Divine Interventions « Pink Boxing Gloves

Divine Interventions

God seems to be playing quite a role in world politics nowadays. First it was god telling Bush that he should attack Iraq. Marina Mahathir’s latest post talks about how pro-Islamic movements in Malaysia are demanding everything from rejecting Malaysia as secular state, to appointing senators to promote islam and the welfare of muslims.

And even though Sri Lanka is theoretically secular state, protection and uplifting of Buddhism is guaranteed by the constitution. David Westerlund in his book Questioning the Secular State: The Worldwide Resurgence of Religion in Politics makes a couple of observations on how Anagarika Dharmapala’s view for a Dhammadeepa and the leaders who came into power on the Sinhala-Buddhist nationalistic wave, worked for Buddhism. What happens when the state gives priority to one region, is that the other minorities are left out, and become even lesser powerful minorities.

Maybe it’s time we had some divine interventions?

2 Responses to “Divine Interventions”

SL is technically a secular country but religion, particularly Buddhism is predominant. Loudspeaker-bana on poya days and so on…I guess it’s still better than having crazy fundies/islamists in Saudi or the bible-thumping evangelicals as in the US laying down the laws (after all, Buddhism is a heck of a lot more ‘peaceful’ comparatively!). Could be worse, so not really a problem (yet).

Darwin - February 21, 2008 at 4:28 pm

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I really think you’ve got this a bit backwards PBG. Its not Buddhism thats the problem in SL, its the “Sinhala” Buddhism. Specifically the Sinhala part. @ least in my opinion thats how it is.

Obviously when you tell somebody you’re going to give them something that they can keep all to themselves, that somebody is going to like you. So thats the card all the half assed politicos have been playin all these years: Calling SL a “Sinhala” Buddhist country for the popular support. I think its the “Sinhala” part thats screwing this up and “Buddhist” is just the icing on the cake.

That said, divine intervention is necessary because even though Buddhism teaches equality to all, the Sinhala aspect wont exactly allow that.

Dili - February 21, 2008 at 6:05 pm

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Pink Boxing Gloves
And other things contradictory… A strong believer in Chapter III of the Constitution of Sri Lanka. Article 14, Paragraph 1, A. It reads “Every citizen is entitled to the freedom of speech and expression including publication.”