, torture and intimidation — violence done openly and with impunity. Terrorism, pure and simple. Terrorism in the name of Jesus.
The KKK: America’s Home Grown Terrorists
In the light of this cultural terrorism, it’s hard to remember that the Cross represents the doctrine of Jesus, a doctrine of love, nonviolence, inclusivity, and acceptance. Jesus said that there were only two laws: (1) Obey God, and (2) Love your neighbor as yourself. (He actually went further and declared that we should LOVE OUR ENEMIES. I think Jesus and the Buddha would have really gotten along well with each other!)
Into this philosophy of love, nonviolence and inclusivity, the KKK added a superseding Commandment: “Hate and kill those who look, act or think DIFFERENT from you.” In the doctrine of Jesus (as re-written by the KKK), white skin was more important than any other consideration, including ANYTHING Jesus said to the contrary.
Fast forward 100 years. Take this doctrine of cultural arrogance to a different continent and a different culture. Have it based not on the color of skin (everybody in Sri Lanka is some shade of brown) but on language and cultural behaviors.
The Recipe for Cultural Arrogance:
1. Start with an unhealthy inferiority complex. (In the case of BOTH Sinhalese and Tamils in Sri Lanka, I believe the inferiority comes from centuries of colonization.) ANYTIME you see a resort to violence (a man punching his wife, or one country punching another), inferiority lies somewhere in the mix.
2. Add anger and a misplaced need for revenge (or, the need to “prove” oneself).
3. Place your CULTURE above your RELIGION. (Better still: confuse and conflate the two.)
4. If available: add a legitimate goal. The desire to live free from terrorism and the threat of violence is a legitimate goal. BUT, this goal can be attained NONVIOLENTLY. Indeed, it is the ONLY way it can be attained. Don’t believe me? Ask the Buddha.
Cultural arrogance lies at the intersection of bad nationalism and bad religion.
Bad Nationalism
Now, nationalism or ethnic identity is not by itself a bad thing. I am very proud of my culture and my history and heritage as an African-American. And, I know many other Americans are proud of their ethnicities also. But, the key point is this: I don’t need to put anyone else down in order for me to feel good about myself. The need to be “better-than” another person (on the grounds of culture, religion, gender or anything else) is the hallmark of a serious INFERIORITY COMPLEX. Secure people are not arrogant. Arrogant people are not secure.
The mixture of a feeling of inadequacy, coupled with the external need to be “better-than” some other group, is the recipe for what I call “bad nationalism”. By “bad nationalism”, I mean a “national” identity that hyper-inflates the stature of one group within a nation, at the expense of all others.
Remember: the people that Adolph Hitler and his Nazis put into concentration camps and exterminated – the blacks, the Jews, the Gypsies, the homosexuals – were ALL GERMAN CITIZENS. Under the Fascists, true “nationalism” – the German nation – was not important. A false notion of “racial purity” – the Aryan ideal – took its place. Bad nationalism.
The Sri Lanka “nation” consists of THREE major ethnic groups, not ONE (Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim). The Sri Lanka “nation” consists of FOUR major religions, not ONE (Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Christian). The Sri Lanka “nation” speaks THREE languages, not ONE (Sinhala, Tamil and English).
As any American can tell you, practicing inclusivity and political and cultural pluralism is not easy. In our relatively short history, America has gotten it wrong more often than right. But, since the Sixties, we have been firmly committed to the path of inclusivity. And our entire country has benefited from our adherence to the goal of “E Pluribus Unum” (“Out of Many, One.”) Even those who fight against the concept of inclusivity are its beneficiaries.
Forging one nation in Sri Lanka will be messy. It always is. It will involve compromise and sacrifice. No one will get everything that they want. But, in the end, all Sri Lankans will be better for it. And Buddhism will thrive on the island, without the need for protectionist laws against religious conversion.
Bad Religion
Religion can be a beautiful thing. I have had the privilege and the honor to participate in spiritual ceremonies from virtually every major wisdom tradition on Earth – from Eastern Orthodox Christian ceremonies in the far North to Maori ceremonies in the far South. And everything in between – including Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim ceremonies in Sri Lanka.
The thing that makes a religion beautiful, the thing that creates MEANING within the religion, is that the ceremonies each REPRESENT something. The actions and rituals represent something in this world and also represent something in the Transcendent realm. The wisdom teachers (of all faiths) left us a set of moral principles to guide our lives and our societies.
However: when you take the meaning out of the religion, when you scrub away the moral principles, then you are left with a handful of rituals that have no MEANING attached to them. This is what I call “bad religion”. Bad religion is full of rituals but devoid of meaning. It’s like a hungry man sitting down to a dinner of plastic food. He can put it in his mouth, chew and swallow, but he’s still empty. Your Spirit cannot be fed by a religion that is almost exactly OPPOSITE to the principles taught by the Buddha.
The philosophy of the Buddha has been feeding the world for over 2,500 years. The culturally arrogant “anti-Buddha” philosophy has been spiritually starving Sri Lanka for awhile – long enough for Sri Lanka to have one of the world’s highest suicide rates AND one of the world’s highest alcoholism rates. This is what happens from spiritual stomachs full of plastic.
Those with the guns, planes, cluster bombs and “patriotic” billboards say that they act to “preserve Buddhism”. (This argument has the same reasoning – and the same lack of morality – as the Christian “just war” doctrine.) What those gripped by cultural arrogance and the blood-lust cannot understand is this: NOTHING CAN DESTROY BUDDHISM, EXCEPT THOSE WHO BELIEVE IT CAN BE PRESERVED BY VIOLATING ITS PRINCIPLES.
The Way of the Buddha is the way of loving-kindness, compassion and nonviolence. In its essence, it is the exact opposite of what the current Sri Lankan government is practicing in the Vanni right now. You can either be a peace-loving Buddhist, or you can be a war-loving chauvinist, BUT YOU CAN’T BE BOTH.
Or, maybe you can. Maybe, in this crazy, upside-down world, the Buddha of the 21st Century condones, supports and blesses the guys with the biggest guns, the guys who wage the best battles. Instead of sitting in meditation, maybe this new Buddha will be seen carrying an assault rifle – and a bottle of Arrack (why not? If you violate one principle, why not violate them all?)
THERE IS HOPE
The “good Sinhalese” are out there. The people who are offended by the war posters are in hiding on the island. While writing this article, I received an email from a Sinhalese friend:
I am happy you are away from this blood bath and craziness. Most of us are trapped in this hell. I feel shame to be a so called Sinhalese and live in this world. But, a little bit of remaining Faith and Hope helps me to bear this heavy burden of shame.
Even in the midst of this insanity, I still have hope. This is not just a stubborn refusal to face facts. This is my way of looking at facts through a long lens. The one thing that the past 100 years of organized evil has taught us is this – BLOOD-LUST ONLY WORKS IN THE SHORT TERM. People eventually come to their senses. In my country, it took us 8 years to wake up from our most recent trance, to retrieve our democracy and our Spirit from the hands of those who wanted to rule the world and were willing to trample underfoot both our Constitution and the lessons of Jesus to achieve their goal. It took about that long for the “good Germans” to realize the horrors that the Nazi government was perpetuating in their name.
Right now, it is very dangerous for people in Sri Lanka to stand up and speak out. The blood-lust is high. The war drums beat. Political disappearances are at an all-time high. In Sri Lanka, dissent is dangerous.
But, people will eventually wake up. Even as the statues of the Buddha are desecrated with the images of war, it is important for us to remember that a statue is a statue… the place the true Buddha resides is in our hearts. And that’s the place we need to keep clean and clear, as we wait for the blood-lust to spend itself.
May all beings be well.
May all beings be secure.
May all beings be happy.
Peace,
Sharif Abdullah